Poor Bhagiratha then had to perform penance to get Shiva to agree to take on this difficult task. Shiva, ever gracious, was nothing loath to please such a determined devotee. Ganga however, had inflated notions of her power and planned to sweep away Shiva in her descent for the sake of a laugh or two. The anger of the Great God was kindled when he divined this plan, and no sooner did the Cosmic Current descend than it lost itself in the endless universe that was the hair of Shiva. Not a single drop fell to earth. Bhagiratha, refusing to despair, did tapasya yet again and finally Shiva, overcome with admiration for such spirit consented to let Ganga flow out in five gentle streams out of his hair. The much-chastened Ganga had by now fallen in love with the Great God, and she is generally reckoned to be one of his wives, as she spends all her time in close embrace with him!

This myth by the way is actually an allegory about the acquisition of divine knowledge that saves. To activate the flow in itself requires terrible efforts. If it is released upon an unready mind, or the world, it will blast everything to smithereens. Thus it is first transmitted to the guru, who is prepared and ready to handle such potent stuff. He transmits the knowledge in the little streams that represent the capacity of the individual seeker. Shiva is the Adi-Guru, the first guru, and it is fitting that divine salvation be measured out by him.

Ganga became even more holy because of her contact with the body of Shiva, and when she finally flowed over the ashes of the sons of Sagara, they were instantly transported to heaven. She is called the Bhagirathi too, in memory of the great benefactor of mankind. The Ganga on earth is actually only one aspect of her three-fold form. The divine river still flows in Heaven where she is known as the Mandakini. Falling to earth, she becomes the Ganga, and after flowing into the ocean she nourishes, she descends into the Underworld, where she is known as the Alaknanda. The Ganga is thus the source of salvation for the three worlds and she is thus often called "The triple fold path of Salvation." Where the Ganga meets up with the Yamuna river becomes an especially sacred spot and is the site of the great Kumbh Mela festival. However, the Ganga's sacredness is not confined to any one spot or any confluence of river and ocean. All parts of the Ganga are equally holy, and all her waters save man from the burden of sin.

There are no great shrines to the Liquid Goddess anywhere. What for? She is always present, flowing right past you. In this case God has literally come to the worshipper. It is being unimaginatively literal minded to doubt if an often muddy and polluted river can really be a saving grace. (Fortunately the river is also physically much cleaner today than it was in a long time). The Ganga is about that most astute and hopeful of psychological truths, a fresh start. She is the living embodiment of a culture that refuses to give up on a human being, no matter how far down the dark side they have gone. Let there be just one gesture, one act of faith that longs for redemption, and the way back into the light is opened up. This must be genuine however, not the showy ostentatious piety that fools nobody, least of all the Ganga.

There is an interesting theory that when a sinner approaches the Ganga, all his sins fear annihilation and jump out of his body onto the trees by the river bank. When he emerges from the river, he may be free of sin but if the real internal transformation of repentance and refusal to sin has not taken place, the tree hugging sins rush right back into the body! A folk tale explains this attitude well. Parvati, wife of Shiva, was jealously complaining that his other wife, Ganga, had made salvation too easy and nobody would value it anymore. Shiva said that salvation is not such an easy matter and offered to demonstrate.

He assumed the role of a corpse and lay on the riverbank on an especially auspicious day when salvation was 'guaranteed' by dipping in the Ganga. Parvati played the wailing widow. To all who tried to console her, she said that she had a dream in which Shiva promised to restore her dead husband to life if a person cleansed of sins by bathing in the Ganga would touch the corpse. If however, the bath had not cleaned all sins, that person would also die. For all the assembled piety on display, nobody was willing to risk dying in turn. At which point the most notorious thug and murderer of the town turned up. He was reeling drunk early in the day and made no secret of the fact that he was coming from a very enjoyable night at the brothel. Hearing the sad tale, he became lachymorosely sentimental and hastened to assure the 'widow', "I am the greatest sinner in these parts but do not worry good lady. For I am going to dip myself in the Ganga and my sins will be cleansed. I will surely be able to help you." Shocked into some kind of sobriety by the fact that he was doing the first disinterested good deed of his life, he took his dip. Then he approached the corpse with great reverence and total belief that he had been cleansed. No sooner did he touch the feet than Shiva stood up and announced, "Of all the people who have bathed here, only you have true faith and genuine repentance. You alone have gained salvation by bathing in the Ganga. The others have merely got wet."