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| A 12th century statue of Agastya photo credits |
For section B of the Ramayana notes, I wanted to focus on the character of Agastya. He was mentioned in the 27th section of the Ramayana readings and he is the sage who gives Rama weapons that he can use in battle, like a sword and a bow. In the reading guide, it said how Agastya is one of the most famous Rashis, so I wanted to learn more about him this week. In the Ramayana, Agastya lives in the Dandaka forest. The present location of the Dandaka forest is unknown and has been debated by and argued about by many. Agastya is also featured in the Mahabhrata test that we will read later this semester. I have not decided on my topic yet for the project, so I decided to think about how I could include Agaysta in each of them. You can visit my brainstorming post here, for more about the themes.
Ramayana Zoo
If I do this topic, I could work Agastya into the story as a zoo keeper. In the Ramayana he is known for being ascetic and a hermit, so maybe he could sleep outside with the animals and only talk to them. He would tend to the animals like Hanuman, the squirrels and the bird Jatayu (he won't die in my story, that's too sad!)
Tour the Ramayana
Agastya is said to be plump and fat. If I chose to do the Tour the Ramayana topic, then Agastya could be a chef who uses his wisdom to create delicious food, or he could be a person on the tour who believes he is more wise than the tour guide himself. He would know a lot about the forests that he lived in in the Ramayana.
Women of the Epics
If I chose to do this topic, I would have a harder time working Agastya into the narrative, since I would exclude all male characters. I could still create a sage with wisdom and characteristics like he has, but instead make him into a her.
Gods of India
This is like a Humans of New York type project, so in this one, I could profile Agastya and talk about his life and have a quote by him. There seems to be a lot of artwork of him online, so it would be easy to find a good picture to include of him!
Bibliography: PDE Ramayana: Agastya
The sages of the epics are SO COOL, and Agastya is one of the best. You can weave them into any story (just as they are always showing up in the epics, sometimes when you least expect them!)... or you could zoom in on Agastya and/or other rishis for a Storybook project of their own. You can see here how he shows up in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata: Agastya in the Epics. The Ramayana take place in totally different "ages" (yugas) of the world, but there are these long-lived and/or immortal characters like Agastya who do show up in both! Another amazing character like that is Parashurama; keep an eye out for him as you are reading, and you will see him in both epics: Parashurama. He is even more intense than Agastya!
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