52 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
unlike their brothers in the north, would not have remained 
so unmolested. In fact the Vindhya mountains were by 
degrees recognized as constituting the natural frontier 
between the Aayanised nations of the north and the Dra\i- 
dians of the south. 
Aryan colonisation progressed slowly in the south. The 
first missionaries appear to have been only visitors and 
sojourners not permanent settlers in the country, whence 
they retraced their steps homewards. 
The holy Agastya, according to one tradition a grandson 
of Brahma, a son of Pulastya, a brother of Yisravas and an 
uncle of the Raksasa king, Ravana, is said to have remained 
in the South. Many miraculous deeds are ascribed to this 
diminutive sage. He is said to have been instrumental in 
the destruction of the powerful Nahusa, to have consumed 
and digested the Raksasa Vatapi, to have drunk the waters 
of the ocean, and to have forced the Vindhya mountains to 
prostrate themselves before him. This last feat was intended 
to symboKze the fact that he haAang settled down for good 
in Dravida, became the originator of Brahmanical coloni- 
sation. For he exacted from the insurmountable Yindhya, 
who was lying at his feet, the promise not to rise again 
until he had returned and recrossed, and as Agastya did not 
come back, the Vindhya could not lift its head again, and 
since then the mountain became passable for futui-e immi- 
25 According to another tradition he was bom together vrith Vasiitfia in 
a waterjar (therefore called KmubJiasatiihliara, Kionbhatjoni and Ghatodbhava') 
as the son of Mitra and Varuna (therefore Maitravdnaii) and of the Apsaras 
Urvasl. In the Svayambhuva Manvantara the name of Agastjn, as the son 
of Pulastya and Priti, is Battoli. According to the Bhag-avata-Pui-aua 
Agastya was the son of Pulastya and of Ha\-ii-bhu and was Killed in a 
previous birth Dnhrdgni or Jat/iaraiiiii. (See risfiiiuput:, vol. I, p. 154.) He 
is also called Pitdbdhi as Ocean-drinker and T'dtdpidris, as destroyer of Vatapi. 
His abode is fixed on the mountain Kuujara. Many hynms of the Egveda 
nrc ascribed to him. Liissen (vol. IT, p. 23) has pointed out the incongruity 
of the reports respecting the time when he lived, as he is mentioned both as 
a contemporary of Anaatsguna and of Kirtipufaija Payiiya. 
