A sage credited with carrying Vedic and Shaiva tradition into South India, and with drinking the ocean dry in one Puranic tale.
दिव्य ऋषि · Divine Sage
Legend holds Agastya was born from a pot (kumbha), fully grown, to two gods disguised as sages — an origin echoed today in the Kumbh Mela's name. Puranic tales describe him swallowing the ocean to expose demons hiding beneath it, and humbling the Vindhya mountains, grown so tall they blocked the sun, by asking them to bow and stay low until his return.
Agastya is traditionally credited with helping establish Vedic and Tamil learning in the south, and the Agastya Samhita and other texts bearing his name remain part of the Siddha medical and Tamil literary traditions of Tamil Nadu.