Two legends place it in Northwest Maharashtra, on the banks of the river Godavari, near Nashik in small towns named Agastyapuri and Akole. Agastya ashram Īgastya had a hermitage ( ashram), but the ancient and medieval era Indian texts provide inconsistent stories and location for this ashram. He is described in the Mahabharata as a boy who learns the Vedas listening to his parents while he is in the womb, and is born into the world reciting the hymns. Īgastya and Lopamudra have a son named Drdhasyu, sometimes called Idhmavaha. In other versions, Lopamudra marries Agastya, but after the wedding, she demands that Agastya provide her with basic comforts before she will consummate the marriage, a demand that ends up forcing Agastya to return to society and earn wealth. Therewith, Lopamudra becomes the wife of Agastya. However, the legends state that Lopamudra accepted him as her husband, saying that Agastya has the wealth of ascetic living, her own youth will fade with seasons, and it is his virtue that makes him the right person. Her parents were unwilling to bless the engagement, concerned that she would be unable to live the austere lifestyle of Agastya in the forest. Īccording to inconsistent legends in the Puranic and the epics, the ascetic sage Agastya proposed to Lopamudra, a princess born in the kingdom of Vidharbha. His unknown origins have led to speculative proposals that the Vedic-era Agastya may have been a migrant whose ideas influenced the south. Īgastya is a Brahmin who leads an ascetic life, educates himself, becoming a celebrated sage. This mythology gives him the name kumbhayoni, which literally means "he whose womb was a mud pot". He is born from this jar, along with his twin sage Vashistha in some mythologies. Their semen falls into a mud pitcher, which is the womb in which the fetus of Agastya grows. They are overwhelmed by her extraordinary sexuality, and ejaculate. His miraculous rebirth follows a yajna being done by gods Varuna and Mitra, where the celestial apsara Urvashi appears.
The origins of Agastya - Pulastya, one of the Rig Vedic Saptarishis is his father. These hymns do not provide his biography. Īgastya is the named author of several hymns of the Rigveda. He is also referred to as Mana, Kalasaja, Kumbhaja, Kumbhayoni and Maitravaruni after his mythical origins.
Īgastya is traditionally attributed to be the author of many Sanskrit texts such as the Agastya Gita found in Varaha Purana, Agastya Samhita found embedded in Skanda Purana, and the Dvaidha-Nirnaya Tantra text. He is the principal figure and Guru in the ancient Javanese language text Agastyaparva, whose 11th century version survives. He is one of the Indian sages found in ancient sculpture and reliefs in Hindu temples of South Asia, and Southeast Asia such as in the early medieval era Shaiva temples on Java Indonesia. He is also revered in the Puranic literature of Shaktism and Vaishnavism. He is one of the seven most revered rishis (the Saptarishi) in the Vedic texts, and is revered as one of the Tamil Siddhar in the Shaivism tradition, who invented an early grammar of the Tamil language, Agattiyam, playing a pioneering role in the development of Tampraparniyan medicine and spirituality at Saiva centres in proto-era Sri Lanka and South India. Īgastya appears in numerous itihasas and Puranas including the major Ramayana and Mahabharata. He and his wife Lopamudra are the celebrated authors of hymns 1.165 to 1.191 in the Sanskrit text Rigveda and other Vedic literature. In the Indian tradition, he is a noted recluse and an influential scholar in diverse languages of the Indian subcontinent. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.Īgastya ( Tamil: அகத்தியர், Sanskrit: अगस्त्य) was a revered Indian sage of Hinduism.