Maheshvara

Having learned that only Maheshvara can bear the force of Ganga's descent, Bhagiratha travels to Mount Kailasa and begins a new round of austerities. He does not stop until Shankara himself grants the boon: the god will bear the river on his head, so that Bhagiratha's fathers may finally reach heaven.

For a thousand celestial years, King Bhagiratha lives on nothing but fruits, roots, and water, performing terrible austerities to bring the river Ganga down from heaven. When she finally appears in personified form and asks what he desires, he tells her the story of his grandfathers — the sixty thousand sons of Sagara, destroyed by the sage Kapila, whose ashes cannot reach heaven without being touched by her waters. Ganga agrees to descend, but warns him that no one in the three worlds can withstand her force except Nilakantha Maheshvara himself.

Having described the grahas that afflict children, Markandeya turns to the seven types of grahas that seize men beyond sixteen years of age — each born from a different kind of encounter with gods, ancestors, siddhas, rakshasas, gandharvas, yakshas, or pishachas. But there is a protection that holds against them all.

Ravana, burning with desire, approaches Sita in the ashoka grove where she sits sorrowful and guarded by rakshasis. He adorns himself splendidly and offers her his wealth, power, and lineage — only to be rejected so utterly that even he, the rakshasa king, cannot bring himself to take her against her will.