The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.104

v1.c11.104

**Vaisnavism of the** ***Brāhmaṇas:*** In the *Brāhmaṇas*, Viṣṇu ceases to be a mere name or attribute of the sun, and appears in the character of a distinct god with a well-defined personality. His original great feat of traversing the universe by three steps is all but entirely lost sight of, and if he is still reckoned an integral member of a triad, it is not the old one of Agni, Vāyu and Sūrya, the threefold symbols of an unknown and inscrutable divinity, but of a new theogony with a different role. He is also the subject of several elaborate myths in which he assumes parts which have nothing to do with the sun. One of them, in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, relates how he became pre-eminent among the gods [**152**] and how he lost his head. The story is repeated in the *Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa* with some variations.⁴⁸ Another in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* ⁴⁹ makes him the door-keeper of the gods ; a third in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* describes him as hiding himself near the root of a tree, three fingers' depth below the earth, and recovering, from the Asuras, the sovereignty of the world for the Devas.⁵⁰ In all these he is identified with sacrifice, and not related to any solar myth. In the last story we have the first germ of what was afterwards developed into the myth of the Dwarf Incarnation, in conjunction with the epithet *trivikrama* or 'the god of three steps'. It does not appear, however, that during the epoch under notice, Viṣṇu had so far alienated himself from the other gods as to be the divinity of a separate *cultus* : he was one of the members of the celestial host, and received his share of adoration and offerings in common with the rest.