Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

King Sagara, an ancestor of King Bhagiratha, once conducted an ashwamedha yagna to extend his dominion. When the horse went astray, the king sent his 60,000 sons to find the horse. Unfortunately, in the course of the quest, they ended up disrupting the intense meditation of sage Kapila, at whose abode they found the horse. Kapila burnt them all to ashes, sending them all to the netherworld—an act he instantly regretted when he realised what had happened. After breaking the news to King Sagara, he mentioned that the souls of King Sagara’s sons could attain salvation only if the heavenly Ganga could be persuaded to flow over their ashes.

It was Bhagiratha, whose austere penance and devotion pleased Lord Shiva so much so that he persuaded Ganga to descend to the earth. Ganga consented, but the problem arose that the earth would probably be unable to bear the intensity of Ganga’s flow and even be shattered in the process. Thus, a solution was devised: Ganga would first land on Shiva’s head and the locks of his hair would minimise the impact. Still, the force of Ganga’s landing was such that it split into seven tributaries, three of which flowed east and three of them west. The seventh stream followed King Bhagiratha to the place where his ancestor’s ashes lay. The river’s waters instantly purified them. This is also the origin of the belief that the Ganga’s waters can purify mortal souls of all their sins.