‘Bali’s son Banasura, along with the entire army of demons, Shankara, and Kartikeya fought with Shauri (Krishna). The battle between Hari and Shankara was fierce. Govinda employed against Shankara his missile causing yawning. Yawning, Shankara went and sat in the hind part of the chariot. He could no more fight with Krishna. When Shankara was under the sway of drowsiness, Guha withdrew after the destruction of the demons’ army and when the army of Siva’s attendants too, was annihilated, Banasura, mounted on a great chariot, the horses of which were driven by Nandisha and reached there to fight with Krishna, Pradyumna and Balabhadra. At that moment Hari, the adversary of the demons’ army, flaunted in his hand the Sudarshana wheel, having the dazzling brilliance of a hundred suns. And then Siva approached Govinda for conciliation. Seeing Bana from whose wounds caused by the chopping of hands, blood was flowing, Shankara said, ‘O Krishna, the saviour of the world, I know you as the best of men, best of divinities, the supreme self, the one without beginning or end, I have promised him protection from death. So help me keep my promise. It is true that he has offended you due to conceit but as I have given him the boon, I beg your pardon on his behalf’. When addressed thus, Govinda who gave up his anger towards the demon replied to Siva, the wielder of triple spike: ‘May this Bana, enjoying a boon from you, live. Having regard for your words, here I withdraw my wheel. The protection offered by you is as good as offered by me, too’.
He (Siva) seized the four-pointed arrow capable of destroying the three worlds and fixed it on his bow for dispatch. Vasudeva took out the missile causing yawning. Hara with bow and arrow in hand soon started yawning. Krishna blew his conch of victory.
Siva superior to Visnu:
In Uttararamayana Rama says, ‘the act of Lord Siva is, indeed, unsurpassable This is corroborated by Dronaparvan in the Mahabharata through the dialogue between Ashvatthaman and Vyasa.
Ashvatthaman’s narayana missile against Krishna and Arjuna fails.
Vyasa explains: Narayana was once born dharma’s son. He practised penances on the Himalaya for thousands of years. As a result, he attained the status of oneness with Brahman. Thereupon he could have the vision of Ishvara, the lord of the universe; the origin of the entire creation; the ruler of gods; the vision of the subtlest of the subtle and the grossest of the gross; the dreadful; the mighty; the destroyer of sin; the benevolent; the wearer of matted hair; the intelligent one; the ultimate origin of the animate and the inanimate; the irresistible; the one of violent wrath; the magnanimous; the destroyer of all; the supreme observer; the wearer of a golden armour; the one of limitless valour, the wielder of the pinaka; of thunderbolt, of the sparkling trident; of the battle-axe; of the mace and of the long sword. Narayana sang the praise of the god in great devotion. You created the divine regions of Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera and Soma. Form and light, sound and ether, touch and wind, taste and water, smell and earth, too, are your creations. You, O Siva, the releaser of Ganga, produced Brahma, and Brahman as also the brahmins! You also produced what has been, what is and what is going to be. The invulnerable (Time), too, is your creation.
Siva blessed Narayana with inscrutable strength among mortals, gods and the gandharvas. None among the gods, demons or deadliest of the snakes, eagles, serpent-demons or any other species for that matter, shall withstand you. None even amidst gods can defeat you on the battlefield. Because of my favour none can harm you in any manner by weapon, thunderbolt and fire. On the battlefield, you shall be superior even to me’.
Vyasa said, Krishna is the same Narayana who appears here deluding the world with his maya. Know Arjuna too, as a mortal, a great sage, equal in strength to him, created by him from his penances. This Keshava is thus the devotee of Rudra has originated from Rudra who worships him in the form of linga knowing that all these appearances are his. It is in him that the perpetual knowledge of all the spiritual and material sciences is stored. Listening to these words of Vyasa, Drona’s son, Ashvatthaman, bowed down to Rudra and to Keshava. His hair stood erect on the skin because of the exultation. He ordered his army to withdraw.
Arjuna sees a miracle:
O great sage, as I killed soldiers of the enemy on the battle with the continuous flow of my unsullied arrows, I saw a fiery human figure in front of me. Wherever he moved with his burning trident, my enemies followed him and were shattered. Moreover, people thought that I destroyed them. In fact, he killed them all. I was only following him.
Vyasa replied, O Partha, the person you saw was none else than Sankara, the first of Prajapatis, the most effulgent one. The earth, space and heaven are his visible forms. He is the origin, the seed of the world. The Universe is his appearance. O Partha, in that fierce hair-raising fight where great archers like Drona, Karna and Kripa were guarding the army, striking hard with their arrows, who else than the multiformed great Siva could have even thought of destroying it? He has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand arms and a thousand feet.
Siva destroys the three Cities of Asuras:
Asuras in the past had three cities made of iron, silver and gold. Kamalaksha ruled the golden city, Tarakaksha, the one made of silver and Viddyunmalin, the one made of iron. Indra with all the weapons at his command was not able to vanquish them. Therefore, he accompanied by the gods, approached Siva for the destruction of those dreadful dwellers of the three cities, armed with the boon of Brahma, harassing the three worlds. Lord Siva made Gandhamadana and Vindhya mountains his banners; the earth along with the oceans and the forests his war-chariot; Sesha, the foremost of Nagas the axle of his chariot; the sun and the moon the wheels; Malaya the beam and Takshaka the binding rope; the four Vedas four horses of the chariot; the Upavedas parts of the rein and Gayatri the bridle; Omkara the whip and Brahma the charioteer. Mandara became the gandiva (bow) and Vasuki its string, Visnu, the worthiest of all became the arrow. Agni and Vayu became the feathers on the arrow and Vaivasvat Yama installed at the end of the arrow. Lightning was made the sharp edge of the arrow and Meru, the front-banner.Mounting that chariot the all-pervading lord positioned himself there for the destruction of the Asuras and their three cities.
The Lord who in the form of Panchashika a child with five strands got Indra’s arm paralysed when he raised his thunderbolt to strike the child; the lord who gave pasupata to Krishna and Arjuna to kill Jayadratha with, the Lord who granted Krishna a son named Pradyumna in response to his supplication in the Harivansham.
The Harivamsham and Vishnupuranam visualize the oneness of Siva and Visnu. In Bhaghavad Gita and the Dronaparvam, Krishna and Siva claim that they killed the warriors of Kurukshetra. This shows they are the same. In Dronaparvam Arjuna finds the flowers he had offered Krishna on Siva’s head.
In the Harivamsha Brahma says to Markandeya that one night he saw in a dream, Bhava and Keshava in a lotus, Hara with a banner of eagle and Hari with a banner of bull. “Explain this to me, revered Sir! I was greatly perplexed after seeing that rare wonder”. Markandeya explained. “I see Siva in the form of Visnu and Visnu in the form of Siva. I see no difference in them. This form constituted of Hari and Hara is without beginning, end or middle. It does not decay. Nor does it change. Visnu is Rudra and Rudra is Brahma. The three gods, Rudra, Visnu and Brahma are unified in a single form. When water is thrown into water it becomes nothing but water, similarly, when Visnu enters the form of Rudra, he is none else but Rudra. When fire enters fire it is only fire, similarly, Rudra entering the form of Visnu is only Visnu. Rudra is believed to be fire and Visnu, soma. This world made of the animate and inanimate has the joint deity Agnisoma as its soul. The masters, Visnu and Maheshvara make and mar both the animate and the inanimate. They are the cause of these causes. The two gods, Narayana and Maheshvara, are the past, present and future. It is they who cause the showers, who shine with their radiance, and who protect and produce. O Brahma, I have revealed this highest secret to you.”
“Salutations to Rudra! Salutations to Krishna! Salutations to Him pervading the world in their united form! Salutations to the three-eyed god, who is Kumara’s father, who is Pradyumna’s father, who is the bearer of the earth and the bearer of Ganga, who wears a peacock-plume, who wears a garland of skulls, who wears a garland of forest-flowers, who has a trident and who has a wheel in his hand, who wears hide who wears yellow silken garment, who is the lord of Lakshmi, the lord of Parvati, who dwells in a cemetery, who dwells in a hermitage, whose vehicle is bull, whose vehicle is eagle, who resides on the mountain, who sleeps on the ocean! Bow to the killer of Naraka, to the destroyer Andhaka, to the killer of Kaitabha, to him who has the girdle of a rope, who has the girdle of the munja grass. O Lord Visnu, I bow to you and offer salutations to him who is praised by samans and yajuss!”
“This is the song in praise of Rudra and the great Visnu. All great sages like Bharadwaja, Gargya, Viswamitra, Agastya, Pulastya, and Dhaumya have praised them both with this song, in the same way”.
Thus in the Vishnupurana the same single god Janardana assumes three different names viz. Brahma, Visnu and Siva, responsible respectively for the creation, maintenance and dissolution. Kalidasa also says, ‘A single god is disseminated in three forms. (Kumara VII-44)
As the earth said, ‘O gods, it is true that I, this world, yourselves and all this is Narayana in essence. Those who see me as different from Visnu or Brahma are ignorant The Shrutis, Smritis and Sutras also deny the mutual difference of the created universe, the individual self and the supreme Brahman by asserting their non-difference.
The Shruti says:
‘There is no seer other than Him’; ‘There is no listener other than Him’; ‘He who sees here difference, rotates from one death to another; ‘He who thinks Brahman as other than himself, him Brahman deserts’; ‘He who worships a deity believing her to be other than himself, he who thinks that god is different from him, is a mere animal’; ‘Only one god exists underlying all creatures. The self-ruled alone is the inner soul of all beings’; ‘O gentle one, all this in the beginning was existence alone’; ‘One without the second’; ‘From the beginning, this was the immortal Brahman’; ‘All this is indeed Brahman’; ‘All this was one or was the sole supreme self, in the beginning. There was nothing that appeared false’; ‘He is all this. Brahman is all this’; ‘In the beginning, there was Hiranyagarbha. You are one. It entered many. All this is one with it’; ‘Narayana exists pervading all that internally and externally’; ‘The supreme self is only one’.
‘Just as one fire entering the world assumed various appearances as per the form, just as one Wind entering the world assumed different appearance with different forms, Just as the sun, although the eye of all the worlds is not affected by the external blemishes of the eyes, similarly, there is only one supreme self underlying all individual souls without being affected by their miseries, as he is detached’
‘The one self-ruled underlies all the individual souls. Essentially one, he manifests himself in different forms. The wise, who see him as so, stationed within, obtain the final tranquillity and not the others. He, the eternal of the eternal, the sentient of the sentient, alone causes various longings of the many. The wise, who realise him as so, stationed within, obtain the final peace and not the others’; ‘What delusion or anguish can remain for him who realises the oneness?’; ‘One should know that the innermost of all the beings is that supreme self’; ‘The learned describe him variously although he is one. They declare him as many although he is one. He is stated to be three although he is one. Alone he sustains all the worlds’
The Smriti too asserts this non-dual:
‘O god, there is no creation which exists without you. Whatever was is and will be, O master of creation, all this is you, O Lord! There is nothing that exists without you. As one and the same sky appears different as blue and white, similarly one and the same Spirit appears as different to those whose perception is deluded’.
‘The supreme, ultimate god is only one and he is Vasudeva and there exists nothing other than him. This is the knowledge-pure, free from vice and grief, free from all greed. If there is anything in this world that is whole, it is Achyuta. There is nothing beyond him. I am also He and he is the whole. All this is of the nature of the self. Give up the difference caused by ignorance’.
‘When one Supreme Spirit resides in all, statements like ‘you are one’ or ‘I am he’ are meaningless. Whatever exists here is one Achyuta. There is nothing other than or beyond him’
‘All this including me becomes one with Vasudeva. He alone is the supreme spirit, the highest god’.
Sutras like ‘atmeti---cha’ (Bada. IV-1-3) mean, ‘the highest god should be comprehended as the supreme spirit.
Visnu regarded superior 1.75.19
In the present context (of the Ramayana), the words ‘regarded Visnu as superior’ are intended to eulogise the Vaisnava bow which is instrumental in bringing about the destruction of all the demons to be accomplished later.
Vishnu is more powerful than Siva 1.75.19
‘Bali’s son Banasura, along with the entire army of demons, Shankara, and Kartikeya fought with Shauri (Krishna). The battle between Hari and Shankara was fierce. Govinda employed against Shankara his missile causing yawning. Yawning, Shankara went and sat in the hind part of the chariot. He could no more fight with Krishna. When Shankara was under the sway of drowsiness, Guha withdrew after the destruction of the demons’ army and when the army of Siva’s attendants too, was annihilated, Banasura, mounted on a great chariot, the horses of which were driven by Nandisha and reached there to fight with Krishna, Pradyumna and Balabhadra. At that moment Hari, the adversary of the demons’ army, flaunted in his hand the Sudarshana wheel, having the dazzling brilliance of a hundred suns. And then Siva approached Govinda for conciliation. Seeing Bana from whose wounds caused by the chopping of hands, blood was flowing, Shankara said, ‘O Krishna, the saviour of the world, I know you as the best of men, best of divinities, the supreme self, the one without beginning or end, I have promised him protection from death. So help me keep my promise. It is true that he has offended you due to conceit but as I have given him the boon, I beg your pardon on his behalf’. When addressed thus, Govinda who gave up his anger towards the demon replied to Siva, the wielder of triple spike: ‘May this Bana, enjoying a boon from you, live. Having regard for your words, here I withdraw my wheel. The protection offered by you is as good as offered by me, too’.
Harivamsha (II-125), too, celebrates Visnu’s valour:
He (Siva) seized the four-pointed arrow capable of destroying the three worlds and fixed it on his bow for dispatch. Vasudeva took out the missile causing yawning. Hara with bow and arrow in hand soon started yawning. Krishna blew his conch of victory.
Siva superior to Visnu:
In Uttararamayana Rama says, ‘the act of Lord Siva is, indeed, unsurpassable This is corroborated by Dronaparvan in the Mahabharata through the dialogue between Ashvatthaman and Vyasa.
Ashvatthaman’s narayana missile against Krishna and Arjuna fails.
Vyasa explains: Narayana was once born dharma’s son. He practised penances on the Himalaya for thousands of years. As a result, he attained the status of oneness with Brahman. Thereupon he could have the vision of Ishvara, the lord of the universe; the origin of the entire creation; the ruler of gods; the vision of the subtlest of the subtle and the grossest of the gross; the dreadful; the mighty; the destroyer of sin; the benevolent; the wearer of matted hair; the intelligent one; the ultimate origin of the animate and the inanimate; the irresistible; the one of violent wrath; the magnanimous; the destroyer of all; the supreme observer; the wearer of a golden armour; the one of limitless valour, the wielder of the pinaka; of thunderbolt, of the sparkling trident; of the battle-axe; of the mace and of the long sword. Narayana sang the praise of the god in great devotion. You created the divine regions of Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera and Soma. Form and light, sound and ether, touch and wind, taste and water, smell and earth, too, are your creations. You, O Siva, the releaser of Ganga, produced Brahma, and Brahman as also the brahmins! You also produced what has been, what is and what is going to be. The invulnerable (Time), too, is your creation.
Siva blessed Narayana with inscrutable strength among mortals, gods and the gandharvas. None among the gods, demons or deadliest of the snakes, eagles, serpent-demons or any other species for that matter, shall withstand you. None even amidst gods can defeat you on the battlefield. Because of my favour none can harm you in any manner by weapon, thunderbolt and fire. On the battlefield, you shall be superior even to me’.
Vyasa said, Krishna is the same Narayana who appears here deluding the world with his maya. Know Arjuna too, as a mortal, a great sage, equal in strength to him, created by him from his penances. This Keshava is thus the devotee of Rudra has originated from Rudra who worships him in the form of linga knowing that all these appearances are his. It is in him that the perpetual knowledge of all the spiritual and material sciences is stored. Listening to these words of Vyasa, Drona’s son, Ashvatthaman, bowed down to Rudra and to Keshava. His hair stood erect on the skin because of the exultation. He ordered his army to withdraw.
Arjuna sees a miracle:
O great sage, as I killed soldiers of the enemy on the battle with the continuous flow of my unsullied arrows, I saw a fiery human figure in front of me. Wherever he moved with his burning trident, my enemies followed him and were shattered. Moreover, people thought that I destroyed them. In fact, he killed them all. I was only following him.
Vyasa replied, O Partha, the person you saw was none else than Sankara, the first of Prajapatis, the most effulgent one. The earth, space and heaven are his visible forms. He is the origin, the seed of the world. The Universe is his appearance. O Partha, in that fierce hair-raising fight where great archers like Drona, Karna and Kripa were guarding the army, striking hard with their arrows, who else than the multiformed great Siva could have even thought of destroying it? He has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand arms and a thousand feet.
Siva destroys the three Cities of Asuras:
Asuras in the past had three cities made of iron, silver and gold. Kamalaksha ruled the golden city, Tarakaksha, the one made of silver and Viddyunmalin, the one made of iron. Indra with all the weapons at his command was not able to vanquish them. Therefore, he accompanied by the gods, approached Siva for the destruction of those dreadful dwellers of the three cities, armed with the boon of Brahma, harassing the three worlds. Lord Siva made Gandhamadana and Vindhya mountains his banners; the earth along with the oceans and the forests his war-chariot; Sesha, the foremost of Nagas the axle of his chariot; the sun and the moon the wheels; Malaya the beam and Takshaka the binding rope; the four Vedas four horses of the chariot; the Upavedas parts of the rein and Gayatri the bridle; Omkara the whip and Brahma the charioteer. Mandara became the gandiva (bow) and Vasuki its string, Visnu, the worthiest of all became the arrow. Agni and Vayu became the feathers on the arrow and Vaivasvat Yama installed at the end of the arrow. Lightning was made the sharp edge of the arrow and Meru, the front-banner.Mounting that chariot the all-pervading lord positioned himself there for the destruction of the Asuras and their three cities.
The Lord who in the form of Panchashika a child with five strands got Indra’s arm paralysed when he raised his thunderbolt to strike the child; the lord who gave pasupata to Krishna and Arjuna to kill Jayadratha with, the Lord who granted Krishna a son named Pradyumna in response to his supplication in the Harivansham.
The Harivamsham and Vishnupuranam visualize the oneness of Siva and Visnu. In Bhaghavad Gita and the Dronaparvam, Krishna and Siva claim that they killed the warriors of Kurukshetra. This shows they are the same. In Dronaparvam Arjuna finds the flowers he had offered Krishna on Siva’s head.
In the Harivamsha Brahma says to Markandeya that one night he saw in a dream, Bhava and Keshava in a lotus, Hara with a banner of eagle and Hari with a banner of bull. “Explain this to me, revered Sir! I was greatly perplexed after seeing that rare wonder”. Markandeya explained. “I see Siva in the form of Visnu and Visnu in the form of Siva. I see no difference in them. This form constituted of Hari and Hara is without beginning, end or middle. It does not decay. Nor does it change. Visnu is Rudra and Rudra is Brahma. The three gods, Rudra, Visnu and Brahma are unified in a single form. When water is thrown into water it becomes nothing but water, similarly, when Visnu enters the form of Rudra, he is none else but Rudra. When fire enters fire it is only fire, similarly, Rudra entering the form of Visnu is only Visnu. Rudra is believed to be fire and Visnu, soma. This world made of the animate and inanimate has the joint deity Agnisoma as its soul. The masters, Visnu and Maheshvara make and mar both the animate and the inanimate. They are the cause of these causes. The two gods, Narayana and Maheshvara, are the past, present and future. It is they who cause the showers, who shine with their radiance, and who protect and produce. O Brahma, I have revealed this highest secret to you.”
“Salutations to Rudra! Salutations to Krishna! Salutations to Him pervading the world in their united form! Salutations to the three-eyed god, who is Kumara’s father, who is Pradyumna’s father, who is the bearer of the earth and the bearer of Ganga, who wears a peacock-plume, who wears a garland of skulls, who wears a garland of forest-flowers, who has a trident and who has a wheel in his hand, who wears hide who wears yellow silken garment, who is the lord of Lakshmi, the lord of Parvati, who dwells in a cemetery, who dwells in a hermitage, whose vehicle is bull, whose vehicle is eagle, who resides on the mountain, who sleeps on the ocean! Bow to the killer of Naraka, to the destroyer Andhaka, to the killer of Kaitabha, to him who has the girdle of a rope, who has the girdle of the munja grass. O Lord Visnu, I bow to you and offer salutations to him who is praised by samans and yajuss!”
“This is the song in praise of Rudra and the great Visnu. All great sages like Bharadwaja, Gargya, Viswamitra, Agastya, Pulastya, and Dhaumya have praised them both with this song, in the same way”.
Thus in the Vishnupurana the same single god Janardana assumes three different names viz. Brahma, Visnu and Siva, responsible respectively for the creation, maintenance and dissolution. Kalidasa also says, ‘A single god is disseminated in three forms. (Kumara VII-44)
As the earth said, ‘O gods, it is true that I, this world, yourselves and all this is Narayana in essence. Those who see me as different from Visnu or Brahma are ignorant The Shrutis, Smritis and Sutras also deny the mutual difference of the created universe, the individual self and the supreme Brahman by asserting their non-difference.
The Shruti says:
‘There is no seer other than Him’; ‘There is no listener other than Him’; ‘He who sees here difference, rotates from one death to another; ‘He who thinks Brahman as other than himself, him Brahman deserts’; ‘He who worships a deity believing her to be other than himself, he who thinks that god is different from him, is a mere animal’; ‘Only one god exists underlying all creatures. The self-ruled alone is the inner soul of all beings’; ‘O gentle one, all this in the beginning was existence alone’; ‘One without the second’; ‘From the beginning, this was the immortal Brahman’; ‘All this is indeed Brahman’; ‘All this was one or was the sole supreme self, in the beginning. There was nothing that appeared false’; ‘He is all this. Brahman is all this’; ‘In the beginning, there was Hiranyagarbha. You are one. It entered many. All this is one with it’; ‘Narayana exists pervading all that internally and externally’; ‘The supreme self is only one’.
‘Just as one fire entering the world assumed various appearances as per the form, just as one Wind entering the world assumed different appearance with different forms, Just as the sun, although the eye of all the worlds is not affected by the external blemishes of the eyes, similarly, there is only one supreme self underlying all individual souls without being affected by their miseries, as he is detached’
‘The one self-ruled underlies all the individual souls. Essentially one, he manifests himself in different forms. The wise, who see him as so, stationed within, obtain the final tranquillity and not the others. He, the eternal of the eternal, the sentient of the sentient, alone causes various longings of the many. The wise, who realise him as so, stationed within, obtain the final peace and not the others’; ‘What delusion or anguish can remain for him who realises the oneness?’; ‘One should know that the innermost of all the beings is that supreme self’; ‘The learned describe him variously although he is one. They declare him as many although he is one. He is stated to be three although he is one. Alone he sustains all the worlds’
The Smriti too asserts this non-dual:
‘O god, there is no creation which exists without you. Whatever was is and will be, O master of creation, all this is you, O Lord! There is nothing that exists without you. As one and the same sky appears different as blue and white, similarly one and the same Spirit appears as different to those whose perception is deluded’.
‘The supreme, ultimate god is only one and he is Vasudeva and there exists nothing other than him. This is the knowledge-pure, free from vice and grief, free from all greed. If there is anything in this world that is whole, it is Achyuta. There is nothing beyond him. I am also He and he is the whole. All this is of the nature of the self. Give up the difference caused by ignorance’.
‘When one Supreme Spirit resides in all, statements like ‘you are one’ or ‘I am he’ are meaningless. Whatever exists here is one Achyuta. There is nothing other than or beyond him’
‘All this including me becomes one with Vasudeva. He alone is the supreme spirit, the highest god’.
Sutras like ‘atmeti---cha’ (Bada. IV-1-3) mean, ‘the highest god should be comprehended as the supreme spirit.
Visnu regarded superior 1.75.19
In the present context (of the Ramayana), the words ‘regarded Visnu as superior’ are intended to eulogise the Vaisnava bow which is instrumental in bringing about the destruction of all the demons to be accomplished later.