Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/61

 Chap. II.] omnipotent being : there is no other than me, and no one therefore can over- come me.' To pacify him Vishnu thus replied in gentle words : ' O Brahma ! it was not through malice that I closed the gates, but merely through sport;

for who can oppose Pitamaha, the god of gods? But since thou hast been pro- duced by me, thou shalt be considered as my son, and shall be named the Lotus-born. Brahma replied : ' There is but one God, the supreme Lord of all things ; how then can there be two, and Narayana and Brahma be each that Lord?' Vishnu then said : ' Who can acknowledge the supremacy of Brahma, when 1 alone am without beginning and end, and the sole supreme being? Therefore, Brahma! seek protection from me.' Pitamaha with anger thus replied: 'O Lord I I know myself to be supreme, imperishable, the creator of the universe, the most excellent recipient ; and nowhere can there be found any other supreme God than me. Dispel therefore thy slumber, and know thyself' Having lieard these angry words, Vishnu thus spoke : ' O Brahma, why art thou thus deceived by illusion; and perceivest not the real truth that I alone am the supreme Lord?'"

Singularly enough, on this occasion neither of the contending deities proves victor, for, in the midst of the strife, Siva suddenly makes his appearance, and compels both to confess that in claiming supremacy they were trenching on his prerogative.

Vishnu is in many respects the most attractive deity of the triad. His heaven, called Vaikunta, is 80,000 miles in circuit, and entirely of gold. Precious stones form its pillars as well as the ornaments of its buildings, which are constructed of jewels. Crystal showers descending upon it form a magnificent river, and feed numerous fine lakes, the surface of which are covered with water lilies — blue, red, and white, some of them with a hundred and others with a thousand petals. On a seat glorious as the meridian sun, sits Vishnu himself, and on his right hand Lakshmi, whose face shines like a continued blaze of lightning, and whose body diffuses the fragrance of the lotus for 800 miles. Glorified Vishnaivas are their ministering servants, and divine or angelic natures find constant emplo3maent in meditating on their perfections or singing their praise. On earth, too, there is less of a revolting nature in his worship than in that of most other gods of the pantheon. No bloody sacrifices are offered to him; and in all his avatars some beneficent or praiseworthy object has been contemplated. Of these avatars nine are already past, and a tenth is still to be realized. From the prominent place which they hold in Hindoo mythology, they are entitled to more than a passing notice.

In the first, or Matsya avatar, Vishnu's object was to recover the Veda, which had been stolen by the demon Hayagriva. With this view he assumed the form of a small fish in the river Cretamala ; and when a pious king, called Satyavrata, came to its banks to make a libation, thus accosted him: — "How canst thou leave me in this stream, exposed to its monsters who are my dread?"