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| (credits-Arghya Dipta Kar) |
இங்கிதன் மாண்பிற் கெதிரெது வேறே.
Before her noble grace, what else could ever glow?
-Subramaniya Bharathi
Prologue
At Rishikesh, on the edge of the Himalayas, I once watched the evening arati offered to the Ganga as she flowed past an ashram gate. Seated on the riverside steps, I listened as the head of the ashram spoke briefly on yoga, likening the iḍa naḍi to the Ganga, the pingala to the Yamuna, and the subtle channel to the Sarasvati.
Here, the Himalaya and the Ganga are not mere mountain and water; they possess an inward, spiritual dimension. What descends from the outer world into inner consciousness finds its expression in the art shaped by the Himalayas and the Ganga. English scholarship holds a vast and varied shelf on the Ganga, yet in Tamil such studies remain few and far between. Balasubramanian’s Gangai Nadhiyum Ganga Deviyum steps into this absence with quiet authority. In its pages, he renders the many dimensions of the Ganga with rare sensitivity and lucid grace. Even an uninitiated reader can use it as a guide to glimpse that inner radiance through sculpture. By tracing the place of the Ganga in Indian temple art and culture, the book becomes both richly informative and deeply engaging.
His book describes that the Ganga—from the snows of the Himalayas to the stone sanctuaries of the Tamil land—flows not only as water but as meaning. In Indian art, she is never merely a river; she is memory, movement, and spirit shaped in form. Sculptors across ages have received her descent upon Siva’s matted locks and translated that moment into rock, bronze, and imagination. Across Pandya, Pallava, Atiyaman, and Chola traditions, the Ganga appears in countless yet purposeful variations—kneeling in reverence, dwelling in flowing hair, standing beside Yamuna, or bowing beneath the agni prabha of Nataraja. Each image carries more than aesthetic beauty; it carries the journey of the river from sky to earth and from the outer world to inner consciousness. Balasubramanian’s book follows that journey. Through temples, caves, tanks/reservoirs, bronzes, and symbols, the book reveals how Indian temple art transforms geography into spirituality and sculpture into experience. To trace the Ganga in art is to trace the pulse of a civilization where stone learns to flow like water and water learns to speak like art. Drawing on Balasubramanian’s Gangai Nadhiyum Ganga Deviyum, let’s delve deeply into the aesthetic and artistic forms of Ganga through which the she has been conceived, celebrated, and rendered.
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| Ganga Devi - Airavatesvara Temple, Darasuram, Tamil Nadu |
Introduction
For the Indian imagination, the Himalayas represent Kailash, the sacred abode of Shiva. Each summit is revered as a Shiva-linga, and the mountains themselves are manifestations of the deity. One of Shiva’s epithets, Gangaivara Saṭaiyan, denotes “he who bound the Ganga in his matted hair.” According to tradition, when the celestial river descended to earth, Shiva restrained it within his locks to prevent the planet from being overwhelmed, releasing only the portion necessary for earthly flow.
The snow layers atop the peaks of the range gradually melt, giving rise to streams at various points, beginning with the Gangotri. These streams develop into rivers, which converge at four principal confluences. Ultimately, at Devaprayag, where the fifth confluence occurs, the rivers merge as two principal streams named Bhagirathi and Alaknanda. It is at this juncture that the combined flow is designated the Ganga, which continues its course to Rishikesh, attaining a state of equilibrium. Considered by scholars as one of the ancient rivers, emerging even before the Himalayas near the plains of Patna, the Kali Gandaki rises from its source and flows across the borders of Nepal and Tibet and joins the Ganga. At the Triveni Sangam, it is joined by another Himalayan river, the Yamuna. Thus formed, the Ganga continues its course, ultimately entering the Bengal plains, where it bifurcates into two main channels, further branching into numerous smaller streams, before finally merging into the sea under the name Ganga Sagar.
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| River Ganga |
Flowing over a distance of 2,500 kilometers and irrigating thousands of hectares of land annually with its enormous alluvial deposits, the Ganga is so integral to Indian life that without it, Indian history and culture would scarcely have flourished. Scholars such as Michel Danino observe that following the decline of the Sarasvati civilization—i.e., after Sarasvati River sank beneath the earth—the region’s cultural legacy merged with the Indus civilization, prospering as the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. When the era of the Indus came to an end, settlement shifted eastward, ultimately giving rise to the civilization along the banks of the Ganga. According to traditional accounts, the Sarasvati River, which had disappeared beneath the earth, is said to flow underground and join the Ganga and Yamuna at the Triveni Sangam near Allahabad.
The Ganga is the eternal river of expiation. To dissolve the burden of mortal sin, she descends from the celestial heights to the realm of humankind and flows onward even to the shadowed underworld. It is believed that those who are touched by her sacred waters across the three worlds are delivered from impurity. From her birth at Gangotri, through the sacred Panch Prayags, where young torrents unite, to the Rishikesh, where she touches the plains; from there to Kashi, to the confluence at Triveni Sangam; and onward to Gangasagar where she meets the sea—every footfall of the Ganga upon this land is hallowed soil to the people of India. The Chinese traveler Xuanzang bears witness that not only human pilgrims but also countless living beings plunge into the Ganga seeking liberation. Thus, through the ages, the Ganga has remained for Indians both a cradle of life and a portal beyond life.
Ancient Indian polity itself arose along the banks of the Ganga. The janapadas based on which early India was divided took shape upon her fertile shores. With the coming of the Iron Age, advances in agriculture and technology accelerated the growth of the Gangetic civilization, and by the first century BCE, archaeological evidence confirms that it had matured into a fully urban culture. Throughout history, every ruler who governed the Gangetic plains regarded the Ganga as a sacred river. Age-old belief holds that, like fire, she consumes all impurities cast into her and yet remains forever undefiled. It is said that Emperor Akbar drank Ganga water daily, and in temples everywhere, it is her water that is carried for ritual ablution (abishekam).
In the colonial era, the purificatory nature of the Ganga has been examined in detail through scientific study. Unlike other rivers, researchers have explored how the Ganga preserves its vital, self-cleansing properties without deterioration. Observing that Ganga water did not putrefy even during long sea voyages, the East India Company once turned it into a commercial commodity for trade. Beginning in 1830, the interfluvial region between the Ganga and the Yamuna was afflicted by successive and severe famines. In the same period, the Hooghly witnessed the operation of its first steam vessel, marking a new phase in riverine transport. Soon after, the earliest bridge across the Ganga and a railway line directed toward Kashi were established, integrating the river into colonial infrastructure. Following Independence, major dams were constructed across the Ganga in West Bengal and Uttarakhand, representing the first systematic efforts to regulate and control the river’s natural course. Even after descending to earth through Siva’s matted locks, the force of the Ganga did not subside. Hence, another myth recounts that Sage Jahnu drank her waters and released them again through his ears. In the modern age, the place once held by the legendary Jahnu has been assumed by dams and embankments.
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| Gangadhara at Trichy Pallava Rock cut temple |
The Ganga as Cultural Continuum
India is culturally a single civilization, yet each linguistic region, shaped by its geography, carries certain distinctive features of its own. In forming the broad cultural identities of North and South India—not as divisions, but as continuities—the forests of Dandakaranya played a decisive role. Across Dandakaranya, Saivism traveled from north to south. In the Tamil region, philosophical SŚaivism emerged much later, beginning gradually in the eighth century and attaining institutional form by the twelfth century. Conversely, it was across the same Dandakaranya that the Bhakti movement flowed from south to north.
In popular spirituality, northern Kashi and southern Rameswaram function like two sides of the same coin. For the Tevaram tradition, the southern shrine of Tirukkalahasthi and the northern Kedarnath are essentially one sacred axis. In such civilizational exchange across the Indian landscape, temple culture and its artistic excellence have always functioned as the principal medium. However, there arises a question—within this cultural circulation, what place does the Ganga occupy? Kudavayil Balasubramanian through his book Gangai Nadhiyum Ganga Deviyum (The River Ganga and The Goddess Ganga) attempts to answer this question. His most significant work articulates the presence of the Ganga particularly with reference to the Tamil region—its literature, history, and temple-art traditions.
English possessed a rich shelf of books on the Ganga by 2020, while in Tamil their number remained strikingly small. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan’s Gangai Nadhiyum Ganga Deviyum sought to bridge that gap. In his preface, Balasubramanian recalls that the spark was struck by reading Stephen Deryan’s Ganges in Myth and History. Drawn by that impulse, he set out along the Ganga from her first emergence to her final surrender, visiting the many sacred landscapes along her course, and, on returning from the journey, shaped his experience into this book.
The first chapter, titled Gangai Thotram Mudhal Sangamam Varai (meaning From Ganga’s Source to Her Confluence), unfolds in accordance with its theme the entire course of the river—from the place of her emergence to where she merges with the sea. It presents the geographical record of the Ganga, beginning with Gangotri and moving through the Panch Prayags, Rishikesh, Kashi, and the Triveni Sangam, while also narrating the myths that shaped each sacred center. Alongside these, their literary expressions are traced, together with the temples, their periods of construction, the kings who raised them, and the images of Mother Ganga and Bhagiratha enshrined within, thereby offering a comprehensive portrait of the river’s sacred geography.
The second chapter titled Ithigasangalil Gangai (meaning The Ganga in the Epics) gathers and presents the ancient narratives of the river drawn from the Valmiki Ramayana, the Vyasa Bharata, and the Kamba Ramayanam. From these epics, this chapter weaves together the primal story of the Ganga and her descent.
It recounts how Bhagiratha’s ancestors, cursed to perish in the nether world, wandered unable to attain the heavens. Learning that only the celestial Ganga, brought down to earth and offered in ritual oblation, could release their souls, Bhagiratha undertook severe penance to summon her. The heavenly Ganga, checked by Siva, had her fury subdued before touching the earth. When she descended, Sage Jahnu drank her waters and released them again through his ears, further tempering her force. Bhagiratha then led the Ganga into the underworld, performed the rites for his forefathers, and sent their souls to the celestial realm.
This chapter narrates the entire episode in sequence, supported throughout by epic sources. Without such breadth, the aesthetic and cultural vision that this book unfolds would necessarily remain diminished.
The third chapter Tamililakkiyaththil Gangai (meaning The Ganga in Tamil Literature) traces the presence of the river from Sangam poetry to the Tevaram hymns of the three saints and shows how the Kaveri of the Tamil land is repeatedly envisioned and established in comparison with the Ganga.
The fourth chapter, “Seerar Sivagangai,” (The Prosperous Sivagangai) explains how the Ganga becomes established in the Tamil land as Sivagangai. The vimana of the Great Temple at Thanjavur is conceived as a symbol of the Himalayas, and the rain that falls upon it as the Ganga itself. The waters that gather there are therefore called the Sivagangai Vavi (pond). Within the temple stands a separate shrine for Karthikeya, echoing the ancient myth in which Siva’s fiery essence falls into the Ganga and from it arises the child who becomes Karthikeya.
At Courtallam, upon the rock face over which the torrent descends, a sculpted Murugan stands absorbed in worship of Siva, while the cascading waters seem to enfold the image in reverence. It was Siva who released the Ganga upon the earth, and Murugan is revered as the son of the river; thus the waterfall in which pilgrims immerse themselves at Courtallam is envisioned as Sivaganga itself.
Likewise, at Sirsi in Karnataka, at a sanctified stretch of the Shalmala, Sahashralingas (thousands of lingas) are carved into the living rock beneath the flowing current. Through this ritual inscription, the Shalmala ceases to be merely a regional river and is reimagined as the Ganga—as Sivaganga.
Thus, even rivers of far-off worlds are drawn into the name of the Ganga. Along the beds of Cambodia’s Siem Reap and Java’s Dakmas, Sahashralingas are carved into the stone, and by their silent consecration, the flowing waters are transfigured into the Ganga. Likewise, in the Tamil country, atop the hill of Sittannavasal lies a spring known as Navarchuṇai. In its depths, a Sivalinga is carved into the living rock; by that presence, the water of the spring too becomes Sivaganga. Further, at Tiruchirappalli–Tiruchendurai, a Chola inscription dated to 883 CE speaks of the Kaveri by placing her on par with the Ganga, affirming in stone the symbolic equivalence between the rivers.
In a mural within the Great Temple of Thanjavur, Sundarar is portrayed as though offering worship to the Sivaganga pond itself. The waters shown belong to the shrine of Tiruvanjaikkalam; and though a thousand years have passed, the pond endures in the same form, sustained by the same living devotion. At Tiruvidaimarudur, the gateway to the sacred tank rises as a lion-faced threshold. On either side, the figures of the Ganga and the Yamuna stand in quiet guardianship, proclaiming that the waters one is about to enter are none other than Sivaganga. Thus, from Gangaikonda Cholapuram to Virinjipuram and onward, this chapter follows the many artistic trails of the Ganga, tracing how she flows not only as river, but as image, memory, and sacred space through the Tamil landscape.
The fifth chapter, titled “Chola-Gangam,” recounts the path by which Rajendra Chola marched with his armies, the Gangetic kingdoms he subdued along the way, and how, from the region of present-day Hooghly, he carried the waters of the Ganga back to the Tamil land. Returning to his capital at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, he sanctified the great temple by sprinkling those waters upon it and mingled the Ganga into the Sivaganga tank of the same shrine.
Through this historic act, the chapter reveals how the Ganga rose in the imagination of the kings of that age, enthroned not merely as a river, but as a measure of cultural and spiritual eminence within their hearts and their polity.
The sixth chapter Tamilagathu Kalaipadaippugal (Art of the Tamil Land) begins with the Mamallapuram sculpture series known as Arjuna’s Penance. Drawing on the work of scholars such as S. Balusamy, the author relates it to the Bhagiratha-penance panels of Pattadakal, Ellora, and Udayagiri, and literary accounts of Bhagiratha’s austerities to show that the composition is essentially Bhagiratha’s penance. He further reveals how the sculpture visualizes the Ganga in three realms—celestial, terrestrial, and nether—offering a unified artistic vision of her descent. Among the Pallava-period artworks, the author gives pride of place to the rock-cut Gangadhara sculpture at the Tiruchirappalli Rock Fort and offers a detailed, head-to-toe reading of the image. Near Siva’s matted locks, the Ganga is shown in reverence, entering his coiled hair.
In Kal Mel Naṭanda Kalam, Theodore Baskaran, a film historian and wildlife conservationist, observes a dog appearing in this sculpture, which has no clear mythological basis for its presence. However, Balasubramanian in his book records several Gangadhara images with such an animal form and identifies one as a fox, interpreting it as howling at the force of the descending Ganga, though he does not specify a corresponding mythic source for this motif.
Among the two Gangadhara sculptures at Mamallapuram, one stands without a virisadai (divine seat), while in the other, the Ganga appears fully for the first time, standing in a complete kolam form.
Similarly, at the Kailasanathar Temple in Kanchipuram, the four Gangadhara images are arranged in distinct manners. Except for one that has collapsed, in the remaining three, the first stands without the Ganga, the second assumes the Urthuva Thandava pose (dance with one leg poised upward), and the third is depicted with eight arms. In Pallava art, each sculpture is deliberately composed with its own distinctive arrangement and meaning.
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| Gangadhara -Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchipuram |
Within the corpus of Pandya art, a Gangadhara of exceptional individuality stands enshrined at the Thirukokarnam Temple in the Pudukkottai district. Drawing upon epigraphical testimony, the author identifies the sculptor responsible for this image as Bhatacharyan. A further scholar notes that, across the Tamil country, only four Gangadhara figures appear as relief sculptures carved from living rock. One is found at Tiruchirappalli, two at Mamallapuram, and the fourth resides here at Kokarnam. Gangadhara is shown in the tribhanga posture, his left hand resting at the waist in kaṭi-hasta, while the right gently draws and restrains a strand of matted hair. With Anjali hastam gesture, the Ganga kneels and enters upon Siva’s head.
Above this rock-cut sculpture, on the hill over the shrine, lies a small spring. I have seen both the temple and the spring before. Yet only after reading this book does the image come alive with clarity. It is the book that tells us this very spring is the Akasa Ganga. For a moment, I was struck with wonder. What refinement of sculptural imagination this represents! Even now, an impulse stirs within me to return and behold that artistic magnificence once again. Such, I would say, is both the spirit and the strength of this book.
In Adthiyaman art, the Namakkal rock-cut image of Harihara is of significant importance. Harihara stands crowned with the Ganga upon his head, and Kudavayil notes that no comparable image exists elsewhere. Chola art, by contrast, presents many refined Gangadhara images, uniquely portraying Siva soothing Parvati, who turns away in gentle resentment at the descent of the Ganga upon his locks.
The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur houses several such Gangadhara images. Kudavayil notes that, as an added artistic feature on the temple vimana, there appear relief sculptures of the Aṣṭa Vasus—born of the Ganga to be freed from their curse, the eighth being Gangeya, known as Bhiṣma.
In the sequence of artistic splendours extending from Manambadi to Panchavan Madevisvaram, the Nataraja image at Gangaikonda Cholapuram stands out for its gentle smile, with the Ganga dwelling in his spreading locks. At the Darasuram Temple, in the Raja Gambhiran tirumaṇḍapa, stands a graceful, life-sized image of the Ganga in full female form. Since she lacks her customary vehicle—the makara or crocodile—scholars had earlier conjectured that she might represent Mayadevi (a point not noted in Kudavayil’s book). Kudavayil Balasubramanian, however, confirmed her identity as Ganga through a faded and broken inscription on her niche. In the same manner, he also discovered and documented seven other river goddesses within this temple.
Tracing the course of the Ganga through the artistic idioms of the Pazhuvettaraiyars, Irukku Velirs, and Ketti Mudalis, Balasubramaninan observes that at the Rajagopuram of the Chidambaram temple, Ganga and Yamuna stand on either side, welcoming the devotee. Likewise, at the Tirunavalur temple, Ganga and Yamuna flank the sanctum of Siva.
Above all, in the Chola bronze tradition—the summit of their art—Kudavayil describes the Ganga bowing beneath the agni prabha of Nataraja. From Siva’s crowned head down to his ankleted feet, one can behold in full the entire journey of the Ganga contained within the form itself.
Beyond these, at the sluice-gate of the Tirukurungudi reservoir, the doorway is crowned on either side with the conch and discus, while below it, flanked on both sides, stand the crocodile and the tortoise—the vehicles of Ganga and Yamuna. Thus, the entire reservoir itself becomes Ganga. In this manner, across the Tamil land, every body of water seems filled with her presence, as though Ganga Devi stands inseparably permeating all waters.
The seventh chapter “Pira Maanila Kalai Padaipugal” (meaning Artistic Works from Other Regions) is particularly notable. In the rock-cut caves of Udayagiri near Bhopal, the Ganga is sculpted in a unique form, shown dividing into two streams before merging with the sea. In the Elephanta caves, the Ganga above the Gangadhara is portrayed with three faces: the first as Mandakini, the celestial Ganga; the second as Bhagirathi, the earthly Ganga; and the third as Bhogavati, the netherworld Ganga. At Ellora, in a manner found nowhere else, the three rivers—Ganga, Yamuna, and Sarasvati—stand as sculptural icons in separate sanctums.
The final chapter discusses Ganga-related sculptures preserved in museums, as well as representations of the Ganga on coins from the Gupta period onward.
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| Ganga |
Summary
Through this article I have sought to carry forward a world in which rivers were not mere channels of water, but living presences, mothers of civilization, and witnesses to history. Through these texts, the Ganga does not remain distant in the north; she travels through language into the cultural imagination of the Tamil land, shaping devotion, architecture, and literary memory alike.
The narratives traced across this article reveal how geography transforms into sacred space. Temples rise not only as structures of stone, but as repositories of emotion, political will, and artistic vision. Kings appear not merely as patrons, but as mediators between the human and the divine, inscribing their faith upon landscapes that endure long after their reigns have faded. Within these sanctuaries, the images of Mother Ganga and Bhagiratha stand as silent storytellers, reminding us that myth, ritual, and history are inseparable strands of a single cultural fabric.
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| Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan |
Literature becomes the thread that binds them. In Tamil tradition, poetry and prose do more than describe—they consecrate. Rivers are praised, lands are adorned with meaning, and memory is preserved through metaphor and rhythm. Moreover, these texts disclose how devotion travels. Though the Ganga’s physical course lies far from the Tamil country, her current flows freely across regions. Through inscription, sculpture, hymn, and story, she is received, re-envisioned, and localized. This movement reflects a larger truth of Indian civilization—that sacredness is not confined by distance, but carried by belief, art, and narrative. The Tamil reception of the Ganga becomes, therefore, a testament to cultural integration rather than imitation.
I believe that this article will act as a bridge: one that invites readers to cross from research into sensitivity, from fact into feeling. The intention is not only to inform but to awaken curiosity—to encourage readers to see rivers as archives, temples as texts, and literature as living terrain. As this work concludes, the journey does not. Like the Ganga herself, the meaning continues to flow—through interpretation, reflection, and renewed reading.
May the reader step into this current with attentiveness, and allow the past to speak, not as an echo, but as a living presence.
Kudavayil Balasubramanian - Tamil Wiki
Cuddalore Seenu
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| Seenu |
Cuddalore Seenu is a noted art critic and writer in Tamil. His views on modern Tamil literature are highly respected. He writes on contemporary works as well as traditional cultural heritage. His essays explore poetry, documentaries, and historical sites. His articles and travelogues are widely read by Tamil readers
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| Helan |
