14 – The Story of the Scary One’s

Hi Friends!

Today let us take the story of the Fourth Incarnation of Vishnu forward, and see what we can learn from it.

We continue from the last post, with the almost “un-killable” Hiranyakashipu with his boons from Lord Brahma, and his “un-burnable” sister Simhika, with her fire-proof garment from Agni Deva, and their enmity with the Devas and Lord Vishnu.

As was feared by Indra, Hiranyakashipu, the King of Daitya, supported by his brother-in-law Viprachitti, the King of Danavas, went about conquering all the worlds, including the world of Devas, or Devaloka.

Incidentally the son of Viprachitti, and Simhika, was Svarbhanu. Some of you who read the story of the amruta extraction from the churning of sea, may remember him to be the one who tried to partake amruta by trickery, and after being beheaded, lived in two parts Raahu and Ketu, the embodiments of Lunar and Solar Eclipses. He is said to have taken part in the conquest over Indra, and the Devas.

Having conquered all the worlds, Hiranyakashipu made it punishable by death to support or say “worship-ful” or positive words about the Devas and Vishnu. In fact he made even the utterance of the name of Vishnu a crime.

His son, Prahlada, was being taught at the ashrama of the spiritual advisor and teacher of the Daityas, Guru Shukracharya. The Guru, as we know was the only practitioner of the Knowledge of Rejuvenation, or Sanjeevani Vidya. This must have kept him busy. Whatever be the reason, the responsibility of teaching the King’s son fell on the sons of Shukracharya, called Sanda and Marka.

The two teachers taught Prahlada the different things needed to become a good prince, and later a good king. One of those things was indoctrination on who was a “friend” and who was an “enemy”. And at this they failed miserably.

Prahlada, being an intelligent child as well as joyful (as per his name), reasoned thus.

Every organism has come from the same creation, and has in it in small or large portion the supreme life-force, soul, or consciousness. This is literally the meaning of Parama-Aatma, or the Supreme Soul.

Now when every one has the parts of the same Supreme Soul, how can you differentiate between them as “friends” or “enemies”.

You may be against someone’s deeds or someone’s stance on issues. But does that make them your enemy. It is like saying the left hand and right hand are enemies, as they approach the same thing from two directions.

Such a beautiful concept, right?

In addition his mother, Kayadhu, was in the ashram of, and listened to the discourse of Sage Narada, when Prahlada was in her womb.

Narada visualised the idea of the Supreme Soul in the form of Narayana, or Lord Vishnu. It is quite normal.

It can be difficult to concentrate or think of such an abstract thing as a Supreme Consciousness, which is part of everything.

Sometimes it is made easier, if you concentrate on one particular person, or entity, whom you respect and appreciate.

May be for some of you it is your mother, or your father. As you respect them, and see the goodness in them. And it is easier to concentrate in that goodness in their soul, and through that to the goodness of the Supreme Soul.

So from that memory of Narada’s discourse (may be repeated by his mother later), even Prahlada started to concentrate on the goodness that can be in everyone, through the imagery of Lord Vishnu. Not just that, he tried to explain the idea of goodness to others, using the name of Lord Vishnu.

One day Hiranyakashipu called his son (and the teachers) to check on the progress of his education. Call it a Parent-Teacher-Association Meeting, but in a mythological setting. When asked to tell, what all he had learnt, Prahlada showed his intelligence, and ability to learn, by explaining everything with clarity, and joyful understanding. At the end, Hiranyakashipu asked, if there was any concept he found difficult?

On this Prahlada answered that he found the concept of “enemies” and “hatred” difficult to understand, and in front of his increasingly angry father, and exceedingly scared teachers, he went on to explain his understanding about the Supreme Soul, and his way of contemplating the same in Lord Vishnu. The story goes that the King then scolded the teachers and instructed them to try and teach his son better. The sons of Shukracharya tried, but failed, to make Prahlada unlearn about the Supreme Soul, or at least accept that Vishnu was an enemy, and not the embodiment of the Param-Aatma. The child refused, as the only logic provided was that “because we say so”.

This was troubling to the King, and terrifying for the teachers. After numerous such attempts, Hiranyakashipu lost his temper, and decided to get this “disrespectful” son killed. May be he thought, that if his own son was not following his dictate, it would make others also try to rebel against his orders. This showed that for him, love for his golden seat (“hiranya kashipu”) had become stronger than love for his family, for the right behaviour, and for joy (“prahlada”).

So he sentenced Prahlada to be killed. And failed. Repeatedly. We will cover three of these failed attempts.

First, he ordered him to be thrown from a cliff. It is said that as the thought of the Supreme Soul was in his heart, he became light as a feather, and was unharmed by the fall. It may even have been that those who were ordered to throw him off the cliff, were impressed by his courage, and genuinely liked him, and somehow contrived to ensure that he was unharmed.

Second, Simhika sat with Prahlada in her lap in a pyre of fire. The idea was Simhika would be saved from the fire due to her fire-proof garment, and Prahlada would burn. It is said that by a freak act of nature (or divine will) the fireproof garment fell on Prahlada, and so he was unharmed while Simhika died in the fire. Come to think of it the freak act of nature may have been the love of an aunt for her nephew becoming stronger than her enmity for her brother’s enemies. In fact the festival that uses the name of Holika as origin, is about joy and friendship, and is supposed to be when you try and forget past enmity.

Third, the husband of Simhika, the King of Danavas Viprachitti, tried to drown him in the water. As Danavas, the sons of Danu, are representations of water-bodies this makes sense. Again somehow Prahlada survived, said to have safely floated for long on a petal of lotus flower.

At the end of the day, angry at his son, as well as his inability to harm him, the King starting pointing at and destroying various things while he asked, “Where is this Vishnu of yours? You say he is everywhere. Let me destroy this.”

At one point, the father and son stood together at the very gate of their palace, and Hiranyakashipu pointed at a pillar and asked, “Is your Supreme Soul in this pillar?”

The confident Prahlada agreed that as the Supreme Soul is in everything, and everywhere, it was certain that He was in that pillar.

At this the King hit the pillar with his mace, and surprisingly from this cracked pillar emerged a scary apparition.

It was a creature with human body, but monstrous, and with a face of a Lion.

• He was Lord Narasimha, who was neither a man, nor an animal.
• There at the very entrance of his palace, Hiranyakashipu came face-to-face with the ferocious Narsimha, in a place that was neither inside a house, nor outside.
• The strong Narasimha picked up the Daitya King like a doll, and put him on his lap, which was neither on ground nor in the air.
• Lord Narsimha waited in this posture for the exact point just before complete sunset, which was neither day nor night.
• And then using the sharp nails on his hands, which were neither astra, nor shastras, he killed Hiranyakashipu as per the terms of the boon (or was it a curse?) of Lord Brahma,

This may be seen as an allegory of how the painful results of bad behaviour comes to you in spite of all the steps you take, and boons you have, to save yourself. Also maybe don’t break the pillar of your own house, while you are under it. Not safe!

After this brutal act, Narsimha, blessed Prahlada and went away (as per some stories). Hence there are two types of representations of Narsimha – one wrathfully version with Hiranyakashipu, and the other more serene with Prahlada. This may be seen to represent that only evil-doers need to fear punishment, from divine-wrath or a well maintained system of justice.

There is a version of the story about a slightly longer end of Narsimha avataar’s stay on Earth. We will cover it briefly, and make it a little less brutal, as it has an interesting side-note.

Now Narsimha was an incarnation of the wrath of god, so even after the purpose of killing Hiranyakashipu was over, he could not be calmed, and this made it dangerous for the whole of creation.

To stop this lion-man, Lord Shiva took the incarnation of Sarabha. Sarabha was part man, part beast, and part bird. The number of heads may have been two, and hands numbered four or more, and he also had wings. This version was meant to show an even more fantastical version, to surprise and subdue Narsimha. In fact Sarabha is supposed to be a lion-killing monster.

Not to be overtaken in this incarnation arms war, Vishnu took the form of Gandaberunda, a monstrous two headed bird, with claws big enough to pick up elephants. The fight was long and very destructive, and the question of who won has been lost in the conflicting and competing stories of the sects that consider Lord Shiva or Lord Vishnu, as the ultimate form of the supreme soul.

One thing is for sure, this one-up-“man”-ship was stopped, when Shakti took the form of the lion-faced scary form of Pratyangira. The mother goddess stopped the fight, maybe by scaring both sides. As anger of a mother is the most fearsome thing, especially when compared and contrasted with the love and tenderness she always showers on us.

This interlude tell us two things. First, when uncontrolled competitiveness makes even Gods lose sight of their objective, it is better for us to also avoid it at all cost. Second, even stories of gods and incarnations can be used by warring sects to show their god, their leader, is better, hence they are better. This makes them forget the good done in the name of God, is more important than the name of the god.

Let us end at that. Next time let us look at some story other than the Incarnations. There are only ten, and we don’t want to finish their stories too fast.