One Son Worth a Thousand

Agastya went out to beg for wealth. He went to three kings in turn, Śrutarvan, Vadhryaśva and Trasadasyu, and found in each kingdom that what came in and what went out were exactly equal, so that to take anything would harm someone, and he took nothing. Then the kings went with him to the demon Ilvala, who was rich. Ilvala had a power: whomever he called by name came back alive. So he would cook his brother Vātāpi and feed him to a brahmin, and then call him, and Vātāpi would burst out of the brahmin's side, and in this way he had killed many brahmins. He fed the kings and Agastya his brother Vātāpi cooked as a ram, and Agastya ate the whole of him and digested him, so that when Ilvala called, his brother did not come. Ilvala, dismayed, gave the kings cows and gold, and gave Agastya twice as much, with a golden chariot and two horses swift as thought, and the horses carried all the wealth home to the hermitage in what seemed the blink of an eye.

Then the seer did everything Lopāmudrā had wished.

You have done all I longed for, she said to him. Now give me a child of great strength.

Agastya said, I am pleased with the way you have lived, my lovely one. Listen to what I have to put before you about the child. Will you have a thousand sons, or a hundred each worth ten, or ten each worth a hundred, or one worth a thousand?

Let me have one son equal to a thousand, said Lopāmudrā. One learned and good son is better than many who are not.

Agastya agreed, and he came to her at the right time, he full of faith, and she, who was like him in nature, sharing his faith. Then he left the child in her womb and went back to the forest. In his absence the child grew in the womb for seven years. When the seventh year had passed he was born, a great poet, blazing with his own power, reciting the Vedas with the sciences that belong to them and with their Upaniṣads. His name was Dṛḍhasyu. While he was still a small boy he carried loads of firewood into his father's house, and so he was called Idhmavāha, the bearer of firewood.

The seer rejoiced to see such a son, and the ancestors who had hung in the pit gained the worlds they had longed for.