#LockdownTales
My cousin Aravind’s 6 year old son sketched the following drawing in late March. While he sketches beautifully, I was intrigued by his choice of the “Varaha” avatar of Vishnu to kill Corona and save the Earth.
A little background about the Varaha avatar of MahaVishnu. The Varaha (Wild boar) avatar is MahaVishnu’s third avatar after Matsya (fish) and Kurma (Tortoise). The demon Hiranyaksha meditates on Lord Brahma and gets a boon that no God, human, Asura, devta, animal or beast would kill him. Once he feels assured of his immortality, Hiranyaksha starts torturing people on Earth and even the Indra Loka (the abode of Devatas). Everyone tries to take shelter behind mountains and large hills, but finally in a fit of anger, Hiranyaksha simply takes Mother Earth and pushes her down to the bottom of the Ocean. Am assuming that this meant there were no hills or mountains left and Earth as we know it now gets submerged in water !! This is my personal interpretation 🙂
Everyone rushes to Lord Brahma to ask for help and to save them from this demon. As always Lord Brahma says, lets speak to Lord Vishnu as I gave this demon the boon, I don’t have a way of taking it back. While he was speaking something fell from his nostril or mouth and to everyone’s amazement, it was a tiny boar. The boar grew in size and soon entered the ocean to lift Mother Earth back to her place above the ocean. Hiranyaksha immediately tries to engage the wild boar in a duel but, the wild boar first uses its tusks to lift Mother Earth from the Ocean bed and places her back in her place. Thankfully, Hiranyaksha mentions several animals that cannot kill him when he asks for his boon, but forgets about the wild boar. Thank God !
MahaVishnu in his avatar as the Varaha, kills Hiranyaksha and restores the balance in the universe.
Today the world is in the grip of Hiranyaksha in the form of the Corona Virus and MahaVishnu has empowered all of us with the ideas of social distancing, quarantine and sanitisation to keep ourselves free of the demon. I am guessing that my smart nephew Sriranga Bashyam, chose the Varaha avatar because the Corona virus is a worldwide pandemic …. just like Mother Earth was pushed to the bottom of the Ocean, she is once again being pushed under an ocean of infection that just doesn’t seem to stop.
Hoping that my nephew’s wish is fulfilled and Earth is saved once more by MahaVishnu in the form of Varaha.
#StaySafe #StayHome