The Ganga is a river Hindus hold especially holy. But there is a story that once, she did not flow on earth at all. She flowed only in heaven.

A king named Bhagiratha wanted to bring her down. Long before, sixty thousand of his ancestors had met their end because of a great sage named Kapila. In many tellings, they angered him and were burned to ashes. They could only find peace if the Ganga's water flowed over their remains.

So Bhagiratha went to the Himalayas and lived very simply for a thousand years, eating only fruit and roots, and praying. Finally, the river goddess Ganga appeared to him and said yes. But she warned him: "When I fall from the sky, the force will be too much. No one in all the worlds could bear it, except Shiva."

So Bhagiratha prayed again, this time to Shiva. Shiva agreed. He stood on the snowy mountain and caught the falling river on his head, so that she came to earth gently instead of smashing it.

That is why pictures of Shiva show the Ganga flowing from his hair. And when people do something that takes enormous, patient effort, they still call it a Bhagiratha effort.

Two lessons are here. Bhagiratha shows that great things take great patience. And Shiva shows that real strength is not always about smashing things. Sometimes it means taking a huge force and making it gentle enough to help.