ಗಂಗಾ ಸಪ್ತಮಿ | Ganga Saptami

Ganga Saptami is the seventh tithi of the bright fortnight of Vaishakha, kept for the river Ganga. It is also called Ganga Jayanti and Ganga Pujan, and Jahnu Saptami, because the event it remembers is the release of the Ganga by the sage Jahnu, from whom she has the name Jahnavi, the daughter of Jahnu. The day is kept chiefly in North India, and above all along the river itself.

The story

Bhagiratha’s austerities brought the Ganga down from heaven so that her waters might purify the ashes of his ancestors, the sons of Sagara, and Shiva received her in his matted hair so that the force of her fall would not sweep the earth away. As she followed Bhagiratha across the plains, her waters flooded the ashrama of the sage Jahnu, and Jahnu drank the whole river. Bhagiratha and the gods pleaded with him, and he relented and let her out from his ear, and she went on to finish her course. Ganga Saptami is kept as the day of that release, which is spoken of as the Ganga’s second birth, and so as her jayanti.

The descent from heaven is kept on another day, Ganga Dussehra, the tenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Jyeshtha, a month later. Calendars print both, and readers often take them for one day said twice. Ganga Dussehra is the descent; Ganga Saptami is the release from the sage.

How the day is kept

A bath in the Ganga is the centre of the day. At Har ki Pauri in Haridwar and at the ghats of Varanasi people gather from the early morning to bathe in the river, offer arghya, flowers, fruit and sweets to her, recite her hymns, and join the Ganga arati. Those who live far from the river worship the Ganga at home and add a little Ganga water to the bath, the usual substitution.

In Karnataka the day passes with little public observance, as Ganga Dussehra does. It is a North Indian river festival, and Anudina lists it accordingly.

Which day Anudina gives

Anudina gives Ganga Saptami on the day on which the saptami of Vaishakha shukla paksha is running at madhyahna, the middle of the daytime. The time from sunrise to sunset is divided into five equal parts, of which madhyahna is the third, and the puja of the day belongs to that window; Drik Panchang prints a madhyahna muhurta for Ganga Saptami for this reason. If the saptami is running at midday on two days, the first of them is taken. If it covers the midday of neither, the day on which it is running at sunrise is taken. For 2027 Anudina gives 12 May.

The bright fortnight of Vaishakha bears the same name in the amanta calendar of Karnataka and the purnimanta calendars of the North, so there is no difference of month to reconcile for this day. Ganga Saptami appears in Anudina under the North Indian custom, and for readers on the South Indian custom when festivals of other regions are shown.

Neighbouring days

The bright fortnight of Vaishakha is full of observances: Akshaya Tritiya and Parashurama Jayanti on the third, Shankara Jayanti on the fifth, Ganga Saptami on the seventh, Sita Navami on the ninth, and Narasimha Jayanti on the fourteenth.