338
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 7]
PURPORT
Since the beginning of creation, the demons and the demigods or the Vaiṣṇavas are always the two classes of living beings to dominate the planets of the universes. So Lord Brahmā is the first demigod, and Hiraṇyākṣa is the first demon in this universe. Only under certain conditions do the planets float as weightless balls in the air, and as soon as these conditions are disturbed, the planets may fall down in the Garbhodaka Ocean which covers half the universe. The other half is the spherical dome within which the innumerable planetary systems exist. The floating of the planets in the weightless air is due to the inner constitution of the globes, and the modernized drilling of the earth to exploit oil from within is a sort of disturbance by the modern demons resulting in a greatly harmful reaction of the floating condition of the earth. A similar disturbance was created formerly by the demons headed by Hiraṇyākṣa (the great exploiter of the gold rush), and the earth was detached from its weightless condition and fell down into the Garbhodaka Ocean. The Lord, as the maintainer of the whole creation of the material world, therefore assumed the gigantic form of a boar with a proportionate snout and picked up the earthly planet from within the water of Garbhodaka. Śrī Jayadeva Gosvāmī, the great Vaiṣṇava poet, sang as follows:
vasati daśana-śikhare dharaṇī tava lagnā śaśini kalaṅka-kaleva nimagnā keśava dhṛta-sūkara-rūpa jaya jagadīśa hare.
“O Keśava! O Supreme Lord who has assumed the form of a boar! O Lord! The earthly planet rested on Your tusks, and it appeared like the moon engraved with spots.”
Such is the symptom of an incarnation of the Lord. The incarnation of the Lord is not the concocted idea of a fanciful class of men who create an incarnation out of imagination. The incarnation of the Lord appears under certain extraordinary circumstances like the above-mentioned occasion, and the incarnation performs a task which is not even imaginable by the tiny brain of mankind. The modern creators of the many cheap incarnations may take note of the factual incarnation of God as the gigantic boar with a suitable snout to carry the earthly planet.
When the Lord appeared to pick up the earthly planet, the demon of the name Hiraṇyākṣa tried to create a disturbance in the methodical functions of the Lord, and therefore he was killed by being pierced by the Lord’s tusk. According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the demon Hiraṇyākṣa was killed by the hand of the Lord. Therefore his version is that after being