The King Sagara had two wives. He also had sixty thousand and one sons. Sixty thousand he had with one of the wives but with the other he had just one, called Asamanjas. It was Asamanjas, though, that was to continue the Royal dynasty.

Now the sixty thousand sons grew up big and strong, becoming great warriors. Asamanjas, on the other hand, who should have known how to behave as a prince, caused such a lot of misery to the people that the king had to expel him from the kingdom. Imagine! What shame! His son Ansuman was spared, though, and life continued much as usual in the kingdom.

One day King Sagara decided to perform the horse ceremony. A horse was allowed to roam at will, followed by warriors. Wherever the horse roamed, the people become subjects of the king. Anyone who stopped the horse, though, was challenging the king to war. So the sixty thousand sons set off after the horse and wandered hither and thither in its hoofprints. But then…. Disaster! The horse was lost.

After squabblings and blamings, seekings and searchings, blamings and fright, the sons had dug up the whole earth, the underworld and the oceans in their search for the missing animal. Then, unfortunately for them, they found it. It was unfortunate because they found it in a deep cavern close to where the holy man Kapila sat. He was meditating, and radiated peace and calm. The sons gathered the horse but - and this is the unfortunate part - they disturbed the great Kapila (also known as Vasudeva). In his fury, he instantly burnt them to ash with his fiery gaze.

At length, Sagara came to hear of what had happened. Desperate, he sent his grandson Ansuman to undo the harm. This involved descending to the underworld, but Ansuman obeyed his grandfather's order. Deep in the underworld he met Kapila, who - luckily - was very impressed by this courageous, witty and handsome young man. And Kapila had the power to grant that the souls of King Sangara's sons could be released by the waters of the Ganga. It looked as if the situation was saved!

But there was one problem. Ganga lived in heaven and nobody could persuade her down. Sangara implored her, Ansuman begged her, Dilipa, Ansuman's son, prayed to her. In vain they mourned and fasted. In the end it was Bhagiratha, Dilipa's son, who persuaded her. So everything should have been alright… but for one thing. If Ganga fell to earth, the impact of her fall would be so severe that only Shiva himself could bear it.

Once more it was Bhagiratha who saved the day. Again he meditated and fasted. Shiva heard him. When Ganga fell to earth at last, she landed in Shiva's matted hair and then flowed safely to earth. (Today the place where she landed in said to be the site of the present day temple at Gangotri).

Bhagiratha led the way on horseback and Shiva followed. When they reached the ashes of the sixty thousand sons, an ocean was formed and the sons were freed.

And to this very day it is here, at Sagar Island, that the Ganges flows into the Bay of Bengal.

(Note: 'Sagara' is also Sanskrit for 'ocean'.)