Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

11

Vedapuri

Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry.

Nobody knows when this port town on the Coromandel coast came into existence. Its birth is lost in the mists of time. But if you sit on its sandy beach, quieten your mind, and listen to the lapping waters of the ocean, you will be taken to a time beyond time.

My spirit drifted off with the murmuring voices of the sea.

I was startled out of it by a loud noise. I jumped to my feet and turned. I saw a forest. Elephants trumpeted as they passed through it. Behind them came other animals. The spotted deer was lovely (I remember him so well even now). All were running. Running towards the north. The last to run past was a roaring lion, most majestic. Why were they all headed northwards? Why this tearing hurry?

I climbed a little to reach the forest. Then walked a bit here, a bit there, when I came upon a little clearing. In the middle of it stood a charming little hut, with a thatched roof, spotlessly clean all around. Seated in front was a golden-hued man, deep in meditation. A puissant Rishi. The hut's door opened, and a fair woman stepped out. Her every movement was graceful. Grace incarnate. At her approach the Rishi opened his eyes.

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Their loving glances met. She sat down by him. Both went into a deep meditation.

I turned.

The forest had vanished. In its place was a desert. I got a glimpse of the disappearing back of a camel. I turned again.

The sea was there. But it had become rough. The waves came crashing. Then a strange thing happened. About ten to twelve metres from me, waves began to take on colours. These waves of colour rose three to four metres in the air, then fell at the same place. I stood there, rapt in the play of those rising and falling coloured waves. Words sounded in my head: "The creation of the world."

Was that but a dream?

It took me some years before things fell into place.

Pasupati, the lord of all creatures great and small, was getting married. The animals were running, for they did not want to miss the great event. The lion was taking them to the Himalayas. Uma, the daughter of Himavat and Menaka, was the Bride.

Hosts from heaven and hosts from hell had come trooping. Bhutas and Pramathas' had escorted their Lord from Kailash, dancing and beating skull drums and rattling bones. From the Bride's side came the Apsaras, the Gandharvas² the

¹ Bhutas and Pramathas are ghosts and fiends attending upon Shiva. Hence Shiva is also known as Bhutanath and Pramathesh.

* Apsaras and Gandharvas are heaven's dancers and musicians and singers. They live in the middle air, between heaven and earth. The dwellings, the cities of the Gandharvas are reputed to be most splendid.

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Kinnars.¹ Apsaras, the nymphs of heaven, danced their exquisite dances to the heavenly music of the Gandharvas. The Kinnars, the celestial choristers, enriched the scene.

Everyone who was anyone or who was nobody gathered on the Himalayan peaks- to celebrate the divine Marriage. Obviously, that posed a great threat to the earth's equilibrium.³ How to restore the balance? Imploring eyes turned, not to Vishnu who had tied the knot, but to the Bridegroom. Mahadev looked at the high assembly, then beckoned Agastya.

Agastya, the offspring of Mitra and Varuna, the Sun-god and the Ocean-god, was born in a water jar, tiny as a fish, but of great lustre. He did not grow tall even as a man. But his lustre had grown resplendent. Fabulous were his exploits, such as drinking up the ocean to expose the demons hidden in the dark waters so that the gods could wipe them out; eating up the Rakshasa Vātāpi, who had taken the form of a ram, and digesting him instantly, then destroying Vātāpi's brother Ilvala by the flash of his eyes. So great was his power and light, it is said, that

¹Kinnars dwell in the heaven of Kuvera the Yaksha, in Kailash. A Kinnar has the form of a man and the head of a horse, as opposed to Sagittarius the Archer, who has a horse's body and the head of a man.

²I have heard that it was at Triyugīnārāyan (1980 m.) that Vishnu, or Narayana, performed the celestial nuptials. The fire lit for the wedding ceremony still burns. The temple with a gopuram is curiously reminiscent of South Indian temple architecture.

³"... The native Yurok believe" wrote Rick Gore ('Cascadia,' National Geographic, May 1998, p. 35), "the Creator taught them about Earth's movements at the beginning of time. Every two years ... elders perform a ceremony to balance the Earth." The Yurok say, "We're not doing this just for our own people. It's for everyone."

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in his vicinity the demons could only gaze upon the country and not possess it. Besides so many other feats he performed! Agastya was level-headed. His was not a matchstick temper like Durvasa muni's—flare up at the drop of a leaf and curse. Nor was he all-pardoning like his brother Vasishtha. Astute Agastya could see through a mask and had no compunction in destroying an evil. He stood for Truth-Knowledge. Therefore nobody was really surprised when Mahadeva called him. Yes, Rishi Agastya could attract people to him and restore normalcy in the earth's balance.

Well, we know that today's happening is tomorrow's story and the legend of the day after.

Tamils venerate Agastya as the first teacher of science and literature. The legend has it that when Shiva laid on him the task of going down South and restoring earth's balance, at first Agastya was reluctant as he had no wish to leave the pleasant side of the Great God. But Mahadeva persuaded him with the promise that wherever he, Agastya, found himself, there Shiva would show himself. Then Agastya prayed to Shiva to give him a knowledge of the country where he was being sent, and enable him to communicate with people there. The great God started "beating a drum with his two hands. The sounds that came from the left side were the basis for the Tamil language." The sounds from the right were the basis of the Sanskrit language.¹ In due course, after some interesting adventures, Agastya reached the southernmost section of the Western Ghats, the

¹ Majumdar: The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. 2 (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).

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Podiyil Hills (Malaya mountains) from which flows the river Tāmraparni. "There, in the cool mountain fastness, Agastya produced a giant Tamil grammar called Agctstyam [or Agattiyam] the supposed fountain-head of Tamil language and literature."¹ In the Deccan, he is even now one of the most famous sages and is considered the oldest teacher of ancient times.

That work achieved, Agastya and Lopamudra set out to explore the south. Deeper and deeper they travelled. Everywhere people were attracted to this luminous couple. That is how the Agastya cult became widespread and popular in the South.

But Agastya and Lopamudra had come on the earth to do something even more stupendous than all those exploits put together. For that they needed a 'seat.' They found it finally. By the seashore on the Coromandel coast. Our Pondicherry.

It is their hut I had seen.

Rishi Agastya and his consort Lopamudra were in deep meditation for the creation of a new world.

A new Veda.

¹ Majumdar, op. cit.

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