Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/237

 A SACRED POND AND ITS LEGEND 193 the mountain Aruna, always covered with snow, which cannot be ascended. At its foot is the pond Sailoda, whence comes the river Sailoda. North of Kailasa is the mountain Gaura with the pond of golden sand at its foot. " Near this pond King Bhagiratha led his anchorite life. His story is as follows: A king of the Hindus called Sagara had sixty thousand sons, all of them bad, mean fellows. Once they happened to lose a horse. They searched for it at once, and in searching they continually ran about so violently that the surface of the earth broke in. They found the horse in the interior of the earth, standing before a man who was looking down with deep-sunken eyes. When they came near him, he smote them with his look, in consequence of which they were burned on the spot and went to hell on account of their wicked actions. The collapsed part of the earth became a sea, the great ocean. A king of the descendants of that king, called Bhagiratha, on hearing the history of his ancestors, was much affected thereby. He went to the above-mentioned pond, the bottom of which was polished gold, and stayed there, fasting all day and worshipping during the night. Finally, Mahadeva (Siva) asked him what he wanted; whereupon he answered: ' I want the river Ganges which flows in Paradise/ knowing that the sins of him over whom its water flows are pardoned. Mahadeva granted him his desire. However, the Milky Way was the bed of the Ganges, and the Ganges was very haughty, for nobody had ever been able to stand against