Rámáyan of Válmíki (World's Classics Series). Valmiki

prayest it shall be.

Gangá, whose waves in Swarga3 flow,

      Is daughter of the Lord of Snow.

      Win Śiva that his aid be lent

      To hold her in her mid descent,

      For earth alone will never bear

      Those torrents hurled from upper air;

      And none may hold her weight but He,

      The Trident wielding deity.”

      Thus having said, the Lord supreme

      Addressed him to the heavenly stream;

And then with Gods and Maruts4 went

      To heaven above the firmament.

1 A famous and venerated region near the Malabar coast.

2 That is four fires and the sun.

3 Heaven.

4 Wind-Gods.

      Canto 44. The Descent Of Gangá.

      The Lord of life the skies regained:

      The fervent king a year remained

      With arms upraised, refusing rest

      While with one toe the earth he pressed,

      Still as a post, with sleepless eye,

      The air his food, his roof the sky.

The year had past. Then Umá‘s lord,1

      King of creation, world adored,

      Thus spoke to great Bhagírath: “I,

      Well pleased thy wish will gratify,

      And on my head her waves shall fling

      The daughter of the Mountains’ King!”

      He stood upon the lofty crest

      That crowns the Lord of Snow,

      And bade the river of the Blest

      Descend on earth below.

      Himálaya’s child, adored of all,

      The haughty mandate heard,

      And her proud bosom, at the call,

      With furious wrath was stirred.

      Down from her channel in the skies

      With awful might she sped

      With a giant’s rush, in a giant’s size,

      On Śiva’s holy head.

      “He calls me,” in her wrath she cried,

      “And all my flood shall sweep

      And whirl him in its whelming tide

      To hell’s profoundest deep.”

      He held the river on his head,

      And kept her wandering, where,

      Dense as Himálaya’s woods, were spread

      The tangles of his hair.

      No way to earth she found, ashamed,

      Though long and sore she strove,

      Condemned, until her pride were tamed,

      Amid his locks to rove.

      There, many lengthening seasons through,

      The wildered river ran:

      Bhagírath saw it, and anew

      His penance dire began.

      Then Śiva, for the hermit’s sake,

      Bade her long wanderings end,

      And sinking into Vindu’s lake

      Her weary waves descend.

      From Gangá, by the God set free,

      Seven noble rivers came;

      Hládiní, Pávaní, and she

      Called Naliní by name:

      These rolled their lucid waves along

      And sought the eastern side.

      Suchakshu, Sítá fair and strong,

And Sindhu’s mighty tide —2

      These to the region of the west

      With joyful waters sped:

      The seventh, the brightest and the best,

      Flowed where Bhagírath led.

      On Śiva’s head descending first

      A rest the torrents found:

      Then down in all their might they burst

      And roared along the ground.

      On countless glittering scales the beam

      Of rosy morning flashed,

      Where fish and dolphins through the stream

      Fallen and falling dashed.

      Then bards who chant celestial lays

      And nymphs of heavenly birth

      Flocked round upon that flood to gaze

      That streamed from sky to earth.

      The Gods themselves from every sphere,

      Incomparably bright,

      Borne in their golden cars drew near

      To see the wondrous sight.

      The cloudless sky was all aflame

      With the light of a hundred suns

      Where’er the shining chariots came

      That bore those holy ones.

      So flashed the air with crested snakes

      And fish of every hue

      As when the lightning’s glory breaks

      Through fields of summer blue.

      And white foam-clouds and silver spray

      Were wildly tossed on high,

      Like swans that urge their homeward way

      Across the autumn sky.

      Now ran the river calm and clear

      With current strong and deep:

      Now slowly broadened to a mere,

      Or scarcely seemed to creep.

      Now o’er a length of sandy plain

      Her tranquil course she held;

      Now rose her waves and sank again,

      By refluent waves repelled.

      So falling first on Śiva’s head,

      Thence rushing to their earthly bed,

      In ceaseless fall the waters streamed,

      And pure with holy lustre gleamed.

      Then