History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.120

v5.c74.120

The Vanaparva, chap 85, has a grand eulogy of Gaṅgā in verses 88-97, some of which may be translated here¹³²⁴ "The Ganges is equal to Kurukṣetra wherever one may take a bath in it, but there is a speciality about Kanakhala and in Prayāga there is the greatest and highest (holiness). If a person, after committing a hundred bad deeds, sprinkles himself with Ganges (water), the waters of the Ganges burn all of them as fire burns fuel. In the Kṛta age all (places) were holy, in Tretā age Puṣkara was (the holiest place), in Dvāpara Kurukṣetra and in the Kali age the Ganges. The Ganges, when its name is uttered, purifies a sinner, when seen it yields good fortune, when a bath is taken in it or its water is drunk, it sanctifies the family up to the seventh ancestor. As long as (a particle of) the bones of a man touches Ganges water (i. e lies inside it), so long does the man remain happy (or honoured) in heaven. There is no holy place equal to the Ganges, there is no god higher than Keśava That country and that penance-grove where the Ganges flows should be known as the sacred spot of success (or perfection) since it attaches itself to the Ganges." The Anuśāsana (26.26, 30-31) asserts 'those districts and countries, those hermitages and mountains, in the midst of which the Ganges flows are pre-eminent in *puṇya* (religious merit) Even those men who, after committing sinful acts in the first part of their lives, resort afterwards to the Ganges reach the highest world (or goal). That increase (in merit) which comes to men that bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges and that then become pure in spirit, cannot be secured even by the performance of hundreds of solemn Vedic sacrifices.'¹³²⁵