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The deities' anxious weeping and prayers over Tarakasura eventually disturbed Lord Shiva's seclusion with Parvati; angered, he released his divine Tejas onto the earth, declaring that whoever could sustain it should do so — and only Lord Agni, taking the form of a dove, was able to gather it.

Furious that Shiva's Tejas had fallen to the earth instead of entering her womb during their disrupted union, Parvati cursed the Devas' wives to remain barren, and cursed Agni to become the eternal consumer of all things (Sarvabhakshi), forever suffering burning agony for having taken the Tejas out of ignorance.

Unable to bear the burning Tejas, Agni deposited it into six of the Seven Sages' wives while they bathed in the month of Magha; rejected by their husbands once pregnant, the six released the embryo onto the Himalayas, which passed it to the Ganga, who finally set it down in a forest of reeds — where it became the child Kartikeya.