Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.903

c4.903

1) Birth. There is a story about his birth in the Rāmāyaṇa. Once there was a king called Sagara in Ayodhyā. He married two women named Keśinī and Sumati. For a long time they had no sons and so they went to the Himālayas and started penance there in the mount of Bhṛguprasravaṇa. After a hundred years Bhṛgumaharṣi appeared before them and pleased them thus: "Your elder wife Keśinī will give birth to a son who will continue your dynasty and your second wife will give birth to sixty thousand children". After a few years Keśinī gave birth to Asamañjas and Sumati to a big ball of flesh. That ball broke and sixty thousand babes came out from it. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bālakāṇḍa, Sarga 83).