Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/119

Asuras, who were engaged in meting out the world, and begged for a share in it. The Asuras with meanness offered in return only so much as Viṣṇu, who was but a dwarf, could lie upon; but the gods accepted the offer, and surrounding Viṣṇu with the metres, they went on worshipping, with the result that they succeeded in acquiring the whole earth. The story is further explained by another passage in the same text which refers to the three strides of Viṣṇu as winning for the gods the all-pervading power that they now possess. Besides these notices in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (I. ii. 5; ix. 3.9) we are told in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (vi. 15) that Indra and Viṣṇu had a dispute with the Asuras whom they defeated and with whom they then agreed to divide the world, keeping for themselves so much as Viṣṇu could step over in three strides, these steps embracing the worlds, the Vedas, and speech. Moreover, while the boar, as a cosmogonic power, is still associated with Prajāpati and not with Viṣṇu, traces of the latter's connexion with the boar occur in a legend, based on the Ṛgveda, which is told in the Black Yajurveda (VI. ii. 4): a boar, the plunderer of wealth, kept the goods of the gods concealed beyond seven hills; but Indra, taking a blade of kuśa-grass, shot beyond the hills and slew the boar, which Viṣṇu, as the sacrificer, took and offered to the god. This passage indicates the source of the strength of Viṣṇu in the Brāhmaṇas: he is essentially identified with sacrifice and with all that that means for the Brāhman. In this connexion a strange story is told of the way in which Viṣṇu lost his head. He was acknowledged by the gods to be the sacrifice, and thus he became the most eminent of the divinities. Now once he stood resting his head on the end of his bow, and as the gods sat about unable to overcome him, the ants asked them what they would give to him who should gnaw the bow-string. When the deities promised in return for such an action the eating of food and the finding of water even in the desert, the ants gnawed through the string, which accordingly broke, and the two ends of the bow, starting asun-