ಗಂಗಾ ದಸರಾ | Ganga Dussehra

Ganga Dussehra marks the descent of the Ganga to the earth, brought down by the austerities of Bhagiratha and received in Shiva’s hair so that the fall would not break the ground. It is kept along the length of the river, and hardly at all away from it.

When it falls

The tithi is Jyeshtha Shukla Dashami, and the day is the one on which the dashami is running at sunrise. That is the practical rule, and it is what an almanac prints.

The classical definition is more demanding and worth knowing, because it explains the name. The texts describe the day as one of ten coincidences: the month Jyeshtha, the bright fortnight, the tenth tithi, the nakshatra Hasta, the yoga Vyatipata, the karana Gara, Wednesday, the moon in Kanya, the sun in Vrishabha, and Anandayoga. All ten together are rare, and the tradition allows the day to be kept when some of them obtain. A calendar that gives the tithi alone is giving the working rule, not the full definition.

What the name means

This is the point on which readers most often go wrong. Dussehra here is dasha hara, the removal of ten, and the ten are sins: three of the body, four of speech and three of the mind, as the classification runs. A bath in the river on this day is said to take them away.

It has nothing to do with Vijayadashami, which is also called Dussehra and falls in Ashwayuja, four months later. The two share a word because both are built on dashami, the tenth tithi, and nothing more.

What is done

Bathing is the whole of it. At Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi, Prayagraj and Garhmukteshwar the ghats fill from before dawn. Lamps are floated, and offerings of ten of each item, ten flowers, ten lamps, ten fruits, are made in keeping with the number. Those away from the river bathe at home with a little Ganga water added, which is the ordinary substitution.

In Karnataka the day passes with little public observance. The river festivals of the south are their own: the Kaveri is honoured at Talakaveri at Tula Sankramana in October, when the spring rises, and that is the occasion a Kannada household is more likely to keep. Naming this out is more useful than implying that a day kept in Uttarakhand is kept everywhere.

A near neighbour

Ganga Saptami, on the seventh tithi of the bright fortnight of Vaishakha, is a different day about the same river. It marks the reappearance of the Ganga from the ear of the sage Jahnu after he had swallowed her, which is why she is called Jahnavi. Ganga Dussehra is the descent from heaven; Ganga Saptami is the release from the sage. Calendars print both and readers regularly take them for one thing said twice.