The Boar Beyond Seven Hills

The Rigveda gives this story in two verses and no more.

One verse says that Vishnu, the wide strider, was sent by Indra and brought everything back: a hundred buffaloes and a brew of rice cooked in milk. And Indra killed the fierce boar. The other verse says that Vishnu drank the Soma, carried off the cooked food, and that one stronger than he shot the wild boar right through the mountain.

That is all. Whose boar was it? Whose dinner? The hymns do not stop to explain. They are sung to people who knew.

The Yajurveda knew, and it tells the story in full.

Once, it says, the sacrifice went away from the gods. It took the form of Vishnu, and it went down into the earth and hid there.

The gods went looking. They joined hands and walked in a line across the ground, searching.

Indra stepped right over the place where Vishnu lay.

"Who has walked over me?" said a voice from the earth.

"I am the one who strikes inside the stronghold," said Indra. "And who are you?"

"I am the one who carries out of the stronghold," said Vishnu.

So each of them had named his trade. One breaks in. The other brings the prize home. Vishnu spoke again.

"You call yourself the striker in the stronghold. Then listen. There is a boar, a robber of good things. He keeps the wealth of the Asuras, and he keeps it on the far side of seven hills. Strike him, if you are what you say."

Indra did not go round the hills. He pulled up a bunch of darbha grass, the sharp grass that is spread at every sacrifice, and he sent it straight through all seven. It struck the boar on the far side and killed him.

Then Indra turned to the voice in the earth.

"You call yourself the one who carries out of the stronghold. Carry him out."

Vishnu did. He bore the boar and its hoard back across the seven hills and gave them to the gods. In this way the gods won the wealth of the Asuras.

The schools of the Veda did not all tell it in the same words. One of them gives the boar a name, Emusha. Another builds the wall higher. It says the boar lived behind twenty-one ramparts of stone, with all the riches of the Asuras stored inside. Indra broke through the ramparts and pierced the boar to the heart, and Vishnu carried off what was found there.

In every telling the two friends share the work in the same way. Indra strikes. Vishnu brings it home.

In the Bhagavata Purana the boar is no robber. He is Vishnu.

The earth had sunk in a flood and lay at the bottom of the ocean. Brahma, who had the making of the world in his care, was wondering how to raise her. As he thought, a tiny boar dropped out of his nostril. It was no bigger than the top of a thumb.

Before Brahma could look twice it had grown as large as an elephant, and it went on growing.

"What is this creature?" the sages asked each other. "It came out of Brahma's nose, and look at it now."

The boar dived. He found the earth in the deep, set her on his tusks and began to rise.

A demon was waiting for him. Hiranyaksha, the golden-eyed, had been roaming the worlds with a mace on his shoulder, looking for someone strong enough to fight. He had challenged Varuna, the lord of the sea, in his own city.

"I am too old for battle," Varuna had told him. "Go to Vishnu. He will cure you of your pride."

Now Hiranyaksha stood in the boar's path and laughed.

"A beast of the water!" he said. "You are the gods' creature, and all your strength is tricks."

The boar did not answer at once. He came up to the surface, set the earth on the water and gave her the power to float. Then he turned.

They fought with maces while Brahma and the sages watched. The demon threw a trident, and it was shattered. He raised storms and darkness by magic, and they were scattered.

"Finish it now," Brahma called. "The dark of evening is coming."

Hiranyaksha rushed in to crush the boar in his arms. The boar struck him once, below the ear. The demon spun round and fell like a great tree torn up by the wind.