You are here: SriPedia : Oppiliappan : Sri Venkatesa Ashtotthram Home  Index  VarAha : Home  Nama List :  CD&Donation  Credits

Sri Venkateswara Ashtotthram 

Prev   ::   (pranavam) Mathsya RoopAya SrI VenkatEsAya nama: - 70   ::   Next

Guess the name of the perumal and Check the answer
70) Mathsya RoopAya SrI VenkatEsaaya nama:
 
Though the avataras of the Lord are numerous, the Mathsya Avatara is considered the first and foremost.
 
This avatara was taken essentially to protect the Vedas. When BrahmA, fatigued with the constant labours of Creation, nodded off for a few moments, an asura named Somaka stole the Vedas and made off with them, thus rendering BrahmA incapable of continuing with the process of Creation .
 
The Lord took avatara as a small fish and swam into the hands of a Rajarishi by name Satyavrata, who was an ardent devotee of Sriman Narayana, while he was performing Sandhyavandanam in the Vaigai river. Beseeched by the strange fish to save it from the predators in the river, Satyavrata took it to his ahsramam and left it in his kamandalu (water container). Overnight, the fish outgrew the kamandalu and sought bigger quarters. Let in a water tub, the fish grew manifold and had to be transferred to a pond. Continuing its phenomenal growth, the fish outgrew the pond too, upon which the Rajarshi, despairing of finding a body of water large enough to accomodate the strange creature, transferred it to the ocean, where too the fish continued its accelerated growth.  Realising that it could be no ordinary fish, but the Lord HImself, Satyavrata beseeched HIm to let him (Satyavrata) know the meaning of all the strange happenings.
 
The Lord, resplendent in the form of the giant fish, told Satyavrata that a cosmic deluge was about to sweep all the worlds, to escape from which the king should gather about him  specimens of all plants, trees and life forms, so that they could form the seeds for fresh growth, after the deluge wiped everything out, and set out with them in a special boat, tying it to the horn rising out of the fish's snout. Satyavrata did as he was told and during the momentous journey in the swirling waters of the Pralaya, the Lord, in his assumed form, instructed him as to the nature of the individual soul, the Paramatma and the ways of attaining the bliss of liberation from Samsara.
 
The Lord also eliminated the Somaka asura and restored Veda raasis to the bewildered Brahmaa, thus enabling the latter to carry on with Creation.
 
The glory and magnificence of the Mathsya roopi Bhagavan are chronicled in the Bhaagavata Purana and the Maatsya Puraana.
Swami Desikan's tribute to the Matsya avatara is a resonant one :
 
"nirmagna shruti jaala maargana dasaa datta kshanai: veekshanai:
anta: tanvad iva aravinda gahanaani oudanvateenaam apaam
nishpratyuha taranga ringana mitha: prathyooda paatha: chataa
dolaroha sadohalam Bhagavato Maatsyam vapu: paatu na:"
 



Donate by credit card via PayPal