Immediately the devas went to Lord Brahma, sought his permission and made for the ashram of sage Agastya. He was in an assembly of great sages. The devas prayed hard and long to please Agastya. They told Agastya about the havoc caused by the Kaleyas. They told him what Lord Vishnu had suggested. The only way left for the world to save itself was to drain the sea and only great Agastya could do it. They begged Maharishi Agastya to drink the water of the sea so that they could catch and kill the demons. Agastya promised to do what they had asked him to do. Then he went to the sea along with them and with the help of the strength of his tapas he drank the water of the sea in one gulp. When the sea bed became dry, the demons who were hiding at the bottom came out with their weapons and attacked the devas. There was a bloody battle between the devas and danavas.The devas fought bravely and killed a large number of Kaleyas. Those who remained escaped to the nether world and saved themselves. Then the devas came back to Agastya and thanked him profusely by singing his praise. They expressed their gratefulness to him for having helped them to spot out the kaleyas by draining the water of the sea. They also begged himto restore the water to the dried out sea bed. Agastya addressed the devas thus "Dear devas I am sorry, the water I drank is already digested. Think of some other means to fill the sea."The devas felt helpless. They went to Lord Vishnu along with Bhagvan Brahma and posed their problem and asked theLord to help them by showing the way to fill the sea. Lord Vishnu told them that King Bhagiratha, born in the familyof Sagara would do the job. The devas had no other way out except to wait till Bhagiratha appeared on the scene. Emperor Sagara had sixty thousand sons and all of them were reduced to ashes by the fire of sage Kapila's anger. In order to help them attain mukti Bhagiratha, grandson of Sagara brought the Ganga to the Earth by the power of his tapas. The divine Ganga filled and dried up sea bed with water. On the way she flowed over the ashes of Sagar's sixty thousand sons who were reduced to ashes by sage Kapila and thus helped them reach heaven. In this way the sea dried by sage Agastya came to be filled with water.
Agastya stops the growth of the Vindhyas
Agastya's fantastic feat of drying the sea was an out of the world achievement and equally great was his feat of stoppingthe growth of the Vindhyas. The sun rises every morning, lights the world, goes round mountain Meru and goes down in the west in the evening. The king of Vindhyas saw the sun go round the Meru everyday and thought the sun circles the Meru which is just a mountain like me. Why doesn't he go round me and respect me as he does to Mount Meru?" One day he decided to ask Suryadeva for the reason. Therefore one morning he met Surya Deva and said,"O sun god, as you circle mountain Meru, go round me and give me the respect you give to Meru."The sun replies, "Dear Vindhaya, I am not going round and respecting Meru on my accord. My course has been decided by the Supreme Lord who is responsible for the creation, maintenance and destruction. He has ordered me to go round Meru and therefore I do it. I cannot go one step beyond the thing I am asked to do."vindhaya became sad to listen to suryadeva and he took it as an offence and he was angry. He decided to stop the movement of the Sun and the moon by placing obstructions in their way. Therefore he decided to grow taller and taller. Immediately he set to work. He began to grow taller each day. This caused a lot of problems. Birds and animals found it difficult to move freely on account of it. The devas realised the gravity of the situation. They went Vindhaya and said,"Look here friend Vindhaya, you are doing something wrong against the nature. Respect the law of nature and stop growing." Vindhaya behaved in an arrogant manner and did not relent. The devas did not know what to do. Finally they thought that Vindhaya's preceptor Sage Agastya was the best person to approach and he should be able to do something in this regard. They went to Agastya and begged him to ask Vindhya stop growing in the interests of the welfare of the world. Sage Agastya agreed to do so. Agastya went to Vindhya and at first enquired about his welfare. Vindhya made oblations to his preceptor and his wife. After the usual exchange of courtesies, sage Agastya began,"My dear Vindhya, I am on my way to the south along with my wife on an important work. Make way for me.
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