The river goddess, like the Nile, is the type of fertility, and, like that celebrated stream, has her source amidst the eternal glaciers of Chandragiri or Somadri (the mountains of the moon),—the higher peaks of the gigantic Himalaya,—where Parvati is represented as ornamenting the tiara of Iswara with a beamy moon. In this metaphor, and in his title of Somanat'ha (lord of the moon), we again have evidence of Iswara, or Siva, after representing the sun, having the satellite moon as his ornament. The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, considered the Nile as flowing from Osiris ; in like manner the Hindu poet describes the fair Ganga flowing from the head of Siva, and Sir W. Jones thus classically paints the myth in his hymn to Ganga : 'Above the reach of mortal ken, On blest Ooilasa's top, where every stem .
Glowed with a vegetable gem, Mahesa stood, the dread and joy of men ; While Parvati, to gain a boon, Fixed on his locks a beamy moon, And hid his frontal eye in jocund-play, With reluctant sweet delay ; All nature straight was locked in dim eclipse, Till Brahmins pure, with hallowed lips And warbled prayers, restored the day, 'When Ganga from his brow, with heavenly fingers prest, Sprang radiant, and descending, graced the caverns of the west.'
According to another legend, the goddess Mera, daughter of Meru, became tho spouse of Him vati; from whose union sprang the beauteous Ganga, and her sister Ooma. Ganga was sought in marriage by all the celestials; while Ooma, after a long life of austerity, was espoused by Itudra. But neither sister was fortunate enough to have offspring, until Gangs became pregnant by Hutashna (regent of fire), and Kumam, resplen dent as the sun, illustrious as the moon, 'WAS produced froin the side of Ganga. The gods, with Indm at their head, carried him to the Krittikees to bo nursed, and be became their joint care.' As he resembled tbe fire in brightness, he received the name of Skanda, when the immortals, svith Agni (fire) at their head, anointed him as general of the armies of the gods. The festival of the birth of this son of Ganga, or Januvi, is on the 10th of Jeyte. Sir 1V. Jones gives the following couplet from the Sancha :—` On the 10th of Jytushflia, on the bright half of the month, on the day of Mangala, (a) son of the earth, when the moon was in Hasta, this daughter of Jahnu brought from the rocks, and ploughed over the land inhabited by mortals.'—Cole.Myth.Hind.119.