covered the earth with one step, the sky with another, and heaven with the third. With his final stride, his toenail cracked the cosmic egg and the waters of the heavenly Ganges flowed in through the fissure and down, across his feet, to earth.
When the military caste attempted to usurp the power of Brahmins, Vishnu-Krishna became Parashu·rama, the Wielder of the Axe, to slay the warriors, reestablish the authority of Brahmins, and restore social order.
Rescuing his kidnapped queen, Sita, from the ten-headed Ravana, Vishnu-Krishna, as Rama, killed the demon in battle and offered one of his crowned heads to each of the lords of the ten directions (the four cardinal directions, the four intermediary ones, as well as up and down).
The body of Bala·rama the Plowman, the brother of Krishna, is pale in contrast to Krishna’s blue-black complexion; likewise Krishna wears a light garment, while Bala·rama’s is dark. Bala-rama ordered the Yamuna river, personified as a woman, to come to him. When she refused, he dug a furrow with his plow to force her in her fluvial form to obey. The river is said to be tortuous because Bala·rama, noted for exuberant drinking, was inebriated when he did the plowing. In other, non-Krishna-centric lists of the avatars, Krishna, rather than Bala·rama, occupies this place as the eighth avatar of Vishnu.
In the Kali Yuga, the current dark age of degeneration and immorality, Vishnu-Krishna became the Buddha to preach nonviolence and to censure the Vedic sacrifice of sentient beings.
At the end of this age, before Brahma sleeps again, Vishnu-Krishna will descend to earth as Kalki to slay the wicked and prepare the world for cosmic renewal.
1.18 [11.2] Spirit-Gander (
Manasa/hamsa)
refers to the Indian royal goose that migrates to Lake Manasa on Mount Kailasa, Shiva’s paradise and a pilgrimage site for ascetics. As a common adjective, manasa means “mental” or “spiritual,” and the bird is, in both religious and literary texts, conventionally metaphorical for the human mind or spirit in meditation.