The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN HINDOOSTAN. 39
descend into a lower cavern on all fours, through a passage
scarcely large enough to admit his body. Here he
was received by an antagonist who offered him battle.
A mimic conflict ensued, in which the aspirant was victorious.
71 While elated with this conquest, he was again
attacked by a gigantic monster, whom, as the representative
of Vishnu, he subdued. 72 He was then taught
to take three steps at right angles, which referred to the
fifth manifestation; 73 and the remaining Avaters 74 in-
mountain like a cable, and Vishnu becoming incarnate in the form of
a Tortoise, took the mountain on his back. Thus loosened from its
foundation, Indra began to whirl the mountain about with incessant
motion, with the assistance of the Assoors, who were employed at the
serpent's head, and the Soors, who were engaged at his tail. Soon
the violence of the motion produced a stream of smoke, fire, and wind,
which ascending in thick clouds replete with lightning, it began to
rain furiously, while the roaring of the ocean was tremendous. The
various productions of the waters were torn to pieces ; the fruits of
the earth were annihilated, and a raging fire spread destruction all
around. At length a stream of the concocted juice of the dissolved
matter ran down the mountain, mixed with molten gold, from whence
the Soors obtained the water of immortality, or, in other words, the
restoration of Nature from the power of the triumphant waters.
(Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. ii., p. 343.) Then the Soors and Assoors commenced
a dreadful battle for the possession of this glorious water,
which at length decided in favour of the Soors, and their opponents
fled ; some rushing headlong into the ocean, and others hiding themselves
in the bowels of the earth. The mountain Mandar was then
carefully replaced in its former station, and the waters retired to their
primitive caverns and recesses. (Bhagvat Geeta, p. 150.)
71 This was done to commemorate the third manifestation of Vishnu
; who, in the shape of a Boar, penetrated through the earth, by
means of his snout, in search of the monster Hiranyakshana, who had
taken refuge in the lowest of the seven inferior worlds. The god
found him out and slew him.
72
Vishnu, in the form of an animal compounded of a man and a lion,
attacked the brother of the former giant, who had received an assurance
from Brahma, that no being of any known form should have
power to hurt him. To evince his contempt of the divinity, therefore,
the giant dared him to come forth from a marble pillar. The column
immediately burst with a violent concussion, and Vishnu issuing forth
in flaming fire, tore the giant in pieces, drank his blood, and decorated
himself with his entrails as a trophy of victory.
73 As a diminutive Brahmin, Vishnu demanded of the impious
tyrant Bali, who was a huge giant, as much ground for sacrifice as
would suffice to place three feet upon. The tyrant granted his demand ;
and Vishnu resuming his own form, with one foot covered the earth,
with the other he filled all the space between earth and heaven, and
with a third, which unexpectedly started from his belly he crushed
the monster's head, and hurled him down to the infernal regions.
74 In the sixth
manifestation, Vishnu, in the human form, encounter-