Classical kāvya · c. 4th-5th century CE
tam ādhūtadvajapaṭaṃ vyomagaṅgormivāyubhiḥ / devasūtabhujālambī jaitram adhyāsta rāghavaḥ // Ragh_12.85
Given in IAST from GRETIL because the Sanskrit Wikisource Devanagari of this verse is corrupted at exactly the key word (it prints 'व्य्ॐअगङ्गोर्मिवायुभिः' for व्योमगङ्गोर्मिवायुभिः). Both witnesses read 'dvaja' for the expected 'dhvaja'.
Literal rendering: 'Raghava, steadied by the arm of the gods' charioteer, mounted that victorious car, its banner-cloth shaken by the winds from the waves of the Sky-Ganga.' — Literal rendering by the compiler
'Sky-Ganga' - an eighth poetic name for the celestial river / Milky Way, alongside the seven already in the database (Akasaganga, Mandakini, Viyadganga, Svarnadi, Suradirghika, chayapatha, Tripathaga). Kalidasa uses it at least twice, and it is the reading of the Devanagari Kumarasambhava 6.5 where GRETIL reads akasaganga. Here Rama's aerial chariot's banner is shaken by winds off the WAVES of the Vyomaganga during a battle fought in the sky - unambiguously the celestial, not the terrestrial, Ganga. Confidence is 'likely' rather than 'certain' only because Sanskrit poets do not always distinguish the heavenly Ganga as a mythic river from the visible band of light; the identification rests on the standard Indian equation of the two.
Classical kāvya · c. 4th-5th century CE
तत्र स्कन्दं नियतवसतिं पुष्पमेघीकृतात्मा पुष्पासारैः स्नपयतु भवान् व्योमगङ्गाजलार्द्रैः । रक्षाहेतोर्नवशशिभृता वासवीनां चमूनाम् अत्यादित्यं हुतवहमुखे संभृतं तद्धि तेजः॥१.४६॥
Devanagari from Sanskrit Wikisource. The reading vyomagaṅgā is confirmed by THREE independent GRETIL e-texts - the plain text, M. R. Kale's edition, and the text accompanying VALLABHADEVA's commentary, i.e. the oldest (10th-century Kashmirian) recension. BUT H. H. Wilson's manuscript read mandākinī instead: his 1843 note glosses the line as 'Moistened with the waters of the Mandakini, the celestial Ganges'. So the verse names the sky-river in every witness; only which name varies.
There change thy form, and showering roses shed, / Bathed in the dews of heaven, on Skanda's head; — Horace Hayman Wilson, The Megha duta; or, Cloud Messenger (2nd ed., 1843), vv. 295-296 - a verse rendering; his own literal note reads 'Moistened with the waters of the Mandakini, the celestial Ganges'
Second Kalidasa attestation of the 'Sky-Ganga'. The Cloud, itself travelling through the sky, is to bathe Skanda on Devagiri with flower-showers 'wet with the water of the Vyomaganga' - the river as a source the cloud can reach in flight. Same class as the seven celestial-river names already in the database; the caveat entered under Raghuvamsa 12.85 applies.
Meghadūta (Pūrvamegha) 1.46; numbered 45 in editions that count the opening verse differently ·
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