The Three Steps

The sages told the Pandavas of King Bali, the demon who was so generous and so true to his word that the Lord himself had to come in disguise to humble him - and even then honored him above many a god.

Bali was an asura king, the grandson of the great devotee Prahlada, and though he was of the line of the demons he was a noble and righteous ruler, famed throughout the worlds for his virtue. Above all he was famed for two things: his absolute truthfulness, and his boundless generosity. It was said that Bali never refused any request, never broke a promise, and never sent a petitioner away empty-handed; whatever was asked of him, he gave. By his strength and his sacrifices he grew so mighty that he conquered the three worlds and drove Indra and the gods from heaven, and ruled over all of creation. And he ruled it well and justly - so that his subjects prospered and loved him, and there was no real wickedness in his reign, only this: that he had taken heaven from its rightful lords, and that in his greatness a seed of pride had begun to grow in him, a pride in his own power and his own giving.

The gods, cast out of heaven and stripped of their realm by Bali, went to the Lord Vishnu and laid their trouble before him. "Bali has taken the three worlds," they said. "He is too mighty and too virtuous to be defeated in battle, for his strength is matched by his goodness, and his sacrifices have made him almost beyond challenge. Yet he has displaced us from our rightful place, and the order of the worlds is overturned. Help us, Lord, to recover heaven."

Vishnu agreed to help, but he would not do it by war, for Bali had done no true evil and could not justly be struck down by force. The king's only real fault was his pride and his holding of what was not his, and pride is not cured by the sword but by humbling. So the Lord chose a subtler way - a way that would use Bali's own greatest virtue, his generosity, to teach him humility, and would honor the king even as it brought him low. Vishnu resolved to be born small, and to come to Bali as a beggar.

So the Lord Vishnu took birth as Vamana, a brahmin boy of dwarfish stature - small of body, humble and radiant, carrying the simple staff, water-pot, and umbrella of a young student of the sacred lore. There was nothing grand about him to the eye; he was only a little brahmin, modest and bright-faced.

At that time King Bali was performing a great sacrifice, a magnificent rite at which, as was his custom, he gave lavish gifts to all who came, refusing no one and granting every request, for his generosity was the pride and glory of his reign. Brahmins and petitioners came from everywhere to receive his bounty, and to all of them the king gave freely whatever they asked - gold, cattle, villages, lands.

Into this great assembly of giving came the small figure of Vamana, the dwarf brahmin, walking quietly toward the king. Bali, seeing the radiant little brahmin approach, received him with the highest honor, for the king delighted in nothing so much as the chance to give. He seated the boy, worshipped him as a guest, and asked him what he desired. "Whatever you wish, holy one," said the king, "name it, and it is yours - gold, land, cattle, villages, whatever you will. There is nothing I will refuse you."

The dwarf Vamana answered with a request so small that the king almost laughed. "I want very little, great king," said the boy. "I have no use for villages or gold or herds of cattle. Grant me only this: as much land as I can cover in three steps of my own feet. Three paces of ground, measured by my own small stride - that is all I ask."

Bali was astonished and a little amused. "Three paces?" he said. "Child, you have come to the most generous king in all the worlds, who gives away kingdoms, and you ask for three steps of land measured by the feet of a dwarf? Ask for more - ask for whole provinces, ask for an empire. Do not waste my generosity on so tiny a gift."

But Vamana replied that a contented man asks only for what he needs, and that three paces of his own were enough for him; he would have nothing more. And so the king, pleased by the boy's modesty, agreed at once to grant him the three steps of land, and prepared to seal the gift in the proper way, by pouring out sacred water over his hand as a vow. But at that moment his own preceptor sprang forward to stop him.

Bali's guru was Shukracharya, the wise preceptor of the demons, and Shukra alone in that assembly saw the truth. By his deep sight he perceived that this was no ordinary dwarf brahmin, but the Lord Vishnu himself in disguise, come to take the three worlds from Bali by a trick of measurement.

"Stop, my king!" Shukra warned. "Do not make this gift. This is no child - it is Vishnu himself, the lord of the gods, come in the form of a dwarf to deceive you. His three steps are not what they seem. If you grant this, he will take everything - all your kingdom, all the worlds, all you possess. Refuse him. For once, hold back your generosity, or you will lose all."

But Bali would not refuse. "Master," he said, "how can I draw back now? I have given my word, and a brahmin stands before me asking a gift. Whether he is Vishnu himself or the humblest child, it makes no difference - I have never in my life refused a petitioner, nor broken a promise, and I will not begin now to save my own power. If the Lord himself has come to my door to beg of me, what greater honor could a giver have than to give to God? Let him take what he will. I keep my word." And so, choosing his truth and his generosity above his kingdom and the three worlds, Bali stepped forward to seal the gift.

As Bali took up the sacred water-vessel to pour the water that would seal his vow, the preceptor Shukra made one last effort to save his king. Shrinking himself tiny, Shukra entered the spout of the water-pot and blocked it from within, so that the water could not flow and the vow could not be completed.

But the dwarf Vamana knew what was happening. He took a sharp blade of kusha grass and poked it into the spout to clear the blockage - and the point pierced the eye of Shukra hidden within, so that the preceptor sprang out in pain, blinded in one eye ever after. With the spout now clear, the water flowed; it ran out over the dwarf's hand, and the gift of the three steps was sealed, sworn, and irrevocable.

The moment the vow was sealed, the small dwarf brahmin began to change. Before the astonished eyes of the whole assembly, Vamana began to grow.

The dwarf grew, and grew, and did not stop growing. Up and up the form swelled, vaster and vaster, until it filled the hall, and then the sky, and then the whole of space - the Lord Vishnu revealed in his immense cosmic form, Trivikrama, the Lord of the Three Strides, towering over all of creation, his body containing the worlds.

Then the Lord took his three paces. With his first step, he set his foot upon the whole of the earth, and that single stride covered all the world and everything in it - all of Bali's earthly kingdom gone beneath one footfall. With his second step, he raised his foot and set it upon the whole of the heavens, and that one stride covered all of the sky and the celestial realms - all of heaven taken in a single pace. In just two steps the Lord had measured and claimed the entire earth and the entire heaven, all the worlds that Bali had ruled.

And then the immense form paused, one foot still raised, and the Lord asked the question that the whole gift had been leading toward: "King Bali, with two steps I have covered all the earth and all the heaven - everything you possessed. Where now shall I place my third step? You promised me three paces of land. Show me where to set the third."

Bali stood before the cosmic form of the Lord, his three worlds gone in two strides, with nothing left in all of creation to offer for the third step that he had promised. He had given everything; there was no land anywhere that was still his to give. And in that moment his pride fell away from him entirely, and only his truthfulness and his devotion remained.

"Lord," said Bali, bowing low, "two steps have taken all I had. But my word must be kept, and one step remains owed to you. There is one thing still left that is mine to give - myself. Place your third step here, upon my own head. Let my own body be the ground for the last pace. I would rather give you myself than break my promise."

And he knelt and bowed his head before the Lord. Vishnu, pleased beyond all measure by this - that the king would offer his own self rather than fail his word, even to the one who had stripped him of everything - set his third step gently upon Bali's bowed head, and by that touch pressed the king down, down out of the conquered worlds and into the netherworld below, the realm of Patala. But it was no punishment. By honoring his word to the last, Bali had won the Lord's deepest love.

Heaven was restored to the gods, and the order of the worlds was set right. But the Lord did not cast Bali down in disgrace. Instead, moved by the king's truth and generosity, Vishnu honored him even in his fall. He granted Bali lordship over the netherworld, to rule it in splendor; he granted him a length of life and a glory greater than the gods'; and, it is told, he promised that in a future age Bali would himself become Indra, the king of heaven. So devoted was the Lord to this generous demon that he is even said to have made himself Bali's own doorkeeper and guardian, dwelling beside the king he had humbled, out of love for his goodness. And Bali was granted the boon of returning to visit his beloved former kingdom and people once each year, a homecoming his subjects remember with rejoicing to this day.

The sages drew the lesson for the Pandavas. "See how the Lord deals with the proud and the generous, son of Pandu. Bali's only true fault was the pride of his power and his holding of what was not his; and the Lord cured it not by destroying him but by humbling him, and used the king's own greatest virtue - his refusal ever to break his word or deny a gift - to do it. And see how even a demon, because he was truthful and generous and gave even his own self rather than fail his word, was honored above the gods and beloved of the Lord himself. It is not birth, high or low, god or demon, that the Lord weighs, but the truth and the giving of the heart. Bali lost the three worlds and gained something far greater: the love of God, won by keeping his word when keeping it cost him everything."