[paragraph continues] (saying), 'How shall this universe be (developed)?' He beheld a lotus leaf standing. He thought, 'There is something on which this rests.' He as a boar--having assumed that form--plunged beneath towards it. He found the earth down below. Breaking off (a portion of) her, he rose to the surface." In the "Satapatha Brahmana" [**] there is a similar reference, but there the boar is called "Emusha." Formerly the earth was only of the size of a span. A boar called Emusha raised her up.

Dr. Muir [*+] gives two accounts of this incarnation from two recensions of the Ramayana. In one, which he considers the older, it is said that Brahma assumed the form of a boar; in the other, Vishnu in the form of Brahma is said to have accomplished this work. The alteration of the text is very noticeable. "All was water only, in which the earth was formed. Thence arose Brahma, the self-existent, with the deities. He then becoming a boar, raised up the earth, and created the whole world with the saints his sons." So far the probably older recension. In the later one we read, "All was water only, through which the earth was formed. Thence arose Brahma, the self-existent, the imperishable Vishnu. He then, becoming a boar, raised up this earth and created the whole world."

In the following account from the "Vishnu Purana" [*++] it will be noticed that, as in the last quotation from the Ramayana, it was Vishnu in the form of Brahma who became a boar. As the earlier writers had declared this to have been Brahma's work, it was necessary to identify Vishnu with him.

"Tell me how at the commencement of the present age, Narayana, who is named Brahma, created all existing

things. At the close of the last age, the divine Brahma endowed with the quality of goodness, awoke from his night of sleep, and beheld the universal void. He, the supreme Narayana, . . . invested with the form of Brahma, . . . concluding that within the waters lay the earth, and being desirous to raise it up, created another form for that purpose. And as in the preceding ages he had assumed the shape of a fish, or a tortoise, so in this he took the form of a boar. Having adopted a form composed of the sacrifices of the Vedas for the preservation of the whole earth, the eternal, supreme, and universal soul plunged into the ocean." In a note on this passage in the "Vishnu Purana," by Professor Wilson, it is stated that, according to the "Vayu Purana," the form of a boar was chosen because it is an animal delighting in water; but in other Puranas, as in the Vishnu, it is said to be a type of the ritual of the Vedas, for which reason the elevation of the earth on the tusks of a boar is regarded as an allegorical representation of the extrication of the world from a deluge of sin, by the rites of religion.