Agastya Humbles the Vindhya and Drinks the Ocean

Classical

Yudhiṣṭhira asks Lomaśa why the Vindhya mountain once grew so tall in anger. Lomaśa explains: the Sun went each day around golden Meru, and Vindhya, seeing it, demanded the same honour. The Sun replied that he did not go round Meru of his own will; the path was fixed by the beings who made the world. Furious, Vindhya swelled upward to block the Sun, Moon and stars, and ignored the gods' pleas.

The gods went to Agastya, a sage of extraordinary power, and asked him to stop the mountain. Agastya approached Vindhya with his wife and made a courteous request. He had to go to the southern region on business, and asked Vindhya to lower himself so that he could pass. He promised to return, and then Vindhya could grow as he wished. Agastya has never come back from the south, so Vindhya has stayed low ever since, bound by his word. The tale is a lesson in how subtle courtesy can do what force cannot.

Lomaśa then turns to another deed. After Indra killed Vṛtra with a thunderbolt made of the bones of Dadhīci, Vṛtra's followers the Kālakeyas fled into the ocean, the home of Varuṇa. At night they came out and killed ascetics in their hermitages, eating the bodies of Brahmins at the āśramas of Vasiṣṭha, Cyavana and Bharadvāja, so that the world's rites stopped. People fled, and no one could find the attackers, who hid under the sea by day. The gods went to Nārāyaṇa for help. He told them that the demons could only be reached by emptying the ocean, and that only Agastya could do it. The gods asked Brahmā's leave, went to Agastya's hermitage, and praised him. They reminded him how he had once given them refuge when Nahuṣa oppressed them, and how he had stopped the growing Vindhya. Agastya agreed, saying it would bring happiness to humankind, and set out with sages, gods, Gandharvas, Yakṣas and snakes following to watch.

At the shore Agastya announced that he would drink the ocean, told the others to do their duty, and drank in anger while the gods and sages marvelled. With the sea dry, the gods took up celestial weapons and killed the Kālakeyas, who had been weakened by the sages' penance. A few survivors split the earth and fled to the nether world. The gods then asked Agastya to refill the sea. He said it was already digested. The gods, amazed and sad, went to Brahmā, who told them the ocean would fill again through the descendants of Bhagīratha. The next story explains how.

Told by Lomaśa → Yudhiṣṭhira

Who: Agastya, Vindhya, Sūrya, Kālakeyas, Indra, Nārāyaṇa

Bound to

Agastya origin

Agastya and Lopāmudrā origin

Bhagīratha Brings Down the Gaṅgā origin

Arjuna Destroys the Paulomas and Kālakeyas of Hiraṇyapura mirror

Places: Vindhya mountains, Meru, Ocean

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section CII (the Kālakeyas' attacks)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section CIII (the gods ask Agastya)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section CIV (Vindhya and Agastya)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section CV (Agastya drinks the ocean)

See it on the tree · All stories

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