← 1.40.25 · Bāla Kāṇḍa 40: Story of Sagara: Aṃśumat retrieves the horse

Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.40.26

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.

1.40.26

agatvā niścayaṃ rājā kālena mahatā mahān
triṃśadvarṣasahasrāṇi rājyaṃ kṛtvā divaṃ gataḥ

Not having reached any certainty, that great king, after a long time, having reigned for thirty thousand years, went to heaven.

Words: agatvā — not having reached, attained; niścayaṃ — certainty, a settled means; rājā — the king; kālena — in time, after a period; mahatā — great, long; mahān — the great (king); triṃśadvarṣasahasrāṇi — thirty thousand years; rājyaṃ — the kingship, rule; kṛtvā — having exercised, done; divaṃ — to heaven; gataḥ — went, gone

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.