Rāma Visits Agastya’s Āśrama

During the years of Rāma-rājya, Bhagavān Rāma and Sītā went to the āśrama of Agastya Maharshi in the Daṇḍakāraṇya. There Lopāmudrā, Agastya’s wife, fed the whole royal party with a vessel given by Annapūrṇā. Agastya gave Rāma and Sītā gifts. Then, at Pañcappa lake, the party heard music from singers they could not see. Bhagavān Rāma set them free. The account is in the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Vivāha Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5.

The journey to the Daṇḍakāraṇya

In the years of Rāma-rājya at Ayodhyā, Rāma set out to visit Agastya Maharshi’s āśrama in the Daṇḍakāraṇya. This is the great forest of the south, where Agastya had lived for a long time after he finished his task of making the Vindhya mountain bow down. Rāma and Sītā led the party, with a royal company fit for the occasion.

The journey was an act of respect. Bhagavān Rāma was visiting the ṛshi who had been one of his most faithful helpers in the years of exile. Agastya had given him the great Vaishṇava bow, the akshaya-tūṇīras (quivers that never empty) and other divine weapons. He had also sent Rāma to Pañchavaṭī, where the main events of the exile took place.

Annapūrṇā’s vessel and Lopāmudrā’s welcome

Agastya’s āśrama was full of the warmth of long tapas. Lopāmudrā, his devoted and learned wife, was there. She welcomed Rāma, Sītā and the whole royal party with the full honours of Vedic hospitality: arghya and pādya (water for the hands and the feet) and all the other upachāras (offerings of welcome).

The welcome was made wonderful by a divine pātra (vessel). Annapūrṇā herself had given it to Agastya. It gave endless food: whatever was needed, in any amount, for any number of guests.

With this vessel Lopāmudrā fed the whole retinue. There were countless soldiers, attendants, princes, queens, ministers and the ṛshis who had come with them. The food was more than any ordinary cooking could give, and no one was left without. It was of divine quality: wholesome, tasty, and nourishing like amṛta (the drink of the devas).

This gift of Annapūrṇā to Agastya, and Lopāmudrā’s use of it to feed Bhagavān Rāma’s party, is one of the best known scenes of holy hospitality in the Vivāha Khaṇḍa.

Agastya’s gifts to Rāma and Sītā

After the meal, Agastya Maharshi honoured Rāma with a ratna-kaṅkaṇa, a bracelet set with precious gems, as a sign of his respect and love. For Sītā he gave a pair of divine earrings of great beauty and auspiciousness. He gave both gifts with Vedic mantras and with all the warmth of his devotion. Rāma received them with humility and thanks, and honoured the great ṛshi in return.

Pañcappa lake

From Agastya’s āśrama the party went to Pañcappa lake, a holy water near the āśrama. At nightfall they rested on the shore. They then heard something wonderful: divine gīta (song) and nṛtya (dance) of rare beauty. It seemed to rise from the lake or from the air around it. But when they looked, they saw no singers, no dancers and no source.

Rāma asked Agastya where the unseen music came from.

Agastya’s explanation

Agastya Maharshi told the history of the music.

Some time before, five daughters of a gandharva king and seven daughters of nāga kings had been playing near the lake. They were twelve beautiful young women of divine birth. Their laughter and dancing broke the meditation of a muni who was doing deep tapas by the lake.

The muni was angry at the interruption. He asked Jaladevī, the devī of the lake’s water, to shut the girls up in her home in the depths of the lake. Jaladevī did as the muni wished. The muni then finished his tapas and left for svarga.

Since then the girls had been held in Jaladevī’s realm. They could not go back to their families. They could be heard, but not seen, by anyone on the surface of the lake.

The music that Rāma’s party heard was the endless music of these captive daughters. They were still dancing and singing in their prison beneath the waters of Pañcappa.

Rāma frees the daughters

Rāma always protects the afflicted. When he heard this, he took up his bow and strung it. As soon as the Śārṅga bow was strung, signs of terror appeared. The earth shook and the sky trembled, and every force of nature knew that divine anger had come. Jaladevī felt her realm tremble.

Facing the coming arrow of Bhagavān Rāma, Jaladevī at once let all twelve daughters go and brought them up through the waters of the lake. The twelve young women, five gandharva daughters and seven nāga daughters, came out of the lake. Their captivity was over. Jaladevī herself came before Rāma and gave up. She accepted that his rule reached over all beings in the world.

The twelve daughters were full of thanks and wonder. They were free at last from the captivity that an old muni’s displeasure had brought on them. They stood before Rāma, shining in their divine forms.

Their fathers, the gandharva kings and the nāga kings, would later come to Rāma and offer these daughters in marriage to his sons.

Sources

• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Vivāha Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5