In most of images and sculpt of
Lord Shiva have the matted hair inside Goddess Ganga. The Indian King Sagar who
is believed as a Powerful King, has decided to perform Ashwamedha Yagna. In
this Yagna, he decided to sacrifice a horse to his supreme God. By seeing this,
King Indra who is known as King of Heaven became jealous of this powerful king
Sagar and he steals the sacrificial horse and keeps it in Ashramam where a sage
name Kapil is there, who is meditating for many years silently. Therefore, King
Sagar made his 60000 sons to search the ritual horse and finally they could
find it in the sage ashramam and they even took sage. As sage meditation has
got disturbed so he is in angry and started destroying all the sons of King
Sagar. The grandson name Anshuman has requested him to forgive.
Sage
even suggested making their souls purify and nivarana, they need to get Goddess
Ganga from heaven on to the earth. Therefore, the souls of him and ancestors
will get purified. Anshuman’s son, King Dilip requested Lord Brahma to help
them in bringing Ganga on to the earth from heaven. But he was failing and therefore, this responsibility has been given to his son Bhagirathi and Bhagirathi pleased Lord
Brahma to order Ganga to come on to the earth. Finally, this created an
insulting feeling in the Ganga and she started flowing very force to wash and
destroy complete earth.
By seeing it, Lord Brahma has
warned Bhagirathi to pray Lord Shiva, as Ganga cannot be hold by earth and Shiva
can hold her by his matted hair. She was very much anger and tried to drown and
destroy even lord Shiva but He tied her so strongly that she could not come
out. Hence, she became helpless.