Vishnu has many avatars but the Boar or Varaha Avatar has always been seen by foreign commentators to be one of his stranger manifestations. There is no cult of porcine totemic worshippers in any part of India, which could explain this as the usual process of assimilation of local area cults into the larger body of the great tradition. Even the true believers seem to feel this form needed some manifestation, and there is a lengthy allegorical discourse upon it. But of that later.
It is plausible however that the boar was regarded as a noble animal by the Vishnu worshipping warrior classes who used to hunt it and knew of its sterling qualities only too well. This respect is not unmerited, the wild boar remaining one of the most dangerous hunts known to man who has managed to practically exterminate all other species it hunted. The boars however thrive, and it is understandable that such a tough and resilient life form was seen as a just receptacle for the divine energy. A boar has a bony carapace, which can turn aside a spearhead, and block a .357 magnum round fired point blank at it. It also has wickedly up-curving tusks at just the right angle to tear open the thigh of an upright human, standing in the way of its charge, and sever the femoral artery. Death is not uncommon. The Hindus have always been admirers of the fierce aspects of nature, typically seeing in them manifestations of divine strengths, not diabolical ones. That explains the ease with which the Varaha incarnation became a standard motif on the temple panels of India, though it was never actually worshipped as the presiding deity in any temple to the best of my knowledge.
The story gets somewhat difficult to sort out, as it seems that this incarnation was once attributed to Brahma, in the form of Prajapati, and only later did it become assimilated into the Vishnu worldview. It is entirely possible, as Brahma was once a serious god in the Indian imagination. In the Taittriya Samhita as well as in the Satapaha Brahmana, Brahma is credited with lifting the Earth out of the primal waters of chaos in the form of a boar, and establishing it as a floating haven for Life. In the latter text, the boar is called Emusha. In the Ramayana too, there is clear evidence that Brahma originally incarnated as the Boar that lifted the Earth out of the waters so that Life could be established upon it. As his star waned, the great cosmological action was shifted onto Vishnu as it fitted in well with the Evolution mode of avatar narrative, from water dwelling forms of life to amphibians to lower mammals to man-beast to Man.
Some new features were added to the old tale when Vishnu became the protagonist. Now the earth was old and well established, no longer a virgin field on which to stabilize Life. The earth was also personified as Bhoodevi, the Earth Mother Goddess. The increasing sins of all creation had caused her to sink below the surface of the primal waters, as the burden was too much to bear. The great sages, alarmed at this turn of events, performed Hinduism's magical panacea known as the Yagya, the fire sacrifice, and Vishnu responded to this by incarnating as a boar and retrieving the Earth. His touch immediately sanctified and scoured away the burden of sin beneath which she had sunk. This adventurous rescue mission fired the imagination of the Pauranic writers and they continued to add to the tale.
The Vayu Purana says the boar delights in water, and hence it was the appropriate choice for something that needed to be brought from water back onto the land. His dimensions became the source of much pious hyperbole. "A thousand yojanas in height", or a mere nine thousand miles, "radiant as the sun, fire like lighting flashing from the eyes", and so on. In an unconscious connection to the Brahma origins of the tale, the Bhagvata Purana describes the boar as originating from the nostril of Brahma, gaining in size from a thumb to the most colossal of elephants. This text also has the most popular version of this incarnation currently extant - Vishnu's battle with the Asura Hiranyaksha.
This Asura was a Titanic personality, brimming over with strength and ability and perpetually frustrated because he could never find any task worthy of his great potential. He turned to evil doing, as it was amusing at least, and momentarily distracted him from boredom. The gods used to flee at his approach as he was perpetually spoiling for a fight and laying havoc to all the worlds. He finally challenged Varuna the ocean, to battle, who decided it was high time this nuisance got his comeuppance. Varuna declined to fight citing age as a reason, but suggested that Hiranyaksha seek out Vishnu who was a worthy opponent and, by sheer coincidence just happened to be rescuing Bhoodevi from the waters at that moment. The foolish demon plunged into the waters and saw that the great boar was making for the surface and ignoring all the taunts and insults he was hurling at him. Once the earth was safely re-established, the infuriated boar turned on the demon and tore him apart.
Hiranyaksha belonged to a family that would cause Vishnu to incarnate three times to destroy his brother as well as their great grandson, and then the two demons were reborn twice more and each time Vishnu had to deal with them in some sort of eternal cosmic ritual of incarnation. The brothers are supposed to be the famous twin gatekeepers of Vishnu's heaven, Jaya and Vijaya, cursed to fall from grace and find salvation only in opposition to Vishnu. Enmity to the great god would cause their deaths at his hands, which automatically meant salvation. They were first born as Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, the latter killed by the Narasimha avatar. Then they incarnated as Ravana and Kumbhakarna, both slain by Rama and finally in the Mahabharatha as the nonentities Shishuplala and Dantavakra, duly put away by Krishna. The demons seem to be some sort of universal destabilizing principle, which Vishnu had to remove to restore equilibrium in the universe. That they are the gatekeepers, guardians of the threshold to Vishnu, sustainer and integrative principle of the universe, is significant in mythological terms. It is only by passing through chaos that you come to the still center of the universe.
Some texts take the story of this incarnation further. Bhoodevi, having being embraced so long by Vishnu in the rescue became his wife by default, there was no other resolution to potentially outraged proprieties. The result of this union was Narkasura, a great and mighty warrior who lived for eons as a righteous king but finally went to the bad, launched a campaign of world conquest, and had to be slain by Krishna. As to the terrifying psychological connotations about such blatant patriarchal homicide of an overachiever son, India has always been on the side of the narcissistic impulses of the parent. Narkasura was 'wrong' in desiring to so become prominent when his 'father' was still alive - and his death is regarded as just desserts, though dressed up in pious fatuities about liberation by being slain by the hand of god.
The Shaiva texts added a further spin on the Varaha incarnation. Having accomplished his missions, Vishnu decided to spend some time in this new and playful form. Alas, he underestimated the power of the brute consciousness in reasserting itself and he came to identify himself with the Boar. He met a beautiful sow somewhere and they set up house and had many piglets. Shiva, seeing the appalling degradation of the great Vishnu, attacked the boar and flayed its pelt - upon which the fully conscious and awakened Vishnu rose up in his remembered glory. Shiva is the embodiment of Pure Consciousness, which is why as Nataraja he dances in triumph upon the demon Apasmara - Amnesia. His restoring Vishnu to full awareness, by removing his covering of amnesia, symbolized by the hide of the boar, is thus well in character and psychologically astute. Apart from an obvious childish attempt to assert the supremacy of Shiva, the story is insightful in the perils of accessing lower levels of consciousness. They may become necessary sometimes, to release the great amounts of strength needed for fearful tasks, but if persisted in, they devour the higher faculties of the mind and consciousness - and man sinks back to brute levels, literally as content as a pig in the mud. In some versions, to drive home this point with greater intensity, it is Shiva who incarnates as a boar and Vishnu who rescues him from porcine happiness. There is never any single version of any myth in India.
The allegorical interpretations of the entire myth have always been very popular with the more thoughtful amongst the ancient commentators. In this point of view the entire story is a recreation in hyperbolic terms of a massive Yagya, a ritual intervention made by the wise of the earth when they deem that sinfulness has assumed threatening stature. The body of the Varaha is thus a manifestation of the Yagya itself. The words used in eulogy are very revealing in that the writers of the Bhagvata knew this myth was not to be taken solely at a literal level.
"You alone exist, the supreme condition of being, Kesava, Lord of the Universe. You are the Purusha (Cosmic Man and the first to institute Yagya) of the sacrifices; your feet are the Vedas; your tusks the stake to which the sacrificial offering is bound; your teeth are the oblations; mouth the altar; the tongue is the fire and the hairs of your body are the sacrificial grass. Your eyes, oh omnipotent Lord, are day and night, your head the seat of Brahma, your name is the content of all the hymns of the Vedas, your nostrils are all the oblations. The snout is the ladle of sacrifice, the deep voice the chanting of the Sama-Veda, the massive body the hall of sacrifice, the joints the various ceremonies; the ears are the rites, both compulsory and optional..." and so on.
It is evident therefore that the Varaha aspect of Vishnu seemed to tap into some deep reservoir of the Hindu psyche considering the immense amounts of cultural output it has engendered. As said before the Varaha was never worshipped, the rendering of homage to the avatars in themselves, as distinct from Vishnu, beginning with Narasimha alone. Nevertheless it remains a primal myth of the Hindu imagination, encompassing many of its core concerns simultaneously.
Addendum
We have recently come to know that there is a small temple dedicated to the Varaha Avatar form of Vishnu in Simhachalam which is near Vizag town in Andhra Pradesh state in India. At the famous Tirupati Balaji temple there is a convention that the full fruits of pilgrimage can be gained only after visiting the small shrine dedicated to Varaha found over there. The Varaha Avatar is therefore still obviously worshipped only in the Andhra Pradesh area.
It is plausible however that the boar was regarded as a noble animal by the Vishnu worshipping warrior classes who used to hunt it and knew of its sterling qualities only too well. This respect is not unmerited, the wild boar remaining one of the most dangerous hunts known to man who has managed to practically exterminate all other species it hunted. The boars however thrive, and it is understandable that such a tough and resilient life form was seen as a just receptacle for the divine energy. A boar has a bony carapace, which can turn aside a spearhead, and block a .357 magnum round fired point blank at it. It also has wickedly up-curving tusks at just the right angle to tear open the thigh of an upright human, standing in the way of its charge, and sever the femoral artery. Death is not uncommon. The Hindus have always been admirers of the fierce aspects of nature, typically seeing in them manifestations of divine strengths, not diabolical ones. That explains the ease with which the Varaha incarnation became a standard motif on the temple panels of India, though it was never actually worshipped as the presiding deity in any temple to the best of my knowledge.
The story gets somewhat difficult to sort out, as it seems that this incarnation was once attributed to Brahma, in the form of Prajapati, and only later did it become assimilated into the Vishnu worldview. It is entirely possible, as Brahma was once a serious god in the Indian imagination. In the Taittriya Samhita as well as in the Satapaha Brahmana, Brahma is credited with lifting the Earth out of the primal waters of chaos in the form of a boar, and establishing it as a floating haven for Life. In the latter text, the boar is called Emusha. In the Ramayana too, there is clear evidence that Brahma originally incarnated as the Boar that lifted the Earth out of the waters so that Life could be established upon it. As his star waned, the great cosmological action was shifted onto Vishnu as it fitted in well with the Evolution mode of avatar narrative, from water dwelling forms of life to amphibians to lower mammals to man-beast to Man.Some new features were added to the old tale when Vishnu became the protagonist. Now the earth was old and well established, no longer a virgin field on which to stabilize Life. The earth was also personified as Bhoodevi, the Earth Mother Goddess. The increasing sins of all creation had caused her to sink below the surface of the primal waters, as the burden was too much to bear. The great sages, alarmed at this turn of events, performed Hinduism's magical panacea known as the Yagya, the fire sacrifice, and Vishnu responded to this by incarnating as a boar and retrieving the Earth. His touch immediately sanctified and scoured away the burden of sin beneath which she had sunk. This adventurous rescue mission fired the imagination of the Pauranic writers and they continued to add to the tale.
The Vayu Purana says the boar delights in water, and hence it was the appropriate choice for something that needed to be brought from water back onto the land. His dimensions became the source of much pious hyperbole. "A thousand yojanas in height", or a mere nine thousand miles, "radiant as the sun, fire like lighting flashing from the eyes", and so on. In an unconscious connection to the Brahma origins of the tale, the Bhagvata Purana describes the boar as originating from the nostril of Brahma, gaining in size from a thumb to the most colossal of elephants. This text also has the most popular version of this incarnation currently extant - Vishnu's battle with the Asura Hiranyaksha.
This Asura was a Titanic personality, brimming over with strength and ability and perpetually frustrated because he could never find any task worthy of his great potential. He turned to evil doing, as it was amusing at least, and momentarily distracted him from boredom. The gods used to flee at his approach as he was perpetually spoiling for a fight and laying havoc to all the worlds. He finally challenged Varuna the ocean, to battle, who decided it was high time this nuisance got his comeuppance. Varuna declined to fight citing age as a reason, but suggested that Hiranyaksha seek out Vishnu who was a worthy opponent and, by sheer coincidence just happened to be rescuing Bhoodevi from the waters at that moment. The foolish demon plunged into the waters and saw that the great boar was making for the surface and ignoring all the taunts and insults he was hurling at him. Once the earth was safely re-established, the infuriated boar turned on the demon and tore him apart.
Hiranyaksha belonged to a family that would cause Vishnu to incarnate three times to destroy his brother as well as their great grandson, and then the two demons were reborn twice more and each time Vishnu had to deal with them in some sort of eternal cosmic ritual of incarnation. The brothers are supposed to be the famous twin gatekeepers of Vishnu's heaven, Jaya and Vijaya, cursed to fall from grace and find salvation only in opposition to Vishnu. Enmity to the great god would cause their deaths at his hands, which automatically meant salvation. They were first born as Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, the latter killed by the Narasimha avatar. Then they incarnated as Ravana and Kumbhakarna, both slain by Rama and finally in the Mahabharatha as the nonentities Shishuplala and Dantavakra, duly put away by Krishna. The demons seem to be some sort of universal destabilizing principle, which Vishnu had to remove to restore equilibrium in the universe. That they are the gatekeepers, guardians of the threshold to Vishnu, sustainer and integrative principle of the universe, is significant in mythological terms. It is only by passing through chaos that you come to the still center of the universe.
Some texts take the story of this incarnation further. Bhoodevi, having being embraced so long by Vishnu in the rescue became his wife by default, there was no other resolution to potentially outraged proprieties. The result of this union was Narkasura, a great and mighty warrior who lived for eons as a righteous king but finally went to the bad, launched a campaign of world conquest, and had to be slain by Krishna. As to the terrifying psychological connotations about such blatant patriarchal homicide of an overachiever son, India has always been on the side of the narcissistic impulses of the parent. Narkasura was 'wrong' in desiring to so become prominent when his 'father' was still alive - and his death is regarded as just desserts, though dressed up in pious fatuities about liberation by being slain by the hand of god.
The Shaiva texts added a further spin on the Varaha incarnation. Having accomplished his missions, Vishnu decided to spend some time in this new and playful form. Alas, he underestimated the power of the brute consciousness in reasserting itself and he came to identify himself with the Boar. He met a beautiful sow somewhere and they set up house and had many piglets. Shiva, seeing the appalling degradation of the great Vishnu, attacked the boar and flayed its pelt - upon which the fully conscious and awakened Vishnu rose up in his remembered glory. Shiva is the embodiment of Pure Consciousness, which is why as Nataraja he dances in triumph upon the demon Apasmara - Amnesia. His restoring Vishnu to full awareness, by removing his covering of amnesia, symbolized by the hide of the boar, is thus well in character and psychologically astute. Apart from an obvious childish attempt to assert the supremacy of Shiva, the story is insightful in the perils of accessing lower levels of consciousness. They may become necessary sometimes, to release the great amounts of strength needed for fearful tasks, but if persisted in, they devour the higher faculties of the mind and consciousness - and man sinks back to brute levels, literally as content as a pig in the mud. In some versions, to drive home this point with greater intensity, it is Shiva who incarnates as a boar and Vishnu who rescues him from porcine happiness. There is never any single version of any myth in India.The allegorical interpretations of the entire myth have always been very popular with the more thoughtful amongst the ancient commentators. In this point of view the entire story is a recreation in hyperbolic terms of a massive Yagya, a ritual intervention made by the wise of the earth when they deem that sinfulness has assumed threatening stature. The body of the Varaha is thus a manifestation of the Yagya itself. The words used in eulogy are very revealing in that the writers of the Bhagvata knew this myth was not to be taken solely at a literal level.
"You alone exist, the supreme condition of being, Kesava, Lord of the Universe. You are the Purusha (Cosmic Man and the first to institute Yagya) of the sacrifices; your feet are the Vedas; your tusks the stake to which the sacrificial offering is bound; your teeth are the oblations; mouth the altar; the tongue is the fire and the hairs of your body are the sacrificial grass. Your eyes, oh omnipotent Lord, are day and night, your head the seat of Brahma, your name is the content of all the hymns of the Vedas, your nostrils are all the oblations. The snout is the ladle of sacrifice, the deep voice the chanting of the Sama-Veda, the massive body the hall of sacrifice, the joints the various ceremonies; the ears are the rites, both compulsory and optional..." and so on.
It is evident therefore that the Varaha aspect of Vishnu seemed to tap into some deep reservoir of the Hindu psyche considering the immense amounts of cultural output it has engendered. As said before the Varaha was never worshipped, the rendering of homage to the avatars in themselves, as distinct from Vishnu, beginning with Narasimha alone. Nevertheless it remains a primal myth of the Hindu imagination, encompassing many of its core concerns simultaneously.
Addendum
We have recently come to know that there is a small temple dedicated to the Varaha Avatar form of Vishnu in Simhachalam which is near Vizag town in Andhra Pradesh state in India. At the famous Tirupati Balaji temple there is a convention that the full fruits of pilgrimage can be gained only after visiting the small shrine dedicated to Varaha found over there. The Varaha Avatar is therefore still obviously worshipped only in the Andhra Pradesh area.
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