Agastya’s Stolen Lotus

This account is told by Bhīshma to Yudhishṭhira in the Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata. A great company of ṛshis, royal ṛshis and Indra himself went on a pilgrimage to the tīrthas (holy places). At the Brahmasarovara a lotus that Agastya had raised was found to be taken. Many of those present then swore heavy oaths (śapatha) on the unknown thief, until Indra owned that he had taken the lotus, and Agastya forgave him.

Setting: the tīrtha-yātrā to Prabhāsa

Bhīshma tells Yudhishṭhira that this itihāsa (account of past events) is about an event older than the Bisa-Stainya Upākhyāna he has just told. It is the theft of the lotus stalks that came before that account, and the oaths sworn over it.

A great gathering of the most exalted beings of the age met at Prabhāsa, on the western shore. They were:

  • Śukra the kavi (the seer-poet)
  • the learned Bṛhaspati
  • Agastya
  • Nārada
  • Parvata
  • Bhṛgu
  • Vasishṭha
  • Kaśyapa
  • Gautama
  • Viśvāmitra
  • Jamadagni
  • Gālava
  • Ashṭaka
  • Bharadvāja
  • Arundhatī
  • the Vālakhilyas
  • Śibi
  • Dilīpa
  • Nahusha
  • Ambarīsha
  • King Yayāti
  • Dhundhumāra
  • Pūru

At their head was Indra, who had performed a hundred yajñas and had slain Vṛtra. This company of the foremost among men visited the tīrthas together. On the full-moon day of Māgha-śukla they reached the sacred Kauśikī. They washed away the pāpa (sin) they had gathered at every tīrtha along the way, and they came to the very meritorious Brahmasarovara.

The theft of the pushkara

Some of the brāhmaṇas present had planted lotus stalks (bisa) in the lake. Others had planted mṛṇāla, a related kind of the same plant. Among the stems of the pool, the brāhmaṇas found that the pushkara (lotus) that Agastya himself had raised had been stolen. Agastya asked the assembled ṛshis directly: “Who has taken my well-flowered lotus? I suspect all of you. Return my lotus to me. You must not have taken it.”

Then Agastya spoke gloomily about the age. He had heard that kāla (time) overpowers even the great strength of dharma, and that such a time had now come, for adharma was about to break loose. He did not want to stay and watch brāhmaṇas teach the Veda to śūdras in the marketplace, or kings stop keeping dharma with good judgment. He said he would leave at once for devaloka, while the great still had time left. He would go before people began to dishonour the great, the middling and the best alike in an age given wholly to ignorance, and before the strong began to devour the weak.

The oaths

The assembled ṛshis were grieved by Agastya’s accusation. They protested that they had not stolen his lotus and offered to swear the hardest oaths to prove it. They counted this itself as dharma. So, together with their sons and grandsons, they swore oaths outside the usual form laid down in the śāstras. Each named, for the unknown thief, a list of the gravest wrongs.

  • Bhṛgu: may the thief be one who curses back at those who curse him, strikes back at those who strike him, and eats the flesh of beasts of burden (horses, mules, camels).
  • Vasishṭha: may he be unlearned in the Veda, a keeper of dogs, a wandering beggar living in a city.
  • Kaśyapa: may he haggle over everything without distinction, covet what has been left in pledge, and turn to false witness.
  • Gautama: may he be proud of his own cleverness, uneven in temper through unchecked kāma (desire) and krodha (anger), and unable to bear the prosperity of others.
  • Aṅgiras: may he recite the Veda without purity, keep a dog, and fail to atone for brahmahatyā (the killing of a brāhmaṇa).
  • Dhundhumāra: may he betray his friends, be born a śūdra, and eat good food alone.
  • Pūru: may he spend his life curing diseases, live on his wife’s earnings, and live on his father-in-law’s wealth.
  • Dilīpa: may he go to the loka reached by a brāhmaṇa who becomes the husband of a śūdra woman in a village with one well.
  • Śukra: may he eat meat without purpose, have intercourse by day, and serve as a king’s hireling.
  • Jamadagni: may he study on forbidden days, feed a friend at a śrāddha, and eat food offered at a śūdra’s śrāddha.
  • Śibi: may he die without honouring the sacred fires, hinder a yajña, and make enemies of the foremost ascetics.
  • Yayāti: may he, though bound by a vrata (vow), have children by his wife outside the fertile season, and disregard the Vedas as an authority.
  • Nahusha: may he be a householder posing as a wandering yati (renunciant), act on a whim while under a religious vow, and sell his learning for wages.
  • Ambarīsha: may he be cruel to women, to kin and to cattle, abandon dharma, and commit brahmahatyā.
  • Nārada: may he have learning fit only for the household, study only what serves show, and insult the great.
  • Nābhāga: may he be a habitual liar, quarrel with the good, and sell his own child for wealth.
  • Kavi: may he kick a cow with his foot, urinate facing the sun, and abandon one who has come to him for refuge.
  • Viśvāmitra: may he be bought by the rich to hold back rain, become a king’s purohita (house priest), and officiate for one unfit to perform a yajña.
  • Parvata: may he hold authority in a village, ride a donkey cart, and keep a dog for food.
  • Bharadvāja: may he, cruel and false, hold within himself the whole assembly of pāpas.
  • Ashṭaka: may he rule without having grown in wisdom, wander as he pleases, and govern the earth by adharma.
  • Gālava: may he go beyond even the worst wrongdoers in pāpa, betray his own kin, and give gifts only to praise himself.
  • Arundhatī: may she abuse her mother-in-law every day and hold ill will towards her husband.
  • The Vālakhilyas: may he beg, standing on one foot at a village gate, for food, and, though he knows all dharmas, practise adharma.
  • Śunaḥsakha (the disguised Indra): may he be a self-satisfied brāhmaṇa who neglects his agnihotra to sleep in comfort, and a renunciant still driven by kāma.
  • Surabhi (the cow Kāmadhenu): may he bind a cow with a rope of human hair and milk her into a bronze vessel, or force a second calf upon her.

Indra’s confession and forgiveness

While these oaths were being sworn, Indra, the thousand-eyed lord of the devas, watched the ṛshis’ anger with concern. Bhīshma tells how Indra brought the matter to rest. Indra himself spoke: may the thief be one who gives his daughter to an adhvaryu (a priest of the Yajur Veda), or to a well-disciplined chandoga (a singer of the Sāma Veda), or who becomes a brāhmaṇa who has studied the Atharva Veda and completed the snātaka-vrata. By this oath, may whoever stole the lotus gain full learning of the Veda, righteousness and firm standing in dharma, and go to the world of Brahmā.

Agastya then spoke to Indra: “Devendra! You have spoken your oath as a great blessing. Give me back my lotus. This is sanātana dharma.” Indra answered: “O Agastya! It was not out of greed that I took your lotus today. I took it because I wished to hear these dharmas taught. Do not be angry.” He praised what he had heard. He said it had the glory of the śrutis, was a bridge across saṃsāra, was free of all fault, belonged to the ṛshis, and was eternal and unchanging. He asked the learned Agastya to forgive his boldness. Agastya heard this, mastered his anger, took back the lotus and was pleased.

The merit of this account

The company then went on to the forest tīrthas and bathed in the sacred waters. Bhīshma teaches that one who recites this itihāsa with a calm mind at auspicious times will not have a foolish son and will be rejected by no one. Calamity will not touch him. He will be freed from disease of body and mind, untouched by old age and by rajoguṇa (the quality of restless activity), and will be given śreyas (the highest good). After he leaves the body he will reach svarga. One who studies this śāstra as the ṛshis have kept it reaches the imperishable world of Brahmā.

Sources

  • Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 94 (the oaths at the Brahmasarovara)
  • Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, the Bisa-Stainya Upākhyāna, named as the account that follows this event in time