|
Mahabharata Anushasna Parva (Dana Dharma Parva) Chapter 26:4
[1]As the deities support themselves upon the Amrita that occurs in the Sun and the Moon and that is offered in diverse sacrifices, even so do human beings support themselves upon Ganga water. One besmeared with the sand taken from the shores of Ganga regards oneself as a denizen of heaven, adorned with celestial unguents. He who bears on his head the mud taken from the banks of Ganga presents an effulgent aspect equal to that of Sun himself bent on dispelling the surrounding darkness. When that wind which is moistened with the particles of Ganga-water touches one's person, it cleanses him immediately of every sin. A person afflicted by calamities and about to sink under their weight, finds all his calamities dispelled by the joy which springs up in his heart at sight of that sacred stream. By the melody of the swans and Kokas and other aquatic fowls that play on her breast, Ganga challenges the very Gandharvas and by her high banks the very mountains on the Earth. Beholding her surface teeming with swans and diverse other aquatic fowls, and having banks adorned with pasture lands with kine grazing on them. Heaven herself loses her pride.
The high happiness which one enjoys by a residence on the banks of Ganga, can never be his who is residing even in heaven. I have no doubt in this that the person who is afflicted with sins perpetrated in speech and thought and overt act, becomes cleansed at the very sight of Ganga. By holding that sacred stream, touching it, and bathing in its waters, one rescues one's ancestors to the seventh generation, one's descendants to the seventh generation, as also other ancestors and descendants. By hearing of Ganga, by wishing to repair to that river, by drinking its waters, by touching its waters, and by bathing in them a person rescues both his paternal and maternal races. By seeing, touching, and drinking the waters of Ganga, or even by applauding Ganga, hundreds and thousands of sinful men become cleansed of all their sins. They who wish to make their birth, life and learning fruitful, should repair to Ganga and gratify the Pitris and the deities by offering them oblations of water. The merit that one earns by bathing in Ganga is such that the like of it is incapable of being earned through the acquisition of sons or wealth or the performance of meritorious acts. Those who, although possessed of the physical ability, do not seek to have a sight of the auspicious Ganga of sacred current, are, without doubt, to be likened to persons afflicted with congenital blindness or those that are dead or those that are destitute of the power of locomotion through palsy or lameness. What man is there that would not reverence this sacred stream that is adored by great Rishis conversant with the Present, the Past, and the Future, as also by the very deities with Indra at their head. What man is there that would not seek the protection of Ganga whose protection is sought for by forest recluses and householders, and by Yatis and Brahmacharins alike? The man of righteous conduct who, with rapt soul, thinks of Ganga at the time when his life-breaths are about to leave his body, succeeds in attaining to the highest end.
|
|
