Gautama, the cow, and the Ganga that stayed
A drought lasts a hundred years. No sprout shows and there is no water, and men, beasts and birds leave for other regions. On Brahmagiri, in the southern quarter, the sage Gautama and his wife Ahalya stay on. Gautama spends six months absorbed in pranayama, worshipping Varuna. When Varuna appears and offers a boon, Gautama asks for rain. Varuna says he cannot countermand the gods. Gautama asks instead for divine, everlasting water. Varuna tells him to dig, Gautama digs a ditch a hand deep, and Varuna fills it, promising that it will never run dry and will be known by Gautama's name.
Gautama sows grain for his sacrifices, and crops, trees and flowers flourish. Sages arrive in thousands with their disciples, wives and children, and settle around him.
The trouble starts at the water. Gautama's disciples go to draw water, and the wives of the other sages stop them, insisting that they draw first. Ahalya smooths it over, draws the water herself and gives it to Gautama. The wives go home offended and give their husbands a distorted account. The angry sages worship Ganesha and ask him to have Gautama disgraced and driven out. Ganesha argues against it — Gautama, he reminds them, saved them from starving — but they will not change their request, and he gives way: what is destined to happen will happen.
Ganesha takes the form of a feeble cow and eats grain in Gautama's field. Gautama drives it off with a bunch of grass blades, and the cow falls dead as he watches. The sages and their wives, hiding nearby, cry out. They call him a cow-killer, declare his face unfit to be seen, pelt him with stones and drive him off. He builds a new hermitage about a krosha away and, after half a month, begs them to say how the sin can be removed. They give him a list: go round the earth three times proclaiming it; go round Brahmagiri a hundred and one times; bring the Ganga for his ablution; make a crore of earthen lingas. Gautama and Ahalya begin.
Shiva appears with his ganas. He tells Gautama that he is already sinless and was deceived, and offers a boon. Gautama asks for the Ganga. Shiva brings out the water he had kept back from Brahma's gift, and the Ganga appears as a woman. She means to go home once Gautama is purified; Shiva says she must stay until the Kali age. The gods and sages arrive and ask Shiva and the Ganga to remain, and the gods promise to come themselves whenever Jupiter enters Leo. Shiva and the Ganga stay. The river becomes known as the Gautami, and the linga as Tryambaka.
The Ganga comes down from Brahmagiri through the branches of an udumbara tree, at the place called Gangadvara. When the hostile sages arrive she vanishes, and a voice from the sky tells them to perform expiation and go round the mountain under Gautama's guidance. They do. With the river's leave, Gautama makes a ditch called Kushavarta below Gangadvara, and the river flows from it. Gautama and the sages are reconciled.
The story accounts for the linga's name, for the Gautami rising on Brahmagiri, for the Kushavarta, and for the gathering at the river when Jupiter is in Leo.
Told differently elsewhere. This account does not agree with “In another kalpa, Gautama's curse”, given on this page too. We tell each as its own tradition tells it, and do not choose between them.
Where this account comes from
- Purana: Shiva Purana, Kotirudra Samhita 24.1–33 (J. L. Shastri trans., 1950) wisdomlib.org
- Purana: Shiva Purana, Kotirudra Samhita 25.1–58 (J. L. Shastri trans., 1950) wisdomlib.org
- Purana: Shiva Purana, Kotirudra Samhita 26.1–57 (J. L. Shastri trans., 1950) wisdomlib.org
- Purana: Shiva Purana, Kotirudra Samhita 27.1–22 (J. L. Shastri trans., 1950) wisdomlib.org