The three strides of the Vedic Vishnu

In the Rigveda Vishnu is a minor companion of Indra whose one great act is to pace out the cosmos in three steps.

The story, beat by beat

1. In the Rigveda Vishnu holds only a handful of hymns and is paired with Indra as friend and helper.
2. He plants his foot three times and the whole of space is measured out within his steps.
3. The hymns praise his highest step as a bright place where the dead dwell in bliss.
4. The early hymns never call him a dwarf; the small-man motif attaches to the strides only later.
5. Interpreters read the three steps as the sun rising, at noon and setting, as the three worlds, or in the Brihadaranyaka as speech, mind and breath.

cosmogony stride sun