The sages gathered and asked, “How did King Sagara come to be born together with poison? And why did this king, in his anger, expel the Śakas and other powerful Kṣatriyas from their proper duties and dharmas?” The Sūta replied: Once, King Bāhu’s kingdom was seized by the Haihayas, Tāla-jaṅghas, and the Śakas, who had joined forces. Alongside them, the Yavanas, Pāradas, Kāmbojas, and Pahlavas—a total of five formidable groups—advanced in support of the Haihayas. Together, these mighty Kṣatriya leaders overpowered Bāhu and took his realm. Bereft of his kingdom, Bāhu left everything behind and retreated into the forest with his wife, dedicating himself to a life of austerity and righteousness. After some time, weakened by age and hardship, King Bāhu set out to fetch water and died along the way. His wife, a noble Yādava woman who was pregnant, followed closely behind. But her co-wife, driven by jealousy, gave her poison in an attempt to destroy the unborn child. With heavy heart, the grieving queen prepared her husband’s funeral pyre, placed his body upon it, and was about to complete the rites when the sage Aurva, a descendant of Bhṛgu, saw her. Moved by compassion, Aurva stopped her from entering the flames. He took her to his hermitage, where she gave birth to her child—together with the poison she had been given. This child, mighty-armed and righteous, was named Sagara. Aurva performed the sacred birth rites for Sagara, taught him the Vedas and all the scriptures, and bestowed upon him a powerful weapon. Sagara received the fiery weapon from Jāmadagnya, one so potent that even the demons could not withstand it. Armed with this weapon and his own strength, Sagara, in his anger, destroyed the Haihayas just as Rudra might lay waste to herds of wild beasts. With his enemies vanquished, Sagara resolved to annihilate the Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Pāradas, and Pahlavas as well. As Sagara’s wrath descended upon them, these groups, seeking safety, fled to the great sage Vasiṣṭha and pleaded for his protection. Vasiṣṭha, moved by their plight, agreed to intervene. He restrained Sagara and assured the fleeing Kṣatriyas of their safety. Honoring his teacher’s word, Sagara acted in accordance with dharma. He did not destroy them, but he changed their appearance and status: he shaved half the heads of the Śakas and sent them away; he completely shaved the heads of the Yavanas and Kāmbojas; he made the Pāradas wear their hair loose, and the Pahlavas to keep beards. All of these groups were deprived of the right to recite the Vedas and perform ritual utterances, as decreed by Sagara, the noble king. Thus, the Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Pahlavas, Pāradas, and others—the Kelisparśas, Māhiṣikas, Dārvās, Colas, and Khasas—were stripped of their traditional dharma by Sagara, as Vasiṣṭha had instructed. Having restored order and righteousness, Sagara, victorious in dharma, conquered the earth and prepared for the great Aśvamedha sacrifice. He released the sacrificial horse to roam freely as was the custom. As the horse wandered near the shores of the eastern and southern oceans, it mysteriously disappeared into the earth. Determined to recover the horse, Sagara and his sons dug into the earth, eventually reaching the vast ocean’s edge. There, they beheld the primordial deity—Hari, Kṛṣṇa, Prajāpati, Viṣṇu in the form of Kapila, Haṃsa, Nārāyaṇa, the Lord himself. When Sagara’s sons approached the gaze of the Lord, they were consumed by his radiance and were burned, leaving only four survivors. The four who remained—Barhiketu, Saketu, and three devoted to dharma, Śūra and Pañcavana—became the progenitors of Sagara’s lineage. The blessed Hari, Nārāyaṇa, then granted Sagara boons: an undiminished lineage, the right to perform a hundred Aśvamedha sacrifices, a mighty son, the ocean itself, and eternal residence in heaven. The ocean, which had taken the horse, paid homage to Sagara, the lord of rivers, and through this act, the ocean came to be known as ‘Sāgara.’ Sagara, retrieving the horse from the ocean, went on to perform the Aśvamedha sacrifice a hundred times. Yet, of the sons who followed the horse, sixty thousand were burned up, their brilliance merging into Nārāyaṇa. Thus it is told: sixty thousand sons perished in this way. The sages then inquired, “How were these mighty sons of Sagara born? By what means did sixty thousand valiant ones come into being?” The Sūta explained: Sagara had two wives, both purified by austerity. The elder was Keśinī, daughter of the king of Vidarbha. The younger, supremely virtuous and unmatched in beauty, was the daughter of Ariṣṭanemi. Both queens worshipped the sage Aurva through their penances, and he granted them a boon: one wife would bear a single son, the creator of the lineage, while the other would give birth to sixty thousand sons. Keśinī chose to bear the one son who would be the best and the cause of the lineage, while the younger, the sister of Suparṇa, accepted the nurturing of sixty thousand sons. The king, Sumati, undertook their care. In due time, Keśinī gave birth to her eldest son, Asamañja, of the Kakutstha line. Sumati, the illustrious one, gave birth to a womb shaped like a jar, from which sixty thousand sons emerged. She placed these embryos in jars filled with ghee, and the king appointed a nurse for each to ensure their nourishment. After nine months, the noble sons emerged, bringing great joy to Sagara. In time, these sixty thousand sons, following the sacrificial horse, entered the forest. The eldest among them, a tiger among men, was Asamañja, mighty and bearing the sacrificial crest, the pride of Sagara’s lineage.