01Sagara’s sons and Bhagiratha
The Bala Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana tells it. King Sagara of Ayodhya performed the ashvamedha, and Indra stole the horse and left it near Maharshi Kapila, deep in meditation. Sagara’s sixty thousand sons dug down to find it, accused the rishi, and were burnt to ashes by his gaze. Generations later Bhagiratha’s tapas brought Ganga down from heaven, through Shiva’s locks, and led her to the sea, where her waters touched the ashes and freed his ancestors. That meeting place is Gangasagar.
02The mela and the moving shore
‘Sab tirtha baar baar, Gangasagar ek baar,’ the saying goes: every other tirtha many times, Gangasagar once, because the crossing was once so hard. At Makar Sankranti in mid-January, sadhus and families cross the Muriganga by vessel, bathe at the confluence at the auspicious hour and offer worship at the Kapil Muni temple. The sea eats the island’s shore, and earlier temples have been lost to it; the present temple, set back from the water, dates from the 1970s.
The life of this place
- 1970sThe present Kapil Muni temple is built after earlier ones were lost to the sea.
Reach Kakdwip or Harwood Point from Kolkata, take the vessel to Kachuberia, then road to the temple. Book early for the Sankranti mela.
