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Divine commitment

CHENNAI: An avatar is the Supreme Being's deliberate descent into lower realms of existence for special purposes. When the Lord assumes the bodily form of a celestial, human being, animal or a blend of human and animal, according to the demand of the exigencies of His devotees who seek His help, He is above the sway of karma that binds all other beings in the entire universe.

Yet the untold miseries he suffered during His incarnations as Lord Rama or Lord Krishna when He lived on earth for thousands of years — walking the rough forests and observing austerities, or getting bound to the mortar or playing the role of a charioteer in full earnest — indicate the spirit of His commitment to His devotees, pointed out Sri M. V. Anantapadmanabhachariar in a lecture. Each incarnation serves to illustrate His infinite compassion and innumerable auspicious qualities.

As Lord Rama, He was under the obligation of concealing His Almighty nature, while as Lord Krishna He did not have any such constraint and displayed extraordinary feats right from His childhood. He even revealed His cosmic grandeur to Arjuna.

But the brief incarnation as Narasimha stands unique in many respects and has been eulogised in the Bhagavata Purana and the fervent hymns of Azhwars and Acharyas as a cut above all other avatars by way of evoking awe, wonder, fear and compassion at one stroke.

Hiranyakasipu had almost won his immortality from Brahma through his intense and austere penance. It was granted that he shall not be slain in heaven or on earth, in the daytime or at night, from neither above nor below, and most importantly by neither man nor animal. To protect Hiranyakasipu's son Prahlada who was relentlessly persecuted by his father, the Lord assumed the unique combination of half man (Nara) and half lion (Simha) and outwitted this near invincible adversary. Narasimha sprang out of a pillar at twilight and attacked Hiranyakashipu on the threshold of his palace, under the arch of the doorway, neither on earth nor in the sky, threw the demon upon his thighs and ripped apart his bowels with his claws.

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