lustration from that holy flood, the race of Sagara are to ascend to
heaven. Brahma at last gives his permission to Ganga to descend. King
Bhagiratha takes his stand on the top of Gokarna, the sacred peak of
Himavan (the Himalaya), and here_--

Stands with arms outstretch'd on high, amid five blazing fires, the one
Towards each quarter of the sky, the fifth the full meridian sun.
Mid fiercest frosts on snow he slept, the dry and withered leaves his
food,
Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.
High on the top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood;
And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water--
Full of wrath the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter.
To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,
From heaven's height down rushed she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head,
Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep
By her fierce waves overborne, down to hell's remotest deep.

Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there,
Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair,
Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age, the goddess wanders.

_By the penances of the king, Siva is propitiated, and the stream, by
seven channels, finds its way to the plains of India_.

Up the Raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps,
Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps.