Agastya
Vedic age · Ṛgveda · revered in the Tamil South
Agastya is a seer of several hymns of the first book of the Ṛgveda and one of the best-loved sages of India. His wife is the ṛṣikā Lopāmudrā. Tradition calls him Kumbhayoni, “born from a pot”, and says he travelled south across the Vindhyas, carrying Vedic learning to the South.
In Tamil tradition he is honoured as the father of Tamil grammar and of the Siddha system of medicine. In the Rāmāyaṇa he gives Rāma divine weapons in the forest, and before the final battle teaches him the Āditya Hṛdayam, the hymn to the Sun.
Tradition says the Vindhya mountain grew so tall in pride that it blocked the Sun. Agastya, its teacher, asked it to bow low so he could cross to the South, and to stay so until he returned. He never went back north, and the Vindhyas remain low to this day. Another story tells that he drank up the ocean to expose demons hiding beneath it.
Ṛgveda Maṇḍala 1 · Wife: Lopāmudrā · Āditya Hṛdayam · Father of Tamil grammar (tradition)