Varāha Avatāra (Vishṇu Purāṇa)

Varāha Avatāra is the descent of Bhagavān Vishṇu as the divine boar (varāha) who lifted the earth out of the cosmic waters. The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa tells it in the Pradhamāmsa (the first portion), Chapters 3–4. Parāśara tells it to Maitreya as the setting for the nava-sarga (the nine kinds of creation) that follows. The earth, Bhūdevī or Pṛthivī, had been submerged in the primordial waters. Bhagavān Vishṇu plunged into those waters, raised her on his tusks and restored her to her proper place. This act began the present cycle of creation.

The Vārāha Kalpa

The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa says that the present cosmic cycle is the Vārāha Kalpa. It is named after the Varāha avatāra, which begins it. A kalpa is a cosmic day. Before it, the earlier naimittika pralaya (the dissolution at the end of a kalpa) had left the fourteen bhuvanas (worlds) submerged in the undifferentiated ocean. At the start of the new kalpa the creative power stirs again. In the Vārāha Kalpa the first great creative act is Bhagavān Vishṇu’s rescue of the earth. (Chapter 3)

The descent of Varāha

Bhagavān Vishṇu desired creation. He took the form of the divine Varāha, an immense boar of cosmic size and shining with divine radiance. He plunged into the primordial waters that covered all the worlds. He moved through them with the speed of the cosmic wind, and he found the earth submerged at the very bottom.

Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha lifted the earth on his tusks. The tusks were great and gleaming, and as immovable as the earth itself. He carried her upward through the cosmic waters. As he rose with the earth, he came out of the waters like a great mountain rising from the sea.

He set the earth in her proper position in the cosmos. He supported and secured her at the level that belongs to the manifest world, and he established her there. The earth was now ready for the creation of all living beings. (Chapter 3)

Brahmā’s praise

Brahmā had come forth in the golden cosmic egg, the Hiraṇyāṇḍa, formed in the primordial waters. He saw the Varāha lift the earth. He and the ṛshis who were gathered there praised Bhagavān Vishṇu in his great boar form. They saw in this avatāra the supreme Bhagavān Vishṇu, who takes on the care of all beings. (Chapters 3–4)

The creation that followed

With the earth set in her place, the conditions for the nine-fold creation (nava-sarga) were met. The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa gives the order in which creation then arose:

  1. By the will of Bhagavān Vishṇu, the balance of Pradhāna (the unmanifest Prakṛti) was disturbed, and the Mahattattva arose.
  2. From Mahat arose Ahaṃkāra.
  3. From Ahaṃkāra arose the tanmātras, and from them the mahābhūtas.
  4. The Hiraṇyāṇḍa, the golden cosmic egg, formed in the primordial waters, and Brahmā was born within it.
  5. The work of the secondary nine-fold creation then went on through Brahmā.

The Vārāha Kalpa takes its name from this avatāra. Its meaning is the whole sequence: the descent of Bhagavān Vishṇu, his lifting of the earth, and the living world that follows from that foundation. (Chapters 4–5)

The same narrative in other Purāṇas

The Varāha avatāra is told in many Purāṇas. The Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa tells that Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha lifts the earth, and that Brahmā then arranges the nava-sarga in the same order. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, in its 3rd Skandha, gives the longest version. It includes a conversation between Varāha and Bhūdevī, in which the earth praises him with a great stotra (hymn of praise).

Sources

  • Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Pradhamāmsa, Chapters 3–4
  • Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Pradhamāmsa, Chapters 4–5 (the creation that followed)
  • Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa (Varāha avatāra, as compared)
  • Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 3rd Skandha (Varāha and Bhūdevī, as compared)