Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.17

c8.17

“There can be little doubt,” says Wilson, “that the three steps, here referred to, are the three periods of the sun's course—his rise, culmination and setting." It is expressly so stated by Aurṇavābha as explained by Durgāchārya in his commentary on the Nirukta.¹ Mr. Jayaswāl, however, thinks² that Aurṇavābha takes the verse "idam Vishṇur vichakrame tredhā nidadhe padam" in the sense that Vishṇu literally and physically in the past stepped over the earth, horizon and sky and "in ascending (he stepped) at the Vishṇupada on the Gayā peak." In the philosophy of the Taittirīya Saṃhitā the three places of Vishṇu are not the two points of the horizon and the zenith, but the earth, air and the sky.³