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Skandha 9, adhyaya 8 · Saptah day 4
Digging through the earth for their father's stolen horse, sixty thousand princes accuse silent Kapila of theft and burn in their own anger.
In the eighth chapter of the ninth skandha (`9.8.1–7`), the sage Shukadeva traces the Solar dynasty of Ikshvaku down to a famous four-generation saga that culminates in the young king Bhagiratha bringing the celestial Ganga down to earth (`9.8–9`). It begins in exile and danger. King Bahuka of the Solar line had lost his kingdom to a coalition of Haihaya, Talajangha, Shaka, Yavana, Kamboja, Parada, and Pahlava warriors (`9.8.1`, `9.8.5`). Retiring to the forest with his queen, Bahuka died of old age (`9.8.2`). When his grieving pregnant queen prepared to ascend her husband's funeral pyre (`anumarana`), the great sage Aurva—who knew through his inner vision that she carried a future emperor in her womb,and that her co-wives had secretly fed her poison (`gara`) to destroy the child—forbade her from entering the fire and sheltered her in his own hermitage (`9.8.2–3`).
There the queen gave birth to a radiant boy who came out of the womb together with the poison her co-wives had administered; because he was born "with poison" (`sa-gara`), he was named Sagara (`9.8.4`). Raised under the watchful instruction of Sage Aurva, Sagara grew into a mighty emperor (`cakravarti`). Honoring his guru's command (`9.8.5–6`), he defeated the foreign tribes without slaughtering them wholesale—instead shaving their heads, leaving some half-shaven or bearded, and forbidding their slaughter once they surrendered (`9.8.5–6`)—and then set out to worship Lord Hari, the Soul of all the Vedas, by performing great horse sacrifices (`ashvamedha`, `9.8.6–7`).
Emperor Sagara had two queens (`9.8.7`): Sumati, the daughter of Kasyapa/Arishtanemi, and Keshini, a princess of Vidarbha. By Queen Sumati, Sagara fathered sixty thousand proud, fierce sons (`shashtir putra-sahasrani`, `9.8.7–8`). By Queen Keshini, he had a single son named Asamanjasa (`9.8.15`), who in turn fathered a gentle, respectful prince named Amshuman (`9.8.15`), the grandfather of the future King Bhagiratha (`9.9.1–2`).
Shukadeva pauses (`9.8.15–19`) to explain the strange character of Keshini's son Asamanjasa. In his previous life, Asamanjasa had been a realized yogi who slipped from his yoga practice due to bad association, yet retained full memory of his past (`9.8.16`). Wishing to stay completely detached from royal entanglements, he deliberately acted in ways that displeased his relatives (`9.8.16–17`).Pretending to be deranged (`avyakta-vartma`), he even threw playing children of Ayodhya into the Sarayu River, terrifying the citizens until Sagara exiled him from the city (`9.8.17–18`). Only at the end of his stay did Asamanjasa display his mystic yogic power by bringing all those children back out of the water alive and unharmed before walking away forever into the forest (`9.8.18–19`), leaving his devoted son Amshuman always ready at Grandfather Sagara's side (`9.8.15`).
When Emperor Sagara let loose the consecrated horse of his horse sacrifice (`9.8.7–8`), Indra, the king of heaven—alarmed as always that a mortal monarch might eclipse his hundred sacrifices—stole the sacrificial stallion and hid it (`9.8.8`).
At their father's command (`pitri-shasanat`, `9.8.8`), the sixty thousand sons of Queen Sumati marched out in arrogant strength to recover the horse (`9.8.8–9`). Searching every corner of the land and finding no trace on the surface, the sixty thousand princes began digging up the entire earth (`cakruh khananam bhuvah`), tearing open mountains and plains on every side (`samantatah`) until their spades hollowed out the vast basin that was afterwards named the *Sagara*—the ocean—after their father (`9.8.9–10`).
At last, deep in the northeast below the surface of the earth (`prag-udicyam dishi`, `9.8.10`), the princes spotted the stolen horse standing quietly beside the ancient sage Kapila (`9.8.10`). As the Bhagavatam has already taught in the third skandha (`3.24–33`), Kapila Muni is none other than a plenary avatara of the Supreme Person Vishnu, born to Kardama and Devahuti to teach the liberative wisdom of Sankhya and devotion. Indra had deliberately tied the horse beside the silent meditating sage and vanished, hoping the hot-headed princes would offend him (`9.8.10–11`).
With their minds blinded by Indra's trick (`indra-upavancitah`, `9.8.11`), the sixty thousand brothers saw the horse standing next to the sage and immediately jumped to a fatal conclusion. "Here is the horse-thief (`esha vaji-harah corah`)!" they shouted to one another (`9.8.11`). "Look how the wicked rogue sits pretending to meditate with his eyes shut (`aste milita-locanah`)! Kill him! Kill him (`hana hana`)!" Raising their weapons in fury, all sixty thousand princes charged at the peaceful sage (`9.8.11–12`).
In that very instant (`tat-kshanat`), as Kapila opened his eyes (`unmimesha`), the sixty thousand princes were robbed of their senses by their own transgression against a great soul (` sva-kritena aparadhena`), and a blazing fire bursting out of their own bodies (`sva-shariragnina`) burned them to a heap of ash (`bhasmasad abhavan`, `9.8.12`).
Right here (`9.8.13–14`), Shukadeva interrupts the narrative to correct a widespread misunderstanding that readers might bring from popular retellings:
> "To claim that the sons of the king were burned up by the anger of the sage (`muni-kopa-bharjitah`) is no sound teaching of the wise (`na sadhu-vadah`, `9.8.13`)! For how could the darkness of anger (`tamo rusha`) ever exist in one whose sole form is pure, unalloyed goodness (`sattvam विशुद्धं`) that purifies the entire world—any more than earthly dust can ever stick to the sky (`na parthivam rajo vimane`, `9.8.13`)? How could hostile dualities—seeing someone as 'another' or an enemy (`bheda`)—arise in that sage who laid down the solid ship of Sankhya philosophy across this ocean of death, by boarding which anyone seeking freedom crosses over the perilous path of ignorance (`9.8.14`)?"
Kapila, in other words, did not curse them or shoot fire from his eyes; just as a person who hurls himself against an unmoving mountain is shattered by his own impact, the princes were consumed by the inner fire of offending one who dwelt in pure *sattva* (`9.8.12–14`).
When the sixty thousand princes failed to return (`9.8.19–20`), anxious King Sagara sent his grandson Amshuman—the humble son of Asamanjasa—to search for his uncles and the sacrificial horse (`9.8.20`). Walking along the deep trenches his uncles had excavated across the earth (`pitri-khanita-vartmana`, `9.8.20`), Amshuman reached the northeast pit. There he saw the heaps of ash (`bhasmanah rashi`) where his sixty thousand uncles had stood, and right beside them the sacrificial horse and the radiant sage Kapila sitting like a smokeless flame (`9.8.21`).
Instead of drawing a weapon, Amshuman recognized the Supreme Lord in the sage (`9.8.21–22`). With his heart serene, he folded his palms, bowed his head to the ground, and offered a sublime philosophical hymn (`9.8.22–26`):
> "Even the unborn creator Brahma does not know you who stand higher than himself (`9.8.22`), nor to this day has he fathomed you throughEither meditation or analytical inquiry! How then can other gods, sages, and mortal creatures formed later out of mind and bodies ever comprehend you (`9.8.22`)? Embodied beings planted inside the modes of nature (`guneshu`) look outward through the three *gunas*—sattva, rajas, and tamas—and never perceive you standing within them as pure consciousness (`jnana-ghana`), free from the *gunas* (`9.8.23`). Even the wise led by Sanandana and the Kumaras, though sitting in hearts silenced of the modes (`prasanta-maya-guneshu`), only behold your direct reality when your own revelation shines (`9.8.24`). How then can deluded men like us, covered by the body of karma and ignorance, fathom your secret descents (`9.8.24`)? Today I behold directly before me the peaceful Lord Kapila (`prashantam kapilam`), the ancient treasury of wisdom whose radiant presence washes away the triple delusion of desire, karma, and the gunas (`9.8.25–26`)!"
Deeply pleased by the young prince's humility and clear insight (`9.8.27`), the supreme sage Kapila spoke to him with a gracious voice (`9.8.27–29`):
> "My dear child, here is the sacrificial horse of your grandfather (`9.8.28`)—take it and go in peace! As for your burned forebears sitting here as ash (`ime pitrikah dagdhah`), they are eligible for purification by no water other than the celestial Ganga (`ganga-ambhah neha netarat`, `9.8.29`)!"
Wait upon that water that flows from the lotus feet of Vishnu, Kapila told him (`9.8.29`); only when the Ganga touches these ashes will your sixty thousand uncles rise from their offense to heaven.
Bowing his head and circling the sage in reverence (`parikramya`, `9.8.30`), Amshuman led the horse back to Ayodhya. With the stallion recovered (`9.8.30`), Emperor Sagara completed his horse sacrifice, handed over the kingdom of the earth to his worthy grandson Amshuman, freed himself from every bond of desire and bodily attachment (`nihspriho mukta-bandhanah`), and following the path shown by Sage Aurva, attained the supreme destination (`9.8.30–31`). Yet for Amshuman—and after him his son Dilipa and his grandson Bhagiratha—the real labor had only begun: to bring down from the highest heaven the river that alone could wash the ashes of sixty thousand proud men clean.
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