Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.1148

c4.1148

7) Sagara's sons and how Aurva helped in getting them. Sagara ruled the land for three thousand years. He had besides Sumati another wife, Keśinī. Both of them bore no sons for Sagara. Dejected he entrusted the administration of the state with his ministers and left for the āśrama of Aurva. Aurva blessed them and prophesied that Keśinī would deliver a son to continue the dynasty and that Sumati would deliver sixty thousand sons of no great use at all. Sagara and his wives, returned to the palace and very soon both his wives became pregnant. In due time Keśinī delivered a son who was named Asamañjas. But Sumati gave birth to a lump of flesh. Greatly pained the King was about to throw it away when Aurva appeared there and stopped him from doing that. He directed him to cut the piece of flesh into sixty thousand pieces and put one piece each in a jar of ghee. Every year one prince would be born from one of them. Thus Sumati got sixty thousand sons. (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Chapter 92).