Aranya Kanda
Analysis
Now, moving ahead from this story, Rama says he wants to have the darshan of Sage Agastya, and they set out toward Agastya’s hermitage. On the way, Rama, with Lakshmana and Sita, explains to Lakshmana what Agastya is like.
Before even reaching Agastya’s hermitage, Rama describes Agastya himself, and he mentions three points. First, let’s look at what the story says. The first point it tells is that Agastya swallowed and digested two demons—Ilvala and Vātāpi. These two, Ilvala and Vātāpi, tormented the Brahmins; they would devour them. The story even explains how: they would invite Brahmins, saying, “Today we have a śrāddha meal—please come.” When the Brahmins arrived to eat, Ilvala would cook Vātāpi as one cooks a vegetable dish and feed that dish to the Brahmins as part of the śrāddha meal. The Brahmins ate it gladly. But after the meal, Ilvala would shout from outside, “Vātāpi, come out!” Then Vātāpi, who had gone inside as that vegetable dish, would tear open their bellies and come out. The Brahmins died because their bellies burst, while Vātāpi remained alive. Agastya killed both Ilvala and Vātāpi. This is the first point Rama makes about his greatness.
Second, Rama says there was the mountain called Vindhyāchala. That mountain rose so high that the sun’s rays—the light that should spread across the world—could no longer extend outward. But Agastya pressed the Vindhya down so it bent low and never rose again. These two stories are the main ones; the third we will take later, because the brief note “he dried up the ocean” is given merely in brackets by the translator, and its full tale is in the Purāṇas.
Now think—are these things literally possible as written? Can someone cook a demon like a vegetable, feed him to Brahmins, and then have him burst out of their stomachs alive? That is not possible. Therefore the story is signaling something—important hints are being given. We need to understand each point one by one.
First, who is Agastya? Agastya is not a physical sage with a material body. As we have been saying again and again—Sutikṣṇa, Sharabhanga, Bharadvāja, and all the other sages that appear—these are not literal, bodily sages the way we imagine; in the story they are symbolic. Each carries an inner meaning. For example, Sharabhanga means “one who has destroyed śara,” that is, who has destroyed the perishable. Sutikṣṇa means “one who extracts the nectar”—the one who, through contemplation, draws out the inner nectar, the soul-nectar hidden within us.
Now we come to Agastya. Who is Agastya? First, focus on the word itself; the meaning is hidden in the word. This is a skill you must steadily learn so that as you read the Purāṇas you become capable of this inquiry. Take the word, split its compounds or recombine them, and understand.
The word Agastya is made of two parts: ag and stya. Split ag again into a and g. We all know a means “not,” and g (from the root gam, “to go”) means “movement.” Thus ag means “without movement,” motionless. Who is without movement? The body or the soul that animates the body? The soul is motionless; the body is always in motion. So here a refers to the soul.
Stya means expansion or spreading out. Therefore Agastya means the expansion of the soul. What does that mean? Suppose I say, “I am the conscious power, the soul.” Then I also say, “You are the same—you too are the conscious soul.” When I say you are the same, that implies the soul’s expansion. First I know myself as soul; then I see the entire universe as soul—everything that exists is of the same essence. Abiding in this knowledge is what is called Agastya: the soul has “expanded.”
There is a personal state and a social state. “I am the conscious soul”—that is my personal state. “Just as I am the soul, so is the whole world”—that is the social state. In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the personal state is called ārohaṇa—ascent, development, rising upward. I may begin by identifying with the body, but with the help of knowledge and good company, I gradually understand: I am not the body; I am the soul. That is ascent, development. We often think that once we reach this, spirituality is complete. But that is not the whole. There is ascent, and then there is avarohaṇa—descent, sharing what you have realized with the world, spreading it to all. Knowing “I am the soul” is my ascent; I must not stop there. I must descend—distribute this awareness to the world.
This Agastya-state is the state of descent. Now the soul-vision spreads into the world. I no longer label people by personhoods and roles; I see each as soul. Rama’s going to Agastya’s hermitage and meeting Agastya signals this: Rama’s individual ascent—his personal development—now moves into expansion, into descent. Spirituality has these two phases—ārohaṇa and avarohaṇa. When a person completes ascent and then descends, the spiritual journey is fulfilled. Rama’s going to Agastya’s hermitage indicates the completion of the journey.
When this journey completes, many benefits arise. To illustrate those benefits, the text gives two (or three) stories—Ilvala–Vātāpi, and the Vindhya story (the third, ocean-drying, is referenced elsewhere in the Purāṇas). Let’s take the first.
We’ve understood Agastya means the spread of soul-awareness—development followed by expansion to all. So Rama’s reaching Agastya means moving from development to expansion. Now, who are Ilvala and Vātāpi? The story calls them demons. Let us look at the words. Ilvala comes from il + val. Il is a Sanskrit root meaning “to move, to go about.” Val means “to turn” or “to be drawn toward.” So Ilvala means a mind turned toward the moving body, attracted to the body. The mind has two possible orientations: toward the soul, or toward the body. A mind turned to the body is the “demon”; a mind turned to the soul is the “deva.”
Vātāpi is said to be Ilvala’s brother. Look at Vātāpi: vā (a particle) + tāpi (“one who gives heat, affliction, suffering”). The word tāpi is small but very deep. What suffering? For example:
When I take myself to be the body, I divide the world into “mine” and “not mine,” and attachment arises toward “my” people and things. That attachment brings heat—suffering.
When I identify with my roles, I mistake the role for my real self. Then even a small remark about that role wounds me deeply.
In relationships, bodily identification breeds endless expectations. When they are unmet, they become suffering.
Liking and disliking intensify; those I dislike start causing me pain simply because I dislike them.
I cling to “I am right.” When others don’t accept my view, I burn with frustration and try to change them—an impossible task—so I suffer more.
Thus tāpi is the afflictor linked to body-identification. Why add the particle vā? To indicate: this affliction burns only the one established in body-consciousness. When you rise into soul-consciousness, these sources of heat no longer scorch you; they simply don’t bite. That is everyone’s experience: in moments when we shift out of body-identity, even harsh words don’t hurt.
How does the story express this? It says Ilvala cooks Vātāpi as food and feeds him to the Brahmins, who then die. “Feeding” here means we take suffering into ourselves—we “eat” it, we “digest” it, we carry it inside. Brahmin here signifies our sattvic tendencies, our positive, pure inclinations. Many people don’t get to soul-abidance quickly, but with satsanga they become sattvic. Yet if they remain in body-identity, the heat (tāpa) destroys their sattva. Hence scriptures say: be sattvic—good—but go beyond sattva into soul-awareness. Nature has three guṇas—rajas, tamas, sattva. Sattva is a stage, not the goal. We must rise above it—into the Self.
Our own defects—anger, greed, fault-finding—destroy our sattva. So Ilvala (body-turned mind) and Vātāpi (affliction) together destroy our sattvic tendencies—that’s what “they killed the Brahmins” signals. Then the gods go to Agastya and ask him to slay these demons. Since Agastya means abiding in soul-vision toward all, such a one has already “killed” Ilvala—he has left body-identity. And as for Vātāpi—the afflictions born of body-identity—he digests them. Criticism, accusations, unmet expectations—all these no longer scorch him. Thus the story says Agastya ate Vātāpi; when Ilvala called him out, Agastya said, “I have digested him; he cannot come out.” In other words, in soul-abidance you absorb the afflictions—they cannot hurt you. So the tale of Ilvala–Vātāpi teaches: become Agastya yourself—abide in the Self and see others likewise; then suffering loses its sting.
Now the second story: the Vindhya mountain. The text says Vindhyāchala rose so high that the sun’s light could no longer spread through the world. Agastya made the Vindhya bow down. On the physical plane that’s impossible, so what is the meaning? The sun stands for the soul, its light is the soul’s radiance—love, peace, happiness, bliss, purity. Vindhya stands for ego. The word Vindhya hints at “that which can be pierced, removed,” while achala is “firm, unmoving.” Ego sits in us as a firmly set mountain. When does it bend? When we come into the Agastya-state—when we see ourselves and others through the soul’s eye. Then the deeply entrenched ego bows and becomes humble, and the soul’s light—peace, love, joy—spreads through life. The sun’s radiance could not spread because Vindhya stood blocking it; Agastya made it bow—meaning, when established in the Self, ego bends, and the soul’s qualities shine everywhere.
There is also the famed deed “drying the ocean,” mentioned elsewhere in the Purāṇas (Valmiki here only alludes to it in the 86th verse, the translator noting it in brackets). Ocean-drying means our mind is like an ocean, teeming with creatures—our many defects. When one becomes Agastya—established in the Self—one dries up those defects, drinks them in, exhausts them. That is why Valmiki does not elaborate here.
In the eleventh sarga we received these two teachings about Agastya. In the twelfth sarga, when Rama meets Agastya, the sage bestows weapons on him: Vishnu’s bow, Brahma’s arrow, Indra’s quivers, and a sword. These too have spiritual meanings—qualities as weapons. Vishnu is not a person; Vishnu is the preserving power of the Supreme. Brahmā is the creative power. Indra is the lord of the senses—our own pure mind, the power that governs the senses. The sword is the sword of knowledge by which we cut away anything harmful.
Scripture speaks of two bows: Śiva’s bow and Vishnu’s bow. You know Śiva’s bow from the wedding tale—Rama broke it. Here we have Vishnu’s bow. The mind is the bow. A mind tied to the body is Śiva’s bow; a mind tied to the soul is Vishnu’s bow. On this bow of mind we set the arrow of resolve (saṅkalpa) to aim at the goal. So when Agastya gives Rama Vishnu’s bow, it means: your mind is yoked to the soul. When he gives Brahmā’s arrow, it means divine resolves. The quivers of Indra signify the mind–intellect in which those noble resolves are stored. And the sword is knowledge.
Thus, symbolically: when Rama meets Agastya—when a person who has recognized the Self now sees all as the Self—he attains a soul-joined mind, divine resolves, a mind–intellect stocked with noble aims, and the ever-present sword of knowledge. With that, the Agastya episode in these two chapters is complete.