The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c16.s4.22

v1.c16.s4.22

The germ of a further incarnation of Viṣṇu is found in the Brāhmaṇas in the transformation of a myth, which is found in the Rigveda itself. In that text² it is recounted that, having drunk the Soma, Viṣṇu carried off a hundred buffaloes and a brew of milk, which belonged to the boar, and Vṛtra, shooting across the mountain, slew the boar. There can be no doubt that this is merely a version of the slaying of Vṛtra, the great work of Indra in the world, and the mountain must be the cloud mountain. In the Taittirīya Saṁhitā³ the boar keeps the wealth of the Asuras concealed on the far side of seven hills: Indra picks up a bunch of Kuça grass and pierces the hills and slays the boar. Viṣṇu, the sacrifice, then carried off the boar as a sacrifice for the gods, and thus the gods attained the goods of the Asuras. Now this boar, which is called Emūṣa from its epithet *emuṣa*, fierce, in the Rigveda, is stated in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁴ to have raised up the earth from the waters, and the Taittirīya Saṁhitā⁵ further identifies the cosmogonic boar which raises up the earth with a form of Prajāpati. From this new aspect of the tale it is an easy step to the making of the boar an incarnation of Viṣṇu himself, and this step is actually taken in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Purāṇas. The transfer of myths from Prajāpati to Viṣṇu is illustrated in an interesting way in the case of two other of his incarnations in post-Vedic literature. The fish, which according to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁶ in the flood legend saved Manu, is identified in the Mahābhārata with Prajāpati, but in the Purāṇas becomes Viṣṇu, and, while in the Brāhmaṇas¹ Prajāpati is stated to have become a tortoise, moving in the primeval waters, when about to create offspring, the Purāṇas turn the tortoise into an incarnation of Viṣṇu, devised in order to recover various objects which were lost in the deluge.