Agastya | |
|---|---|
 Agastya | |
| Title | Siddhar |
| Personal | |
| Religion | Hinduism |
| Spouse | Lopamudra |
| Children | Drdhasyu |
| Parent(s) | Mitra-Varuna (father) and Urvashi (mother) or Pulastya (father) and Havirbhū (mother)[1] |
| Part of a series on |
| Hinduism |
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Agastya was a revered Indian sage of Hinduism.[2] In the Indian tradition, he is a noted recluse and an influential scholar in diverse languages of the Indian subcontinent. He is regarded in some traditions to be a Chiranjivi. He and his wife Lopamudra are the celebrated authors of hymns 1.165 to 1.191 in the Sanskrit text Rigveda and other Vedic literature.[2][3][4]
Agastya is considered to be the father of Siddha medicine. Agastya appears in numerous itihasas and Puranas including the major Ramayana and Mahabharata.[4][5] He is one of the seven most revered rishis (the Saptarishi) in the Vedic texts,[6] and is revered as one of the Tamil Siddhar in the Shaivism tradition, who invented an early grammar of the Old Tamil language, Agattiyam, playing a pioneering role in the development of Tampraparniyan medicine and spirituality at Saiva centres in proto-era Sri Lanka and South India. He is also revered in the Puranic literature of Shaktism and Vaishnavism.[7] He is one of the Indian sages found in ancient sculpture and reliefs in Hindu temples of South Asia, and Southeast Asia such as in the early medieval era Shaiva temples on Java Indonesia. He is the principal figure and Guru in the ancient Javanese language text Agastyaparva, whose 11th century version survives.[8][9]
Agastya is traditionally attributed to be the author of many Sanskrit texts such as the Agastya Gita found in Varaha Purana, Agastya Samhita found embedded in Skanda Purana, and the Dvaidha-Nirnaya Tantra text.[4] He is also referred to as Mana, Kalasaja, Kumbhaja, Kumbhayoni and Maitravaruni after his mythical origins.[8][10][11]
- ^ "Agastya, Āgastya: 32 definitions". 15 June 2012.
- ^ a b Wendy Doniger (1981). The Rig Veda: An Anthology : One Hundred and Eight Hymns, Selected, Translated and Annotated. Penguin Books. pp. 167–168. ISBN 978-0-14-044402-5.
- ^ Weiss 2009, pp. 49–51.
- ^ a b c Dalal 2010, pp. 7–8.
- ^ Buck 2000, pp. 138–139.
- ^ Hiltebeitel 2011, pp. 285–286.
- ^ Rocher 1986, pp. 166–167, 212–213, 233.
- ^ a b Gonda 1975, pp. 12–14.
- ^ Rocher 1986, p. 78.
- ^ Michael Witzel (1992). J. C. Heesterman; et al. (eds.). Ritual, State, and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman. BRILL Academic. pp. 822 footnote 105. ISBN 90-04-09467-9.
- ^ Dalal 2014, pp. 187, 376.