III: The Fight With Hiranakya

As the Boar was coming out of the water, He was attacked by the powerful demon, Hiranakya, who had been traveling through all the three worlds and planetary systems, conquering whomever he met, out of bellicose madness. Hiranakya was the twin-brother of the demon Hiranya Kashipu. The pair were born into this world specifically to take up the role of personal combatants or enemies of the Supreme Lord in His respective incarnations of Lord Baraha and Lord Nrishingha, the half-lion half-man Avatara of the Satya Yuga. As the Reservoir of all desires, the Lord also has a fighting spirit, from which comes all fighting spirit as found in the material world. For instance, the natural fighting spirit sometimes displayed by young boys wrestling is but a perverted reflection of this original desire of the Lord. The fighting of the Supreme Lord, however, doesn't result in the destruction of the enemy, but works for his liberation. Sometimes people are suspicious because Lord Krishna taught His transcendental philosophy on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. But, as stated by the devotee Bhismadeva, all those who took part in the Battle of Kurukshetra and were killed while seeing the Form of the Personality of Godhead, Krishna, gained their eternal liberation. Even being kicked by Krishna is eternally auspicious.

When the demon brothers appeared, born from the womb of Diti, the very pores of the earth and the sky and the animals and plant kingdoms virtually cried out with omens of evil portent.

When the Supreme Lord fights, He does not fight with an ordinary mortal or nondevotee. Rather, He exchanges this rasa only with His devotees. By the Grace of the complete revelation of Vyasdeva, the compiler of the Bhagavatam, we are able to understand that Lord Baraha picked His own servant, a doorman of the palace in the spiritual planet, Vaikuntha, and this servant descended in the form of Hiranakya and took on the demoniac life for the purpose of battling with the Lord in hand to hand combat.

Hiranakya was broad and strong, golden-haired and covered with ornaments. He is described as being so tall and big that he blocked the view of the sky. And his prowess was not that of an ordinary man because in fighting he appeared almost on an equal level with the Lord. But his mentality was all demoniac: he traveled for the purpose of fighting with all peace-loving creatures. Wherever he could find anyone with a fighting reputation he would challenge him to fight. He thus made the demigod Indra flee before him, and he challenged Varuna the god of the water. Varuna advised Hiranakya that if he were really so desirous of battle he ought to fight with Lord Vishnu, and he told the demon that at the present moment the Lord had taken the Form of a Boar, and he told him where he could go to meet Him.

The demon came upon the all-powerful Personality of Godhead in His incarnation as Boar, as the Lord was bearing the earth upwards on the end of His tusk. The Bhagavatam says that "the reddish Eyes and Hoofs of the amphibious beast robbed the demon of his splendor."

"Your power is only mystic!" the infatuated demon roared to the Supreme Lord. "Today I shall enliven my kinsmen by killing You, oh fool." This is the demoniac mentality. The Lord is invisible to the eyes of the common man, but His energies are everywhere, acting in various ways. The demons think that God is actually hiding Himself and working by mystic power, and if he can find Him out then he can kill Him. The demoniac are anxiously trying to kill God by words and "philosophy." The idea underlying this is that if one is materially powerful enough, he can kill God by weapons. Actually, the demoniac cannot understand at all how God is working. They can neither kill Him nor touch Him. He can be present everywhere and still remain at His eternal Abode.

The demon continued hurling insults, but the Lord Boar patiently bore them while He carried the earth to safety on His tusks. "When You are smashed by my mace," the demon challenged, "then the sages and devotees who offer You devotional service will cease to exist." It is well-known by everyone that the demons do not like the fact that the devotees worship the Lord in the prescribed ways recommended in the scriptures.

The Lord Boar was pained by the abusive words of the demon, but He carefully placed the earth on the water of the universe and enabled it to float by its own power. Then He turned to the business of fighting the demon who was delivering furious insults. The Lord is no myth, but is actually present in multi-incarnations. As He is the Source of all sentiency and feeling, He has feeling Himself, and He is therefore never pleased by insults. According to Goswami A.C. Bhaktivedanta, "God is as sentient as we are, and He is satisfied by our prayer and dissatisfied with our harsh words against Him." In order to give protection to His devotee, He is always ready to tolerate all kinds of insults by the atheists. Therefore He patiently placed the earth in a safe place and prepared to dispatch the demon. The Lord said to Hiranakya: "We are creatures of the jungle, and we are searching after dogs like you. One who is freed from the entanglement of death does not fear the insults of the kind in which you are indulging because you are bound by the laws of death." Baraha knew that Hiranakya's position was a false one. The demon doesn't believe in God; he thinks that he can defy the material laws and be freed of birth and death. No one, however, has ever been able to achieve freedom from death, not by any advancement of science nor by mental speculation, Yogic power or sheer brawn, as possessed by Hiranakya. "Give up your nonsensical talking," Lord Baraha went on. "You are supposed to be the commander of many soldiers, so now you can take prompt steps to overthrow us." Hiranakya became so angry and agitated that he began to tremble "like a challenged cobra." The Lord had asked him to fulfill his loud promises to kill Him.

Hiranakya then sprang upon Baraha and dealt Him a blow with his powerful mace. The Lord dodged that blow by moving aside a little. The Personality of Godhead then exhibited His anger and rushed to meet the demon who was hissing and shaking with rage and holding his mace to deliver another blow. The Lord then struck at Hiranakya, but the expert demon protected himself with a maneuver of his mace. In this way, they began to strike at each other with their huge maces, each seeking his own victory.

Lord Brahma, accompanied by his followers and other demigods, came to see the terrible fight for the sake of the world. The Lord is described by the demigods as "Yajna," or "the Body full of worshipful offerings." As learned devotees, the demigods never consider the Lord to have the body of an ordinary boar. He can assume any Form, and He has all such Forms eternally. All forms actually emanate from the Original Form of Krishna, as declared in the Srimad Bhagavatam. So this Boar Form is always Vishnu, transcendental. Lord Brahma addressed Him thus: "This demon has proved to be a constant pinprick to demigods, brahmins, cows and innocent persons. He has attained a boon from me and has turned to be a demon and is always wandering over the earth looking for a fight. My dear Lord, there is no need of playing with this serpentine demon who is very skilled in cunning tricks and arrogant and most wicked. Kindly kill him. The dark evening is fast approaching." It is said that upon hearing the words of Brahma the creator, words which were free from all sinful purposes and were as sweet as nectar, the Lord heartily laughed and "accepted his prayer with a glance ladened with love." The prayer of Brahma was pure, whereas Hiranakya had prayed and performed austerities in order to derive power in the form of a boon from Brahma. It is said in the Bhagavad-gita that those who undergo severe penances and austerities not mentioned in the scriptures, out of pride, ego, lust and attachment, do such things impelled by passion.

The Lord then aimed His mace at the chin of His enemy who was stalking in front of Him. But He was instead struck by the demon's mace, and His mace slipped from His Hand. It is described that the demigods became alarmed at this. Hiranakya, however, respecting the law of combat, did not strike an unarmed foe. The Lord's anger was kindled by this, and He invoked His Sudarshan discus, which is the personal ultimate weapon used by the Personality of Godhead. As the discus revolved in His Hand, the demon sprang into the air, saying, "You are slain!" and threw His mace. The Lord knocked it down with His left Foot. The demon picked up his mace and aimed it again. The Lord stood firm and caught the flying mace and offered it back to the demon to try again. This humiliated the demon, and he took a trident and hurled it furiously. The Lord, however, tore it to pieces with His Sudarshan, which has a sharp-edged rim. Hiranakya then struck the Lord with his hard fists on His Chest. The Bhagavatam says that this was felt by the Lord as an elephant feels the striking of a wreath of flowers. In other words, the Lord desired the fighting in order to enjoy transcendental bliss. The demon then began to conjure tricks on a full scale, as was in his power. The skies were filled with winds and stones were discharged from caves. Puss, hair and blood rained from the skies. At this, Lord Baraha at last discharged His Sudarshan. At the moment the weapon left His Hand, a shudder ran through the heart of Diti, mother of Hiranakya, and her breast ran with blood. When the demon saw that his whole magic show was dispersed by the Presence of the Personality of Godhead, he tried to embrace Him with his arms in order to crush Him. But to his amazement he found that the Lord had again eluded him. Finally, the Lord slapped him at the base of the ear, and though struck indifferently, Hiranakya's eyeballs bulged out of their sockets, his body wheeled, and he fell down like a gigantic tree uprooted by the wind, his arms, limbs and head broken and scattered.

It is described that when the demigods approached the battle area, they saw the so-called corpse of the demon Hiranakya was still rosy-hued, as if full of life. Then it was noticed that the demon's body was still touching Lord Baraha's Body, and therefore the Soul of souls was giving him life. Lord Brahma remarked, "Oh what blessed death is here!" The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Who grants liberation in any incarnation, is so inconceivably great that His kick brings the greatest benefit to the "victim." Because He is inconceivably great, we are warned against thinking that we understand what it is to be a devotee of the Lord, or how it feels to be a friend of Krishna, or to act as His parent when He is partaking of His Childhood Pastimes. And certainly, no one should pretend to grasp the understanding of what it is to exchange loving affairs with the Lord. Most persons actually have no concept of God, or at most they may have heard that "God is great." Yet the mystery of the Pastimes of the Chief of all persons is open to everyone who will hear His Pastimes as presented in the Srimad Bhagavatam and related intact by His pure representatives.