Agastya's Ancestors


Agastya approached king Srutarvan for assistance. The king was more than willing to help, but Agastya in his greatness had put an unusual condition. He had insisted that the king should not give him wealth by depriving any other person of assistance. When the king demonstrated the equality of his income and expenditure (which included substantial charity) Agastya refused to take any assistance. Srutarvan then took Agastya to a greater king, Vradhnaswa, but the same story was repeated there. Then the three of them went to king Trasadasyu, but with the same outcome. Trasadasyu explained that only a Demon king would be able to meet Agastya's requirement because he gave no wealth in charity but accumulated it. Accordingly they went to the Demon king Ilwala.

Ilwala had a younger brother named Vatapi, who had developed a very unusual power. He could transform himself into any creature. Then the creature could be cut up into any number of pieces and strewn about. When Ilwala summoned, the pieces would join together with great force to reform the creature. The Demon brothers used this technique to destroy brahmins. Vatapi would transform himself into a ram. His flesh would then be cooked and given to brahmins to eat, flavoured and disguised as a vegetarian dish. After the brahmins had eaten their fill, Ilwala would summon his brother and the pieces of the ram would burst through the stomachs of the brahmins, killing them.

When the three kings and Agastya arrived at Ilwala's court, the king decided to use the ram technique to kill them. After due courtesies dishes containing the ram were served to the guests. Agastya, however, ate all the dishes himself. Then Ilwala summoned his brother but all that happened was a loud belch by the sage. Ilwala kept on repeating his command, but to no avail. Agastya laughed and said, "He cannot come out now. I have completely digested him." Because of this incident, if a person has very good digestion powers he is jokingly referred as sage Agastya. And if one has bad digestion then the sage is jokingly invoked to cure him.

Though Ilwala was saddened at the death of his brother he asked the sage of what service could he be? Agastya repeated his request and condition. Ilwala then gave the sage more than he needed. In addition he gave a golden chariot and two super-fast steeds so that

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