Guillermo Jardine (cirujano)

See also: Ganga

Gangâ is the goddess of the Gange, girl of the apsarâ Menakâ and of Himavant, the king of the the Himalayas. It is the mother of Kârttikeya - Skanda - with Agni and which is consequently called Gangâputra . She is also the mother of eight boys with the king Shântanu, but during their separation, she drowned them all except one, Bhîshma.

She is the wife of Shiva which carries it in its hair. She is sometimes called Bhagîrathî, “downward of Bhâgirathâ”, because it is thanks to the asceticisms of this Rishi that she went down on ground in order to purify the beings of their sins.

According to the legend, Brahmâ collected the sweat of the feet of Vishnou to create Gangâ thus twice sanctified by the contact of two gods. A few years later, a king of Ayodhya, ancestor of Râma, named Sagar obtained by magic sixty thousand wire. Sagar practiced 100 times the Ashvamedha or sacrifice of the horse, but the last time, this last was stolen by the god Indra jealous who hid it in the Ashram the wise one but wild Kapila Muni. Not retouvant the horse, Sagar sent all its wire to its research. Those found it at Kapila Muni and showed it to be a robber. The wise one then opened the eyes for the first time since many years, fixed the sixty thousand wire of Sagar which were transformed into ashes and their phantoms are reflected to wander on the ground because their funerary rites had not been accomplished.

When Bhagiratha, one of the descendants of Sagar, by a second wife, learned the destiny from its ancestors, it made the wish reduce Gangâ on ground in order to sweep ashes of wire of Sagar towards the skies. Bhâgirathâpria Brahma reached its request and ordered in Gangâ to be carried out. Gangâ, catch of vanity, estimated that one made him insult and decided to sweep the whole ground.

Alarmed, Bhâgirathâ requested Shiva to break the force of the torrent-like flood of Gangâ which fell with arrogance on the head of Shiva. But the god imprisoned it in his hair, which is worth to him the epithet of Gangâdhara and it arose assagie and three times sanctified by its contact with all the Trimurti.

The island of Sagar, in the western part of the Sundarbans close to Diamond Harbor to the mouth of the Hûglî, the name of the arm of Gange which runs with Kolkata - located at some 130 km of the island - accommodates the pilgrimage of Gangâ Sagar . There, is a temple dedicated to Kapil Muni credited for the descent with Gange and all the benefits which were followed from there.

The vehicle of the goddess is either a gavial of Gange ( Gavialis gangeticus ), or a watery creature, the Makara.

Representation or Mûrti

The goddess Gangâ , belonged to the divinities represented in the Hindu temples. It is it of one in the following ways:

the two river goddesses, the Gangâ and its affluent, the Yamunâ, are generally represented at the base of the stiles of the temple. In the old excavated temples, they are sometimes represented on the side walls of the veranda. The Goddesses are primarily characterized by their mounting or vahana . The Gangâ is represented on a Makara whereas Yamunâ is represented on a tortoise. In the first times represented only, they are accompanied thereafter by small maidservants carrying a sunshade ( will catra ).

the presence of these two divinities on this site is related to the concept of purity, the Gangâ purifying the “sins”. The presence of Yamunâ refers to the zone where the two rivers meet which is regarded as one of the most crowned zones (it is the place where the Kumbhamela takes place).

Gangâ is also represented in hair of Shiva in the representations of the Gaṅgadharamūrti (“form which carries Gange”) which refers to the myth of its descent on ground.
It is finally represented in the circling wicks of the representations Chola of Shiva Natarâja.

Largest low-relief in the world, in the village of Mahaballipuram in the Tamil Nadu represents the myth of the fall of Gange.

Local epithets and names

Gangâ receives certain a number of epithets: Armantyanâdi , Mandâkinî , Tripathagâ , Bâghiratî , Kirâti , Devabhutî , Khâpagâ , Harashekarâ (peak of Shiva), Mahâbhadrâ … the term of Gangâ itself is used to qualify all the Indian rivers which are regarded as crowned.

In Thai, it is called khongka and in Chinese henghe .

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