Agastya
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Agastya (अगस्त्य) is a legendary Vedic sage or rishi. Agi (अगि) gotra of Jats started from a Jat named Aksha (अक्ष) in Shloka 53, who are also considered as descendants of rishi Agastya. (See - Mahabharata Shalya Parva)[1]
- दरॊण शरवाः कपिस्कन्धः काञ्चनाक्षॊ जलं धमः
- अक्षसंतर्जनॊ राजन कुनथीकस तमॊ ऽभरकृत |53 |
Some say that it was the sage Agastya who first brought and popularized the Vedic religion to south India. Agastya and his clan are also credited to have "authored" many mantras of the Rig Veda, the earliest and most revered Hindu scripture, in the sense of first having the mantras revealed in his mind by the Supreme Brahman. In some reckonings, Agastya is the greatest of the Seven Sages or Saptarshis. The word is also written as Agasti. A-ga means a mountain, Asti, thrower. Also a name of Lord Shiva. Agastya the Rishi, was born of both Gods, Mitra and Varuna, from Urvashi.
Agastya is also the Indian astronomical name of the star of Canopus, is said to be the 'cleanser of waters', since its rising(February) precedes the calming of the waters of Indian Ocean. Other reference is in Mahabharata in Sauptikaparva as the teacher of the teacher of Guru Drona, who gave Drona, the greatest of weapons, Brahmastra (used by both Arjuna and Ashwatthama at the end of the war).
Skanda Purana says that the Vindhya mountains that separate north and south India from each other once showed a tendency to grow so high as to obstruct the usual trajectory of the sun. The need arose to subdue, by guile, the Vindhyas, and Agastya was chosen to do that.
Agastya journeyed from northern solstice to southern solstice, and on the way encountered the now impassable Vindhya mountains. He asked the mountain range to facilitate his passage across to the south. In reverence for so eminent a sage as Agastya, the Vindhya mountains bent low enough to enable the sage and his family to cross over and enter south India. The Vindhya range also promised not to increase in height until Agastya and his family returned to the northern solstice. Agastya settled permanently in the south, and the Vindhya range, true to its word, never grew further. Thus, Agastya accomplished by guile something that would have been impossible to accomplish by force. Ramayana covers this astronomical correction made by Rishi Agastya. It is from here that the science of Vastu Shastra originated.
References
- ↑ Dr Mahendra Singh Arya, Dharmpal Singh Dudee, Kishan Singh Faujdar & Vijendra Singh Narwar: Ādhunik Jat Itihasa (The modern history of Jats), Agra 1998 p. 220
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