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Plate 1 A makara, the crocodile-like river creature with toothed jaws and an upturned snout, its scaly body curving into a fish’s tail, above wavy lines of water

Ganga

Ganga is the river Ganges worshipped as a goddess. She stands on the makara, a crocodile-like river creature, and flows from Shiva’s hair, and Hindus bathe in her waters, keep them at home and give them to the dying.

Hindu deities and their symbols. Also called Ganga goddess, Ganga Maa, ganga symbol, ganga symbols, Ganges goddess, Ma Ganga.

Meaning

The Himalayan Academy calls the Ganges India’s most sacred river, rising in the Himalayas and ending in the Bay of Bengal, and the Hindu American Foundation writes of her as a goddess as much as a river: Ma Ganga, flowing from Gaumukh in the Gangotri glacier to the sea. As a goddess she is shown standing on a makara, a crocodile-like creature. A sculpture of about 700 in the Cleveland Museum of Art shows her on one with a foliated tail; the museum notes that such figures stood at the doorways of temples, where the image of her purifying waters symbolically cleanses those who enter. She is also the river in Shiva’s hair.

Origin and history

Ganga lived in the heavens, where she is called Mandakini, until the sage Bhagiratha brought her down. The Hindu American Foundation tells the story: Bhagiratha’s ancestors had been burned to ashes by the sage Kapila, and only the touch of Ganga’s water on their ashes could free them. Ganga agreed to come down, but warned that the force of her fall would plunge her through the earth, and only Shiva could break it. Shiva agreed to catch her in his matted locks and let her go with reduced force. On the way, her flow disturbed the peace of the sage Jahnu, and he absorbed her into his water pot until Bhagiratha’s pleas made him release her again, as Jahnavi, Jahnu’s daughter. A Pahari painting in Cleveland shows Bhagiratha, who stood on one leg for 1,001 years to win the gift of the river, flowing from Shiva’s topknot.

Ganga in Shiva’s hair

Shiva wearing the Ganga on his head is the form called Gangadharamurti. T. A. Gopinatha Rao, in Elements of Hindu Iconography (1916), tells how Shiva, receiving her on his head covered with matted hair, made her wind through the labyrinth of his locks for a long time before she reached the earth, and describes the sculpted panel: one of Shiva’s hands holds up a lock of matted hair, and on it is the figure of the goddess. The Cleveland Museum describes the same idea from the river’s side: Shiva held out a lock of his hair to catch the fall of the heavenly river, identified with the Milky Way, so that it would trickle gently to earth.

Bathing, the Kumbh Mela and Ganga water at home

A dip in her waters, the Hindu American Foundation says, is believed to destroy the sins of her devotees and free them from the cycle of rebirth, and devotees bathe all along her course. Her greatest festival is the Kumbh Mela, held at Haridwar and Prayagraj on the Ganga, and at Ujjain and Nashik, its dates set by the positions of the planets in a 12-year cycle. Devout families keep a sealed copper pot of Ganga water at home, and at a death family members put a few drops of it into the mouth of the dying. Pilgrims called kavadiyas walk to her source and carry two pots of her water home on their shoulders. On Makar Sankranti, the foundation adds, people travel to bathe in sacred rivers, the Ganges among them.

See also

Parvati, Ganesha, Murugan, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Rama.

Sources

  1. Dancing with Śiva: glossary (Ganges (Gaṅgā)), Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Dancing with Śiva: Hinduism’s Contemporary Catechism, glossary, Himalayan Academy (Kauai’s Hindu Monastery), glossary, s.v. Ganges (Gaṅgā)
  2. Ma Ganga is more than a river, she’s a goddess (Sivagami Natesan, Hindu American Foundation), Sivagami Natesan, “Ma Ganga is more than a river, she’s a goddess”, Hindu American Foundation, 2021, Hindu American Foundation, article text
  3. River Goddess Ganga (1966.119, Cleveland Museum of Art), River Goddess Ganga, c. 700, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.119, collection description, Cleveland Museum of Art, Description
  4. Descent of the Ganges (2018.111, Cleveland Museum of Art), Descent of the Ganges, c. 1700–1710, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2018.111, collection description, Cleveland Museum of Art, Description
  5. Elements of Hindu Iconography, Vol. II, Part I, T. A. Gopinatha Rao, 1916, Law Printing House, Madras (Internet Archive, Wellcome Collection copy), Chapter IX, Gangadharamurti
  6. Lohri, Makar Sankranti, and Pongal: India’s winter harvest festivals (Hindu American Foundation), “Lohri, Makar Sankranti, and Pongal: India’s winter harvest festivals”, Hindu American Foundation, Hindu American Foundation, article text

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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research

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