Jai Gange jai puny tarange
Posted on: September 11, 2025
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from a Mythological film Ganga Maiyaa-1955.
Produced by Chimanlal Trivedi, it was directed by Chandrakant Gaur and the music was provided by the veteran of such films- Shankar Rao Vyas. The cast of the film was Prem Adib, Sumitra Devi,Asha Mathur, D.k.Sapru, Bipin Gupta, S.N.Tripathi, Shakuntala Devi, Jeevan, Vithaldas Panchotiya and many others. Guest artist was Trilok Kapoor.
There are more than 400 rivers in India. These are classified as Big, Medium and small rivers, based on their lengths and the catchment areas.
The 12 Big rivers are Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Sindhu, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Taapi, Sarswati, Bheema, Tungbhadra and Pranitha. There are 46 medium size rivers and the rest are small rivers. The biggest, ofcourse, is Ganga, which is 2525 Kms. long from Gangotri to Bay of Bengal. It travels through Uttarakhand, U.P., Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Before merging into the Bay of Bengal, it also passes through BanglaDesh. It has a catchment area of more than 20,000 square Kilometers. The smallest river in India is Arvari, in Rajasthan, which runs only 45 kms.
I have a personal relationship with Ganga, as I have lived almost for two years, on its bank in Banaras. This was from February 1948 to the end of 1949. We were staying in a house on the bank of Ganga, very near to the Vishweshwar temple. We used to have Holy dips in Ganga every day. As such Ganga being associated with Lord Shiva, it was very sacred in our family and still it is.
Shiv Maha Puran describes the story how River Ganga-which flowed only in The Heaven, was brought to the Bhu-lok or our world. Like many other topics from our Puranas, even the story of Ganga’s descent on this Earth has been a subject of our films.
The first film on the coming of Ganga or “Gangavataran” was made by Madon Theaters in Calcutta in 1922. Miss Patience Cooper had done the role of Ganga in it.
With the same topic and same Title, came the first talkie by Dadasaheb Phalke in 1937. This film “Gangavataran”-37 was made by Kolhapur Cinetone- a company promoted and financed by King Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur. This was the only Talkie film Dadasaheb Phalke ever made in his life. After this film he retired, settled in his hometown Nashik and died there on 16-2-1944.
Incidentally, this was the film in which the famous character artist Leela Mishra made her debut. However, since this film was delayed inordinately in making, her second film “Honhaar”-36 released first. After this film, 3 more films, besides ‘Ganga maiya’-55, came on this subject. Ganga-74, Ganga Sagar-78 and Gangotri Ganga-2007. In the Television serial “Mahabharat” by B.R.Chopra ( from 2-10-1988 to 24-6-1990), the story of Ganga was shown. Ganga’s role was done by Kiran Juneja in this serial.
I had seen the film “Ganga Maiyaa”-55, in Prabhat Talkies, Hyderabad and as usual, I led a group of about a dozen senior citizens from our joint family to the theatre and back. Most of the audience was seniors and women. Everytime Lord Shankar made an appearance on the screen, there would be an ear shattering chant of “Jai Mahadev” in the theatre. Luckily, Trilok Kapoor, the usual actor for Bhagwan Shankar was only a ‘Guest artiste’ and had very few appearances on the screen limiting the enthusiastic chants !
The story of the film Ganga Maiya-55 was…..
Once upon a time, long ago, demons and gods were at war. To defeat the gods, the demons made a plan. During the day, they hid in the ocean and at night they attacked the gods. Afraid of being defeated in this way, the gods went to Sage Agastya for help.Agastya solved their problem by drinking the whole ocean. Now as the demons had no place to hide, the gods easily defeated them. The gods then asked Agastya to bring the ocean back. Agastya said that he could not do that because he had already digested the ocean.
The people of the earth now had no water, as the ocean was empty, The gods were worried and went to Vishnu and requested him to bring water on earth, King Sagara, who had sixty thousand sons, was performing a yagna to conquer the whole world. According to custom, if he had sent out a white horse, the ruler of that kingdom would either have to fight with Sagara or give him his crown. In this way, Sagara was conquering the whole earth and wanted to be the most powerful. Indra took the horse and hid it in sage Kapila’s ashram. Sagara sent his sons to search for the horse. They reached Kapila’s ashram. Sage Kapila was meditating and was disturbed. Greatly annoyed, with one look of his eyes. Kapila burnt all of them to ashes. Sagara was very sad at the death of his sons. He wanted to purify the souls of his sons but only river Ganga could do that by washing their ashes. Ganga had to be brought to earth. So Sagara performed tapasya to please Brahma. But he died before finishing the tapasya. His grandson then continued to perform the tapasya.
The seventh descendent of Sagara, Bhagiratha, was able to please Brahma. Brahma granted him his wish and asked Ganga to flow to earth. But Ganga didn’t want to leave heaven and go to earth. She threatened to destroy all life on earth by the pressure of her flow. Only Shiva’s powerful hair could control the force of Ganga. Bhagiratha requested Shiva to help him. Shiva spread his hair and covered the sky. As soon as Ganga flowed down, he collected her water in his hair in the form of many small streams. She then followed Bhagiratha to the place where the ashes of his ancestors were lying. Being young Ganga flowed carelessly. She flooded the ashram of Sage Jahnu. Jahnu was performing a yagna at that time the water put out all the fires. Angry Jahnu swallowed Ganga. But when he came to know about the long tapasya that had been performed to bring Ganga to earth, he agreed to let her go. He cut open his left thigh and Ganga flowed out of it. Ganga came to be known as Jahnvi, the daughter of Jhanu.
Ganga flowed on and purified the ashes of Bhagiratha’s ancestors. Therefore, Ganga is also called Bhagirathi. Thereafter, Ganga flowed and filled the empty ocean. The ocean came to be known as Sagara after the name of King Sagara. the people of earth now had water to drink.
In the cast of this film, there are 2 uncommon names. One is that of Shakuntala Devi. There were two other more famous Baby Shakuntala and Shakuntala Paranjpye, about whom I have written earlier and also in my book. This Shakuntala Devi was the mother of actress Ameeta. She had married Riaz Ahmed and they were living and working in films in Calcutta. After the death of Riaz Ahmed, she shifted to Bombay, with young Ameeta ( real name Qamar Sultana).
The second name is that of Vithaldas Panchotiya- a true versatile artist.
Vithaldas Panchotiya was born in Vadnagar, Gujarat, in the month of October 1906.His father was working in Drama companies. Acting was in his blood. At the age of 8 years,he worked for Mohanlal company and then with Alfred Theatrical company travelled all over India,doing and learning every job. While in Calcutta he joined Madan Theatres in 1920,working as anything and everything. Soon he was acting and directing films on his own. From 1921 to 1931, he directed and also acted in 12 silent films like, Parikshit, Kamsin Lilavati, Rana Garjana, Kaya palat, Naseeb ni Nakhara, Bhool Bhulaiya, Rang Rekha, Gaibi Sawar, Pavitra Pyar, Shoorveer Sharada, Veer Vijay Singh and Sakhi lutera. In these films he acted and directed and the story, dialogues and screenplay were also written by him. He made these films for Sharada and Kohinoor United film companies. He acted in his first Talkie film- in madan theatre’s Hindustan-1932. In the same year he made a comedy film ” Muflis Aashiq”,in which he not only acted, sang and directed but also composed the music.
He was a staunch Gandhi follower. His patriotic activities continued side by side. From 1931 to 1940, he remained with Calcutta film companies and made films like Insaf ki Tope-34, Khudai khidmatgar-37(aka gareeb ki Tope) and in 1939 made Taqdeer ki tope, all with slight patriotic themes.
As per one source, he acted in 35 films, directed 10 talkie films, sang 8 songs, gave music to 1 film and wrote Lyrics to 2 films. Additionally story, dialogues and screenplay writing were also done by him. Some of his films were, Shaikh chilli-37, Khush naseeb-46, Prabhu ki maya-55, Ghar ki numaish-49, Karmaveer-38, Raman-54, Jagriti-54, Hum sab chor hain-56, Basant 60, Bhagvat mahima etc.
After 1960 he reduced his work, due to the loss of 3 grown up sons. Throughout his life he wanted to make a film “Gandhi Sangram”. Some portions were shot, songs were recorded but he could not complete the film. He last worked in a Gujarati film in 1986.
He has been a Producer, Director, story writer, dialogue writer, screenplay writer, lyricist, Singer, Music Director and God knows what else !
Being a staunch Gandhian, he used to participate in rallies etc. Some of his films were Hindustan-32, Insaf ki Tope-34, Gaibi Gola-35 ( he was the writer and the director too.He gave a break to Baby Noorjahan in this film.), Khudai Khidamadgar-37aka Garib ki Tope, Takdir ki Tope-38 etc .
I find it very difficult to know exactly how many films he did in various capacities in the 30s, as there are conflicting claims by him and Master Fida Hussain. In few cases the details in HFGK and what the claims are duplicated too. Some of his films in the 40s are Ramanuj-43, Giribala-47, Grihalaxmi-48, Ghar ki Numaish-48 ( released only in 1962, with the title ‘ Jai ho muhabbat ki ‘ )
Thanks to the kind information and statistical data provided by Late Shri Harish Raghuwanshi ji of Surat, we know that his Filmography consists of a total 11+ 26 films. The break up is-
11 silent films
25 Talkie films as Actor and 1 film as a writer only.
9 films as a Director
2 films as Lyricist and
2 films as Music Director
As per Muvyz data, he sang 37 songs in 8 films.
From 1951 to 1960, he did 13 films- mostly ( 9) for Filmistan. He directed 2 of them. After 1960 his work was reduced. The death of his 3 sons broke him emotionally. As a true Gandhian, it was his dream to make a film- Gandhi Sangram- on Mahatma Gandhi. He had done all the spade work and the Muhurat of shooting was also done on 2-10-1987, The Government had promised finance. Even Rajiv Gandhi promised him that. However nothing came to him and he died on 30-10-1996, with his dream unfulfilled.
His daughter Shradha used to work in Gujarati films. She too died in a Train accident in 2000. Her daughter Deepshikha is an actress.
Here is a 70 year old video song from this film. Enjoy….
Song- Jai Gange Jai puny tarange (Ganga Maiyya)(1955) Singer- Unknown, Lyricist- Not known, MD- Shankar rao Vyas
Chorus
jai Gange
jai Gange
jai Gange
jai Gange jai puny tarange
jai hey Ganga maiya
jai hey Ganga maiya
jai Gange
jai puny tarange
jai hey Ganga maiya
jai hey Ganga maiya
baho baho hey paap naashini
shraap naashini Gange
baho baho hey patit paawini
mukti daayini Gange
baho baho hey puny shaalini
dev nandini Gange
dev nandini Gange
paap naashini
paap naashini
paap naashini
paap naashini
pawan puny tarange
pawan puny tarange
in lahron per sada tairtee rahe dharam kee naiya
jai hey Ganga maiya
jai Gange jai puny tarange
jai hey Ganga maiya
jai hey Ganga maiya
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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