Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c11.16

v1.c11.16

The Vishnu-purāṇa, the Linga-purāṇa and the Garuḍa-purāṇa mention Brahmā as the uplifter of the earth from the ocean : but they at the same time identify Brahmā with Vishnu. The Vishnu-purāṇa gives the following account of this incarnation :—"At the beginning of the kalpa, that divine Brahmā, Lord of the Prajāpatis who had the nature of Nārāyaṇa, created living beings. At the close of the past (Pādma-)kalpa, Brahmā, the Lord, endowed predominantly with the quality of goodness, awoke from his night-slumber and beheld the universe void. He is the Supreme Lord Nārāyaṇa, who cannot even be conceived and exists in the form of Brahma, the deity without beginning, the source of all things. This Lord of Prajāpatis discovering by intuition,—when the universe had all become one ocean,—that the earth lay within the waters, and being desirous to raise it up, assumed another form. As he had formerly, at the commencement of previous kalpas, assumed the shapes of the fish and the tortoise, (so now), He entered into the body of a boar,—a form composed of the Vēdas and the sacrifice,—this Lord of Creatures, who throughout the entire continuance of the world remains fixed, the Universal Soul, the Supreme Soul, the Self-sustained Supporter of the Earth, hymned by Sanaka and other saints residing in the Janalōka, (therefore He) entered the water. Beholding Him then descend to Pātāla, the Goddess Earth, bowing down prostrated herself in devotion and sang the praise: ‘Reverence O bearer of the Shell and Club, to Thee who art all things: raise me today from this place: by Thee I was formerly lifted up.... Having swallowed the universe, when it becomes one ocean, doest Thou O Gōvinda, sleep. Thou who art meditated upon by the wise. No one knows that which is Thy form: the gods adore that form which Thou assumest in Thy incarnations. Worshipping Thee, the Supreme Brahmā, men desirous of final liberation attain their object. Worshipping Thee, the Supreme Brahman, who shall obtain liberation without adoring Vāsudēva? . . . Thou art sacrifice, Thou art the *vashaṭkāra* (a sacrificial formula), Thou art the *ōmkāra* (the mystic syllable *Ōm*), Thou art the fires.’ . . . Having been thus celebrated by the Earth, the glorious Upholder of the Earth, with a voice like the chanting of the Sāmavēda, uttered a deep thundering sound. Then the great boar, with eyes like the expanded lotus, tossing up with his tusks the earth which resembled the leaf of the blue lotus, rose up from the lower regions like a great blue mountain. . . . . (The boar was then lauded and praised by Sanandana and other saints in a hymn, in which various members of his body are compared in detail to various materials and implements used in sacrifice. See Wilson's *Vishnu-purāṇa*, 2nd ed. i., *pp.* 63 *ff.*) . . . On having been thus hymned in praise, the Supreme Soul, the Upholder of the Earth, lifted the earth up quickly, and placed it upon the great waters. Resting upon this mass of waters, like a mighty ship, the earth does not sink, owing to the expansion of its form". Compare *Mahābhārata*, iii., 10, 932, *ff.*