Agastya

Agastya was a revered Vedic sage of Hinduism. In the Indian tradition, he is a noted recluse and an influential scholar in diverse languages of the Indian subcontinent. He and his wife Lopamudra are the celebrated authors of hymns 1.165 to 1.191 in the Sanskrit text Rigveda and other Vedic literature. He is the son of Pulastya and brother of Vishrava, making Ravana and his siblings his niece and nephews. In Valmiki Ramayan, it is stated that Asuras hid inside the ocean so that the Devas couldn’t harm them. The Devas requested Rishi Agastya for help, and he drank the entire ocean using his austerity and mystic powers. The Devas killed the Asuras, and asked the sage to return the ocean’s water. He was not able to throw the water out, so he urinated the entire ocean, and hence the oceans and seas taste changed from sweet to salty. In some scriptures, it is stated that during Lord Shiva’s marriage, everyone in the universe went to witness the event in the Himalayas, in the North. Bhūmi Devi or the Earth Goddess was not able to bear this misbalance and prayed to Lord Shiva for help, who then told Agastya to go to the south end. Rishi Agastya went to the south and the earth’s balance was restored. On one side there was the entire universe and on the other side was Agastya, whose austerity power and aura balanced the earth! Agastya decided to stay in the south and Lord Shiva granted him the knowledge of the Tamil Language, which he later developed. Agastya also saw that there were Ganga and Yamuna Rivers in the North, while there was no rivers to sustain civilization in the South. The sage prayed to Lord Brahma and asked to bestow one of the divine rivers in his area, and Lord Brahma granted him to take River Kaveri to the south. Agastya appears in numerous itihasas and puranas including the major Ramayana and Mahabharata. He is one of the seven or eight most revered rishis (the Saptarishi) in the Vedic texts, and is revered as one of the Tamil Siddhar in the Shaivism tradition, who invented an early grammar of the Tamil language, Agattiyam, playing a pioneering role in the development of Tampraparniyan medicine and spirituality at Saiva centres in proto-era Sri Lanka and South India. He is also revered in the Puranic literature of Shaktism and Vaishnavism. He is the one who was created by Siva to offer boons to Kaliyan. He is one of the Indian sages found in ancient sculpture and reliefs in Hindu temples of South Asia, and Southeast Asia such as in the early medieval era Shaiva temples on Java Indonesia. He is the principal figure and Guru in the ancient Javanese language text Agastyaparva, whose 11th century version survives. Agastya is traditionally attributed to be the author of many Sanskrit texts such as the Agastya Gita found in Varaha Purana, Agastya Samhita found embedded in Skanda Purana, and the Dvaidha-Nirnaya Tantra text. He is also referred to as Mana, Kalasaja, Kumbhaja, Kumbhayoni and Maitravaruni after his mythical origins.

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