A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s8.209

v3.c35.s8.209

³ Jagannātha is said to have married a Muhammadan girl, and on account of this he was excommunicated. One day he with his wife sat on the highest (52nd) step of a ghaṭṭa on a bank of the Gaṅgā and began to pray to the holy river. With completion of each stanza the river continued to rise. When he recited the 52nd stanza the water of the river reached him and his consort and washed off their sin. They were drowned in the river and were never seen again. The poem, Gaṅgālaharī, however, is well-known in the whole of India. Cf. R. L. Vaidya, Bhāminīvilāsa Ed., Introduc. p. 12 ff., Aufrecht, Leipzig, No. 441. Amṛtalaharī, edited in the Km., Part I, p. 99 ff. is a poem written in praise of Yamunā; The Karuṇālaharī, published in Km. Part II, p. 55 ff. sings the miseries of human fate.