Vindhya and Agastya
This is the account of how the Vindhya mountain became proud and grew so tall that it stopped Bhagavān Sūrya’s path across the sky. Only the ṛshi Agastya could make it bow. To do this, Agastya had to leave his beloved home in Kāśī and never return. The Skanda Mahā Purāṇa tells it in the Kāśī Khaṇḍa, and the Bhavishya Purāṇa adds how Agastya became a star.
Vindhya’s jealousy
Nārada Maharshi was travelling through the sky after bathing in the Narmadā and worshipping Oṃkāra. He passed by the Vindhya mountain. Vindhya welcomed him with great care. Then, full of pride, Vindhya said that he was the greatest of all mountains. He said he held up the earth better than Meru, was holier than Himavān, and was not equalled in glory by any other.
Nārada saw this pride and wished to test how deep it was. He said gently that he valued Vindhya’s good qualities, but that most people held Meru to be greater. Sūrya himself goes around Meru every day, with all the planets and stars. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 1)
After Nārada left, Vindhya brooded over these words. He decided that if Sūrya went around Meru because Meru was tall, then he would make Sūrya go around him too. He began to grow. His peaks rose up into the sky until they blocked the path of the sun completely.
The chariot of Sūrya could no longer go on towards the west. One half of the earth burned in long heat and glare. The other half was lost in endless darkness and cold. The yajñas (fire rituals) stopped. The five great daily yajñas were no longer done. The three worlds shook. Chitragupta could no longer keep count of time, because Sūrya, who is the measure of all time, had been stopped. The whole universe stood still like a painted picture. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1 and 2)
The devas go to Brahmaloka and sing the Abhishṭada Stotra
All the devas were full of fear. They went up to Satyaloka and fell at the feet of Brahmā. They sang the great prayer called the Abhishṭada Stotra (the prayer that grants what one wishes). It praises Brahmā in all his forms:
- Hiraṇyagarbha and Virāṭ Brahman
- the Paramātmā, who is beyond speech and mind
- the Brahman that yogīs see in the ākāśa (space) of the heart
- the Master of the three guṇas, who appears as Vishṇu (sattva), Brahmā (rajas) and Rudra (tamas)
- the One from whose breath the Vedas came, from whose navel ākāśa was born, and whose eyes are the sun and the moon
The devas bowed to the ground and begged him to save the universe. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2)
Brahmā understood the matter. He told the devas that he himself had no power against the Vindhya’s stubbornness. No deva could force the mountain, not Indra, not Yama, not Agni, not Varuṇa. Only one person’s word would Vindhya obey, and that was Agastya Maharshi, the ṛshi who had a special authority over that mountain from long ago. Brahmā told the devas to go to Kāśī, where Agastya lived in his āśrama (hermitage) on the bank of the Gaṅgā, and to ask him for help. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2)
The devas at Kāśī
When the devas reached Kāśī, they did a full five-day tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage) before they went to Agastya. They bathed at Maṇikarṇikā. They did sandhyāvandana (the prayers at the junctions of the day) and pitṛ-tarpaṇa (water offerings to the ancestors). They honoured the people who lived in Kāśī with gifts of jewels, gold, clothes, horses and cows. They gave money for the temples, gave food to the poor, and went again and again to the liṅga of Viśvanātha.
When all this was done, they went to Agastya’s āśrama. The great ṛshi sat in deep tapas (austerity) beside the Agasteśvara liṅga that he had set up. In front of it was the kuṇḍa (pond) that he had dug. He was reciting the Śatarudrīya hymn and shone like a second sun, without moving. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 3)
His āśrama was very holy. All the natural enmities between animals ended inside it. Elephants gently scratched lions with their trunks. Mongooses played on the hoods of snakes. Deer drank milk from tigresses. Wolves and fawns rolled about together. Peacocks slept curled up against cats. This peace was the tejas (spiritual radiance) of the ṛshi spreading outward. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 3)
The devas made their request. The pride of the Vindhya mountain was stopping the whole universe. Only Agastya, who had a long-standing bond with that mountain, could make it bow. They begged him to go south and hold Vindhya down. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 3)
Agastya’s sorrow at leaving Kāśī
Agastya at once understood what this request meant for him. He turned to Lopāmudrā and spoke one of the best-known laments of the Purāṇas, a long and heartfelt praise of Kāśī itself. He asked where else there was a place like this. Kāśī is the fruit of puṇya (merit) gathered over many births, and only a fool would leave it once he had reached it. The Tāraka mantra whispered here at the time of death gives moksha (liberation) that cannot be had elsewhere even by a thousand years of tapas. Kāśī is held up on the tip of Śiva’s trident even in pralaya (the dissolution). The Avimukta-kshetra lies between the rivers Asī and Varaṇā. These match the nāḍīs (subtle channels) Iḍā and Piṅgalā, and between them stands the Viśveśvara liṅga as Sushumnā. It is not only a city. It is a living body of Śiva.
“There is no other holy spot on a par with Avimukta. There is no other goal than Avimukta. There is no other Liṅga on a par with Avimukta. Repeatedly, this is declared as truth.”
Agastya had weighed the greatness of the city by the Śruti and the Purāṇas. Then he bowed before Kālabhairava, the city’s guardian, whom he had honoured with fruits, roots and flowers every Sunday, every Tuesday, and on every Ashṭamī and Chaturdaśī. He took formal leave. He also bowed to Ḍhuṇḍhi Vināyaka before he left.
Agastya knew he could never come back, because the ṛshi who goes south is bound by the bowed form of the Vindhya. He left for the south with Lopāmudrā to do his great duty. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5)
Vindhya is made to bow
Agastya came to the Vindhya mountain with the devas. He took on a plain and humble look. He spoke to Vindhya as a traveller asking for a way across:
“O great mountain! I am setting out for tīrtha-yātrā in the south. Please bow down so I may cross over you.”
Vindhya held Agastya in deep respect as a brahmarshi (a ṛshi who knows Brahman) of unthinkable tapas. He bowed low at once, and his peaks touched the ground. After Agastya had crossed, he said:
“Remain in this position until I return from the south.”
No word of Agastya could be disobeyed. Vindhya bowed and stayed bowed. Agastya went south and, by the will of Śiva and the design of the universe, never came back.
The path of the sun was clear again. Sūrya went on his way. The five great yajñas began again. The three worlds could breathe freely. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1 to 5. The Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 118, also tells this.)
Agastya sees Mahālakshmī at Kolhāpur
After Vindhya was brought down, Agastya travelled through the southern lands. Near the Śrī Śaila region he came to the place now called Kolhāpur, where Mahālakshmī herself lived. He met the Devī face to face. He made a stotra (hymn of praise) to Mahālakshmī and received her darśana. The Kāśī Khaṇḍa says that even today Mahālakshmī of Kolhāpur has not left the south. In this way it shows that the Mahālakshmī shrine at Kolhāpur marks the place where Agastya met the Devī on his journey south. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2)
Agastya at the Lohita mountain
In time Agastya finished his work in the south and visited many tīrthas. He came to Skanda (Kārttikeya) on the Lohita mountain. There he asked Skanda at length about the origin and greatness of Kāśī, the city he had been made to leave and had never forgotten. This talk between Agastya and Skanda is the main frame of the whole Pūrvārdha of the Kāśī Khaṇḍa. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 25)
Agastya as a star
The Bhavishya Purāṇa says that Agastya could not return to Kāśī. He rose into the southern sky with Lopāmudrā and became the bright star Canopus (Agastya-tāra). From his place in the southern sky, he looks at the form of Kāśī Viśveśvara in the sky above the holy city and lives in unending ānanda (joy). People look up at Agastya-tāra and bow, and the ṛshi looks back at them with joy. (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 118)
Sources
- Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–6 (chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5 cited for the account of Vindhya and Agastya; Chapter 25 for the talk with Skanda)
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 118