ORIENTAL SERIES.

AVATARA. 37
* The boar.' The old legend of the Brahmawas
3. Yaraha.
concerning the boar which raised the earth from the waters has
been to
appropriated
YishraL A demon named HiraTiyaksha
had dragged the earth to the bottom of the sea. To recover it
Yishmi assumed the form of a boar, and after a contest of a
thousand years he slew the demon and raised up the earth.
or N?i-sinha.
'
The man-lion.' Vishnu assumed
4. Nara-sinha,
this form to deliver the world from the tyranny of HiraTiyakasipu,
a demon who, by the favour of Brahma, had become
invulnerable, and was secure from gods, men, and animals. This
demon's son, named Prahlada, worshipped Yishmi, which so
incensed his father that he tried to kill him, but his efforts were
all in vain. Contending with his son as to the omnipotence and
omnipresence of Vishnu, Hiranya-kasipu demanded to know if
Yishwu was present in a stone pillar of the hall, and struck
it violently. To avenge Prahlada, and to vindicate his own
offended majesty, Vishnu came forth from the pillar
as the
Fara-sinha, half-man and half-lion, and tore the arrogant Baity a
king to pieces.
These four incarnations are supposed to have appeared in the
Satya-yuga, or first age of the world
5. Yamana.
'
The dwarf.' The origin of this incarnation is
"the three strides of Yislmu," spoken of in the l&g-veda, as
before explained. In the Treta-yuga, or second age, the Daitya
king Bali had, by his devotions and austerities, acquired the dominion
of the three worlds, and the gods were shorn of their power
and dignity. To remedy this, Yislmu was born as a diminutive
son of Kasyapa and AditL The dwarf appeared before Bali,
and begged of him as much land as he could step over in throe
paces. The generous monarch complied with the request.
Yislwu took two strides over heaven and earth ;
but respecting
the virtues of Bali, he then stopped, leaving the dominion of
Patala, or the infernal regions, to Bali.
The first five incarnations are thus purely mythological ; in
the next- three we have the heroic element, and iu the ninth
the religious.
6. Parasu-rama,
* Kama with the axe.' Born in the Treta,
or second age, as son of the Brahman Jamadagni, to deliver the
Brahman s from the arrogant dominion of the Kshatriyas. See
Parasu-Kama,