Vedic Mythology c5.s1.t5.4

c5.s1.t5.4

Viṣṇu’s highest step, as has been indicated, is conceived as his distinctive abode. The sun would naturally be thought of as stationary in the meridian rather than anywhere else. So we find the name of the zenith in Yāska to be *viṣṇupada*, the step or place of Viṣṇu. Probably connected with the same range of ideas are the epithets ‘mountain-dwelling’ (*girikṣit*) and ‘mountain-abiding’ (*giriṣṭhā*) applied to Viṣṇu in the same hymn (1, 154²⋅ ³); for in the next hymn (1, 155¹) Viṣṇu and Indra are conjointly called ‘the two undeceivable ones, who have stood on the summit (*sānuni*) of the mountains, as it were with an unerring steed’. This would allude to the sun looking down from the height of the cloud mountains¹² (cp. 5, 87⁴). It is probably owing to such expressions in the RV. that Viṣṇu is later called ‘lord of mountains’ (TS. 3, 4, 5¹).