when one becomes bereaved of Ganga.  One does not obtain that joy through acts that lead to the region of Brahma, or through such sacrifices and rites that lead to heaven, or through children or wealth, which one obtain from a sight of Ganga.[241] The pleasures that men derive from a sight of Ganga is equal to what they derive from a sight of the full moon.  That man becomes dear to Ganga who adores her with deep devotion, with mind wholly fixed upon her, with a reverence that refuses to take any other object within its sphere, with a feeling that there is nothing else to the universe worthy of similar adoration, and with a steadiness that knows no failing away.  Creatures that live on Earth, in the welkin, or in Heaven, indeed, even beings that are very superior,—­should always bathe in Ganga.  Verily, this is the foremost of all duties with those that are righteous.  The fame of Ganga for sanctity has spread over the entire universe, since she bore all the sons of Sagara, who had been reduced to ashes, from here to Heaven.[242] Men who are washed by the bright, beautiful, high, and rapidly moving waves, raised by the wind, of Ganga, became cleansed of all their sins and resemble in splendour the Sun with his thousand rays.  Those men of tranquil souls that have cast off their bodies in the waters of Ganga whose sanctity is as great as that of the butter and other liquids poured in sacrifices and which are capable of conferring merits equal to those of the greatest of sacrifices, have certainly attained to a station equal to that of the very deities.  Verily, Ganga, possessed of fame and vast extent and identical with the entire universe and reverenced by the deities with Indra at their head, the Munis and human beings, is competent to bestow the fruition of all their wishes upon them that are blind, them that are idiots, and them that are destitute of all things.[243] They that sought the refuge of Ganga, that protectress of all the universe, that flows in three streams, that is filled with water at once highly sacred and sweet as honey and productive of every kind of good, have succeeded in attaining to the beatitude of Heaven.[244] That mortal who dwells by the side of Ganga and beholds her every day, becomes cleansed by her sight and touch.  Unto him the deities give every kind of happiness here and a high end hereafter.  Ganga is regarded as competent to rescue every creature from sin and lead him to the felicity of Heaven.  She is held to be identical with Prisni, the mother of Vishnu.  She is identical with the Word or Speech.  She is very remote, being incapable of easy attainment.  She is the embodiment of auspiciousness and prosperity.  She is capable of bestowing the six well-known attributes beginning with lordship or puissance.  She is always inclined to extend her grace.  She is the displayer of all things in the universe, and she is the high refuge of all creatures.  Those who have sought her protection in this life have surely attained heaven.  The