The Himalayan Master

The Tripura Rahasya tells the poignant story of Parashu Rama's inner struggle. He realized that he was mentally ill. His anger was out of control, and he was a danger to everyone around him. He sought out various gurus for counselling, but they were all too sacred of him to teach him. So they sent him to the Himalayas to seek help from Dattatreya, the greatest spiritual master of them all.

Dattatreya was so awesome that Hindu tradition would designate him an incarnation of Brahma and of Vishnu and of Shiva all at once! As he approached the master's hermitage, Parashu Rama found other would-be disciples running in the opposite direction. " Don't brother with Dattatreya", they advised him. "He's a fraud!" But our axe murderer had come too far to turn back now.

Entering the ashram Parashu Rama saw Dattatreya sitting with a jug of wine on one knee and a nubile young woman on the other. No wonder the other seekers had left in such a hurry! But Parashu Rama noted the light of self-realization glowing in the guru's face and wasn't fooled. Instead he prostrated before the master and begged for his help. 

The Lion Man

Vishnu often incarnates to teach kings gone bad a good lesson. In this story, It's Hiranya Kashipu, whose military exploits are terrorizing the earth. Worse, Hiranya Kashipu is also persecuting his innocent son Prahlada who is guileless devotee of Vishnu. Well, this is the straw that broke the chamel's back !

The evil king had won a boon that he could not be killed at day or night, inside or outside, by man or by God. But no king is more clever than Vishnu. At twilight (neither day nor night) as Hiranya Kashipu stepped through a doorway (neither outdoors nor indoors), a statue of a half-man, half-lion (neither human nor God) fell on him, ripping him to pieces.

Zoroastrianism is closely related to Vedic religion. Interestingly, in the Zoroastrian tradition, the image of a half-man, half-lion represents the all-consuming face of time. As the Zoroastrians were long the Hindu hostile neighbors, it's possible Hiranya Kashipu was opposed to his son worshipping Vishnu because he was a follower of Zoroaster, who rejected the Hindu tradition. 

Parashu Rama : An Axe to Grind

Parashu Rama was a hot-tempered guy. How hot tempered? Well, his name means " Rama with an axe." If that brings to mind a certain genre of horror movie, your image isn't far off the mark.

Brahmin priests aren't axe murderers as a rule, but there are exceptions to every rule. Parashu Rama's time, the warrior caste was out of control. They were rampaging through the country-side, killing and exploiting innocent people (a definite no-no in Hinduism's strict code of conduct for warriors). When a soldier assaulted his father, Parashu Rama went berserk. Though he was a brahmin himself and not supposed to fight, Parashu Rama picked up an axe and killed the soldier.

But he didn't just kill that warrior. He killed all the warriors. But he didn't just kill all the warriors. He broke into their homes and killed their wives and children. And he didn't just do this once. Anytime he heard there was a surviving warrior anywhere, he rushed there and killed him and his family. Parashu Rama's goal was flat-out genocide. He didn't just want to wipe out the present evil race of violent men. He wanted to expunge the fighting class forever.

The story of Parashu Rama is probably based on historical fact, perhaps a brahmanical uprising against the corrupt warrior caste. But obviously no ordinary priest could achieve what Parashu Rama did and live to tell tale. The fact he was so successful could mean only one thing : He must have been an incarnation of Vishnu, come to purify the world. 

Tallest Dwarf in the Universe

An extremely ancient myth about Vishnu tells of his famous "three steps". The egotistical king Bali had built a huge empire. It was time to put him in his place. A dwarf showed up at his door asking for a gift. Bali may have been conceited but he was also generous. " Anything you want".

 "I want as much land as I can cover in three strides", the dwarf said.

Bali said sure. The dwarf took one step-and covered the entire Earth. He took a second step- and covered all of heaven. " You owe me one more step", he told the king, " but there's no more space in the universe. Where should I put my foot next?"

Bali was no idiot. He recognized now that he was in the presence of the Lord of the Universe.

"Here", he said, offering his own head. The "dwarf'" stepped on Bali's face crushing it into the Earth.

There is, of course, a moral to the story. Bali is the human ego. Vishnu is all-pervading spirit . Before the Supreme Being the mature ego must surrender, no matter how great a king or queen it formerly imagined itself to be. For magnanimously admitting defeat, Bali was ultimately generously rewarded. 

A Fishy Avatar

The Matsya Purana tells an amazing story I'm positive you'll find interesting. Long ago a man named Manu was bathing when he accidentally cupped a small fish in his hands. The fish begged him home because a river full of hungry big fish was not a safe place for a tasty little fish.

Manu placed the fish in a bowl of water but it quickly outgrew its new home. Manu kept transferring the fish into larger containers until finally it grew so large that it would not be perfectly safe in the sea. As he released the fish into the ocean it thanked him for his kindness and warned him, " Very soon the entire planet is going to be destroyed in a flood. Build yourself a boat and put two very kind of creature into it, and seeds of all types. Better hurry!"

Manu quickly obeyed. Soon a tremendous flood blanketed the world with raging waters. The fish reappeared, with a horn on its head this time. Manu tied his floundering vessel to the fish, which towed him to the safety of a nearby mountain. When the waters subsided Manu repopulated the world which is why we're called the race of man, or of Manu. By now figured out that the fish was none other than Vishnu himself, come to save humanity from total destruction.

The fish Messiah reappears in ancient Zoroastrian mythology where he advises Yima, the first man, to release a dove to see how low waters have ebbed. He shows up again in a Sumerian tablet dated to 1750 B.C.E. Previously scholars had thought the Sumerian version of "Noah's Ark"was the oldest. With the redating of early Vedic and Zoroastrian texts, it's now much more likely the Hindu myth is by far the most ancient version of this famous story.

Visitor from the outer Space

Another time Vishnu averted a disaster of cosmic proportions. The landmass of the planet Earth was disappearing beneath the sea. Suddenly a great being shaped like a boar appeared in the sky. With a roaring cry it crashed into the Earth, plunged beneath the ocean , and used its mighty tusks to heave the landmass back up above the water. The boar was so virile it impregnated Mother Earth , who had fallen desperately in love with her rescuer. A great mass emerged from her belly and roared off into the sky. The son of Mother Earth and her celestial savior was the planet Mars.

More than a few commentators have noted that the story of the boar avatar sounds uncannily like an asteroid hitting the Earth, perhaps after sea levels began to rise at the end of an Ice Age. 

Hindu Saviors

It's Vishnu's job to keep the world in running order and protect the innocent. His ten incarnations are the best-known avatars. Surprisingly, the human form is not his only uniform. He'll assume whatever shape is called for under the circumstances.

For example, when the demi-gods and demons wanted to churn the Milky Ocean to produce the nectar of immortality (see Chapter 12, " Meet the Hindu Gods"), they found a mountain they could use as a churning rod and a gigantic snake they could use to spin the rod. But there was no base strong enough to rest the mountain on. Vishnu obligingly assumed the form of a huge turtle, and the churning rod, Mount Meru, was balanced on his shell.

This myth may seem less odd when you learn that in Hindu astronomy the bare shell of the turtle refers to the south celestial pole, a comparatively vacant part of the sky where there are few bright stars. The churning motion represents Earth's precessional cycle, an astronomical phenomenon the Vedic sages often referred to.