Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s7.t5.68

v2.c27.s7.t5.68

Bhartrihari.—The ‘serpent-rock’ is also famed as being one of the places where the wandering Bhartrihari, prince of Ujjain, lived for years in penitential devotion; and the slab which served as a seat to this royal saint has become one of the objects of veneration. If all the places assigned to this brother of Vikrama were really visited by him, he must have been one of the greatest tourists of antiquity, and must have lived to an antediluvian old age. Witness his castle at Sehwan, on the Indus; his cave at Alwar; his thans at Abu, and at Benares. We must, in fact, give credit to the couplet of the bards, “the world is the Pramara’s.” There are many beautiful spots about the serpent-mount, which, as it abounds in springs, has from the earliest times been the resort of the Hindu sages, whose caves and hermitages are yet pointed out, now embellished with gardens and fountains. One of the latter issuing from a fissure in the rock is sacred to the Muni Agastya, who performed the very credible exploit of drinking up the ocean.