Editing Ganges (section)

===''Avatarana'' – Descent of Ganges===
[[File:Ravi Varma-Descent of Ganga.jpg|thumb|upright|''Descent of Ganga'', painting by [[Raja Ravi Varma]] c. 1910]]

In late May or early June every year, Hindus celebrate the ''karunasiri'' and the rise of the Ganges from earth to heaven.<ref name=eck1998-p144>{{Harvnb|Eck|1998|p=144}}</ref> The day of the celebration, ''Ganga Dashahara'', the ''Dashami'' (tenth day) of the [[waxing moon]] of the [[Hindu calendar]] month [[Jyestha|Jyeshtha]], brings throngs of bathers to the banks of the river.<ref name=eck1998-p144/> A dip in the Ganges on this day is said to rid the bather of ten sins (dasha = Sanskrit "ten"; hara = to destroy) or ten lifetimes of sins.<ref name=eck1998-p144/> Those who cannot journey to the river, however, can achieve the same results by bathing in any nearby body of water, which, for the true believer, takes on all the attributes of the Ganges.<ref name=eck1998-p144/>

The ''karunasiri'' is an old theme in Hinduism with a number of different versions of the story.<ref name=eck1998-p144/> In the [[Vedas|Vedic]] version, [[Indra]], the Lord of [[Svarga]] ([[Heaven]]) slays the celestial serpent, [[Vritra]], releasing the celestial liquid, ''[[soma (drink)|soma]]'', or the nectar of the gods which then plunges to the earth and waters it with sustenance.<ref name=eck1998-p144/>

In the [[Vaishnava]] version of the myth, the heavenly waters were then a river called ''Vishnupadi'' ([[Sanskrit]]: "from the foot of Vishnu").<ref name=eck1998-p144/> As Vishnu as the avatar [[Vamana]] completes his celebrated three strides —of earth, sky, and heaven— he stubs his toe on the vault of heaven, punches open a hole and releases the ''Vishnupadi'', which until now had been circling the cosmic egg.<ref name=eck1998-p144-145>{{Harvnb|Eck|1998|pp=144–45}}</ref> Flowing out of the vault, she plummets down to Indra's heaven, where she is received by [[Dhruva]], once a steadfast worshipper of Vishnu, now fixed in the sky as the [[Pole star]].<ref name=eck1998-p144-145/> Next, she streams across the sky forming the [[Milky Way]] and arrives on the moon.<ref name=eck1998-p144-145/> She then flows down earthwards to [[Brahma]]'s realm, a divine lotus atop [[Mount Meru]], whose petals form the earthly continents.<ref name=eck1998-p144-145/> There, the divine waters break up, with one stream, the Bhagirathi, flowing down one petal into [[Names for India|Bharatavarsha]] (India) as the Ganges.<ref name=eck1998-p144-145/>

It is [[Shiva]], however, among the major deities of the Hindu pantheon, who appears in the most widely known version of the ''avatarana'' story.<ref name=eck1998-p145>{{Harvnb|Eck|1998|p=145}}</ref> Told and retold in the ''[[Ramayana]]'', the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' and several [[Puranas]], the story begins with a sage, [[Kapila]], whose intense meditation has been disturbed by the sixty thousand sons of King [[Sagara (Vedic king)|Sagara]]. Livid at being disturbed, Kapila sears them with his angry gaze, reduces them to ashes, and dispatches them to the netherworld. Only the waters of the Ganges, then in heaven, can bring the dead sons their salvation. A descendant of these sons, King [[Bhagiratha]], anxious to restore his ancestors, undertakes rigorous penance and is eventually granted the prize of Ganges's descent from heaven. However, since her turbulent force would also shatter the earth, Bhagiratha persuades Shiva in his abode on [[Mount Kailash]] to receive the Ganges in the coils of his tangled hair and break her fall. The Ganges descends, is tamed in Shiva's locks, and arrives in the Himalayas. She is then led by the waiting Bhagiratha down into the plains at Haridwar, across the plains first to the confluence with the Yamuna at Prayag and then to Varanasi, and eventually to Ganges Sagar (Ganges delta), where she meets the ocean, sinks to the netherworld, and saves the sons of Sagara.<ref name=eck1998-p145/> In honour of Bhagirath's pivotal role in the ''avatarana'', the source stream of the Ganges in the Himalayas is named Bhagirathi, (Sanskrit, "of Bhagiratha").<ref name=eck1998-p145/>