The Ocean Drunk Dry

After Indra killed Vṛtra, a band of fierce demons called the Kāleyas, who had fought for Vṛtra, fled for their lives and entered the ocean. There, among the crocodiles and the sharks, they made a plan to destroy the worlds. By day they hid in the sea. By night they came out in a fury and ate the sages in their hermitages and in the holy places. At Vasiṣṭha's hermitage they ate one hundred and eighty-eight brahmins and nine other ascetics. At Cyavana's hermitage they ate a hundred sages who lived on fruit and roots. At Bharadvāja's they killed twenty celibate students who lived on wind and water.

No one knew who was doing it. In the morning the sages lay on the ground, lean from fasting, their bodies lifeless, the flesh and blood gone, the bones broken apart, so that the earth looked as if it were strewn with heaps of conch shells. Water pots lay overturned, ladles broken, sacred fires scattered. The recitation of the Veda stopped. The sacrifices and the festivals ceased. People fled in every direction. Some hid in caves, some by waterfalls, some died of fear. Brave archers searched for the killers and found nothing, for the killers were in the sea.

The gods were in anguish, and they went with Indra to Viṣṇu, and Viṣṇu told them who the killers were and where they hid. They cannot be destroyed while they shelter in the sea, he said. You must find a way to dry up the ocean. And who but Agastya could dry up the ocean?

The gods went to Agastya's hermitage and found him there, blazing with power, surrounded by seers as Brahmā is surrounded by the gods. They praised him for what he had already done. You were the refuge of the worlds when Nahuṣa tormented them, they said, and you threw that thorn of the worlds down from the kingdom of the gods. You are always the refuge of the frightened. We ask a boon of you.

What do you want of me? Agastya asked. And the gods said, Drink up the great ocean, great seer. Then we will kill the Kāleyas and all who follow them.

So be it, said the seer. I will do what you wish, and it will bring great happiness to the worlds.

He went to the ocean, lord of rivers, with seers and with gods, and men and serpents and gandharvas and yakṣas followed to see the wonder. The ocean was roaring, dancing with its waves, leaping with the wind, laughing with its foam. Agastya stood before it and said to the gods and seers, For the good of the worlds I am drinking the home of Varuṇa. Be quick to do what you must do. Then, while the whole world watched, he drank the ocean.

The gods were amazed and praised him. You are our protector, they said, and the maker of the worlds; by your grace the world and its gods will not be destroyed. Gandharva music sounded on every side and heavenly flowers fell on him, and he left the great ocean empty of water. The gods took up their weapons and fell on the demons. The Kāleyas fought a fierce battle for a short while, but they had already been burned by the austerities of the sages, and the gods cut them down. A few who were left split the earth and fled into the underworld.

Then the gods praised the seer again and said, Now fill the ocean, great one. Let out again the water you drank.

Agastya answered, I have digested that water. You will have to think of some other way to fill the ocean.

The gods were amazed and downcast. They bowed to the seer and went with Viṣṇu to Brahmā, and Brahmā told them that after a great length of time the ocean would return to its nature, through the great king Bhagīratha, who would act for his kinsmen. And so it was. Long after, Bhagīratha brought the river Gaṅgā down from heaven to purify the remains of his kinsmen, the sons of King Sagara, and led her on to the empty ocean, and her waters filled it again.