VISHNU (Skt. rimut; of uncertain etymol ogy). The second god of the Hindu triad (see TRIMURTI and regarded as the supreme deity by his worshipers, who are called Vaishnavas (q.v.).
In the Rig-Veda Vishnu is the 'wide-stepping' god who 'goes swiftly' and 'establishes the vault of heaven' and 'measures out the extreme spaces of earth,' while his 'dear path' is the heaven of pious men, or along the highest heavens. The deity thus described is apparently the sun, though some scholars prefer to regard the Vedic Vishnu as a giant of earth, his famous 'three strides' through the universe being interpreted as across the ground rather than through the sky. In the second period of Hindu thought, however, the union of the sun-god and Vishnu is complete, and at the same time Vishnu becomes much more important and more generally recognized as one of the supreme gods, appearing even as the su preme deity. The next phase of his character is that of a supreme All-god. About the time of the Christian Era this pantheistic Vishnu, who represents on the one band the esoteric specula tions of philosophy, and on the other the figure of a popular godling, entered into so close rivalry with the orthodox supreme god, Brahma, and with the sectarian god. Siva, that to reconcile the conflicting claims of each party the three were proclaimed to he forms of the same one supreme god. When this step was taken, Vishnu as a distinct personality disappeared, being merged with Brahma and Siva, and thencefor ward he represented only a personal condition of the one All-god. While Brahma became more and more a deity of philosophers and Siva re mained an object of fear, Vishnu became espe cially the god of the easy-going. life-loving mid dle classes, both in the northern and southern divisions of India, and ended his divine career by absorbing most of the local cults of the Hindu and barbarian natives. Ile was supposed to have descended from his heaven and become incorporate in various guises. These are the famous avatars of Vishnu. (See AVATAR.) In them the Vishnu appeared only in part; for being the All-god. the individual fonn was only a portion of the whole. This theory of avatars did more than anything else to make Vishnu a popular god; fin% accord ing to it, any local god might be a form of the All-god. This provided a means of bringing into
the 1 3rahmanie fold the worshipers of the most diverse divinities.
The oldest legends of the avatars have to do with mythical animals; then follow avatars in half human form, and finally come the great human avatars. Among these the oldest of all is the fish-avatar. At first, before Vishnu was recognized as All-god, we find the legend of a deluge, and the story of a monster fish, which preserved from death in the flood the ancestor of all mankind. The orthodox Brahmanic theo logians assert that the saving fish was an incar nation of the god Brahma. It is not till much later that Vishnu is substituted for the earlier god. In no other instance is the historical gen esis of the avatar so plainly preserved as in this, wherein a popular tale is transferred from one divinity to another.
The numerous avatars of Vishnu are given at first as ten, then as twenty, then again as twenty two, and at last they become innumerable. First comes the fish-avatar already referred to; then the tortoise and boar avatars. These comprise the first group, in which possibly a totemic deity has been identified with Vishnu. The next group comprises the half-human man-lion form of Vishnu and the dwarf form, in which the deity is half beast and half god respectively. The tor toise and boar forms, like that of the fish form, are assumed in order to save earth itself from disaster. Both tortoise and boar raise the sink ing land, so these are also merely forms of a deluge-myth. In the dwarf avatar Vishnu tricks an evil demon, who possesses earth, by soliciting as much earth as the petitioner can cover with three strides. On this request being granted, the god renounces his dwarf form and with his ancient three strides covers the whole earth. The last group of avatars comprises those of the two Rams and of Krishna, together with the final claim o• admission that Buddha was an avatar of Vishnu and the prediction that there is to be another avatar, that of the Saint Kalki. In this last group of avatars, beginning with the older llama, the evil counteracted by Vishnu in human form is moral, not, as in the earlier legends, merely physical evil.