This story is narrated in: (i) Skanda Puran, Nagar Khand, (ii) Padma Puran, Srishti
Khand, and (iii) the epic Mahabharat, Vanparva. This feat of sage Agastya is cited by
Goswami Tulsidas in his epic narration of the story of Lord Ram, known as the Ram
Charit Manas, in its Baal Kand, Chaupai line no. 7 that precedes Doha no. 256.
Some of the demons, however, managed to escape and hid themselves in the
nether world. This is how the demon race survived then. However, when the ocean
was completely dried up it created another problem for the world because countless
marine creatures begin to suffer and die. Besides this, the ocean was the largest
natural reservoir of water on earth. So the Gods requested sage Agastya to refill it.
The sage replied that the water has been digested in his stomach, but he can oblige the
Gods by reproducing the ocean in the form of urine. That is the reason, according to
this legendary story of the Purans, why the ocean is salty and sour—because it is the
urine of sage Agastya.
This fact, that the ocean is sour and salty because it is the urine of sage Agastya,
is explicitly narrated in the Anand Ramayan (purpoted to have been written by sage
Valmiki), in its Vilaas Kand (Chapter), ninth Sarga (Canto), verse nos. 18-24 where
Sita explains to Lopaamudraa, the wife of sage Agastya, why Sri Ram had
constructed the bridge in order to cross the ocean to reach Lanka. She explained that
the Lord did not ask the sage to dry up the ocean once again by drinking its water
because it would be unthinkable to ask the sage to drink his own urine. Even if the
sage had actually drunk the water, the Lord would be heaped with the ignominy of
being so selfish that he made a Brahmin drink his own urine so that his purpose is
served. The Lord did not swim across the ocean because it would be insulting and
extremely demeaning for the Lord to swim in urine, and it would also be improper for
him to step across a Brahmin’s urine because it is to be regarded as holy as the urine
of a cow.
There is a legendary story how once sage Agastya had converted king Nahush as
a serpent. The story goes that once Indra, the king of Gods, was demoted from his
exalted stature due to the curse of killing some Brahmins, and king Nahush had taken
his place. Nahush lustfully eyed the consort of Indra, named Indrani. To punish him,
Brihaspati, the moral preceptor of Gods, devised a stratagem by which Indrani
requested Nahush to come to her riding a palanquin that was never used by anyone
earlier. Overcome and blinded by passions, Nahush forgot everything about propriety
and probity, and he summoned all the great sages and seers of the time to act as
carriers or bearers of his palanquin. Humble sages and seers did not mind because
Nahush was now elevated to the stature of Indra, the king of Gods. Nahush was so
eager to reach heaven as quickly as possible that he kept prodding and scolding these
sages to walk faster. Enraged, astonished and peeved at this nonsense being
perpetrated by the haughty king, sage Agastya had then cursed him to become a great
and poisonous snake. This story appears in Mahabharat, Anushaashan Parva, 99-100.
Sage Agastya lived in the Dandakaaranya forest when Lord Ram met him. The sage
had then given some invincible divine weapons to the Lord which stood him in good
stead during the epic war of Lanka, as well as in overcoming the demons whom the
Lord encountered and destroyed during his sojourn in the formidable forest.
The sage is said to have brought about reconciliation between Indra, the king of
Gods, and Maruts, the Wind Gods.
A whole class of people came to be known after him, and in due course the term
‘Agastya’ became a title and sort of honour given to learned sages and seers who
were experts in the philosophy and knowledge that sage Agastya was an expert in and
had preached during his lifetime. The sage has been made immortal by finding a
place amongst the brightest stars in the sky. He is identified with Canopus, which is
the brightest star in the sky of south India. The Canopus has been named after this
sage as ‘Agastya’, and seeing this star in the sky when the sun is in the middle of
Virgo (Kanyaa) sign of the zodiac and worshipping him at night is regarded as an
kiana
(Kiana)
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