Agastya (अगस्त्यः)

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वंशावली ॥ Ancestry

The Puranic encyclopaedia traces the ancestry of Rshi Agastya right up to Lord Brahma.

Agastya and the Vindhyas

Once the talebearer Narada happened to come to the Vindhya mountain, who gladly welcomed Narada, gave him a seat, showed hospitality and asked for news. Narada said “May you be blessed. Just now I am coming from the Mahameru. Indra, Agni (fire) and other deities live there. Kailasa, Nishadha, Nila, Gandhamadana etc. are mountains far nobler than this Meru. But they are not so haughty as him. That the Sun and the Moon and such others revolve round him, is the reason for his arrogance”. On hearing these tales, Vindhya thought that Meru should be taught a lesson. Once vindhya made his peaks grow higher and higher till they touched the sky. The Sun, the Moon and others found it very difficult to pass over the high peaks in their usual journeys to the West, and so they had to roam about in the sky. When the journeys of the Sun and the Moon were hindered, everything in the world fell into chaos. The deities approached sage Agastya and made their petition to him. And he agreed to pacify Vindhya somehow or the other. With this objective, sage Agastya and his wife came to Vindhya from Kashinagara. When Vindhya saw sage Agastya, he began to shiver with fear. Contracting all his high peaks, he bowed before the sage, who then said to the mountain thus “Vindhya, I am going to South Bharata. Let your heads be low till I come back” and Vindhya agreed. Sage Agastya then went on to the South, built a hermitage in the Malayachala and lived there. Since then, neither has Agastya ever gone to the North nor has the Vindhya ever risen up. In fact, as he had made the mountain (Aga) bow its head, the sage is said to have got the name Agastya. This story is enumerated in the Tenth skandha (Chapters 2-7) of the Devi Bhagavata.

अगस्त्यकर्तृकं विन्ध्यगिरिवृद्धिनिवारणं देवैः सह सागरतटगमनं च (3.104)

पञ्चाधिकशततमोऽध्यायः

तीर्थयात्रापर्व

अगस्त्येन समुद्रसलिले पीते सति देवैर्दैत्यसंहारः पुनः समुद्रपूरणविषये देवानां ब्रह्माणं प्रति प्रश्नः

षडधिकशततमोऽध्यायः

तीर्थयात्रापर्व

राज्ञः सागरस्य सन्तानार्थं तपः शिवकर्तृकं वरप्रदानं च