W for Why the Vindhya Mountains Swelled - Mahabharata Mashup

Namaste, 

Mahabharata has many short stories from differentPuranas. This is one such story from Aranyaka Parva, shared with Yudhistira during the earlyyears of the Pandava exile. 

Rishi Lomasa presented the following story about whythe Vindhya Mountain started swelling and how the situation was handled. 

A long time ago, the Vindhya Mountain noticed howthe sun (Surya Deva) would do a pradakshina (circumambulation) around thedivine Mount Meru every day. After a few days, the Vindhya asked the sun why he did that only for Meru. 

The sun replied that it wasn’t his choice but howthe creator carved his path, which he followed every day without fail. 

This annoyed the Vindhya Mountain. It expanded insize and swelled large enough to block the sun’s path. The gods went to sootheand convince the mountain to get back to its previous size. However, no amountof pleading worked. The Vindhya Mountain continued to obstruct the path of the sun, moon, and stars to satisfy its ego. This also caused trouble for therishis and earth-dwellers in the region as the days and seasons went off cycle. 

A group of rishis went to Rishi Agastya and explainedthe situation, asking for help. He assured them he would take care of the matter. The rishi wentto the Vindhya Mountain and asked it to create a passage for him to travelsouthward. The rishi said the mountain could close again once he came back. Themountain agreed. 

Rishi Agastya went to the south but stayed there.The mountain had no choice but to keep the passage open, as per theiragreement. This resulted in the mountain shirking into its previous size. Itcould no longer obstruct the sun’s path or interfere with nature’s cycle. 

Interesting, isn’t it? 

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