Agastya and Lopāmudrā

Classical

Lomaśa tells this tale to Yudhiṣṭhira at Agastya's hermitage. Agastya had seen his ancestors hanging head-down in a pit, because they had no descendants. They begged him to father a son and save them. Finding no woman worthy of him, he gathered the loveliest parts of many creatures and made a girl from them. He gave her to the childless king of Vidarbha, who was doing penance for a child, and the Brahmins named her Lopāmudrā. She grew up radiant, attended by a hundred maidens, and so splendid, and her father so formidable, that no suitor dared ask for her.

When Agastya judged her ready, he asked the king for her hand. The king was dismayed: he did not want to give his daughter to an ascetic, and he feared the sage's curse. He and the queen could not decide. Lopāmudrā saw their distress and told her father to give her to Agastya and protect himself. The marriage was performed. Agastya told his bride to take off her costly dress and jewels, and without complaint she put on bark, rags and deerskin and matched his vows. They went to Gaṅgādvāra, where he practised penance and she served him devotedly.

Some time later he saw her come from her bath, glowing, at the time when she could conceive, and called her to him. Lopāmudrā answered modestly and plainly. A husband marries to have children, she said, and she asked him to treat her with the love she felt for him. She wanted a bed like the one in her father's palace, garlands and ornaments for them both, and her own heavenly jewels. She would not come to him in dyed rags. Agastya admitted he had no such wealth. She said a man of his power could summon anything in a moment, but he warned that doing so would spend his merit. She did not want that either; she asked him to grant her wish without loss to his virtue.

So Agastya went out to ask for wealth that would harm no one. He went to King Śrutarvan, who said that his spending equalled his income and there was no surplus, so Agastya took him along. They went to Vradhnaśva and then to Trasadasyu, who said the same. The kings looked at one another and suggested the Dānava Ilvala, said to be the richest man on earth. Together they went to him. Ilvala, the brother of Vātāpi, had a habit of killing Brahmins: he cooked Vātāpi in the form of a ram, served him as a feast, and then called out, and Vātāpi tore his way out of the guests' bodies. This time Agastya ate the whole meal. When Ilvala called, Agastya only released wind and said the Asura was already digested. Ilvala gave each king ten thousand cows and as much gold, and Agastya twice that, with a golden chariot whose horses carried them home in a moment. Back at the hermitage, Lopāmudrā asked for a single learned son rather than many. After seven years in the womb, Dṛḍhasyu was born, called Idhmavāha because he carried firewood for his father.

Told by Lomaśa → Yudhiṣṭhira

Who: Agastya, Lopāmudrā, Ilvala, Vātāpi, Śrutarvan, Vradhnaśva, Trasadasyu

Bound to

Agastya origin

Lomasha's pilgrimage and the brothers Ilvala and Vatapi origin

Agastya Humbles the Vindhya and Drinks the Ocean origin

Places: Vidarbha, Gaṅgādvāra, Maṇimatī

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section XCVI (Ilvala, Vātāpi and Lopāmudrā's birth)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section XCVII (Agastya weds Lopāmudrā)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section XCVIII (Agastya seeks wealth)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section XCIX (Ilvala, wealth, and Dṛḍhasyu)

See it on the tree · All stories

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