HOW LORD NARASIMHA SAVED HIS DEVOTEE PRAHLAD

Lord Narsimha

it is the fourth avatar of Lord Vishnu, known to reincarnate on earth to remove evil and bring in prosperity and peace. This avatar of Vishnu is considered quite fierce among the rest of the ten avatars due to its unique half-human and half-lion looks. This fearsome avatar came to earth to save Lord Vishnu staunch devotee, young Prahlad. Let’s take a look at this poignant story of love between a devotee and his Lord.

The story begins in the Sata Yug, when Rishi Kashyap and his wife Diti had two sons. These two were named Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu. As they grew up, the sage parents tried their best to give the two boys good morals and lessons in empathy but to no avail. They started terrorizing the people on earth and even made Deva’s in heaven a target to their atrocities. This caused havoc all across and the Deva’s finally decided to go to Lord Vishnu and pray for his intervention. The God obliged to their prayers and took the incarnation of Varaha , a giant boar to annihilate Hirankyaksha. The latter got so scared that he hid inside the earth to avoid consequence to his actions.

He personified as Bhudevi inside the deep oceans but even then Varaha found out the culprit. He located Hiranyaksha and an intense fight took place. The fight was so powerful that the world shook causing panic in its beings. Finally, Varaha mowed down Hiranyaksha with his tusks and carried the whole earth on its two tusks placing it in its rightful position hence restoring balance to all of the Earth and the Universe.

The Devas and beings on earth rejoiced but on the other hand Hiranyakshipu, brother of slain Hiranyaksha, swore to take revenge over the murderer of his brother, Lord Vishnu. He waged a great war scaring everyone on earth and marched towards Heaven. Here the mighty warrior saw the strength of Deva’s and was surprised to know that they were also in fact, being helped by Vishnu himself. This caused him more grievance and Hiranyakshipu decided to completely obliterate the mighty God. To get himself the required blessing he decided to pray to Lord Brahma. Hiranyakshipu went into depths of thick jungles to meditate and completely forgot about his kingdom and the people in it.

Lord Indra decided to take his chance to destroy his kingdom. He attacked the Asura army who were clueless without their leader. After easily defeating them, Indra decided to take Hiranyakshipu’s wife Kayadhu as a hostage. He decided that the lady would be a great chip to negotiate should her husband ever try to threaten the peace of heaven again. As he was about to do this task, Narada arrived at the scene. The God-sage refuted this way of action by Indra and took the lady with himself to his abode. Kayadhu was much relieved to not be taken prisoner and she revealed to Narada that she was pregnant.

She thanked him for saving her and vowed to always treat him like a father figure. Narada accepted this and invited Kayadhu to live in his hut. Everyday he would tell her stories of his Lord Vishnu and with each tale Kayadhu got more attached to the Lord himself. As the unborn baby listened to the stories through the womb, he also got attracted to Vishnu and his kindness.

On the other hand, Hiranyakashipu’s meditation was so strong that it started heating up the whole of cosmos. Deva’s joined forces and went to Lord Brahma to request him to accept Hiranyakshipu’s prayers. Brahma appeared in front of him and blessed him with a boon he wished for. Hiranyakshipu wished for immortality. Lord Brahma told him, this wasn’t possible so he may ask for anything but that.

Then the Asura asked him to give a unique boon ‘May no man, no god, no animal created by Brahma can kill me. May I never be killed at day or at night with any weapon, inside or outside my house. The Lord pondered for a few moments and then granted him the boon. Hiranyakshipu was overjoyed and returned to his kingdom with a feeling of triumph. When he arrived, he saw the immense carnage Lord Indra had done and he immediately summoned an army to march over Heaven. The Asura defeated all Devas in the battle and removed them from their beloved Devalok (Heaven) as he declared himself the Lord of Heavens.

Hiranyakshipu then discovered his wife and son on the earth and brought them back home. Here was the beginning of friction between a stubborn and vile Hiranyakshipu and his kind son Prahlad, a huge devotee of Lord Vishnu. The king was disgusted that his own son would sing praises of the very enemy he sought to destroy. Finally, he got so fed up of Prahlad that he decided to kill him.

Hiranyakshipu employed multiple methods to kill Prahlad ; right from assassins to venomous snakes and his own sister Holika, who was insusceptible to fire but was turned to ashes for trying to harm the boy, no one could touch the child.

At last, Hiranyakshipu was adamant and took the boy to a room. He questioned his faith and then asked him where does Prahlad’s God reside? The young boy answered that Lord Vishnu resides in every grain of sand and every breath of air. Hearing this an enraged Hirankyakshipu asked, ‘Is he in this pillar too?’

That’s when Lord Narsimha broke free from inside the pillar

He had the scary head of a Lion and lower half of a man. The fiery Lord announced that he is Narasimha, the fourth avatar of Vishnu, reincarnated on Earth to remove evil. He caught Hiranyakshipu and dragged him in an iron grip towards the threshold of his door (neither inside the house, nor outside). The Lord placed him on his lap (neither sky nor earth) and dug his nails in chest (no weapon) and split it into two at twilight (neither day nor night).

After killing the Asura, Narasimha roared striking fear in all Asura army. Everybody was scared to approach the fearsome lord but only Prahlad went to him with devotion filled eyes and requested him to calm down. The Lord blessed him and declared him the King and Prahlad ruled the kingdom with honesty and good heart.