If someone can summarize or describe the source of this story, that will be very welcome. I'm familiar w/ the one from the Ramayan, which I'll recount below.
Sagar was the ruler of Ayodhya, and regularly conducted Ashwamedha yagnas. When he was conducting his 100th such yagna, Indra, who was the only one who had conducted a century of such yagnas, became jealous that that record would be attained. Sagar had 2 queens - one of whom had given him 60k sons, and another gave him one son, who was sadistic, and was expelled from the kingdom for his barbarism. He had a son Anshuman, who would later continue the Ikshvaku dynasty.
Anyway, when the yagna was going on, Sagar's 60k sons were the companions of the horse. Unseen by them, Indra stole the horse, took it to Pataal, and left it near the ashram of rishi Kapila. The sons of Sagar searched the 3 worlds and ultimately found it there. They suspected the rishi of being the thief and charged him, and the rishi opened his eyes and incinerated them.
Anshuman was later sent to look for his uncles, and finally found the horse in rishi Kapila's ashram. He was grief-stricken @ their fate, but Kapila told him that their souls would be liberated if Ganga washed their ashes. Anshuman took the horse and returned to Ayodhya, and told Sagar everything. After the yagna, Sagar tried to invoke Ganga but failed. Throughout their lives, Anshuman and his son Dileepa both tried the same thing, but nothing happened. Then, when Dileepa was dying, his son Bhageeratha took a vow not to ascend the throne until he had gotten Ganga down to earth and washed away the ashes of his ancestors.
There was a parallel side story to this - in one of the devasura wars - not involving Taki or Vritra or anyone we know - the asuras hid in the ocean. So the devas asked Rishi Agastya to drink up the ocean, which he did. The devas effortlessly massacred the asuras but when it was all over and they asked Agastya to refill the ocean, the rishi replied that he had already digested it 🤣 So that created another imbalance, since there was no ocean left on earth.
Hence, there were 2 major purposes of bringing Ganga down to earth:
- Washing away the sins of everybody who had died, including Sagar's unfortunate 60k sons
- Refilling the ocean
As is well known, Bhageeratha started his tapasya to invoke first Brahma, who told her that he'd send Ganga down, but he advised him to invoke Mahadev as well, so as to break her fall. So Bhageeratha started doing tapasya for Mahadev as well, and Mahadev agreed to do it. When Ganga was ready to descend, she was planning to sweep away everyone, including Mahadev, w/ the force of her fall, but Mahadev figured out her intentions, and trapped her in his jata. So Bhageeratha again begged Mahadev to let her go, and she accompanied him throughout. (On the way, one rishi Jhanav swallowed her to punish her for flooding his yagnastal, and on Bhageerath's request, released her from his ear. That's how Ganga got the name Jhanvi)
So Ganga travelled the path shown by Bhageeratha, and ultimately filled up the ocean as well. Since it was on the account of Sagar that Ganga had to be propriated at all, from that time onwards, the oceans came to be known as Sagar.
Comments:
The above was what the Ramayan has. If one follows the dynasty history of the Ikshvakus, then Sagar, Bhageerath and everyone else existed in the Treta Yuga. So what they were showing here was an anachronism, given that Shiva & Parvati were married in the early Satya Yuga.
Also, in the context of the Ramayan story above (this actually was narrated by Vishwamitra to Rama & Lakshman when they were touring w/ Vishwamitra after the killing of Taraka - not our Taki here), I was surprised yesterday when Mahadev was narrating to the devas the story of Bhageeratha. After all, since it was due to Indra's framing Sagar's sons that this whole deal of Ganga having to be brought to earth existed, the devas should have known the story already - didn't they know what all their king did?
Another thing - in the preacp to tomorrow, they show Parvati actively participating in the descent of Ganga. How is that possible if she is doing tapasya for attaining Shiva? Ganga would be a distraction in this context, no?
The other strange thing was them showing Bhageeratha yesterday greeting an anonymous bald rishi as his guru. Incidentally, in the Daksha stretch, when they were showing the saptarshis, did they ever show Vaishistha, who was one of the saptarshis? B'cos he was the kulguru of the Ikshvaku clan, and his appearance is well known - he should have been bearded as well. Incidentally, how does this serial overlook the beard requirements previously of Shukracharya, and now, Brihaspati and Vaishistha? Incidentally, I thought the actor's last name is interesting, given who Bhageerath's kulguru was 😆
Anyway, back to this thread - can anyone narrate the story, or the differences, of what the current track is based on, so that those of us familiar only w/ the Ramayan version can make sense out of it?
CID
Kumkum Bhagya
Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
