Incarnations of Vishnu
Narasimha
Lord Vishnu appears in this form as a half-man, with a lion's head to kill the king of the demons, Hiranyakasipu. Lord Narasimha tore apart the body of the great demon Hiranyakasipu, the older brother of Hiranyaksa. Hiraoyakasipu became very powerful After doing extreme austerities, he received a benediction from Lord Brahma. He asked to be irnmortal, but Brahma told him that was not possible, for he himself was not immortal. So Hiranyakasipu got the benediction that he would not be killed by any man, beast or demigod or any kind of weapon or by hand. He would not die in the air, water, or on the ground, nor be killed either inside or outside and would not die either during the day or during the night.
The Lord assumed the incarnation of a half-man, half-lion and killed Hiranyakasipu. He killed him on his lap, so that he was not killed either on the land nor on the water nor in the sky. The demon was torn apart by Narasimha's nails, which were not a weapon nor hands. He was killed at dusk, which was neither day nor night. He was killed in the doorway of the assembly hall, which was neither inside nor outside a building. Prahlada Maharaja was the son of Hiranyakasipu, and because the boy was a great devotee of Lord Vishnu, his father tortured him. To save his devotee Prahlada Maharaja, Lord Narasimha appeared to killed Hiranyakasipu.
Lord Buddha
He appeared in Lumbini, which is now in Nepal, preached his own conception of nonviolence, and deprecated the animal sacrifices sanctioned inthe Ved~. During the time when Lord Buddha appeared, animal killing was done unrestrictedly on the plea of Vedic sacrifice. Lord Buddha preached nonviolence. He preached that he did not believe in the tenets of the Vedas and stressed the adverse psychological effects of animal killing. Technically Lord Buddha's philosophy is called atheistic because there is no acceptance of the Supreme Lord and he denied the authority of the Vedas. But that is an act of camouflage by the Lord, because he is an incarnation of the Lord. He rejected the Vedas outwardly because people were supporting cow-killing and animal-killing fiom the pages of the Vedas. Lord Buddha preached the preliminary principles of the Vedas in a manner -suitable for the time. Kalki
At the end of Kali-yuga, Kalki appears. He rides a white horse and carries a flaming sword with which he kills the demoniac populace of the world who have degraded to atheism. |
