Anshuman Retrieves the Sacrificial Horse from Kapila
Sagara, tormented by the loss of his sixty thousand sons and the stalled sacrifice, commands his grandson Anshuman to retrieve the horse from hell. Anshuman descends through the torn earth, finds the sage Kapila and the horse, and bows before the ancient rishi — asking not just for the horse, but for water to purify his dead fathers.
Sagara had lost everything. His sixty thousand sons, sent to guard the sacrificial horse, had been burned to ashes by the energy of Kapila — a sage so ancient and powerful that his mere glance could reduce armies to dust. The horse itself was still there, standing beside Kapila in the depths of the earth. But Sagara could not reach it. He could not complete the sacrifice. He could not even grieve properly, because the grief was too large to hold.
He summoned his grandson Anshuman.
"O son," Sagara said, "I am aggrieved that I abandoned your father. I am aggrieved at the death of my sons. I am tormented because I have not been able to obtain the horse. I am deluded because of this impediment to the sacrifice. You must bring back the horse from hell."
Anshuman did not argue. He went to the place where the earth had been torn apart — the wound left by his fathers' passage — and entered through it. He descended into the ocean, into the realm beneath the world, and found what he was looking for.
There was Kapila, the great-souled one, ancient and supreme among rishis. And there was the horse.
Anshuman bowed his head to the ground before Kapila. He told the sage why he had come. And Kapila, pleased with the young man's bearing, told him to ask for a boon.
Anshuman asked for two things. First: the horse, so that his grandfather's sacrifice could be completed. Second: water to purify his fathers — the sixty thousand sons of Sagara, whose ashes lay somewhere in this dark place, unredeemed.
Kapila looked at him. "Forgiveness, dharma and truth are established in you," he said. "Sagara will become successful through you. Your father has truly got a son. Through your powers, the sons of Sagara will go to heaven."
Then Kapila spoke of what would come next — something Anshuman himself could not accomplish, but that his bloodline would. "Your grandson will bring down the three-coursed one from heaven. He will satisfy Maheshvara and purify the sons of Sagara."
He gave Anshuman the horse.
Anshuman returned to the sacrificial ground, bowed at Sagara's feet, and told him everything — what he had seen, what he had heard, how his sons had died, and that the horse was now back. Sagara inhaled the fragrance of his grandson's head, a gesture of blessing and acceptance. He stopped grieving. He completed the sacrifice. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 403