KOYILNET

 Abodes of Vishnu

In MASTYA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself as a fish in this world. In the earliest yuga (era) of Sata-yuga, a king named Manu was performing severe penance for thousands of years. One day as he was performing ablutions with river water, a small fish came into his hands and just as he was about to throw the fish back into the river, the fish requested the king to save its life. Heeding its request, the king put the fish into a jar of water but the fish started growing and the jar was not big enough for it. Then the king threw it into the river, but it soon it outgrew the river and the king then threw it into Ganges and then into the ocean. The king realised that it was Lord Vishnu himself and then the lord made an appearance and made a special request to the king, that as the world would come to an end by a huge flood in next seven days,  to build a huge boat and take the seven sages (hermits), seeds of all plants, one animal of each type and also told him that Lord would appear as a fish to propel the boat to Mt Himavan for surviving the flood to the next yuga(eon). While Brahma was falling asleep, at the end of the KALPA (one day of Brahma - equal to 4320 million years), the asura HAYAGRIVA wanted to take advantage of the circumstances to steal from him the Vedas. Before the latest creation of the present universe, the four Vedas (the holy books from the mouth of the Supreme-Deity) remained drowned in the waters. It was necessary to get hold of them to instruct Brahma about the work of creation.Vishnu was therefore appointed to bring up the Vedas from the deep. But Lord Vishnu caught the asura in the act, and to retrieve the Vedas, took the form of a fish (Matsya), descended into the waters and brought up the sacred books.