Vishnu Sentence Examples

In the same way " the Minas, a non-Aryan tribe of Rajputana, used to worship the pig; when the Brahmans got a turn at them, the pig became an avatar of Vishnu " (Lyall, Asiatic Studies).

The Vishnu Purana says, "The house-holder is to remain at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest."

As Brahma is the creator and Vishnu the preserver, so Siva is the destroyer.

This building was originally dedicated to Vishnu, but afterwards converted to the worship of Siva.

Near the Manikarnika ghat is the well held to have been dug by Vishnu and filled with his sweat; great numbers of pilgrims bathe in its venerated water.

In the religious world the Seventh-Day Adventists (who are connected with many sanatoria and the manufacture of food specialities) and some Bible Christians, the worshippers of Vishnu and the Swami Narang and Vishnoi sects, amongst others, preach abstinence from flesh food.

The man was an Avatar of Vishnu or Siva; his supreme apotheosis is now complete, and the Brahmins feel warranted in providing for him a niche in the orthodox pantheon."'

Of still later date are the popular developments of the modern cult of Krishna associated with Radha, as found in the Vishnu Purana.

Another still later myth, which occurs in the epic poems, makes Brahma be born from a lotus which grew out of the navel of the god Vishnu whilst floating on the primordial waters.

The worship of the tulsi plant, or holy basil (Ocymum sanctum, Don), by the Hindus is popularly explained by its consecration to Vishnu and Krishna.

There are two principal sects among modern Hindus - those who follow Vishnu, and those who follow Siva.

His exploits, as the ally of Rama (incarnation of Vishnu) in the latter's recovery of his wife Sita from the clutches of the demon Ravana, include the bridging of the straits between India and Ceylon with huge boulders carried away from the Himalayas.

The " three footprints of Vishnu," for example, unmistakably gave its name to the Mexican day 0111n, signifying the " track of the sun "; and both series further contain a " flint weapon," a " stick," and a " house."

Pandharpur is the most popular place of pilgrimage in the Deccan, its celebrated temple being dedicated to Vithoba, a form of Vishnu.

Brahma (n.) is the designation generally applied to the Supreme Soul (paramatman), or impersonal, all-embracing divine essence, the original source and ultimate goal of all that exists; Brahma (m.), on the other hand, is only one of the three hypostases of that divinity whose creative activity he represents, as distinguished from its preservative and destructive aspects, ever apparent in life and nature, and represented by the gods Vishnu and Siva respectively.

On the top of the hill is a small round platform containing a cavern, with a block of granite, bearing the impression of the feet of Data-Bhrigu, an incarnation of Vishnu.

He lost much of his supremacy when the triad Brahma, Siva and Vishnu became predominant.

The ten Avatars of Vishnu are the most famous.

Older than this temple are the Vaikuntha Perumal temple of Vishnu and the Siva temple of Kailasanath, which date from the time of the Pallava kings.

A mark on the wall of the inner enclosure, something like a horseshoe, is held to be the first letter of the name of Vishnu.

The town is celebrated for its great temple, dedicated to Vishnu, composed of seven square enclosures, one within another, and 350 ft.

To-day Vishnu is adored by the Vishnavite sects as the equal or even the superior of Brahma, and is styled the Preserver.

An indefinable man-lion (nara sinha) represents the fourth avatar of the Indian Vishnu, and is found also among the Tibetans.

Moving up the Pacific coast to British Columbia, we find the musk-rat taking the part played by Vishnu, when in his avatar as a boar he fished up the earth from the waters.

In the Trimurti, Brahma (the impersonal) is manifested as Brahma (the personal creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Siva (the destroyer).

In the older framework of the M ahabharata he appears as a great chieftain and ally of the Pandava brothers; and it is only in the interpolated episode of the Bhagavad-gita that he is identified with Vishnu and becomes the revealer of the doctrine of bhakti or religious devotion.

He describes himself as a worshipper of Bhagavata (= Vishnu), and states that he had come from Taxila in the name of the great king Antialcidas, who is known from his coins to have lived c. 170 B.C.

In India the serpent-godlings are very often associated with water, and, even at the digging of a well,worship is paid to the ` ` world serpent," and the Salagrama (spiral ammonite), sacred to Vishnu, is solemnly wedded to the Tulasi or basil plant, representative of the garden which the pool will fertilize.

In the estimation of these people "Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the villagers.

Both these divine figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions - the genial Vishnu mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same name; whilst the stern Siva, i.e.

As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement to the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the entire framework of legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava creeds are based.

Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years, the gods Vishnu and Siva, or Hari and Hara as they are also.

The high-caste Brahman will probably keep at his home asalagram stone, the favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will not fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava shrines there.

Natesa (Hindu Feasts, Fasts and Ceremonies)," the several forms of the god Siva in these sacred shrines are considered to be the bodies or casements of the soul whose ' Siva is said to have first appeared in the beginning of the present age as Sveta, the White, for the purpose of benefiting the Brahmans, and he is invariably painted white; whilst Vishnu, when pictured, is always of a dark-blue colour.

Vishnu, whilst less popular with Brahmans than his rival, has from early times proved to the lay mind a more attractive object of adoration on account of the genial and, so to speak, romantic character of his mythical personality.

Whilst the Saiva philosophers do not approve of the notion of incarnations, as being derogatory to the dignity of the deity, the Brahmans have nevertheless thought fit to adopt it as apparently a convenient expedient for bringing certain tendencies of popular worship within the pale of their system, and probably also for counteracting the Buddhist doctrines; and for this purpose Vishnu would obviously offer himself as the most attractive figure in the Brahmanical trinity.

But, on the other hand, the essentially human nature of these two gods 1 As in the case of Siva's traditional white complexion, it may not be without significance, from a racial point of view, that Vishnu, Rama and Krishna have various darker shades of colour attributed to them, viz.

The names of the two heroes meaning simply" black "or" dark,"the blue tint may originally have belonged to Vishnu, who is also called pitavasas, dressed in yellow garment, i.e.

And accordingly it is exactly in connexion with these two incarnations of Vishnu, especially that of Krishna, that a new spirit was infused into the religious life of the people by the sentiment of fervent devotion to the deity, as it found expression in certain portions of the epic poems, especially the Bhagavadgita, and in the Bhagavatapurana (as against the more orthodox Vaishnava works of this class such as the Vishnupurana), and was formulated into a regular doctrine of faith in the Sandilya-sutra, and ultimately translated into practice by the Vaishnava reformers.

His followers, the Ramanujas, or Sri-Vaishnavas as they are usually called, worship Y Y, P Vishnu (Narayana) with his consort Sri or Lakshmi (the goddess of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama with Sita and Krishna with Rukmini.

Their most important shrines are those of Srirangam near Trichinopoly, Mailkote in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar coast, and Jagannath in Orissa; all of them decorated with Vishnu's emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram stone.

On the speculative side, Ramanuja also met Sankara's strictly monistic theory by another recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him through devotion or love (bhakti).

In point of doctrine, they differ in their view of the relation between God Vishnu and the human soul; whilst the former sect define it by the ape theory, which makes the soul cling to God as the young ape does to its mother, the latter explain it by the cat theory, by which Vishnu himself seizes and rescues the souls as the mother cat does her young ones.

Thus, the founder's twelve chief disciples include, besides Brahmans, a weaver, a currier, a Rajput, a Jat and a barber - for, they argue, seeing that Bhagavan, the Holy One (Vishnu), became incarnate even in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may be born even in the lowest of castes.

Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their adoration of Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra, usually associate with these gods their Brot wives, as their saktis, or female energies, the sexual element is, as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope to enhance the emotional character of the rites of worship. In some of the later Vaishnava creeds, on the other hand, this element is far from being kept within the bounds of moderation and decency.

He subsequently made over to his principal disciples the task of consolidating his community, and passed the last twelve years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship of Vishnu as Jagannatha, or "lord of the world," which he remodelled in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of Jayadeva to be recited before the images in the morning and evening as part of the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other Vaishnava creeds, seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing it into accord with the experience of human love.

Zeus gave laws to Minos; Apollo revealed the Spartan constitution to Lycurgus; Zaleucus received the laws for the Locrians from Athena in a dream; Vishnu and Manu condescended to draw up law-books in India.

Space does not permit us to recount the equally puerile and barbarous legends of Vishnu, Agni, the loves of Vivasvat in the form of a horse, the adventures of Soma, nor the Vedic amours (paralleled in several savage mythologies) of Pururavas and Urvasi.2 Divine Myths of Greece.

It will become evident to any student of the romantic myths that they consist of different arrange 3 See also Vishnu Purana, i.

In the book of Kalila and Dimna the slmur or `anka is the king of birds, the Indian garuda, on whom Vishnu rides.

In Hindu mythology the Maruts, Indra, Agni and Vishnu wage war with the serpent Ahi to deliver the celestial cows or spouses, the waters held captive in the caverns of the clouds.

The rich land round about the holy city of Pandharpur, sacred to Vithoba the national Mahratta form of (Krishna)- Vishnu, is wholly restricted to the cultivation of the tulsi plant.

One of these portions is dedicated to Brahma, another to Vishnu and the third to Siva.

The Legend Hardwar has earned fame for being the place blessed by the trinity of Lord Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.

A synopsis of The Ramayana is the story of the life of Lord Rama, an earthly incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.

These similar and familiar stories are also ascribed to Menu, the great patriarch of Hindustan and also to Vishnu in his ninth incarnation.

The very first Monday Mr Russell and a man from India called Vishnu played the tabla and it sounded great.

The Babylonian story of Ea (see § 2) and the deluge finds an Indian parallel in the fish (or, otherwise a manifestation of Vishnu the many-headed serpent) which warned Manu.

As regards this latter, purely exoteric, doctrine, there can be little doubt of its owing its origin to considerations of theological expediency, as being calculated to supply a sufficiently wide formula of belief for general acceptance; and the very fact of this divine triad including the two principal deities of the later sectarian worship, Vishnu and Siva, goes far to show that these two gods at all events must have been already in those early days favourite objects of popular adoration to an extent sufficient to preclude their being ignored by a diplomatic priesthood bent upon the formulation of a common creed.

In his character as preserver of men Vishnu has from time to time become incarnate to rid the world of some great evil (see also Brahmanism and Hinduism).