Page:Agastya in the Tamil land.djvu/17

His Birth.

It is no wonder that this famous figure should have become the centre of multifarious mythic accretions. His advent into this world, equally with his translation to the starry heavens, falls beyond human belief and even conception. He is known as Kalaśaja, Kalaśīsuta, Kumbhayōni, Kumbhasambhava, Ghaṭōdbhava (the pot-born), from the fact that he was born from the seed of Mitra received and preserved in a pot. The story runs that once upon a time both Mitra and Varutia had a sort of love contest in respect of the heavenly damsel Ūrvaśī and that they could not do anything more than depositing their fertile seed, one in a pot and the other in the sea. In time, Agastya was born from the pot and Vasiṣṭha, one of the reputed Saptarṣis, started his life from the sea. From this divine parentage Agastya is called also Maitra-Vāruṇi and Ourvaśīya. There are variations of this story in later traditions; but it serves no purpose to recount them here. One fact is plain enough from Agastya's biography, that to ordinary mortals his birth is as mysterious as his translation to a star. From the trend of the primitive Aryan mind to revel in the supernatural, one should be inclined to be cautious, to the extent of even scepticism, in seeking to reach a nucleus of truth in an overgrowth of materials legendary to the core. Still one may be allowed the consolation that even after discounting the value of the miraculous and mythical chaff in the life of this sage, there may yet remain certain solid grains of human history which could be garnered into the historic store of the ancient Aryans. How far and in what manner that can be effected without doing violence to the demands of normal human reason remains a problem to this day.

Earlier Myths.

The myths that have gathered round this Aryan sage fall into two broad classes, the earlier and the later. His so-called Exodus to