Visvamitra continued, saying, "Rama I will now narrate the story of an Ikshvaku ancestor. In the times past lived a virtuous king by name Sagara who was childless and whose yearning for them was intense. Kesini, the princess of Vidarbha known for righteousness was his first wife. Sagara's second wife was Arishtanemi's daughter Sumathi, whose beauty had no rival upon this earth.

One day Sagara accompanied by his two wives reached the Himalayan slopes and entered into a great penance. A hundred years passed thus.Bhrugu, pleased, came to Sagara and said, "my son, one of your wives shall give birth to one son, who will carry on your dynasty.The other will have sixty thousand sons of great valour and perseverance". Kesini and Sumati reverently asked the sage, "Brahmin which one will have the one son and which one will give birth to many?"To that question, Bhrugu's answer was that they had the freedom to choose.Kesini then chose to have the one son, who would be the heir.Sumathi, sister of Garuda, chose to be mother to the sixty thousand sons of valor and fame. Content and joyous the king along with his wives paid grateful obeisance to the noble sage and went back to Ayodhya.

Seasons passed and the time came when Kesini gave birth to a son, who was named Asamanjasa. Sumathi gave birth to a gourd like fetus, which then split and out of it emerged the sixty thousand sons. The nurses kept them in jars of clarified butter who in the course of time grew into young adolescence and then reached resplendent, handsome manhood. Asamnjasa also grew, but brought little joy to Sagara for the son of Kesini took to torturing children. He would seize them and hurl them into the waters of the Sarayu and watch gleefully as they struggled and drowned.Sagara banished him from Ayodhya.Asamanjasa's son Anshuman was valiant, courteous and loved by all. One day Sagara resolved to perform a yagna and gathering his priests and preceptors together, embarked on the rituals.