“How came you to be in the water?” they asked the dwarf, “ Did someone place you there?”

Vishnu cooked up a story. He told them that there was a learned brahmana named Prabhasa who had two sons named Netrabhasa and Gatibhasa. When their father died. Gatibhasa proposed that the inherited house be divided into two parts. But Netrabhasa would have none of it. He maintained that a dwarf was an incomplete human being and therefore had no right to any property. When Gatibhasa argued, his brother picked him up be the hair and flung him into the river Devika. Vishnu thus pretended that he was the dwarf Gatibhasa.


The demons were stirred to pity at this sad story and told Dhundhu, “Please donate some wealth, land and a house to Gatibhasa.”

“What would you like to have?” Dhundhu asked Gatibhasa. “Shall I give you wealth, property, land or servants?”

“None of these,” replied the dwarf, “If I acquire these, my brother will simply take them away. Please grant me as much of land as can be encompassed in three of my footsteps.”

Dhundhu agreed to grant this and the dwarf immediately assumed a gigantic form. With one step Vishnu covered the world and with a second step, all the regions including heaven. There was no place left for the third step and Vishnu had to rest it on Dhundu’s back. Such was the force of this third step that Dhundhu was driven down into a huge pit that was created in the bowels of the earth. Vishnu tied up Dhundhu and flung him into this pit. Heaven was restored to the gods.

Tri means three and vikrama means valour. Since Vishnu had shown such valour with three of his steps, he came to be known as Trivikrama.

The Early History of Pururava

Purarava was the first king of the lunar dynasty. The Vamana Purana now relates his early history.

In the kingdom of Madra, there was a city named Shakala. In that city there lived Dharma, a trader by profession. Dharma was rich, learned in the shastras and righteous. His profession of trading led him to undertake a journey to the land of sourashtra. The journey was through a desert and while he was traversing the desert at night, thieves fell upon him and looted all his property. Dharma wandered around in the desert and finally came to a shami tree (mimosa sumsa) that stood in the middle of the desert. There were no birds was sitting on its branches and the place was strangely deserted. But Dharma was so tired, hungry and thirsty that he did not have the energy to wonder about this. He fell asleep under the tree.

When he woke up, it was to discover a ghost (preta) advancing towards the tree. This ghost was obviously some sort of a leader to other ghosts; since it was surrounded by hundreds and thousands of other ghosts. The leader came upon Dharma lying under the tree and asked him. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Dharma told him his story and the leader of ghosts was greatly saddened at Dharma’s plight. He consoled him and asked the other ghosts to prepare a feast. As soon as he uttered these words, two vessels full of food and water appeared as if by magic. Dharma ate his fill. So did the other ghosts.

Then Dharma asked the leader of the ghosts, “where did this food and water come from? Who are you? How came you to be in the desert? And how is it that you have so many servants? Please tell me your story.”

The story that the ghost related was as follows.

The ghost used to be a trader named Somasharma who lived in the city of Shakala. As a neighbour, he had a rich trader named Somashrava, Somashrava was devoted to Vishnu, but Somasharma was evil. He was a miser and never donated alms.