Agastya

Yudhishthira, restless with grief and exile, asks Narada to describe the sacred tirthas of the land. Narada answers with a catalogue of holy places — rivers, mountains, and hermitages — each carrying its own power. He ends with Dvaravati, where Krishna dwells as the eternal dharma itself.

The sage Agastya discovers his ancestors hanging upside down in a cave, condemned to suffer for lack of descendants. They beg him to father a child to free them from hell — and Agastya, bound by truth, promises he will. But when he searches for a worthy woman to bear his son, he finds none, and so he does something no one has done before: he builds one.

Agastya obtains Lopamudra as his wife and immediately commands her to discard her fine garments and ornaments. She obeys without hesitation, donning bark and skins, and together they go to Gangadvara to undertake severe austerities — she serving him with devotion, he growing affectionate toward her. After much time passes, Agastya sees her radiant after a bath and summons her for intercourse.

When Agastya summons Lopamudra for intercourse, she joins her hands in salutation and speaks — not in refusal, but in request. She asks him to come to her on a bed like the one in her father's palace, garlanded and adorned in ornaments. Agastya protests that he has no such riches, but Lopamudra reminds him that his austerities could summon any wealth in an instant.

Agastya, accompanied by his disciple Shrutarvana, approaches King Vadhryashva seeking riches. The king lays bare his accounts: his income exactly matches his expenditure. Agastya refuses to take anything that would cause oppression to others. They try King Trasadasyu next — and find the same balance. The kings look at one another and together suggest a different source: the wealthy danava (demon) Ilvala.

Having fulfilled every desire his wife Lopamudra expressed, the sage Agastya offers her a choice: a thousand sons, or a hundred, or ten, or one equal to a thousand. She chooses the one. Agastya promises it, unites with her at the appointed time, and then leaves for the forest — leaving the embryo to develop for seven autumns before a blazingly wise son is born.

The gods are in distress. After Vritra's death, the terrible Kaleyas have taken refuge in Varuna's ocean and are killing sages by night. The gods seek Vishnu's counsel, and he tells them what they must do: the ocean itself must be destroyed, and only Agastya can accomplish it.

The gods, having received Vishnu's counsel and Parameshthi's leave, arrive at Agastya's hermitage. There they find the sage blazing with energy, worshipped by rishis. They recite his past deeds — subduing the tyrant Nahusha, commanding the mountain Vindhya to stop its growth, and protecting the worlds from darkness — before formally petitioning him for a boon.

The gods, unable to defeat the Kaleyas who hide in the ocean, seek out the sage Agastya and ask him to do what no one else can: drink the entire ocean dry. Agastya agrees, for the welfare of the worlds, and sets out with the assembled gods, rishis, and celestial beings toward the roaring sea.

Mount Vindhya, enraged that the sun circumambulates Mount Meru but not him, begins to grow uncontrollably — blocking the paths of the sun and moon. The gods try and fail to stop him. Only the sage Agastya can restrain the mountain, and he does it not with force, but with a promise.

Ganga has descended to earth but needs a guide. King Bhagiratha leads her to the ashes of his ancestors — the sixty thousand sons of Sagara who were burned to cinders by a sage's curse — and with the river's sacred waters, he fills the ocean itself.

Yudhishthira asks Kubera why the great sage Agastya's anger did not consume him entirely. Kubera explains: his friend Maniman, flying overhead, spat on the meditating Agastya from the sky. The sage's curse was precise — Maniman and his armies would die by a human hand, and Kubera would grieve until that same human freed him.

Kubera arrives on the mountain summit with his yaksha and gandharva retinue. The Pandavas, knowing they have committed a crime, bow in obeisance. But Kubera is pleased. He tells Yudhishthira not to be angry at Bhima's deed — the rakshasas were already marked for death by destiny. Then he turns to Bhima: "You have freed me from a terrible curse. No crime attaches to you."

Bhima lays down his weapons and bows before Kubera in submission. The lord of riches blesses him, promises Arjuna's imminent return, and instructs the Pandavas to dwell in the beautiful residences provided. Then Kubera departs for his home on Kailasa with his retinue of rakshasas and yakshas, while the dead rakshasas are removed from the mountain as Agastya's curse had determined.

The serpent who has seized Bhima declares that he has been hungry for a long time — but before devouring his descendant, he tells the story of how he, the great king Nahusha, fell from Indra's throne and became a snake, cursed by a sage for his arrogance.

A serpent seizes Bhima and will not let him go. When Yudhishthira comes looking for his brother, the serpent speaks — and reveals that he is no ordinary creature, but the former king Nahusha, Yudhishthira's own ancestor, fallen from the lordship of the three worlds into this crawling form.

Yudhishthira asks the serpent how someone so wise could have fallen so low. The serpent answers: prosperity. He was Nahusha, once king of heaven itself — until he forced the great sage Agastya to carry his palanquin. Now he waits for the one who will free him.