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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.40.24

Bāla Kāṇḍa, sarga 40: Story of Sagara: Aṃśumat retrieves the horse. Aṃśumat recovers the horse and finds his uncles’ ashes, Garuḍa says only Gaṅgā can redeem them, Sagara completes the sacrifice but cannot bring her down

In the sequence: Aṃśumat returns and reports everything → Sagara completes the rite and returns to Ayodhyā, but cannot discover how to bring Gaṅgā down → after a reign of thirty thousand years, he dies.

1.40.24

tac chrutvā ghorasaṃkāśaṃ vākyam aṃśumato nṛpaḥ
yajñaṃ nirvartayām āsa yathākalpaṃ yathāvidhi

Hearing that dreadful-seeming report of Aṃśumat, the king completed the sacrifice according to prescription and rule.

Words: tac — that; chrutvā — having heard; ghorasaṃkāśaṃ — dreadful-seeming, terrible in appearance; vākyam — word, report; aṃśumato — of Aṃśumat; nṛpaḥ — the king; yajñaṃ — the sacrifice; nirvartayām āsa — completed, brought to a close; yathākalpaṃ — according to prescription; yathāvidhi — according to rule

Composed by Maharṣi Vālmīki, the ādikavi of the ādikāvya: the first poet of the first poem. Sanskrit: The Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa: Critical Edition, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1960–1975 (gen. eds. G. H. Bhatt, U. P. Shah); IAST from GRETIL (Göttingen). Translation and word glosses: Claude Opus 4.6–4.7; summaries and sequences: ChatGPT Astra (machine-made). Numbering follows the Critical Edition, not the vulgate (e.g. Gita Press, valmikiramayan.net), so sarga and verse numbers can differ from those editions.