Another son of Shiva and Parvati is Kartikeya, the Celestial general and slayer of demons. He is also regarded as the son of Agni and the Ganges.
The goddess of the Ganges is Gangá. This most sacred of all Indian rivers, the cleanser of sins and the giver of immortality, was originally confined to the Celestial regions, where it flowed from a toe of Vishnu. How it came to earth is related in the following myth: Sag´ara, a King of Ayodha (Oude), had great desire for offspring. He performed penance, with the result that one wife became the mother of a single son and the other of sixty thousand sons. He prepared to perform a horse sacrifice, but Indra stole the sacred animal. All the sons went in search of it by digging each for the depth of a league towards the centre of the earth. They were, however, consumed by the fire of Kapila, a form of Vishnu, who protected the earth goddess, his bride. Sagara was informed that his sons would come to life again and rise to heaven when the Ganges flowed down to the earth. His grandson went through rigid penances, and at length Brahma consented to grant the prayer that the sacred river should descend from the Himalayas. Shiva broke the fall of the waters by allowing them to flow through his hair, and they were divided into seven streams. When the waters reached the ashes of the slain princes, their spirits rose to heaven and secured eternal bliss. Sagra island, at the mouth of the Ganges, is invested with great sanctity, on account of its association with the King of Ayodha of this legend. All the Indian rivers are female, with the exception of the Sona and Brahmaputra, the spirits of which are male.
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KARTIKEYA, THE WAR GOD
From a painting by Surendra Nath Gangoly
(By permission of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta)