![]() Hymns on Lord Vishnu Lord Vishnu in the Rig Veda qualifies fully to be considered as the Supreme Being (Isvara). This can be made clear by examining the meaning and implications of a few selected hymns addressed to Vishnu. In the first place, the all-pervasive character (sarvavyapakatva) of Vishnu has been explicitly brought out in more than one hymn of the Rig Veda. There are eight hymns appearing in the very first mandala of the Rig Veda Samhita that speak about the greatness of Vishnu by repeatedly referring to the three strides with which He measured the entire universe. The description of Vishnu with three strides signifies symbolically that the entire universe is pervaded by Vishnu. This implies that Vishnu along with the creation of the entire universe pervades all that is created. The created entities derive their existence (satta) by the immanence of the creator as its inner self. The Upanishad expresses this truth in a different way. According to the Vedic etymology of Yaska, the term Vishnu means the one who pervades everything. It is also interpreted as the one who enters into all. The ‘Ahirbudhnya Samhita’, an authoritative Pancharatra treatise, upholds both the meanings. ![]() Significance of the Three Strides of Lord Vishnu The philosophical significance of the three strides of Vishnu has been brought out more explicitly in the ‘Shatapatha Brahmana’. The passage says: Vishnu is the very sacrifice (yajna). He measured the entire universe for the sake of divine beings (devatas); the strides are; the pervasion of the entire physical earth by the first step, the entire upper region by the second and the heavenly region by the third step. Some ancient commentators on the Vedas and also a few Western scholars have taken the view that Vishnu is Sun God (Surya) and the three steps represent the rising sun in the early morning, the sun in the noon and the setting sun in the evening. The three steps are also interpreted as the manifestation of sun in three different forms, first as agni (fire) in the earthly region, the second one as vidyut (lightning) in the upper region (antariksa) and the third in the higher celestial region (divi) as surya (sun). The number three, as Madhava has interpreted, covers not merely the three worlds, Prithvi, Antariksa and Dyuloka, but the three Vedas (Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda), the three time factors-past, present and future, the three kinds of Jivas; devas, danavas and human beings, the three types of existents-sentient beings (chtana), non-sentient matter (achetana) and the mixed ones (mishra). The implication of it is that everything that exists in the spatio-temporal universe is pervaded by Vishnu. If this meaning is accepted it becomes obvious that Vishnu of the Rig Veda is the Supreme Being by virtue of His all-pervasive character. |
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Lord Vishnu in Rig Veda