CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Matsya, the Lord's Fish Incarnation
This chapter describes the Supreme Personality of Godhead's incarnation as a fish, and it also describes the saving of Mahārāja Satyavrata from an inundation.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead expands Himself by  svāmśa  (His personal expansions) and  vibhinnāmśa  (His expansions as the living entities). As stated in  Bhagavad-gītā  (4.8),  paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām : the Supreme Personality of Godhead appears on this planet for the protection of the  sādhus , or devotees, and for the destruction of the miscreants, or nondevotees. He especially descends to give protection to the cows, the  brāhmaṇas , the demigods, the devotees and the Vedic system of religion. Thus He appears in various forms—sometimes as a fish, sometimes a boar, sometimes Nṛsiṁhadeva, sometimes Vāmanadeva and so on—but in any form or incarnation, although He comes within the atmosphere of the material modes of nature, He is unaffected. This is a sign of His supreme controlling power. Although He comes within the material atmosphere,  māyā  cannot touch Him. Therefore, no material qualities can be attributed to Him in any degree.
Once, at the end of the previous  kalpa , a demon named Hayagrīva wanted to take the Vedic knowledge away from Lord Brahmā at the time of annihilation. Therefore the Supreme Personality of Godhead took the incarnation of a fish at the beginning of the period of Svāyambhuva Manu and saved the  Vedas . During the reign of Cākṣuṣa Manu there was a king named Satyavrata, who was a great pious ruler. To save him, the Lord appeared as the fish incarnation for a second time. King Satyavrata later became the son of the sun-god and was known as Śrāddhadeva. He was established as Manu by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
To receive the favor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, King Satyavrata engaged in the austerity of subsisting only by drinking water. Once, while performing this austerity on the bank of the Kṛtamālā River
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