Ganga

deity water Hindu single tradition · 12

Stub entity — referenced by another entity from source #408 but not yet directly extracted from its own source.

↻ synthesized from 12 sources

When

First attested
1500 BCE
Attested period
-1500 – 2020
Historical notes
Appears in multiple texts from Ramayana through Kanda Puranam as facilitating Kartikeya's birth.

Relationships

allied with
Vasus, Parvati, Agni
consort of
Shantanu
parent of
Bhishma
sibling of
Parvati
created by
Vishnu
manifests as
Ganges river
syncretized with
Bharat Mata
serves
Varuna
served by
Makara
child of
Himavan, Menavati, Himavat

Expand to full subgraph →

Sources

Source passages

“with his birth aided by Agni and Ganga...The semen was then incubated in the Ganges...Ganga took them to Saravana lake, where the sparks developed into six baby boys”

#11928 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“The doorjamb of the ante-chamber contains sculptures of Ganga”

#17784 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“The male half wears a jata-mukuta (a headdress formed of piled, matted hair) on his head, adorned with a crescent moon. Sometimes the jata-mukuta is adorned with serpents and the river goddess Ganga flowing through the hair.”

#22236 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“To expiate the sin of having caused the death of a sacred creature, Gautama propitiated the goddess Ganga to descend upon his hermitage and cleanse it. She acquiesced, descending upon the land as the goddess Godavari, along with Shiva.”

#22465 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“The Vasus then requested the river-goddess Ganga to be their mother. Ganga incarnated and became the wife of King Shantanu...Ganga drowned them in her own waters, freeing them from their punishment”

#22566 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5