Simhasanadvatrimshika 15.8

15.8

mahadbhir aśubhair grastān anekān hatamānasān
patato narake ghore gaṅgā tarati sevanāt. || 8 ||

1. There is no greater purification than bathing in a sacred place of pilgrimage. When a man cannot obtain success by asceticism, celibacy, sacrifices, nor generosity, let him go to the Ganges and worship her. 2. Those well-disciplined men who bathe in the bright waters of the Ganges obtain fortune such as does not result even from a hundred sacrificial performances. 3. As the sun when it rises dispels blinding darkness, even such is the effulgence of one who has bathed in the Ganges-water, and so has rid himself of sins. 4. All evil is destroyed merely by the water of the Ganges, as surely as a heap of cotton is straightway destroyed when it is thrown into the fire. 5. Whoever drinks the water of the Ganges, warmed by the rays of the sun, drinking it mixt with the (five) products of the cow and in the manner prescribed by the rules, is releast from sin. 6. One who purifies his body by a thousand moon-fasts, and one who merely drinks the water of the Ganges, — there shall be no difference between these two. 7. There is no refuge like the Ganges for all creatures who seek a refuge because their hearts are opprest with sorrow. 8. When homage is paid to the Ganges she saves many desperate wretches who are overwhelmed with great sins and are bound for a fearful hell. 9. If a man beholds, drinks, and bathes in the water of the Ganges, she saves entirely the seven preceding and the seven following generations of his family — aye, and generations beyond them! 10. A man is purified a hundred, yes a thousand fold by the merit gained from seeing, touching, and meditating on the Ganges, and from repeating the name of Ganges. 11. Those who, when they can, do not behold the Ganges, the purger from sin, are like people born blind in this world — just beasts and cattle.”