A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c9.15

c9.15

The site of Agastya's *āśrama* has been located in many places from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, as well as outside India—that in the Malaya mountains, the southernmost section of the Western Ghats, being perhaps the most famous. This multiplicity of Agastya *āśramas* and *bhavanas* has been taken to imply either that he is a purely mythical figure or that a whole clan of Agastyas spread to all the places mentioned, though it is admitted that there is nothing to show when or how the clan arose. It seems better to suppose that round the one historical Agastya, the author of the Vedic hymns and husband of Lopāmudrā, who played an important role in his time in furthering the aryanization of the South, there naturally gathered in course of time a number of stories representing the further stages of the movement he started.