Sagara’s Sixty Thousand Sons

King Sagara of the Ikshvāku line, the solar dynasty, ruled Ayodhyā. The Mahābhārata, in the Vana Parva (Chapters 106–109), tells how his two queens bore him one son and sixty thousand sons, how the stolen horse of his Aśvamedha led the sixty thousand to the ṛshi Kapila, and how they were burned to ash. Lomaśa tells this account to Yudhishṭhira at the sacred tīrthas. Only the descent of the celestial Gaṅgā could free the sons, and that took three more generations.

Sagara’s two queens and their vara

Sagara was a great and righteous king. He had two wives: Vaidarbhī, a princess of Vidarbha, and Śaibhyā, a princess of the Śibi line.

Sagara and his queens performed hard tapas (austerity) and pleased the ṛshi Aurva, who gave them a vara (a boon). Sagara asked for children. Aurva told him that one wife would bear one son, who would carry on the line, and the other would bear sixty thousand sons, who would all die together. Each queen could choose her portion. Vaidarbhī chose the one son who would continue the line. Śaibhyā chose the sixty thousand. (Vana Parva, Chapter 106)

Vaidarbhī bore one son, Asamañja. Though born a prince, he became known for a cruel nature and threw children into the river Sarayū for sport. In the end Sagara had to send him away. Asamañja’s own son, Aṃśumān, was gentle and good, a worthy heir. Śaibhyā bore sixty thousand sons, all brave, all devoted to their father and all eager to serve the kingdom.

The Aśvamedha and the stolen horse

Sagara decided to perform the Aśvamedha, the great horse yajña (fire ritual) that declares a king’s rule over the earth. The sacrificial horse was let loose to roam freely. Asamañja’s son Aṃśumān and the sixty thousand sons of Śaibhyā went with it.

Indra watched the ritual and was afraid of what Sagara’s complete rule might mean. He stole the horse and hid it far underground, in Pātāla, in the āśrama (forest dwelling) of the great ṛshi Kapila, who sat there in deep meditation. (Vana Parva, Chapter 107)

The sixty thousand sons dig into the earth

Sagara found that the horse was gone. He told his sixty thousand sons to search for it, and to dig into the earth itself if they had to. They set to work with great strength. Together they dug up the earth across wide lands, turning mountains into valleys. The places they dug out filled with what became the great ocean. They dug down through all the layers of the earth, and turned over the ground across the whole land of Bhārata. (Vana Parva, Chapter 107)

At last, deep in the earth, they found the horse. Close by sat the ṛshi Kapila, in deep samādhi, perfectly still, shining with great tapas. The sons of Sagara, excited and sure of themselves, wrongly believed that the meditating ṛshi had stolen the horse. They surrounded him, shouted accusations and insults at him, and got ready to attack. (Vana Parva, Chapter 108)

Kapila’s anger and the burning

The violent noise broke Kapila’s meditation. He opened his eyes. The fire of countless ages of tapas was gathered in them, and from his glance came sudden and total destruction. All sixty thousand sons of Sagara were burned to ash in a moment. The horse stood unharmed beside the heap of ash. (Vana Parva, Chapter 108)

Time passed and Sagara’s sons did not return. Sagara told his grandson Aṃśumān, Asamañja’s good son, to go and find them. Aṃśumān went down through the passages his uncles had dug and came to the place deep in the earth where the ash lay. There he found the horse standing. He also found the great ṛshi Kapila, calm again. Aṃśumān came to him with perfect humility, bowed low, and praised him in fine words. He asked what had happened to his uncles and how they could be set free.

Kapila was pleased with Aṃśumān’s calm and respect. He told him that the sixty thousand could not be freed by any ordinary means. Their ashes could be purified, and they could be freed, only by the touch of the celestial Gaṅgā, the river that flows in the realms of the devas. Only when Gaṅgā came to earth and flowed over their ash would their moksha (liberation) be sure. Kapila also gave Aṃśumān the horse, so that Sagara’s yajña could be finished. (Vana Parva, Chapter 109)

Aṃśumān returned, the yajña was completed, and Sagara’s rule was formally declared. But the sixty thousand sons were still not freed. Their liberation needed the descent of Gaṅgā, and that would take three more generations of tapas, ending with Bhagīratha. The account of Bhagīratha bringing down Gaṅgā is told separately.

Aṃśumān and Dilīpa’s tapas

Aṃśumān spent the rest of his life in tapas to bring Gaṅgā to earth, but did not succeed. He passed the task to his son Dilīpa. Dilīpa also did great tapas all his life, and Gaṅgā did not come down in his time either. Dilīpa passed his hope and his task to his son Bhagīratha, the fourth generation from Sagara. In Bhagīratha the tapas at last bore fruit. (Vana Parva, Chapter 109)

Sources

  • Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 106–109