Mahabharata - Agastya Chastising Vindhya

Agastya Chastises Vindhya

Once upon a time the mountain Vindhya had become very arrogant. The Sun used to revolve around mount Meru, between rising and setting. Vindhya, in his arrogance told the sun to revolve round it. The Sun obviously did not comply to this haughty request. The Sun God told Vindhya that he was doing his duty as ordained by the Universal Lord and he cannot change his path on his own. By hearing this Vindhya flew into a rage and began to increase in height so as to obstruct the path of the Sun, Moon and the Stars. At this the gods became anxious and finding no way of preventing Vindhya they decided to approach Agastya. The good sage, on hearing the plight of the devas decided to help them. He went to Vindhya together with his virtuous wife Lopamudra and told the king of mountains that he would be crossing the mountain to go to the South. The mountain should wait for the Muni's return before it could further expand. The great mountain, out of fear, desisted from increasing in size and waited for Agastya to return. The great sage however never returned from south and stayed back there by opening a new hermitage. Till this day thus we refer to such one way travel as Agastya yatra or the travel of Agastya and certain days of the year are inauspicious for travellers because they cannot return from travel if they travel on such dates, just like Agastya.