Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.98

c4.98

23) *How Agastya got golden bangle.* Once Agastya entered a forest of about a hundred yojanas wide. The forest was devoid of life. When he had walked a few more steps some Gandharvas (semi-gods) and celestial maids came there singing and dancing. From among them a noble male being came forward to the bank of a lake in the forest and ate without any hesitation, the corpse of a man that was lying there. After that he walked round Agastya and made obeisance to him. Agastya asked him why he had eaten the corpse of a man. The noble man told Agastya thus: "In tretā yuga (the third age) there lived a King named Vidarbha. I am his son and my name is Śveta. After having ruled over my kingdom for a long time, I came to the bank of this lake and began to do penance. After that discarding my body I entered heaven. Though I attained heaven my hunger was not appeased. I asked Brahmā how, I, a dweller of heaven, got this hunger. Brahmā said that when I was King I had given nothing to anybody and so I got this hunger even after entering heaven. As a remedy Brahmā suggested that I should come here everyday and eat corpse and when I had completed ten thousand days the hermit Agastya would come here and that when I offered him a golden bangle my sin would be washed away." Saying thus Śveta offered to Agastya the golden bangle given by Brahmā and then he vanished and the corpse also disappeared. Śveta went to heaven. (Uttara Rāmāyaṇa).