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168 agreed, Vishnu in his real form strode across the whole earth. Sixth, under the name of a Brahman warrior king, Parasu-Rāma, who is said to have destroyed the whole race of Kshatriyas twenty-one times. Seventh, when he appeared as Rāma, the ideal Indian king, the hero of the Rāmāyana. Eighth, as Krishna, whose religious doctrine forming the philosophical basis of the Vaishnava cult is expounded in the Bhagavad Gīta. Ninth, as the Buddha, a Brahmanical commentary stating that this was the Avatar which Vishnu assumed to lead demons and sinners to their own destruction. Lastly, Vishnu's tenth incarnation, not yet consummated, will be that of Kalkin, who will come riding on a white horse, sword in hand, to restore the Aryan law of righteousness and rule the earth.

As might be supposed, the coming of the Day-goddess, Vishnu's bride, over the Himālayan peaks has often inspired the Indian poet and artist; and this appears to be the foundation of the well-known myth of Vishnu's second Avatar, the Kūrma, or Tortoise, in which form he assisted at the Churning of the Ocean, as told in the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana, and the Vishnu Purāna. In order to restore to the three regions of earth, air, and heaven their lost prosperity, Vishnu, it is said, instructed the Devas, the Shining Ones, to join with the demons of darkness, the Asuras, in churning the cosmic ocean, the Sea of Milk, for the nectar of life of immortality, amrita. So the Devas came to the shores of that sea, which shone like the shining clouds of autumn, and with Vishnu's help upturned the holy mountain, Mandara, to serve as a churning-stick, while the great serpent Ananta, whose coils encircle the earth, was used as a cord. Vishnu himself, in the form of a