Tamil tradition recognizes Sage Agastya to be an important Siddha. In addition, stories and astronomy point to Agastya’s antiquity. Agastya’s Tamil works better survived the ravages of time than his works in Sanskrit. Therefore, his Tamil works can provide better clues about the ancient link between the North and South than the presently available Vedic literature. Agastya Paripooranam is one of Agastya’s Tamil works. For example. in this work, he elaborates the need for a Guru. Further, he describes the benefits of meeting a Sadguru. Through this, we can conclude one thing. The attitude to one’s Guru was the same in the Dravidian and the Vedic traditions at the time of Sage Agastya. Let us take a look at a few verses from his work. A Yogi has two goals. Firstly, a Yogi wants to reduce mental chatter. Secondly, he wants to cultivate the skill to keep the mind like a still pond. Agastya asserts in the verse below that

Continue readingGuru Tradition flourished in Dravidian lands