Vishnu

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

in Brahmanism, the second person of the modern Hindu Trimurti. When he first appears in Vedic times, he is simply the God of the Shining Firmament, the younger brother of Indra, and inferior to him in dignity. By the time that the epic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabharat, were composed, Vishnu had made a considerable advance to his present position, the full attainment of which, however, was reserved for the period of the Puranas. One of these books is called the Vishnu Purana. He is regarded as the member of the triad whose special function is to preserve. To do this he nine times successively became incarnate, and will do so once more. The first time he appeared, it was as a fish to warn a righteous king, Manu, of an approaching deluge, and save the sacred Vedas from being lost. His second appearance was as a tortoise to support the world, while the gods and goddesses churned the sea; the third, as a boar, to lift up the submerged world on his tusks; the fourth, as a man-lion, to tear to pieces an impious king; the fifth, as a dwarf, to recover for the gods their supremacy lost by their neglect; the sixth, as Parasurama, to wash away the sins of the earth by the destruction of the Kshatriya race-probably an the historic fact that when the Aryan allusion to Brahman and Kshatriya warriors had well established themselves in India, jealousies arose between them, and the Kshatriyas were vanquished, and in large measure destroyed, by by the Brahmans; the seventh, was as Rama, the hero of the Ramayana ; the eighth, as Krishna; the ninth, as Buddha; and the tenth, as Kalki, or the White Horse, is When still to come. it arrives, Vishnu shall appear on a white horse, with a drawn sword, wherewith he shall destroy the wicked, and thus prepare the way for a renovated world. Vishnu himself is generally represented as a dark-blue man, with four arms, the first holding a war club, the second a conch shell, the third a quoit-like weapon called Chakra, and the fourth a water lily. His two most popular incarnations are as Rama and Krishna. His most enthusiastic followers are generally drawn from the middle classes of Hindu society. His mark on their foreheads is a trident, with a yellow fork in the center, and a white one on each side. Many monastic sects worship him almost exclusively.