"Vishnu" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... circumstance preserved, no doubt, by the oral tradition—popular, and not Brahmanic—with which the Puranas are so deeply imbued. This has already been observed by Pictet, who lays due stress on the following passage of the Bhagavata-Purana: 'In seven days,' said Vishnu to Satyravata, 'the three worlds shall be submerged.' There is nothing like this in the Brahmana nor the Mahabharata, but in Genesis the Lord says to Noah, 'Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth;' and a little ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... characteristics of which are the worship of divinities exalted above the rest, and the highly concrete and intensely personal conception of these, which comes out in sundry accounts respecting them of a biographical nature which divinities are identified either with Civa or Vishnu, and their religions called Civaite or Vishnuite, while their respective followers are styled ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana, among whom Krishna was brought up after his incarnation as the eighth avatar of Vishnu. Krishna's amours with the shepherdesses, or Gopia, form the subject of various celebrated mystical writings, especially the Prem-Sagar, or "Ocean of Love" (translated by Eastwick and by others); and the sensuous Gita-Govinda of the Bengalese lyric ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... seventeen feet in height; originally there had been a plan, showing the arrangement of columns and colonnades, but the depredations of the followers of Mohammed in the past are everywhere to be seen. The entrance to one cave, however, is well preserved, as is also a group, almost life size, of Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma, called the Trinity. The caves are said to be the home of many deadly snakes, but none appeared, and a death-like stillness prevailed; once in the sunshine again, we met a snake charmer with a lively collection of what seemed ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... and bade him measure out what he required. The first pace of the dwarf compassed the whole earth, the second the whole heavens, and the third the infernal regions. Baly at once perceived that the dwarf was Vishnu, and adored the present deity. Vishnu made the king "Governor of Padalon" or hell, and permitted him once a year to revisit the earth, on the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the superstition about it. It's rather a pretty tale," said Kerr, looking at Flora. "You've seen the ring—a figure of Vishnu bent backward into a circle, with a head of sapphire; two yellow stones for the cheeks and the brain of him of the one blue. Just as a piece of carving it is so fine that Cellini couldn't have equaled it, but no one knows when or where ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... happiness by privilege do not like folks below them to have so much enjoyment. If they ask you what right you have to be happy, you will not know what to answer. You have no patent, and they have. Jupiter, Allah, Vishnu, Sabaoth, it does not matter who, has given them the passport to happiness. Fear them. Do not meddle with them, lest they should meddle with you. Wretch! do you know what the man is who is happy by right? He is a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... agriculture and the arts of life, and led them to victory over their enemies—add that he has gone away from them for awhile, and that he will some day come back again. Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha, the culture gods of Mexico and Peru, are familiar instances of this. In the later Brahminism of India, Vishnu, having already accomplished nine avatars, or incarnations, for special emergencies in the past, was yet to have one more avatar for the final destruction of the wicked and the restoration of goodness at the end of the present age; ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... I returned to the village it was February. The cold season still lingered on. The morning sun came into my room, and I was grateful for its warmth. I was writing, when the servant came to tell me that a devotee, of the Vishnu cult, wanted to see me. I told him, in an absent way, to bring her upstairs, and went on with my writing. The Devotee came in, and bowed to me, touching my feet. I found that she was the same woman whom I had met, for a brief ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... him as a fool, as ungodly and idolatrous, because he kneels to worship the bread in which he believes he sees the God of the universe. All the Christian denominations agree in considering as folly the incarnation of the God of the Indies, Vishnu. They contend that the only true incarnation is that of Jesus, Son of the God of the universe and of the wife of a carpenter. The theist, who calls himself a votary of natural religion, is satisfied to acknowledge a God of whom he has no conception; indulges himself in jesting upon other mysteries ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... buried; the smith breaks the rock asunder; the physician restores the youth to life, and he tells them how the Khan had robbed him of his wife and killed him. The mechanic then constructs a flying chariot in the form of Garuda—the bird of Vishnu; the counterpart of the Arabian rukh—which the painter decorates, and when it is finished the rich youth enters it and is swiftly borne through the air to the roof of the Khan's dwelling, where he alights. The Khan, supposing the machine ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... American myths of the coyote, and the Slavonic myths of the devil and the doves, a boar or a fish or a tortoise fishes up the world out of the waters. That boar, fish, tortoise, or what not, is Brahma or Vishnu. This savage conception of the beginnings of creation in the act of a tortoise, fish, or boar is not first found in the Puranas, as Mr. Muir points out, but is indicated in the Black Yajur Veda and in the Satapatha Brahmana.(1) ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... It was no disgrace to a family to have a daughter living this life. Barren women visited remote temples, under a vow of self-devotion, in order to bear children. They were victimized by the priests. At festivals of Vishnu priests tried to enlist girls in the attendant multitude. The line between the sacral usage and licentiousness was broken down at some remote resorts, but in the great temples the conduct of the women was not at all shameless, although they were trained to please. They observed perfect ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... creatures—their gracious influence was dewy in the air. I resolved that I would spend the night beside them. Now with the march of the moon dim vistas of the walls beyond sprang into being. Strange mythologies—the incarnations of Vishnu the Preserver, the Pastoral of Krishna the Beautiful. I promised myself that next day I would sketch some of the loveliness about me. But the moon was passing on her way—I folded the coat I carried into ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... has divided into three main denominations: the Sarawagis or Jains (who represent some sect allied to the Buddhists or followers of Gautama); the sect of Shiva, and the sect of Vishnu. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... style is as yet an unsolved problem. Its monuments were mainly built between 600 and 1200 A.D., the oldest being in Orissa, at Bhuwanesevar, Kanaruk, and Puri. In northern India the temples are about equally divided between the two forms of Brahmanism—the worship of Vishnu or Vaishnavism, and that of Siva or Shaivism—and do not differ materially in style. As in the Jaina style, the vimana is their most striking feature, and this is in most cases adorned with numerous reduced ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... this watchful feminine tiger," the Major secretly decided, as he began a brilliant sketch of the social life of the strange land of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. "I presume, of course, that you do not care to appear with a fifty-pound Marshall & Snell grove outfit, as if you were the wife of an Ensign in a marching regiment. I will give you the real life our women lead out there. You could have secured a splendid London outfit by a little time ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... positive. "Court ruling on that, about forty years ago, on Vishnu. Infanticide case, woman charged with murder in the death of her infant child. Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a sapient being is ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... not only no fetish, it is the unspeakable thing, the Moabitish abomination. He will not bow down to the golden image which our British Nebuchadnezzar, King Demos, has made, and which he asks us to worship. And the British Nebuchadnezzar will never get beyond the worship of his Vishnu, respectability, the deity of the pure and blameless ratepayer. So Ibsen must always remain a sealed book to the vast majority ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... chisels, too. In the last gallery, where, in the progress of the religion, it took on many features of Jainism, or advancing Brahmanism, Buddha is several times represented as the ninth avatar, or incarnation, of Vishnu, still seated on the lotus cushion and holding a lotus with one of his ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... scene of this tragi-comedy been laid in Hindostan instead of Corinth, and the gods here addressed been the Vishnu and Co. of the Indian Pantheon, this rant would ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... without speaking, put a very precious gem into his hand. Being questioned by him, she answered, with tears in her eyes and in a soft musical voice, "O excellent brahman, I am the daughter of a chief of Asuras, and my name is Kalindi; my father, the ruler of this subterranean world, was slain by Vishnu whom he had offended, and as he had no son, I was left his heir and successor, and ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... the eighth incarnation of Vishnu under the name of Crishna, makes him then of a bluish-black color, which the name Crishna signifies. His ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... faces on a single head. This is the "trimurti" (trinity), composed of Brahma (creator), Vishnu (conservator), ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... at Mendoet, and in the Tjandi Sewoe, Buddha was worshipped; but in the Temple of Loro-Jonggrang at Brambanan, and in the Temples of Kalasan, Siva (the third person of the Hindu Trinity—Brahma, Vishnu, Siva) was the central object of adoration. As the connection between the religion of Buddha and Brahma has been often misunderstood, a few words on this point may be of service to ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... forms are names thought of by the bewildered, hurried tourist. He would be as likely to think of names for waves in a storm. The Eastern and Western Cloisters, Hindu Amphitheater, Cape Royal, Powell's Plateau, Grand View Point, Point Sublime, Bissell and Moran Points, the Temple of Set, Vishnu's Temple, Shiva's Temple, Twin Temples, Tower of Babel, Hance's Column—these fairly good names given by Dutton, Holmes, Moran, and others are scattered over a large ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Brahminism which succeeded it in modified form, as though rising from the ashes of the earlier Hindu creed which Buddhism virtually destroyed. In the higher terrace, the last addition to this stupendous sanctuary, the images of Buddha represent the ninth Avatar or Incarnation of the god Vishnu, though he still sits upon the lotus cushion and holds the sacred flower in one hand. This inclusion of Sakya Munyi within the Puranic Pantheon was a masterly feat of strategy accomplished by reviving Brahminism, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... true at the same time, unless he had taken a vow to protect the children of men. In that case his presence in the land was a benediction beyond the benediction of twenty years of full rains. He might even be one of the high gods, incarnated to serve Vishnu the Great Preserver, if what they said was true, that he had been recognised by Neela Deo, the Blue god—king of all the elephants—in his ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... apart as Scandinavia and China. It is the direct outcome of these identifications of the sun and moon with a boat animated by the respective deities. In India the Makara, the prototype of the dragon, was sometimes represented as a boat which was looked upon as the fish-avatar of Vishnu, Buddha or some ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... not cleanse his inner man; and so great is his avarice that a man of another caste is supposed to pray "O God, let me not be reborn as a Brahman priest, who is always begging and is never satisfied." He defrauds even the gods; Vishnu gets the barren prayers while the Brahman devours the offerings. So Pan complains in one of Lucian's dialogues that he is done out of the good things which men ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Hilsenhoff, the buxom girl with the form of a Venus and the passion of that goddess as well, tied to a thin, pallid bookworm ten years your senior, neglecting his pouting wife with blood full of fire for the pages of the literature of Hindoostan, prating of the loves of Ganesha and Vishnu, when a goddess awaited his own neglectful arms. So when on the day when he stepped into the box, leaving us the sole repository of the secret of his whereabouts—that the mutton-headed police might not interfere with the success of his experiment by preventing what ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... new scene that Tad gazed upon. Vishnu Temple, the most wonderful piece of architecture in the Canyon, had turned to molten silver. This with Newberry Terrace, Solomon's Throne, Shinto Temple and other lesser ones stood out ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... school of poetry, and a less ancient system of religion. While it is much more exuberant in its fiction, it nevertheless betrays a sort of apprehension lest it shall shock the less easy faith of a more incredulous reader; it is manifestly from the religious school of the follower of Vishnu, and, indeed, seems to have some reference to one of the philosophic systems. Yet the outline of the story is the same. In the Mahabharatic version, Manu, like Noah, stands alone in an age of universal depravity. His virtues, however, are of the ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... each village, and often in the village itself, is a small temple sacred to Vishnu or Shiva. It is often perched high up on some bank, overlooking the lake or village tank. Generally there is some umbrageous old tree overshadowing the sacred fane, and seated near, reclining in the shade, are several oleaginous old Brahmins. If the weather be hot, they generally wear only the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... far distant mission in the north of India, close to the Himalayas. The Hindoos call it the "City of a Thousand Palaces;" they say it was built by the genii on the very spot where Vishnu had reposed himself for a few weeks, after one of his mystic transmutations, in which he had conquered Siva, or Sahavedra, the spirit of evil. Though not so well known, Hurdwar is a place still more sacred than Benares; people assemble there once a year from all parts, and ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... an existing-non-existing being; who is the universe and also distinct from the existing and non-existing universe; who is the creator of high and low; the ancient, exalted, inexhaustible one; who is Vishnu, beneficent and the beneficence itself, worthy of all preference, pure and immaculate; who is Hari, the ruler of the faculties, the guide of all things moveable and immoveable; I will declare the sacred thoughts of the illustrious sage Vyasa, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was born at Benares. He was the only son of a priest of Vishnu, of rank, and was himself intended for the priesthood. At school, he meets with a boy of the name of Balty Mahu, between whom and himself a degree of rivalry, and subsequently the most decided enmity, existed—a ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... idolatry which followed this material mythology is seen in the Phoenician worship of Baal, in the Moabitish 524:3 god Chemosh, in the Moloch of the Amorites, in the Hindoo Vishnu, in the Greek Aphro- dite, and in a ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... chattered at by monkeys, by paroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Bramah through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... instead of a mediator, rather a votive offering to the wounded vanity of the great Jehovah? Was not Prometheus—a light broke in upon Hyzlo. Prometheus, a myth, Buddha a myth. All myths. There were other virgin-born saviours. Krishna, Mithra, Buddha. Vishnu had not one but nine incarnations. Christianity bears alarming resemblances to Mithraism. Mithra, too, was born in a cave. The dates of Christ's birth and death may be astronomical: the winter and ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... an eclipse that happened 900 years B. C. The dualistic principle runs through the Mexican Pantheon; it consists, i. e., of male and female divinities, representing the active and passive principles in nature. We find also in this mythology a trinity, corresponding to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva—the productive, preserving, and destroying powers—in the Indian. Inferior deities represent attributes; each name denoting an attribute; hence, the gods of the Mexicans were far from being so numerous as they appear to be. The supreme divinity ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... you will enter an antechamber rich in the magic of the East. In a reverent obscurity you will find Buddha on the right, Vishnu on the left, with flowers set before the one, while incense burns before the other. Somewhere in the darkness an Oriental woman will be seated on the ground, twanging on a sarabar, and now and then crooning a chant of invitation ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... sometimes expected the Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, "The house-holder is to remain at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest." I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... that the Aeon, the Emanative Deity, is as a child playing at creation, an idea found in both the Hindu and Hermetic Scriptures. In the former the Universe is said to be the sport (Lila) of Vishnu, who is spoken of in one of his incarnations as Lilavatara, descending on earth for his own pleasure, when as Krishna he assumed the shape of man as a pretence (a purely Docetic doctrine), hence called Lila-manusha-vigraha; while in the latter we learn from a magic papyrus that Thoth ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... the Godhead? Did he become less than God? Did he become ignorant? Did he suffer and die? Did he arise, and at last reascend, and take his place, "so to speak," in the Godhead? If this is meant as real statement, what better is it than the Avatars of Vishnu? What sort of Unity is left to us? We have a Trinity of council; but where is the Unity, except of agreement? One divine Being descending, and leaving the other divine Being alone, temporarily, on the throne of the universe, until the divine Being who had descended should reascend to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... time, gives his own view pretty emphatically. While you, he says to Lord Lytton, (I shall speak of this correspondence directly) 'are fighting with famine in India, I am struggling over albs and chasubles, and superstitions not more reasonable than those about Vishnu and Shiva.' 'I have been passionately labouring for the last nine days' (he says a little later in regard to the Folkestone case) 'for the liberty of the clergy to dress themselves in certain garments ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Asiatic Society," 1865-6). Some Slavonic philologists derive yaga from a root meaning to eat (in Russian yest'). This corresponds with the derivation of the word yaksha contained in the following legend: "The Vishnu Pur[a]na, i. 5, narrates that they (the Yakshas) were produced by Brahm[a] as beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspect, and with long beards, and that, crying out 'Let us eat,' they were denominated Yakshas (fr. jaksh, to eat)." Monier Williams's "Sanskrit Dictionary," ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... also in many hymns a solar deity. There are also other solar deities; Mitra who is frequently invoked along with Varuna; Surya, Savitri, Vishnu, and Pushan, are all gods of this class. Each of these has some attributes or some story of his own. Surya keeps his eye on men and reports their failings to Varuna and Mitra. Savitri, the quickener, raises all things from sleep in the morning with his long arms of gold, and covers them with ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... his son Kartakswami, and his wife Parwati, Vishnu and his wife Mahalaxmi only are mentioned in the following stories. Besides these, however, the Sun and Moon and the five principal planets obtain a certain amount of worship. The Sun is worshipped every morning by every orthodox ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... Kashiapa, though far removed, they made me Keeper—the very highest of Buddhistic honors—would then be no longer a secret. The symbol is of vast sanctity. There is never a genuine image of Buddha without it over his heart. It is the monogram of Vishnu and Siva; but as to its meaning, I can only say every Brahman of learning views it worshipfully, knowing it the compression of the whole ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Monotheism has been supplanted by a gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism. At the head are the Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer. Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated. To them must be added their female Consorts. Many of the Gods are held to be incarnations of Vishnu or Siva. Further, there is a vast host of spirits and demons, good or ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... anthropomorphic Olympos. The Hindu Dyaus, who carried his significance in his name as plainly as the Greek Helios, never attained such an exalted position; he yielded to deities of less obvious pedigree, such as Brahma and Vishnu. ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Indra's heaven, she had to act before Indra the part of the goddess of beauty, who selects Vishnu for her husband. One of the names of ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... the way to my home in the hills visited the tree. There, sure enough, plainly visible on the silvery surface in the twilight, was the name of the incarnation of Vishnu, written in Sanskrit characters, and apparently by some supernatural hand; that is to say, there was a softness in the impression, as if the finger of some supernatural being had traced the characters. I did not want any further ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... bow which Rukma, Sunitha, Vakra, Radha's son, Duryodhana, Salya, and many other kings accomplished in the science and practice of arms, could not even with great exertion, string, Arjuna, the son of Indra, that foremost of all persons endued with energy and like unto the younger brother of Indra (Vishnu) in might, strung in the twinkling of an eye. And taking up the five arrows he shot the mark and caused it to fall down on the ground through the hole in the machine above which it had been placed. Then there arose a loud uproar in the firmament, and the amphitheatre also resounded with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... doctrines, new sects, fresh theological controversies, are incessantly modifying and superseding the old scholastic interpretations of the mysteries, for Hindus, like Asiatics everywhere, are still in that condition of mind when a fresh spiritual message is eagerly received. Vishnu and Siva are the realistic abstractions of the understanding from objects of sense, from observation of the destructive and reproductive operations of nature; they represent among educated men separate systems of worship ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... inspector! I have overlooked their taking the horses out of my carriage for their own use. I am content also to believe that my fowls meekly succumb to jungle fever and cholera. But there are some things I cannot ignore. The carrying off of the great god Vishnu from the Sacred Shrine at Ducidbad by The Three for the sake of the priceless opals in ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... from Brahma, the whole race of men became corrupt except the seven Nishis, and in especial the holy Satyavrata, the prince of a maritime region, who, when one day bathing in a river, was visited by the god Vishnu in the shape of a fish, and thus addressed by him:—"In seven days all creatures who have offended me shall be destroyed by a deluge; but thou shalt be secured in a capacious vessel, miraculously formed. Take, therefore, all kinds of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... role in human economy. It appears like Brahma in two aspects, Vishnu the Preserver and Siva the Destroyer. Here I have been considering nitrogen in its maleficent aspect, its use in war. We now turn to its beneficent aspect, its use ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... I can see what can come out of it. If he can propagate a wave that behaves like those micropositos, we may not have to depend on ships for communication. We may be able, some day, to screen Baldur or Vishnu or Aton or Thor as easily as you screened Dorflay, up in the mountains." He thought silently for a moment. "I don't know whether that would be good or bad. But it would be new, and that's what matters. That's the only thing ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... both supernatural; in the next generation the names of the elder gods get introduced into the story, and so the marvellous tradition works itself into a myth, until nothing but a personal incarnation can account for such a series of prodigies. The man was an Avatar of Vishnu or Siva; his supreme apotheosis is now complete, and the Brahmins feel warranted in providing for him a niche in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of which the very essence is that nothing can be known of it. And, as the idea grows, the several modes and forms of the UNKNOWABLE, the Hormuzd and Ahriman of the Dualist, those personifications of good and evil; the Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, creation, preservation, and destruction; the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things; the Triad, adored by all Triadists under some modification, as that of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, father, mother, and son, type ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... scarves, and jugglers throwing poignards into the air. Around the room are low divans, covered with soft and brilliant Oriental cloth. The chandelier is quite original in form, being the exact representation of the god Vishnu. From the centre of the body hangs a lotus leaf of emeralds, and from each of the four arms is suspended a lamp shaped like a Hindu pagoda, which throws ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... the summer capital of the Maharaja of Kashmir, is beautifully situated on both banks of the river Jhelam at a level of 5250 feet above the sea. To the north are the Hariparvat or Hill of Vishnu with a rampart built by Akbar and the beautiful Dal lake. Every visitor must be rowed up its still waters to the Nasim Bagh, a grove of plane (chenar) trees, laid out originally in the reign of the same Emperor. Between the lake and the town is the Munshi Bagh, ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paroqueats, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brahma through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Siva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white-armed, and Chrishna, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... claimed that the remarkable personality of Christ would have left more of an impress upon India than it did, and that Christianity there and in India would have been synchronous, but we must remember, that there among the idols of Bramah and Vishnu, the way was not prepared, the people unexpectant of a new prophet, unwarned of him and unheeded. There he seems to have had no close personal followers to take up the work just where he left it, and continue. ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... this curse is flagrantly mythological Among the Hindoos, Krishna also, as the incarnation of Vishnu, is represented now as treading on the bruised head of a conquered serpent, and now as entwined by it, and stung in the heel. In Egyptian pictures and sculptures, likewise, the serpent is seen pierced through ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... But the Aurora, or Dawn, is the object of great admiration; also, the Aswins, or twin gods, who in Greece become the Dioscuri. The god of storms is Rudra, supposed by some writers to be the same as Siva. The two hostile worships of Vishnu and Siva do not appear, however, till long after this time. Vishnu appears frequently in the Veda, and his three steps are often spoken of. These steps measure the heavens. But his real ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... and size by wrapping it, while wet, on a wooden block; having been hardened in the sun, it is worn like a hat. As for his feet, Asirvadam, uncompromising in externals, disdains to pollute them with the touch of leather. Shameless fellows, Brahmins though they be, of the sect of Vishnu, go about, without a blush, in thonged sandals, made of abominable skins; but Asirvadam, strict as a Gooroo when the eyes of his caste are on him, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... a scale of beings, above whom were set three great lords, Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer, collectively the Tri-murti, the Hindu trinity expressed in the mystically ineffable syllable Om. Between the trinity and man came other gods, a whole host, powers of ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... observances connected with it are said to be the "first religious rites." Sacrifice was early believed to be expiatory; it removed sin. It was substitutionary; the victim stood in place of the offerer. All order in the universe depends upon it; it is "the nave of the world-wheel." Sometimes Vishnu is said to be the sacrifice; sometimes even the Supreme Being himself is so. Elaborated ideas and a complex ritual, which we could have expected to grow up only in the course of ages, appear from very early times. We seem compelled to draw the inference that sacrifice formed an essential and very ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... as a manifestation of Vishnu—the Hindoos say, to delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new revelation. Gautama was the almost deified being who spread the knowledge of Buddhism, about 500 B.C. In different countries the religion has assumed ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... freedom in regard to the forced and fanciful interpretations extorted from the sacred text, a freedom which again reminds us of the paradoxical caprice shown by some schools of Jewish Rabbis in their treatment of the volume they professed to regard with awe. The various finite gods, such as Vishnu, Indra, Krishna, Marut, or Varuna, were not the subjects of any church creed chanted every day, and carefully stereotyped in the tender minds of children. On the contrary, various roles were assigned by successive generations to these divinities. So that, for instance, Varuna was at one ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to witness," yelled the wretched man, "that I did everything for him. Everything which was possible, that ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... bull's belly wears no deeper dye; In flashing lightning's golden mantle clad, While cranes, his buglers, make the heaven glad, The cloud, a second Vishnu,[61] mounts the ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... discerning irreverence, 'if it so please your highness, your providence is practical, and the ways of Vishnu are tedious.' ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... merely idolatry, but idolatry in its most pernicious form. The honourable gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Control seemed to think that he had achieved a great victory when he had made out that his lordship's devotions had been paid, not to Vishnu, but to Siva. Sir, Vishnu is the preserving Deity of the Hindoo Mythology; Siva is the destroying Deity; and, as far as I have any preference for one of your Governor General's gods over another, I confess that my ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... great calamity has, in consequence, come upon me and my family. Come now, let us fetch the goddess from our ancestral home, and worship her here in this place." The goddess referred to was Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. When little Daniel heard this proposal, it seemed foolishness to him, and at a favourable opening in the conversation he said to his relation, "The goddess Lakshmi has blessed you with wealth, but she has left us in poverty; when she gives us prosperity ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... who are a dear for bringing me such news!"—I went all lengths in my high spirits. "But fancy finding our goddess in the temple of Vishnu! How strange of George to have been able to go into the thing again in the midst of such ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... visual power by artificial means. We subordinate the external organ in order to liberate the inner eye of the mind. The musing, pensive Hindoos, who have elongated eyes, look through the surface of things to their essence, and call the world Illusion,—the illusory energy of Vishnu. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... sect seem to be Buddhists, who, besides the Tirthankars (i.e. mortals who have acquired the rank of gods by devout lives, in whom all the Jains believe), worship also the various divinities of the Vishnu system. The Jains themselves declare this system to date from a period ten thousand years before Christ, and they practically support this traditional antiquity by persistently regarding and treating the Buddhists as heretics from their system. At any event, their religion is an old one. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... significance attached to the Umbrella, came a feeling of veneration for it, very different from the contempt with which we are now-a-days too apt to regard it. It was represented by many ancient nations as shading their gods. In the Hindoo mythology Vishnu is said to have paid a visit to the infernal regions with his Umbrella over his head. One would think that in few places could an Umbrella have been less appropriate, but doubtless Vishnu knew what he was about, and had his own reasons for carrying ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... monotonous call; soon with the same power of wing; next year to build a nest with the same wise economy, each young robin carrying in his own swelling, bulging breast the model of the hollow circle, the cradle of other young robins. So you see it is a nest within a nest,—a whole nest of nests; like Vishnu Sarma's fables, or Scheherazade's stories, you can never find where one leaves off and another begins, they shut so one into the other. No wonder the children and philosophers are they who ask, whether the egg comes from the bird, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... about town when the thermometer is at something fabulous, wearing black clothes, going to parties, and larding the lean earth. Beasts are not so foolish. To the pious Brahmin Vishnu accords the power of becoming what animal he pleases, with a break in the lease, so to speak, when circumstances alter. Had a sage this power at this moment he would become a cow, standing up to her middle in the clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade of a hanging willow ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... impute it to no want of modesty that, for once, I sink the graceful bashfulness of the virgin, and assume the more forward deportment of the queen. When all appear to possess such merit, how can I slight all but one by my decision? Let me rather leave it to the immortal Vishnu to decide who is most worthy to reign over this our kingdom of Souffra. Let Vishnu prompt you to read your destiny; I have placed a flower in this unworthy bosom, which is shortly to call one of you its lord. Name, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... monkeys, by parroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphynxes, in narrow chambers at the ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... to participation in certain attributes of humanity. For such a doctrine Jewish mythology supplied no precedents; but the Indo-European mind was familiar with the conception of deity incarnate in human form, as in the avatars of Vishnu, or even suffering III the interests of humanity, as in the noble myth of Prometheus. The elements of Christology pre-existing in the religious conceptions of Greece, India, and Persia, are too rich and numerous to be discussed here. A very full account ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... from the sun's rejoicing ray, Beneath the huge abyss, the buried treasures lay. Then foamed the billowy desert wide, 200 And all that breathed—they died, Sunk in the rolling waters: such the crime And violence of earth. But he above, Great Vishnu, moved with pitying love, Preserved the pious king, whose ark sublime Floated, in safety borne: For his stupendous horn, Blazing like gold, and many a rood Extended o'er the dismal flood, The precious freight sustained, till ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... say that," he denied as unresponsively as a brazen Vishnu. "I simply say that I wouldn't care to order you shot as things stand now. But you'll remember that I have only your word that all this happened or that you are really an American or even that this passport is yours and that your name is—ah—Devereux Bayne. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... lust and cruelty may change with the amusements they permit, but officialism promotes all with zeal. At present we laugh at Mesmer and study hypnotism; at present we sneer at the incarnations of Vishnu and inquire into Theosophy; at present we condemn the sacrificial "great custom" of King Prempeh and order our killings by twelve men and the sheriff and by elaborate machinery; at present we shudder at the sports of Commodus and wait breathlessly ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... million pilgrims visit the sacred city of Benares every year, and it is these pilgrims that furnish the largest income which the city receives from any source. Here are the most holy shrines of Buddhism; here Vishnu and Siva have their strongholds, and here must come Hindoos from all parts of India to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges and to offer up prayers at the many holy shrines ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... with stars and cunningly wrought in myriad-coloured jewels. But more beautiful to me thy sword with its curve of lightning like the outspread wings of the divine bird of Vishnu, perfectly poised in the angry ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... present, though subordinate to it. The activity is there, the will is there. Let us think of cognition as pure as it can be, turned on itself, reflected in itself, and we have Buddhi, the pure reason, the very essence of cognition; this in the universe is represented by Vishnu, the sustaining wisdom of the universe. Now let us think of cognition looking outwards, and as reflecting itself in activity, its brother quality, and we have a mixture of cognition and activity which is called Manas, the active mind; cognition reflected ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... was notorious, and it was evident to all that he had immense faith in his gods. He was as strict in the performance of his devotions as in the payment of his debts, nor was there any altar, whether of Brahma, or of Vishnu, or of Shiva, at which he failed to offer both prayers and gifts. He observed the rules of religion and of business with admirable regularity, and enjoyed the reputation of one ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... engaged in its organization. Having no knowledge of the forces inherent in nature, they imputed this work to three intelligences, which, embodying the All in All, they personified by the figure of a man with three heads, and to this trinity gave the names of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. Such a figure, carved in stone, may be seen in the island Cave of Elephanta, near Bombay, India, and is popularly believed to represent the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer; but, in determining their true signification, ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... off, Bhishma became filled with rage. That hero, that subjugator of hostile cities, then began to reflect. And he said unto himself, 'With only a single bow I could slay all the Pandavas, if the mighty Vishnu himself had not been their protector. For two reasons, however, I will not fight with the Pandavas, viz., their unslayableness, and the femininity of Sikhandin. Formerly, when my sire wedded Kali, he pleased (with me) gave me two boons, viz., that I should be ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Kuru Prince! I will to thee unfold Some portions of My Majesty, whose powers are manifold! I am the Spirit seated deep in every creature's heart; From Me they come; by Me they live; at My word they depart! Vishnu of the Adityas I am, those Lords of Light; Maritchi of the Maruts, the Kings of Storm and Blight; By day I gleam, the golden Sun of burning cloudless Noon; By Night, amid the asterisms I glide, the dappled Moon! Of Vedas I ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities, Brahma, the author of all things, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the creed, Krishna being one of his incarnate names. For centuries Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed, and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and thus to give ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... in such names as those of our text—'vanities,' 'lies,' 'nothingness,' and the like. To the Jew, encompassed on all sides by idol-worshippers, the alternative was vehement indignation or entire surrender. The Mohammedan in British India exhibits much the same attitude to Vishnu and Siva as the Jew did to Baal and Ashtoreth. It is easy to be tolerant of dead gods, but it becomes treason to Jehovah to parley with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession .. of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... with elaborately sculptured shrines, temples and tombs. On the top of the hill is a small round platform containing a cavern, with a block of granite, bearing the impression of the feet of Data-Bhrigu, an incarnation of Vishnu. This is the chief place of pilgrimage for the Jains, Shrawaks and Banians. The two principal temples are situated at Deulwara, about the middle of the mountain, and five miles south-west of Guru Sikra, the highest summit. They ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Sage, by name Vishnu-Sarman, learned in the principles of Policy as is the angel of the planet Jupiter himself, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... shared by Caspar. Ossaroo participated in it, but only to a very slight degree. The shikaree was still inclined towards indulging in his superstitious belief that the creature they had seen was not of the earth, but some apparition of Brahma or Vishnu. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... stands next to Benares among the holy cities of the Hindus: here both the soil and the river-water are consecrated, for this was the birthplace of Krishna, or, more properly speaking, the scene of that avatar of Vishnu which is known as Krishna. When we rose early in the morning and repaired to the river-bank, hundreds of the faithful were ascending and descending the numerous ghats leading down the high bank to the water, while a still ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... helped also to stimulate the growth of the more definite forms of anthropomorphism which characterised the development of Hinduism when the ancient ritual and the more impersonal gods of the Vedas and of the Brahmanas gave way to the cult of such very personal gods as Shiva and Vishnu, with their feminine counterparts, Kali and Lakshmi, and ultimately to the evolution of still more popular deities, some, like Skanda and the elephant-headed Ganesh, closely connected with Shiva; others like Krishna and Rama, av[a]taras or incarnations—and in many ways extremely ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... a mark, or sign, to designate the divinity worshiped, is common in non-Christian religions. One may see the Hindu returning from the temple with the mark of Vishnu or other deity freshly painted upon the forehead. Of the ancient usage, from which this Bible symbol of the "mark" is taken, Dr. John Potter says, in his ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... fond, and by this means, and by selling wood to the steamboats, I have made a living and bought my library without having to work half of my time. I was determined never to leave. I swore by all the arms of Vishnu she should never say that she had driven me away. I don't know anything about Julia. But I know whose daughter she is. My young friend, beware! I pray you take good heed! The Backwoods Philosopher ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston |
