Sagara's Sons Dig the Ocean Bed

The sons of Sagara searched the earth again, more desperately than before. They could not return to their father without the horse — and they had already searched everywhere. Then they found it: a yawning hole in the earth, a gaping wound in the ground that led downward into darkness. They entered. Inside, they began to dig. They took up spades and axes and drove them into the earth. They dug through the bed of what had once been an ocean — a dry, waterless basin that stretched beneath the surface of the world. They did not stop. Varuna's abode — the realm of the god of the waters — was ripped apart on all sides by their digging. It suffered extreme pain. The beings who lived there — asuras (demons), nagas (serpents), rakshasas (flesh-eating spirits), and countless others — were killed by Sagara's sons as they dug. They screamed in pain. Hundreds and thousands of living beings were seen with severed heads, without torsos, with their thighs, bones, and heads shattered. Still the sons of Sagara dug. They tore through the ocean bed, the ancient home of crocodiles and deep waters, driven by their father's command and their own fury. A great deal of time passed. The horse could still not be seen. In their anger, Sagara's sons turned their digging toward the north-eastern direction. They dug until they reached the lowest region — the nether worlds beneath the earth. And there, at last, they saw it. The sacrificial horse was roaming on the surface of the ground, unharmed, as if it had simply been waiting. But the horse was not alone. Beside it stood the great-souled Kapila — a sage of immense power, unsurpassed in his mass of energy, radiant in his austerities, blazing like a flaming fire. His eyes were closed in meditation. His body glowed with the heat of centuries of penance. Sagara's sons had found what they were looking for. But they had no idea what they had walked into.