Ode To Mother Ganga
No mere river, thou art nation’s heartbeat,
That you came from heaven may be a myth,
Not that for common good ye fell beneath,
For centuries ye lift people’s spirit.
Let me call thee India’s stand-in sub soul,
O Brahma-vari, heaven’s holy waters,
Thou worshipped art in thy all as a whole,
I bow to Thee, Holiest of all Daughters.
Many a meditating muni’s mind
Mused were by thy serene, calming presence,
And far from the humdrum of mundane grind,
Shelter have found at thy banks for long hence.
King Bhagirath’s penance once brought ye here,
In penitence to wash ancestors’ sins,
With this hoary burden of long ye steer,
We need a new Bhagirath ye to cleanse.
Ye had, we know, condescended to come,
Known as Brahma’s haughtiest of daughters,
Boasting of ‘my cascading flood waters’,
Shiva tamed thee, taught a lesson wholesome.
Sad, mere rituals seem all that remain
Today, wreaking ‘pon thy soul vast damage,
Yet, all this done is in thy holy name,
Ye sure suffer, suffer in silent rage.
A holy thee flows in all us within,
We need not come to thee to wash our sin,
Bathe nor worship, sully thy soul so clean,
But people are what they have always been.
O Mother, under thy sons’ sins ye moan
As ye thyself need a bath of thy own.
A poet was so pained and hurt to call:
O Ganga, why ye care to flow at all! ____________________________________________
Brahma-vari in Sanskrit means (holy) water from Brahma, the supreme creator. Bhagirath (Sanskrit: ?????, Bhagiratha), a legendary king of Ikshvaku dynasty who brought the Sacred River Ganges (personified as the Hindu River Goddess Ganga) to earth from heaven to liberate his ancestors and Sagar’s sons from sins.
Ode |16.05.2021|
Topic: river, mother
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