Macha Avatar

                                            Macha Avatar

The giant Fish *

Having got tired after millions of years of creation, lord Brahmah had gone to sleep. As he had into deep sleep,His mouth fell open and the through the gap the vedas that had lodged within Him got emerged.

An asura, named as 'Hayagriva', who had horse's face and human body had grabbed the vedas and had run away with them. He later on, hid them in the depth of the ocean.

Without the vedas ,Brahmah wouldn't be able to reproduce the act of creation. So, while Brahmah slept and the world awaited the deluge, lord Vishnu incarnated as the 'Macha Avatar', meant a big fish, in order to get back the vedas.

When the first deluge took place, there a king called as Sathyavirathahad ruled over Bharath (India). He led a simple life of an ascetic and had been a great devotee of lord Vishnu. Once he was learning the vedas from a rishi called Dheerkasristi, the king went to the river to bathe and perform worship to the river goddess. There, just as he was offering a handful of water to the Sun and the river, a small fish leapt into his cupped palms. 'Save me, O king, from the bigger fish in the river that it try to eat me'.

The king Sathyaviratha took pity on the tiny fish and had dropped it into the water in his water pot. When he returned to his ashram of the rishi, he found, to his surprise, that the fish in the water pot had outgrown the pot.

'Put me in a bigger stretch of water', the fish asked.The king had also placed it into a large container of water pot. Very soon, the fish had grown very big to fill the container and asked peevishly,'can't you think of anything larger?'

At once the king shifted the fish to a pond and then to a lake and finally, to the ocean. The king, then realized that the fish had been the avatar of lord Vishnu. He prayed to Him devoutly.

'You are a kind and virtuous man', the fish said to the king. 'Ask me for a boon'. 'My guru tells me the time for the great deluge is drawing near, as it is the end of the 'Kritha' yuga, i wish to witness it ', said the king.

'Wait for seven days.During this time gather all the supplies you will in need', replied the fish and then it vanished. Seven days later, it began to rain. Each drop of rain was as big as a pestle.

Very soon all land was submerged under water. Sathyaviratha held his supplies over his head and watched fearlessly as the land went under water.A boat came floating on the water just then. It was occupied with full of rishies and they asked him to get inside the boat as well.

The fish that Sathyaviratha had set free in the ocean, seemed to cover the entire stretch of water and glowed with the brilliance of the Sun. It plunged into the deep of the ocean in order to fight with 'Hayagriva' and killed him and got back the the hidden vedhas and handed them over to lord Brahmah and told Him to use them for creating lives on the earth again.

Afterwards the 'Macha' sprouted a horn on it's forehead and asked the king to tie the boat with the horn. Throughout the period of deluge the 'Macha' drew the boat safely across the raging sea.

When the great flood stopped and land emerged again, the big fish drew the boat to land and then disappeared. Lord Brahmah began his work of creation and the world was soon populated with flora and fauna and human beings.