It is inevitable that during their pilgrimage through the entire Indian subcontinent, the Pandavas encounter major and minor rivers. Any such travel would have been impossible without crossing rivers of different strengths; or even, in fact, without crossing the same river multiple times, and thus pausing to reflect on the sinuosity and the ever-changing nature of a river— the life-stages, so to say, that any river goes through, and the various organisms it gives sustenance to. It is natural for the discussions to also approach the purposes and origins of rivers—that is, what they really do for the world as experienced by the brothers.
It is also inevitable that the answer to the etiological question — of the purpose and origin of rivers — shall be shrouded in the Mahabharata under layers and layers of myth-making. Like all causality in the epic, it is the interplay of divine and royal forces, both ancient and faraway and therefore having their supernatural strength justified, that shall be at the heart of the answer. Rivers shall be personified — requested, invoked, yanked — and made to cause, or respond to, great cataclysmic events. It is no revelation to suggest that the Mahabharata myth-making process is closely linked to its writers’ perceptions of what is cataclysmic. (Modern writing suppresses this element, finding it unnecessary for its sedate purposes. This suppression is what is bemoaned in Amitava Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, which finds modern literary fiction incapable of dealing with the cataclysmic potentialities and realities of climate change).
Cataclysm it is when asuras and danavas create mayhem in and around oceans. Cataclysm is what ensues when, in order to curb the menace, the gods make sage Agastya (the one with the excellent digestion, who broke wind almost immediately after eating a danava) to drink the oceans so that they can hunt down the bad characters. Cataclysm it is when, after the destruction of the asuras and danavas, the water doesn’t return automatically to the oceans.So by what mechanism ought the oceans to be filled now? Yes, rivers. Or, rather, the most prominent river of all — Ganga.But Ganga itself has to be sprouted first. And a reason has to be concocted for it to fill up the oceans.
Although the divine disorder at hand (what else shall we call the specter of dry oceans) is prophesied to be cleared at the right time, it is a royal dynasty shall be the executor of this prophecy. A king named Bhagirath shall cause Ganga to be sprouted through his austerities (pleasing to Shiva). Bhagirath does so because his own ancestors are buried somewhere deep in the dry ocean and have no way to reach heaven. Thus, Ganga becomes not only the filler of oceans but also the provider of absolution.
All these stories are being told to the Pandavas by Lomasha, the sage-cum-tourist guide accompanying them on their travels. The stories are part of their education. Parts or whole of these stories must find themselves in other Hindu texts of note as well.
Tanuj Solanki
@tanujsolanki
The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata