region of Brahma,
or through such sacrifices and rites that lead to heaven, or through
children or wealth, which one obtain from a sight of Ganga.[241] The
pleasures that men derive from a sight of Ganga is equal to what they
derive from a sight of the full moon. That man becomes dear to Ganga who
adores her with deep devotion, with mind wholly fixed upon her, with a
reverence that refuses to take any other object within its sphere, with a
feeling that there is nothing else to the universe worthy of similar
adoration, and with a steadiness that knows no failing away. Creatures
that live on Earth, in the welkin, or in Heaven, indeed, even beings that
are very superior,--should always bathe in Ganga. Verily, this is the
foremost of all duties with those that are righteous. The fame of Ganga
for sanctity has spread over the entire universe, since she bore all the
sons of Sagara, who had been reduced to ashes, from here to Heaven.[242]
Men who are washed by the bright, beautiful, high, and rapidly moving
waves, raised by the wind, of Ganga, become cleansed of all their sins
and resemble in splendour the Sun with his thousand rays. Those men of
tranquil souls that have cast off their bodies in the waters of Ganga
whose sanctity is as great as that of the butter and other liquids poured
in sacrifices and which are capable of conferring merits equal to those
of the greatest of sacrifices, have certainly attained to a station equal
to that of the very deities. Verily, Ganga, possessed of fame and vast
extent and identical with the entire universe and reverenced by the
deities with Indra at their head, the Munis and human beings, is
competent to bestow the fruition of all their wishes upon them that are
blind, them that are idiots, and them that are destitute of all
things.[243] They that sought the refuge of Ganga, that protectress of
all the universe, that flows in three streams, that is filled with water
at once highly sacred and sweet as honey and productive of every kind of
good, have succeeded in attaining to the beatitude of Heaven.[244] That
mortal who dwells by the side of Ganga and beholds her every day, becomes
cleansed by her sight and touch. Unto him the deities give every kind of
happiness here and a high end hereafter. Ganga is regarded as competent
to rescue every creature from sin and lead him to the felicity of Heaven.
She is held to be identical with Prisni, the mother of Vishnu. She is
identical with the Word o