Informative

Story of Maa Ganga

A Mother, Seven Sons and Fulfilling of Destinies

During the Dwapar Yuga (the era of Mahabharata), king Shantanu, the king of Hastinapur, was in a jungle hunting when his eyes fell upon an extremely good looking angel-like woman walking with poise and elegance. The king was in love at first sight and proposed to her to marry him. This woman was the divine mother Ganga. Maa Ganga agreed to the proposal on one condition. Her condition was that the king could never question Her actions. No matter what She did, the king couldn’t question Her. She said that the day he did question Her, She would answer, but that would be their last day together and She would leave him forever. 

The king reluctantly agreed since he was mesmerized in love. 

The wedding was a grand affair as all royalty weddings are. Then began the cycle of birth and death. Maa Ganga gave birth to sons one after the other and everytime She would deliver a baby, She would take him and drown him in the ganges. An infant, just like that, drowned. King Shantanu wanted to question this behavior the first time itself but Maa Ganga’s condition stopped him. This continued for seven sons. When Maa Ganga was going to drown the eighth son, Shantanu couldn’t take it anymore and questioned Her. Maa Ganga then told Shantanu the following story – 

There were 8 demigods who were known as Vasus. Once these Vasus were strolling with their wives and came across this beautiful cow called Nandini. The wives were so attracted by the beauty of this cow that they requested their husbands to steal it. They hence took the cow with them. The cow however belonged to sage Vashishtha and when he learnt of this, he got very angry and cursed the 8 Vasus. He cursed them so that all of them will be born as humans and go through all the sufferings of a human life. The brothers felt very sorry and begged for forgiveness. 

The sage then melted a little however the curse couldn’t be reversed. So it was modified as this – the brother who stole the cow will spend an entire lifetime in human life whereas the other seven brothers will only experience the nine months of pregnancy. 

The Vasus then approached Maa Ganga to be their mother and birth them to which Maa Ganga agreed. 

Maa Ganga had already fulfilled the destiny of the seven brothers by drowning them and now she handed the eighth brother to King Shantanu. This eighth brother was none other than Bhishma. We have read about him in the Karma post earlier. 

Maa Ganga handed Bhishma to Shantanu, and submerged in the river Ganga. 

This story makes us think about the courage and discipline required to first go through pregnancy, childbirth and then drown the child to fulfill their destiny. There have been many stories about the greatness of a mother’s love but this one by far, tops them all. The love that allows you to part with a loved one in order to put them out of misery. We bow to the love in Maa Ganga. For spiritual guidance write to us at info@chamundaswamiji.com