A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1872

c5.1872

TRI-VIKRAMA. A name of Vishnu used in the Rig-veda, and referring to three steps or paces which he is represented as taking. These steps, according to the opinion of a commentator, are “the three periods of the sun’s course,—his rising, culminating, and setting.” An old commentator says, “Vishnu stepped by separate strides over the whole universe. In three places he planted his step, one step on the earth, a second in the atmosphere, and a third in the sky, in the successive forms of Agni, Vāyu, and Sūrya.” The great commentator Sāyaṇa, a comparatively modern writer, understands these steps as being the three steps of Vishnu in the Vāmana or dwarf incarnation, and no doubt they were the origin of this fiction.