The Shatapatha Brahmana supplies the link between the Vedic strider and the Puranic dwarf. Here Vishnu is identified with the sacrifice. When the gods are being squeezed out of the earth by the asuras, the asuras agree to grant them only as much ground as a dwarf can cover. Vishnu is that dwarf; the gods stretch him out as the sacrifice and he covers everything, so the whole earth returns to the gods. The passage also has Purusha Narayana say that he has set all the worlds within himself and himself within all the worlds, which later theology reads as Vishnu's cosmic identity.
Sources: Trivikrama — Wikipedia; Vishnu — Wikipedia
The Maitri Upanishad names Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu together as portions of one being, matched to the three gunas.
The sage Atri and his wife Anasuya earn great merit through their conduct and austerity.
Vishnu and Shiva are shown as one figure divided down the middle.
A seven-metre three-faced bust fills the south wall of Elephanta's Cave 1.
Three Pallava shrines on one platform: Shiva in the centre, Vishnu on the right, and a disputed left shrine read as Brahma by Vogel but as Subrahmanya or Brahmasasta by later scholars; a Durga panel stands beside.
During the dissolution Vishnu lies on the serpent Ananta in the cosmic waters.
Shiva alone exists before the world.
Brahma grows a fifth head, and with it pride or a false word.