Agastya - Humbling the Vindhya mountains - Encyclopedia II

Legend says that the Vindhya mountains that separate north and south India from each other once showed a tendency to grow so high as to obstruct the usual trajectory of the sun. This was accompanied by increasing vanity on the part of that mountain range, which demanded that Surya, the sun-God, should circum-ambulate the Vindhyas in the same way as he does Mount Meru [identified by some as being the north pole]. The need arose to subdue, by guile, the Vindhyas, and Agastya was chosen to do that.

Agastya journeyed from north to south, and on the way encountered the now impassible Vindhya mountains. He asked the mountain range to facilitate his passage across to the south. In reverence for so eminent a sage as Agastya, the Vindhya mountains bent low enough to enable the sage and his family to cross over and enter south India. The Vindhya range also promised not to increase in height until Agastya and his family returned to the north. Agastya settled permanently in the south, and the Vindhya range, true to its word, never grew further. Thus, Agastya accomplished by guile something that would have been impossible to accomplish by force.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Humbling the Vindhya mountains", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page