Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.36

c8.36

In the later Vedic literature the position of Viṣṇu becomes more prominent. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa relates with great fullness of detail the legend regarding the ‘three strides.’ It further represents Viṣṇu as the personification of sacrifice. We have already seen that as early as the Rigvedic age he was called the ‘germ of the sacrifice.’ “Viṣṇu truly is the sacrifice, by striding (vi-kram) he obtained for the gods that all pervading power (vikrānti) which now belongs to them. By his first step he gained this same (earth), by the second this aerial expanse, and by his last (step) the sky. And this same pervading power Viṣṇu, as the sacrifice, obtains by his strides for him (the sacrificer). For this reason he strides the Viṣṇu-strides.”³