In this episode, we’re talking about Agastya. Maybe Agastya is the kind of person who needs no introduction. I’ll provide one anyway.
Agastya is a Saptarishi. And perhaps one of the most famous ones. He was also a famous author. Amongst other things he invented some of the grammar in the Tamil language. And if all that is not enough, he also happens to be my nephew. That’s right!
Agastya is the son of Pulastya, another Saptarishi and another son of Brahma, just like me! You might think being a Saptarishi runs in the family. But not really. For example, Pulastya’s grandson Ravana was quite a supervillain which is about as far away from being a saptarishi as possible.
Anyway, back to my nephew Agastya. If you’re going to ask me about my memories of dangling the baby Agastya on my knee, there aren’t that many. Being a traveling musician means I’ve not been exactly a model uncle.
Now despite not being in touch with Agastya, I know exactly what happened to him. Thanks to my ultimate and complete knowledge of the past. So this is as good as an eyewitness account.
I’m going to narrate three events in Agastya’s life.
We’ll skip past Agastya’s childhood and youth right to the part where he was a middle-aged Rishi who had acquired a bit of a reputation for being righteous.
That’s how he ended up marrying a princess. The Princess, Lopamudra, certainly rated spiritual well-being much higher than financial well-being. That is until she discovered, contrary to her expectations, that the grass was in fact much greener in the palace gardens than in the Rishi’s ashram.
Lopamudra frequently reminded Agastya of how she missed the luxuries of palace life. Until one day he finally decided to do something about it. He had a few favors to cash in, from high places! You see he’d authored a bunch of books as well and it was maybe time to cash in on those book sales. He knew he should have made some money because he saw all of his recent books were pretty high on the New India times bestseller list.
So he went off to his publisher and literary agent. Who also happened to be a King. King Srutarva greeted his client warmly.
“Hello there, Agastya. Got any new material for me? Not struggling with writer’s block, are you?” he asked, unable to keep the concern out of his voice.
“Not at all. I’m just here to collect my check. I see I’ve been on all the bestseller lists for a while.”
“Collect your check?” exclaimed Srutarva! “Why, no one’s ever asked me that before. Everyone who is capable of publishing a book usually also wants nothing”.
“Nevertheless, I do need the money. The books have been bestsellers, meaning they were sold and people paid money to buy those. I want a portion of the money”
“Of course, of course. Let me just find out what your earnings were” replied the King. He summoned the chief accountant who promptly reminded the King that the earnings from Agastya’s books were precisely zero, because the King had gambled and lost the rights to those books. Consulting his books the chief accountant said the rights were now owned by King Brihadastha.
Srutarva offered to pay Agastya out of his own treasury, but Agastya was a stickler for the rules. He was not going to take money that was not his to begin with for services he had not provided.
Are you sure, asked Srutarva in his velvet armani tuxedo wearing a three tier golden crown that he had gotten made because frankly he had too much money in his treasury.
But Agastya was sure. He would get the money from King Brihadastha.
But King Brihadastha had gambled away the rights too. He too offered Agastya money directly from his own treasury, but for a second time Agastya declined and decided to move on to King Trasadasyu.
These things go in threes. So no one was surprised to find that Trasadasyu had gambled away the book royalties as well. This time though when the King revealed that he had given the rights to King Ilvala, the other two kings were shocked. “No you didn’t! How could you?” they asked him.
Ilvala had a reputation for being a bad guy. Him and his shape-shifting brother Vatapi.
That did not stop Agastya from visiting Ilvala. And despite being a baddie, Ilvala had to receive this hall of famer rishi who was visiting him. And the three kings accompanied him as well.
“What a short and fat dude” , Ilvala thought. “I bet he loves his food.”
Aloud he said to Vatapi “Vatapi, go arrange a grand feast for our guests. Maybe we should serve them the goat who just by a coincidence is also called Vatapi”
Vatapi grinned conspiratorially all the way to the kitchen. There was no goat called Vatapi. Or rather, there was no separate goat. Vatapi was a shapeshifter who himself became a goat, was cooked by the royal chefs and served to the guests.
This process did not hurt Vatapi. On the contrary, hearing the magic words of “Rise Vatapi” and seeing his atoms integrate back into a whole body was euphoric! Sure it killed the people who had eaten his goat form, but sometimes that was the point!
Today as well. Ilvala could eliminate 3 heads of state and Agastya all in one meal.
A package meal deal, thought Ilvala. But was then shocked to find out that the three kings were vegetarians. Maybe he should have asked Vatapi to turn into a turnip. But as Ilvala was about to find out, there would be no next time. As soon as Agastya had eaten the last of the goat curry, Ilvala was ready with his magic words. But before he could ask Vatapi to rise, Agastya’s stomach rumbled. Given the immense amount of food he had eaten, the pieces were jostling for space.
“Vatapi, settle,” said Agastya. And that was that! Vatapi settled and no further invocations from Ilvala made any difference. Vatapi was gone forever.
Ilava wasn’t giving up on those book money easily. He decided to pose a challenge. A mind reading one.
“Yes, now about the book money. Here’s what I have in mind”
Agastya interrupted, “You want to pose a mind-reading challenge. If I can tell exactly how many books sold, and exactly how many rupees you will pay me I can have the money. Well, that’s easy. You sold 10152 books. You are going to pay me 13600 gold pieces. Wait, you just changed it to 12100. And now you changed it to zero. You want to pay me nothing. And now you’re wishing I had never been born and that this is a dark day for you especially because I ate your brother.”
Ilvala’s jaw dropped for all to see and he began “How did you….?”. He never finished the question. The damage was done. There is no way that he could deny this rishi any longer.
He gave him 13600 gold pieces as he had originally intended.
That allowed Agastya and Lopamudra to invest in making their home a much more palace-like experience. It was therefore a shame that long after they decided to move.
That’s the second incident that Agastya is famous for. No, this isn’t simply page 3 gossip about a power couple. No, this had a real purpose that the entire world benefited from.
It began with the Vindhya which is a mountain range in central India. I know the geologists amongst you are going to point out that the Vindhyas are not a single continuous range. But that doesn’t matter. In our story they acted in concert, that’s the part that matters.
So anyway, the Vindhyas were just as sentient as other mountains we’ve met before. One in particular was Mount Meru.
Now I’ve mentioned Mount Meru before and how it was regarded as the center of the Universe. Being the center, obviously that meant the Sun went around it. So thought the Vindhyas. The Vindhyas had a better idea, that they clearly expressed to the Sun one day. “Why don’t you go around us, instead of going around Meru?”
The Sun replied that it did in fact go around the Vindhyas.
“That’s not what it looks like. If I chart your course across the sky, it appears that you are going around Meru”
“Well congratulations” said the Sun. “You’ve just discovered that the Earth is round and the Meru is closer to the equator than you are”
But that did not satisfy the Vindhyas.
The Sun tried to explain elementary physics to them but they would not listen. They just wanted to be the equator whatever that was, not Meru.
Exasperated, the Sun went off for the night. But the Vindhyas did not go to sleep. They began to think. And thinking hard, they realized that the way to get the Sun to do what they wanted was to block it’s progress in the sky. They would grow taller until the Sun would be forced to change course. So the Vindhyas concentrated hard and grew taller and taller.
That did not worry the Sun who thought it would be a while before the vindhyas would be 93 million miles long. But the devs led by their boss man Indra did some projections of their own and decided there was a real risk here. If the Vindhyas were far too tall and blocked the progress of the Sun that would plunge half the Earth in darkness.
They did not think that the Sun could simply go around the range. But as you will soon see they are not the only ones in making that sort of a mistake.
Indra decided that some action was called for. He had a delegation sent to Agastya to see if that great Saptarishi could help here. And Agastya being his normal helpful self was more than willing.
He knew what he must do. He and Lopamudra packed up their bags and walked right up to the VIndhyas.
“Hi there” he said to the Vindhyas when he reached the base of those mountains.
The now-huge Vindhyas looked down at the 5 foot tall Agastya, but with immense respect when they realized who he was. They greeted Agastya politely and asked how they may serve the rishi.
“First of all, would you mind stopping to grow while we have this conversation? I can’t hear you well with this continuous doppler effect if you keep growing as we speak”
“Okay.” said the Vindhyas and immediately hit the pause button. “That was so much better” said Agastya. “Now listen. I am going on a visit to South India”
“Going on a visit?” interrupted Lopamudra. “You told me we were moving”
Agastya quickly shushed her. Luckily the Vindhyas seemed not to have noticed.
“So as I was saying” continued Agastya “I am visiting South India. Now if you grow so high how will I cross over you? I mean if you grow any more I’ll need oxygen tanks which aren’t even invented yet”
The Vindhyas did not question why Agastya could not go around the mountains or why he didn’t simply walk in one of the many valleys in the discontinuous chain. Maybe it was part of the pride that the range felt that the famous rishi had gone over them. Maybe they would commemorate that event with a plaque for future generations to marvel at. They were sure no rishi crossed over Meru. Whatever the reasoning was, it convinced the Vindhyas.
The range promised they would not grow any further until after Agastya had crossed over to South India and returned.
Unfortunately for the Vindhyas they did not agree to a sunset clause in their agreement, meaning that if Agastya chose never to return the Vindhyas would just not grow any taller.
And that is exactly what happened. The Vindhyas are patiently waiting for Agastya. I guess no one has informed them that Agastya will never return.
So that’s how Agastya solved another problem, this time for the entire Universe.
We’ll cover one more incident in Agastya’s life. This one did not involve saving the Universe, but just his local community. When Agastya moved into South India, he was immediately approached by various people who had heard of his superpowers and sought his help.
A major one that came up was a long standing battle between the Devs and the Asurs. They’ve warred before and always. This was one fight that the Asurs were winning handily. That is, until Vishnu and Brahma got involved. Brahma the creator of the Universe and my dad, gave Indra a suggestion on what weapon he could use against the Asur chief and Vishnu, the preserver of the Universe, gave him some speed and agility bonuses.
That combination worked. Indra and the devs defeated the asurs. But what they had done was just the equivalent of chopping off the head of a Hydra. If you slice one head off, 3 new ones appear. The remaining Asurs went into stealth mode. Every night they would raid and plunder villages. Somehow they would disappear by the morning. The Asurs tactics were working because no one could discover their hiding spot. Well, if they had asked me, I’d told them right away. I have universal knowledge, remember? No one can keep secrets from me.
But as it happened, they asked Vishnu. And Vishnu told them the Asurs were clearly at the bottom of the Ocean hiding in an underwater city. The devs wanted to follow and fight them there, “But we don’t have submarines or scuba diving gear!” Indra said
Vishnu had a solution for that as well. And that solution was not a business card for a shop selling diving equipment. It was instead a suggestion to go talk to Agastya.
Agastya had a solution. He asked if the Devs were confident of being able to defeat the Asurs as soon as they were exposed. And could they do it in under 5 minutes? I want to make sure no sea life is damaged by this.
“Of course” chorused the Devs.
“Alright let’s go to the beach,” said Agastya.
They all did. But not on a picnic. Agastya was going to do something fantastic.
He bent down and touched his lips to the water. Agastya sucked the entire ocean into his mouth. The entire ocean floor was visible. There were shipwrecks suddenly beached whales and Timingilas all over the ocean floor.
The Asurs were caught unawares, their city completely in view and within range of the Devs’ weapons. There were probably just a dozen or so Asurs left. The devs had no problems taking them out of action for good. And in under 5 minutes. Agastya released the water from his mouth rescuing the remaining creatures.
Yes, no sea creatures lost their lives, but practically everyone developed PTSD as a result of the shock of having their water taken away from them, if only for a few minutes.
That’s all for this week.
Some notes on the show
We have not really encountered Agastya before. Other than one brief mention in a Ramayan episode when he talked to Ram, Laxman, and Sita in the Dandaka forest.
Meru was previously character of the week in Episode 12 – Annabelle and the 40 Thieves.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do another folk tale. This one is a folktale from Goa. It’s about being frugal, and about an unusual match between a Prince and a beggar, featuring magical fish that throw up gold every time they eat.