Skandapurana 6.2.71.75.3

6.2.71.75.3

"Where have they gone, leaving me? Why does my heart not burst? / Calling out plaintively, 'Mother! Mother!', coming of their own accord, / when, embracing those sons in affection, crying, 'My child! My child!'— / by whom, coated with tawny dust of the earth, / will my upper garment and lap ever be soiled? / Born from each and every limb, delighting mind and heart, / alas, my children have been killed, sent to death by me, their mother! / What worlds shall I go to after committing such a dreadful deed? / How shall I, a merciless slayer of sons, ever become pure?" / Lameneting piteously thus, weeping again and again, / she fainted and fell to the ground, distressed and motionless. / In the meantime, O goddess, Nārada, the best of sages, / suddenly heard that sound of her lamentation. / With eyes wide with wonder, he thought: "What is this? / This is that Gaṅgā, born of Jahnu, purifier, praised by the gods, / the divine chief queen of the ocean, the sacred three-pathed river; / having assumed human nature, why does she weep so wildly?" / Thinking thus, the sage approached; / Nārada, the son of Brahmā, standing in the sky, said loudly to the weeping Gaṅgā: / "O goddess Gaṅgā, obeisance to you! / I am Nārada, O most holy one. Why do you weep, O purifier? / You are renowned as the daughter of the snowy mountain, attended by gods and gandharvas, / borne on the head by the god Śiva, the Supreme Lord." / Hearing Nārada's words, the divine river of the gods, / beholding him situated in his aerial chariot, replied to the great sage: / "O Nārada, through delusion I have committed a reprehensible unrighteousness; / knowing full well it was a great sin, seven sons were killed by me. / Separation from the ocean befell me by fate; / I became the wife of a mortal; sons were born to me and were slain. / Therefore I lament, submerged in an ocean of grief.