The Boar Who Lifted the Earth

The sages told the Pandavas of Varaha, the great boar - the third descent of the Lord Vishnu upon the worlds - who dived into the cosmic ocean to lift the drowned Earth back into her place, and slew the demon who had dragged her down.

There was a mighty demon named Hiranyaksha, the brother of Hiranyakashipu, an asura of terrible strength and overweening pride. In his arrogance he made war upon the order of the worlds, and he did a thing of cosmic violence: he seized the Earth herself - the goddess Bhumi, the very ground of all life - and dragged her down from her place, plunging her into the depths of the primordial waters, the boundless cosmic ocean, and hiding her there beneath the deep. With the Earth submerged and lost in the waters, all of creation was thrown into ruin; there was no ground for living things to stand upon, no soil for the sacrifices and the works of the world, only the endless waters closing over the drowned Earth. Creation itself could not go forward while the Earth lay sunk in the deep.

The gods and the sages, seeing the Earth lost beneath the cosmic ocean and creation brought to a standstill, were filled with dismay. The creator Brahma himself, whose work of creation could not proceed without the Earth in her place, turned to the supreme Lord Vishnu, the preserver, and prayed to him to rescue the Earth from the deep and restore her, and to destroy the demon who had wrought such ruin.

The Lord heard their prayer and resolved to descend into the world to set it right. For this task - to dive into the very depths of the cosmic waters, to find the Earth in the dark deep, and to lift her vast bulk up out of the ocean - he chose a form fitted to the work: the form of a colossal boar, Varaha, a creature of the wild that roots in the earth and is at home in mud and water, but now grown to a size beyond all measure, a divine boar vast as a mountain, blazing with the power of the Lord. In this mighty boar-form the Lord prepared to plunge into the deep and reclaim the Earth.

The great boar Varaha, vast as a mountain and shining with divine power, gave a tremendous roar that shook the worlds, and then plunged headlong into the boundless cosmic ocean, diving down through the dark waters in search of the drowned Earth.

Down and down the divine boar swam, through the immense depths of the primordial sea, past all the realms of the deep, his keen senses seeking the lost goddess Bhumi through the endless dark water. He cleaved the ocean with his great body, the waters parting before him, until at last, in the deepest depths, he found her: the Earth herself, sunk and helpless at the bottom of the cosmic ocean where the demon had hidden her, waiting for a deliverer.

The mighty boar came to where the Earth lay sunk in the deep, and he set about the wondrous labor for which he had come. He passed his great curved tusks beneath her, and gently, powerfully, he lifted the whole vast Earth upon his tusks - raising her enormous bulk up from the bottom of the ocean, bearing her on those mighty tusks as a small thing is balanced upon a point, and beginning to carry her up through the deep toward the surface and the light.

It is one of the most beloved images in all the old tellings: the colossal divine boar rising up through the cosmic waters, the whole round Earth balanced and resting upon his upraised tusks, lifted out of the drowning deep by the strength and the love of the Lord. The Earth, rescued, clung to her deliverer, and the boar bore her steadily upward, back toward the place from which she had been torn.

But the demon Hiranyaksha, who had dragged the Earth down, would not let her be reclaimed without a fight. As Varaha bore the Earth up through the waters, the mighty demon came against him in the depths of the ocean, challenging the divine boar, determined to keep the Earth sunk and to destroy her rescuer.

So there was fought, in the cosmic deep, a tremendous battle between the divine boar and the demon Hiranyaksha - a duel of such power that the very waters of the ocean heaved and boiled with it. The demon hurled his weapons and his strength against the Lord; the boar, even while bearing the Earth, met him and matched him. For a great while the two contended in the deep, the demon fierce and unyielding, the Lord patient and unstoppable, the fate of the Earth and the world hanging upon the outcome.

At last the divine boar overcame the demon. With his great strength and his divine weapons, Varaha struck Hiranyaksha down and slew him in the depths of the cosmic ocean, ending the arrogant demon who had dared to seize the Earth and drown the world. The mighty asura, who had thought his strength a match for any power, fell dead before the Lord, and the threat to the Earth was ended.

With the demon destroyed, nothing now stood between the Earth and her restoration. The boar bore the goddess Bhumi up out of the deep at last, rising from the cosmic ocean with the Earth upon his tusks, and carried her back to the surface and into her rightful place in the order of the worlds.

Varaha set the Earth back in her place upon the cosmic waters, steadying her and establishing her firmly, so that she would not sink again. He is said to have settled the mountains as her anchors and ordered the divisions of the land and the waters, re-establishing the firm ground upon which all life depends. The Earth, rescued from the deep and restored, could once more bear up living things and sustain the sacrifices and the works of the world, and creation, which had been brought to a standstill, went forward again.

The goddess Earth, full of gratitude and devotion to her rescuer, worshipped the Lord who had dived into the deep to save her; and the gods and sages rejoiced that the Earth was restored and the demon destroyed and the order of the worlds made whole. The Lord, his work accomplished, laid aside the boar-form and returned to his own nature, leaving the Earth safe upon her foundations.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

"See, son of Pandu, the work for which the Lord descends into the world: to lift up what has been dragged down, to rescue and restore what arrogance and evil have cast into ruin. When the Earth herself was seized and drowned in the deep by a demon's pride, the Lord did not disdain to take the form of a boar and plunge into the dark cosmic waters to find her and bear her up on his tusks. There is no depth so low, and no form so humble, that the Lord will not stoop to it to rescue what is his. The Earth, and all who dwell upon her, were saved because the Lord went down into the deep after her.

"And see, once more, the fate of arrogance: Hiranyaksha, in his overweening pride, dared to seize the very Earth and defy the order of the worlds, and he was slain in the deep for it - as his brother Hiranyakashipu would later be slain by the man-lion. The proud who set themselves against the order of creation, who drag down and despoil what should be cherished, bring their own destruction down upon themselves. But the Earth they wrong is lifted up again by the love of the Lord, who stoops to the deepest deep to raise the fallen."

And the Pandavas, who lived upon the Earth and would one day fight to restore a world dragged into ruin by the arrogant, took heart from the boar who lifted the drowned Earth on his tusks.