By PRAGYANSHARMA POLAVARAPU (Vrs.Somanchi)
At the very beginning of creation god
almighty had to incarnate himself in some fierce non-human forms to
protect the weak and punish the wicked.
(1) At beginning of time ,billions of years
ago , a wicked demon king stole all “books of knowledge” from Lord Brahma and
took them deep into ocean to destroy them. Then Lord Vishnu took the form of a
colossal fish ,killed the demon and recovered the “books of
knowledge” and gave them back to Lord Brahma.
(2) Again at a later time billions of years
ago, lord Vishnu took the form of a “mountain sized tortoise” to help the
gods who were fighting a losing war with demons to take possession of the
treasures of the ocean . The gods and demons were locked in a grand
fight to recover the sealed gold pot containing “Amrith”,
the divine nectar — by drinking which gods and demons could
become deathless and immortal. At that time millions of years ago
gods were not immortal and were weak and often defeated by the demons and
driven out of heaven!
The gods prayed to Lord Vishnu(god
almighty of the universe) and he assured help to them to get Amrith.
After a long fight gods and demons agreed to churn the ocean together. They
used a huge divine snake as rope and a huge mountain as a churner . But
often the huge mountain used as churner was slipping down into the ocean. The
gods were mild and innocent though very industrious. But the demons were
adopting all wrong means to browbeat the gods . The demons were very strong and
wanted every minute to defeat and drive the gods away.
Lord Vishnu appeared on the scene and wanted
to render help to the gods. First he turned himself into a colossal
mountain-sized tortoise,crept under the base of the mountain and
supported the slipping mountain on his hard back . After much
churning the sealed dazzling gold pot of “Amrith” came out along with
other valuable wealth from the sea. Again the the gods and demons started
fighting furiously to seize it . But the gods were weak before
the mighty and pitiless demons.
Lord Vishnu took pity on the gods and decided
to help the gods again. Now, using his mysterious powers, he
transformed himself into a dazzlingly beautiful woman and volunteered to
distribute Amrith equally between both groups .The demons were dazed at
her beauty and believed her words to be true and sat in rows peacefully a
little away from the gods. The goddess pretended distributing Amrith to both
groups but actually exhausted all Amrith while distributing in the gods’ wing .
In the vast crowd the demons could not notice the big fraud. The goddess (none
other than Lord Vishnu) disappeared into the skies. Thus immortality was
acquired only by the gods.
(3)After further billions of
years a colossal demon hid the planet earth inside bottomless oceans of a
primordial world. Even the whole sphere of earth disappeared into the
primordial ocean. Goddess Earth prayed to Lord Vishnu to rescue
her. Lord Vishnu took the form of a huge wild boar and fought with
the demon for a thousand years and rescued Goddess Earth from the bottomless
ocean.
(4) A great demon king Hiranyakashipu
who denied existence of god almighty tried also to prevent his
little son from praying to god almighty. But the devout little boy –who loved
god as embodiment of kindness, goodness and love —refused to follow
his father. The wicked king ordered that the little boy, his own son, be killed
but Lord Vishnu remaining always invisible protected the boy at every step
. The king angrily challenged his son to show the god almighty in a
nearby huge pillar and struck it with his huge golden mace.
Lord Vishnu became extremely angry and could
not control his anger. He ,in a very angry half lion-half human form of
lord narasimha( the half-human half-lion form)wearing a golden crown and decked
in dazzling jewels, burst out of the pillar amidst blinding lightning and
deafening thunder. Even the gods gathered there were frightened. The lion god
,using sharp claws of his lion body, cut open the stomach of the king
and started drinking the blood in a fit of wild anger and killed
the demon king. Lord Vishnu cooled down only after the little devout son
of the wicked king bravely prayed and appealed to the angry god .The god
immediately changed to the sweet form of a handsome warrior-prince
(Lord Vishnu), crowned the little boy as king and disappeared into the skies.
NB: The holy temple I visited 23 years ago on
the long forested hill at Mallur —(the story of which i am narrating in detail
in other posts in this same blog)–was that of Lord Narasimha .He is the
fierce half-human half-lion form of Lord Vishnu and there are large number of
temples to this god throughout India..
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