Varaha Avtar ( The Boar Incarnation of Lord Vishnu )

Varaha Avtar  ( The Boar Incarnation of Lord Vishnu )

Cave No. 3 , Badami,  6th Century CE, Chalukya Dynasty  

          Of the four Cave Temples,  Cave No. 3 is the largest and most elaborate.  It was commissioned by Raja Manglesh,  the second son of Pulkeshin I. An inscription in the cave tells us the date of construction as 578 CE. Interestingly, the date is given in the Sakha Era. Sakhas were foreigners who came after the Greeks and settled in India. Surprisingly the Chalukyans have adopted their calender , but have not created their own calender and Era. 

         This Cave is also dedicated to Lord Vishnu as the Chalukya Dynasty were, at the time, Vaishnavites. The Chalukyan Royal emblem was the Varaha Avtar of Lord Vishnu.  For, they believed that like Lord Varaha ( the Boar), they too have saved Earth from chaos. Hence, again this sculpture was  both a political statement and a sacred image. 

         The theme of saving the Mother Earth from danger is a recurring theme in Hinduism. The Varaha incarnation is the classic story. Hiranyaksha, the demon,  dragged Earth into the ocean of chaos. Lord Vishnu appeared as a Boar; he plunged into the ocean, killed the demon,  and brought the Earth out. She married Lord Vishnu.  Bhodevi is His second wife, after Godess Lakshmi. 

         Like demons, we too are destroying Mother Earth for our insatiable greed. We mine her depths, we pollute the air, we pollute the oceans, we kill the animals, we flatten the mountains. What we consider to be the path of development is the path of our destruction.  With global warming, with high air, water, noise and light pollutions all around us, with wars, and nuclear weapons where are we dragging Mother Earth? Back to the ocean of chaos. But like the Varaha Avtar we have to save her. We have only one home in the entire Universe: Mother Earth.