THE STRIDES OF VISHNU. 'Thou, Agni, art Varuna, when thou art born; thou art Mitra, when thou art kindled; son of strength, in thee reside all the gods: thou art Indra to the man who sacrifices.' ‘Thou art Aryaman, when thou, self-controlled, possessest the secret name of the maidens.'' Agni, again, although along with Indra, Soma, and Parameshthin he is a son of Prajâpati,' is according to the same writers Prajapati himself. 'The man who became Prajâpati is the same as this Agni who is kindled on the altar.' This name brings us at once to other equations, for Prajâpati is Daksha: he is also Time and Death. 'The gods were afraid of this ender, death, the year which is Prajapati, lest he should by days and nights bring on the end of our life.' 3 Elsewhere Prajapati is Brahma. 'Those men who know Brahma know him who occupies the highest place (Parameshthin): he who knows Parameshthin and who knows Prajâpati, they who know the ancient Brahmana (deity ?), they know Skambha.'4 103 CHAP. II. It is scarcely necessary, then, to say that in all the phrases Vishnu the striding which describe the attributes of Vishņu, the origin of each god. conception is plainly discernible. He is especially the god who traverses the heaven in three strides, these strides being taken by some commentators to denote his manifestations as fire on the earth, as lightning in the atmosphere, and as the sun in heaven, or in other words, his identity with Agni, Vayu, and Sûrya. By others they are regarded as setting forth the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun; and there can be little doubt that the latter idea was at the first most closely associated with the thought of Vishnu.5 It would seem indeed that these gods are distinguished only 1 R. V. v. 3, 1; Muir, Sansk. Texts, pt. iv. ch. ii. sect. 1. Satapatha Brahmana, xi. 1, 6; Muir, ib. The idea is obviously that of the Greek Kronos, who devours all his offspring. Ath. V. x. 7, 7; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part iv. p. 17. Skambha is the sup porter or propper, vol i. p. 37. This 'Vishnu, thou didst prop asunder Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part iv. p. 57. BOOK Dwarf Incarnation. when the worshipper wishes to add to the titles of the being whom he invokes in his litanies. ‘Agni, Varuņa, Mitra, ye gods, give us strength, and ye hosts of Maruts, and Vishņu. May both the Asvins, Rudra, and the wives of the deities, with Pushan, Bhaga, and Sarasvati, be pleased with us. 'I invoke for our protection Indra and Agni, Mitra and Varuna, Aditî, heaven, earth and sky, the Maruts, the mountains, the waters, Vishņu, Pushan, Brahmanaspati, Bhaga, Samsa and Savitri. 'And may Vishnu and the wind, uninjuring, and Soma, the bestower of riches, give us happiness. And may the Ribhus, Asvins, Tvashtri and Vibhvan be favourable to us, so as to grant us wealth.'' Much of the later mythology respecting Vishnu turns on the Dwarf Incarnation, which may be compared with the myth of the maimed Hephaistos. In both cases the defect is simply a veil putting out of view the irresistible power of the god. The fire at its birth is weak, and its flame puny; the sun sheds but little warmth as he rests on the horizon at his rising; and it might well be said that none could tell how vast a power lay in these seemingly weak and helpless beings. So Vishnu, manifesting himself as the Dwarf, obtains from the Asuras as much as he can lie upon, or as much as he can cover in three strides. It is thus that Bali, the great enemy of the gods, is overcome. Having conquered the three worlds, Bali terrifies Indra, who, with other deities, beseeches Vishnu to take the shape of a dwarf and deceive their conqueror. Having in this shape approached the son of Virochana and obtained the boon of the three paces, the thrice-stepping Vishņu assumed a miraculous form, and with three paces took possession of the worlds. For with one step he occupied the whole earth, with a second the eternal atmosphere, and with a third the sky. Having then assigned to the Asura Bali an abode in Patala (the infernal region), he gave the empire of the three worlds to Indra.' 2 In the Mahâbhârata this fact is ascribed to 1 R. V. v. 46; Muir, Sansk. T. pt. iv. p. 69. Ramayana, i. 322; Muir, ib. 117. DWARF GODS. Krishna, who, having become the son of Aditî, was called Vishnu. In the Bhagavata Purana the story assumes proportions almost as vast as those of the god whom it seeks to glorify. No sooner has Bali granted the seemingly moderate request of Hari or Vishņu, than the body of the dwarf begins to expand and fills the whole universe, and Bali is bound with the chains of Varuna. This dwarf appears elsewhere in the person of the child Kumâra, the son of Aushasî, the daughter of the dawn.3 Thus throughout we are dealing with phrases which the Hindu commentators knew to be mere phrases; and thus without a thought of injustice done to the deities whom he seemed to disparage, the worshipper could say that Varuna himself and the Asvins do the bidding of Vishnu, and that Vishnu is more beneficent than his chosen companion Indra. 'King Varuna and the Asvins wait on the decree of this ruler, attended by the Maruts: Vishnu possesses excellent wisdom, which knows the proper day, and with his friend opens up the cloud. 'The divine Vishnu who has chosen companionship with the beneficent Indra, himself more beneficent, the wise god has gratified the Arya.' 4 And again, Thou, Agni, art Indra, bountiful to the good; thou art Vishnu, the wide-stepping, the adorable.'" So when Indra is about to smite Vritra, he is at once represented as bidding his friend Vishņu to stride vastly. 'Friend Vishnu, stride vastly: sky, give room for the thunderbolt to strike; let us slay Vritra and let loose the waters.' 6 Yet although in some passages Vishnu is described as having established the heavens and the earth, and as sus 1 Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt. iv. p. 118. 2 Id. ib. p. 125, &c. Id. ib. p. 284. The diminutive size of many of the heroes of popular tradition must be traced to this idea. Odysseus is small, when he stands, as compared with Menelaos: in other words he is Shortshanks (Grimm). Boots is despised for his insignificant stature, and the Master Thief incurs the same contempt. The idea of mere diminu- R. V. i. 156; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, • Muir, ib. R. V. viii. 89, 12; Muir, ib. p. 68. 105 CHAP. II. Majesty of BOOK II. The palace of Vishņu. Avatars of taining the world by his own inherent force, still he is said in others to make his three strides through the power of Indra. 6 When, Indra, the gods placed thee in their front in the battle, then thy dear steeds grew. 'When, thunderer, thou didst by thy might slay Vritra who stopped up the streams, then thy dear steeds grew. 'When by thy force Vishņu strode three steps, then thy dear steeds grew.'1 Elsewhere we are told that mortal man cannot comprehend his majesty. 'No one who is being born, or has been born, has attained, O divine Vishnu, to the furthest limit of thy greatness.'' The personality of the mythical Vishnu is, in short, as transparent as that of Helios or Selênê. He dwells in the aerial mountains, in a gleaming palace where the many horned and swiftly moving cows abide. Here that supreme abode of the wide-stepping vigorous god shines intensely forth.' These cows are in some places the clouds, in others, the rays which stream from the body of the sun. But on the whole it must be admitted that the place of Vishņu in the Rig Veda, as compared with the other great deities, is in the background; and the institutional legends of later Brahmanic literature throw but little light on the mythical idea of this deity, and perhaps none on the mythology of any other people. As the supreme spirit, whose ten Avatars or Incarnations are among the later developements of Hindu theology, Vishnu is associated or identified not only with Siva or Mahadeva, but with Rama in the Ramayana, and with Krishna in the Mahâbhârata. But the Mahâdera, with whom he is thus identified, is himself only Varuna or Dyaus, under another name. 'He is Rudra, he is Siva, he is Agni, he is Saiva, the all-conquering; he is Indra, he is Vayu, be is the Asvins, he is the lightning, he is the moon, he is Iswara, he is Sûrya, he is Varuna, he is time, he is death the ender; he is darkness, and night, and the days; he is R. V. viii. 12; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt. iv. p. 77. Muir, ib. p. 63. VISHNU AND KRISHNA. 3 107 CHAP. the months and the half-months of the seasons, the morning and evening twilight, and the year." Krishna, again, is said to be sometimes a partial, sometimes a perfect manifestation of that god; but the phrases in which Krishna is spoken of are as indefinite and elastic as those which speak of Agni, Indra or Vishņu. In some passages Krishna is simply a son of Devakî. But as Vishnu is also Brahma, so is Krishna also the supreme deity. Elsewhere it is said that Brahma and Mahâdeva themselves proceed from Krishna, who again identifies himself with Rudra, although in other passages Rudra is described as mightier; and in each case commentators, as we might expect, are ready with the reasons which reconcile the seeming inconsistency. Like Vishnu, Krishna rises to greater importance in later times, and in far more abundant measure. The popular affections were more and more fixed on the bright god who was born in a cave, at whose birth the exulting devas sang in the heavens, whose life was sought by a cruel tyrant, and who, like Zeus or Herakles, had many loves in many lands. In this later theology the idea which regarded the sun as Emblems the generator of all life left the attributes of Vishnu by comparison in the shade; and the emblem thus especially worship of associated with this deity marks a singular stage in the history of religion. If the subject is one which must be approached with the utmost caution, it is also one in which we are especially bound not to evade or misrepresent the facts. If the form of faith, or rather it should be said, of worship, with which we have now to deal, has prevailed in all lands and still prevails amongst a large majority of mankind, it becomes our duty to trace fairly, to the best of our power, its origin and growth, and to measure accurately the influence which it has exercised on the human intellect and on human morality. If in our search we find that phrases and emblems, to which we now attach a purely spiritual signification, have acquired this meaning gradually as the ruder ideas which marked the infancy of the human race Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt. iv. ch. ii. sect. 5. 2 Id. ib. p. 152. 'Do you not know,' says Krishna to Balarama, 'that you and I are alike the origin of the world, who have come down to lighten its load?'— associated Vishņu. |