Sagara Upākhyāna

Sagara was a great king of the Ikshvāku line, the dynasty of the Sun. The Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa tells of his conquest of the four quarters, his two queens, the birth of his sixty thousand sons from a gourd, and the aśvamedha (horse yajña) that went wrong. It tells how the sons were burned to ash before Kapila, and how his grandson Aṃśumant went to find them.

Sagara’s conquest and the foreign peoples

King Sagara was a cakravartī (a king over all the earth) of great power. He undertook a digvijaya (conquest of the four quarters) to win rule over all. In this conquest he met the Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbhojas, Pāradas, Pahlavas and other foreign peoples who had come in over the borders of Āryāvarta.

Sagara did not destroy them. He and his teacher Vasishṭha ordered that these peoples should be lowered in rank. They were kshatriyas by birth. They were stripped of the Vedic rites, the sacred thread and the tonsure ceremony. They were declared mlecchas (outcastes from the Vedic order). They had to keep their hair in set styles as visible marks of their fallen state. The Śakas wore it half-shaved, the Yavanas wore it fully loose, the Kāmbhojas wore it uncut, and the Pāradas let it hang free.

Sagara’s wives and the vara for sons

Sagara married two queens. One was Keśinī, daughter of a noble line. The other was Sumatī, a woman of divine beauty. The two queens went with Sagara to the āśrama of the great ṛshi Aurva on the Himavat, to do tapas and prayer.

Aurva was pleased with their devotion and gave Sagara a vara (a boon). Sagara asked for countless sons. Aurva gave the vara with a condition. One queen would bear a single son who would carry on the line. The other would bear sixty thousand sons, and all sixty thousand would die together from one cause.

Keśinī took the smaller number and received the vara of one son who would continue the dynasty. Sumatī received the vara of the sixty thousand.

The birth of the sixty thousand

Sumatī did not bear ordinary children. In time she brought forth a gourd, a large vessel like a pumpkin. When it was cut open, sixty thousand tiny beings came out. They were raised in jars of ghṛta (clarified butter) and looked after with divine care. They grew into mighty warriors, and each had his father’s strength in battle and his fearless nature. They became known together as the Sagara-putras, the sons of Sagara.

Asamañjasa, the son of Keśinī, was the eldest of the line and the heir to the throne, although his conduct was troublesome. His son Aṃśumant was of noble character.

The aśvamedha and the theft of the horse

Sagara performed the great aśvamedha yajña. As the custom required, the yajña horse was set free to roam the earth. Indra feared the power that Sagara would win by finishing the aśvamedha. He stole the horse and hid it in the lower world, in the āśrama of Kapila muni in pātāla.

Sagara found that the horse was gone. He sent all sixty thousand of his sons to search every region of the earth. They found no sign of it on the surface. Then they began to dig. They tore open the earth and cut down through its layers, and what they dug became the bed of the ocean.

Kapila’s glance

The sixty thousand sons dug down into the lower world. There they found the horse standing quietly near the āśrama of Kapila muni, who is a form of Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. He was deep in meditation.

The sons took Kapila for the thief who had taken their horse. They disturbed his meditation with their shouts and charges. Kapila opened his eyes. One glance was enough. The divine fire that came from his eyes burned all sixty thousand sons of Sagara to ash in an instant. None was left alive.

Word came to Sagara that none of his sixty thousand sons had come back. He sent his grandson Aṃśumant, the son of Asamañjasa, to follow their path. Aṃśumant went down into the pit his uncles had dug. He followed it through the layers of the earth and came at last to the āśrama of Kapila in pātāla.

There he saw the heaps of ash that had once been his sixty thousand great-uncles. The horse was grazing close by. He came to Kapila with humility and respect.

Kapila was pleased with his conduct and told him the truth. The sixty thousand could not be freed by any means of this world. Their ātmās lay in ash, without the proper rites and not yet set free. Only the descent of the divine river Gaṅgā could free them, for only her cleansing waters could release ātmās that were trapped. But Gaṅgā was in the sky, held there by the order of Brahmā. A descendant of Sagara with very great tapas would be needed to bring her down. Kapila also gave the horse back to Aṃśumant.

Sagara’s last acts

Aṃśumant came back with the horse, and Sagara finished the aśvamedha. The yajña was complete. Yet the grief for his sixty thousand sons, who had not been freed, stayed with Sagara all his life.

He crowned Aṃśumant as king after him and in time left the world. The great task of bringing Gaṅgā down was left as the unfinished duty of the Ikshvāku line. Generation after generation of his descendants would try the tapas needed to bring Gaṅgā to earth. They were Aṃśumant, his son Dilīpa, and finally his grandson Bhagīratha, who alone succeeded.

Sources

  • Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapters 48–55
  • Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturdhāmsa, Chapters 3–4