Rishi

Rishi

Rishi denotes the composers of Vedic hymns. However, according to post-Vedic tradition, the rishi is a "seer" to whom the Vedas were "originally revealed" through states of higher consciousness. The rishis were prominent when Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years...

 Jahnu appears in the story of the Ganges and Bhagiratha

Bhagiratha

Bhageeratha was a great king in Hindu mythology who brought the River Ganges to Earth.-Early life:Bhageeratha was the king of Kosala, a kingdom in ancient India. He was a descendent of the great king Sagara of the Suryavamsa, or Sun Dynasty...

. When the Ganges came to earth after being released from lord Shiva's

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 locks, her torrential waters wreaked havoc with Jahnu's fields and penance. Angered by this, the great sage drank up all of the Ganges' waters to punish her. Seeing this, the Gods prayed to the sage to release the Ganges, so that she could proceed on her mission to release the souls of the ancestors of Bhagiratha. Jahnu relented and he released the Ganges from his ear. For this, the Ganges river

Ganges River

The Ganges or Ganga, , is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. The river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. By discharge it...

is also known as Jahnvi, Janhavi or Jhanvi, meaning "daughter of Jahnu".