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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.40.25

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.

1.40.25

svapuraṃ cāgamac chrīmān iṣṭayajño mahīpatiḥ
gaṅgāyāś cāgame rājā niścayaṃ nādhyagacchata

And the illustrious lord of the earth, having offered his sacrifice, returned to his own city; but the king could reach no sure means for the bringing-down of Gaṅgā.

Words: svapuraṃ — to his own city; cāgamac — and returned, came; chrīmān — the illustrious one; iṣṭayajño — having offered the sacrifice; mahīpatiḥ — lord of the earth; gaṅgāyāś — of Gaṅgā; cāgame — and about the descent/bringing (of her); rājā — the king; niścayaṃ — certainty, a settled means; nādhyagacchata — did not attain

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.