Narasinghadeva Chaturdasi festival today in India

India’s rich spiritual heritage includes regular festivals commemorating the appearance of the gods in all their different avatars or incarnations. Today is the annual festival of one of the Vishnu avatars called Narasinghadeva. “Nara” means man and “singha” means lion and “deva” means god. So you have the appearance of the half man-half lion god.

Narasimhadeva Lakshmi.jpg
Lakshmi Narasinghadeva from https://www.vina.cc/2016/05/21/pastimes-of-sri-narasingha-dev/

Chaturdasi is the 14th day of the lunar month. “Chartur” means four and “dasa” means ten, so on the 14th day of this particular lunar month annually at sunset, this particular Vishnu avatar appeared in a previous millennia, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago. Naturally this is just before the full moon day, which is tomorrow, just a few hours later.

The pastime of Narasinghadeva is written down in the Bhagavat Purana, also known as the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is the primary sacred scriptural text among Vishnu followers, known as Vaishnava bhaktas. These are the bhakti yogis who follow Krishna, compared to those who follow Shiva. It’s a complex pantheon in India and you may think there are many gods but many of them are avatars or different expansions or forms of the original gods, either Krishna/Vishnu or Shiva/Rudra and their female counterparts.

This particular Vishnu avatar appeared in a previous age or Yuga for the specific purpose of protecting his devotee. That’s why he is so fierce looking. The pastime is narrated thus: there was a very powerful but wicked demon who did some extremely severe austerities and yoga practices for thousands of years. He wanted a selfish benediction or blessing from Brahma – the topmost person in the material creation, the first created being by the god Vishnu.

This demon of a yogi stood on his toes for thousands of years as a meditation in order to attract the attention of Brahma, who eventually came to him and asked him what blessing he desired. The demon said that he wanted to be immortal. Brahma replied that since he himself was not immortal and also had to die, he could not give this blessing. So the demon arranged via all sorts of assurances that he would never be killed by a man or beast, by weapon or hands, on land or sea, inside or outside, in the day or the night.

In this way Brahma gave him these blessings and the demon felt as if he had covered his bases and would thus never be killed. He became very powerful and even fought with some of the lesser gods to actually take control of the material universe. He became the most powerful man in the universe and went around making the place hellish for the pious or spiritually minded people who were theistic.

Now this demon had a son named Prahlada who he sent to school to be taught to be atheistic as well as trained in the political arts as a future king. However, Prahlada was a theist and devotee of Vishnu. He ignored his teachers attempts to make him an atheist. As a result his father the demon actually tried to kill his own young son. He tried various ways like poisoning, etc but the boy survived them all unharmed. The demon became so furious that he called for his son and interrogated him, asking where he got his power from to withstand all the assassination attempts.

The young boy replied that he got his power from the same place as his father, and as everyone else, namely Vishnu. This infuriated the demon who actually wanted to be the most powerful person in the universe and therefore despised Vishnu. In reply the demon asked mockingly where this Vishnu was, and the son replied that Vishnu is everywhere. “Is he in this pillar?” the demon asked, pointing to one of the massive pillars that formed part of the architecture of his palace. “Yes” replied the boy.

At this point, in the climax of the pastime, the demon says that he will smash this Vishnu by smashing the pillar, since Vishnu is in that pillar. However, as he smashes the pillar with his weapon, out of the pillar emerges Vishnu in this unique gigantic form of a man with a lion’s head. The demon proceeds to battle against this half man – half lion avatar, thinking that he is invincible, thanks to the various blessings from Brahma which prevent him from being killed in so many ways. But that is precisely why Vishnu appeared in this form. The man lion avatar proceeds to grab the demon and place him on his lap where he then simply rips out his intestines with his lion claws and ends the demon’s life for good.

Narasimhadeva.jpg

The pastime reveals how none of the demons protective blessings helped him because he was not killed by a man or a beast, but by a half man – half beast. He was not killed by hand or weapon but by the nails of the man/lion avatar. He was not killed inside or outside but in the doorway, neither by day or night but at dusk, neither on land or sea but on the lap of Vishnu in this lion/man form. So all the blessings were upheld but still the loophole was created to kill the demon like a little wasp, as the Sanskrit prayer and song goes to glorify this deity of Vishnu called Narasinghadeva.

Vishnu bhaktas pray to this fierce form or incarnation of the godhead for protection and today is celebrated throughout India and by Vaishnavas globally as his appearance day, with a celebration at dusk tonight, when the imminent full moon can also be seen rising in all its beauty. You can read the pastime directly from the original Sanskrit text called Srimad Bhagavatam at www.prabhupadabooks.com. This text consists of 12 cantos or volumes, totaling 18 000 verses, and in the seventh canto you will find the pastime of Narasinghadeva. This vast volume of literature describes in detail all the Vishnu avatars as well as some of Shiva’s pastimes and many other yogis and saints in history, and it is the primary sacred text, along with Bhagavad Gita, to be found in India among the Vaishnava lineage.

Here are the primary mantras chanted by those who wish to invoke the protection of this fierce Vishnu deity at any time if you feel in danger:

namas te narasimhaya
prahladahlada-dayine
hiranyakashipor vakshaha
shila-tanka-nakhalaye

"I offer my respectful obeisances unto You, Lord Nrisimhadeva. You are the giver of pleasure to Prahlada Maharaja, and your nails cut the chest of Hiranyakashipu like a chisel cutting stone."

ito nrisimhah parato nrisimho
yato yato yami tato nrisimhah
bahir nrisimho hridaye nrisimho
nrisimham adim sharanam prapadye

"Lord Nrisimha is here and also there. Wherever I go Lord Nrisimha is there. He is in the heart and is outside as well. I surrender to Lord Nrisimha, the origin of all things and the supreme refuge."


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