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It was the hour of dissolution, when the three worlds had melted into one boundless expanse of water. No earth remained, no sky, no direction of the compass; only a fathomless ocean swayed on in silence. Upon that vast sea, on the coiled bed of Shesha the serpent, the lord of lords, Vishnu, lay asleep. His eyes were closed, his limbs still, and across his whole body spread the maya of the goddess Yoganidra. She is the primordial power, the Adya Shakti, by whose will this universe is fashioned, sustained, and then gathered back into herself.
In that hushed water a strange thing came to pass. From the wax in the ears of the sleeping Vishnu, two demons took birth, and they were named Madhu and Kaitabha. Both were mighty beyond measure, and as they sported in the waters of that single, all-covering sea, they grew larger with every passing day. Wandering here and there, one day a question rose in their minds: nothing comes about without a cause, so on what foundation does this vast water rest, who fashioned it, and how did the two of us come to be. Kaitabha said to his brother Madhu that within this water there must surely be some unmoving, immense power, and that this supreme goddess, Paratpara, was the cause of their own existence as well.
Austerity and the boon of death at will
They were still lost in this reflection when, out of the sky, there reached them the sound of an exquisite seed-syllable of speech, a vagbija. The moment they heard it, both took it into their hearts and began to practice it with fierce discipline. Then a beautiful flash of lightning shimmered across the sky, and they understood that this was the mantra and that the meditation upon the form, saguna dhyana, had shown itself to them. Giving up food, mastering their senses, fixing their minds on that light of the lightning, they sank into a thousand years of severe tapas. Pleased by their austerity, the supreme power stirred, and a bodiless voice resounded: O demons, your harsh austerity has pleased us greatly; ask for whatever boon you desire. Folding their hands, the two said, grant us only this, that we shall die by our own will alone, and that no other’s wish can bring our end. The voice answered, it shall be so; from this hour the two of you will meet death only when you yourselves will it, and no god or demon shall ever defeat you.
Holding so rare a boon, Madhu and Kaitabha swelled with intoxicating pride and roamed fearlessly through the great ocean among its creatures. Some time passed, and by chance their gaze fell upon Brahma, the maker of the worlds, seated on his lotus throne. A hunger for battle rose in both demons, and they said to Brahma: either fight us, or leave this lotus seat and go wherever you please; what claim has the weak to a throne meant for the brave? Hearing this, Brahma sank into worry and thought within himself how an ascetic such as he could ever face these powerful champions.
Brahma’s cry and the hymn to Yoganidra
Weighing every stratagem of policy in his mind, Brahma decided that the wise course was to wake the four-armed Vishnu, who slept upon the serpent’s bed. Taking hold of the lotus stalk, he made his way down to Vishnu and began a hymn to rouse him: O refuge of the helpless, O Hari, O Vasudeva, rise and protect me. Yet Vishnu did not wake, for he lay under the sway of Yoganidra.
Then Brahma reflected within himself: Vishnu does not wake even at so long a hymn from me, which can mean only one thing, that sleep has passed out of his command and he himself has fallen under the command of sleep. Whoever comes under another’s power is called that other’s servant; so this very Yoganidra is the mistress even of Vishnu, the lord of Lakshmi. I, Vishnu, Shankara, Savitri, Lakshmi, and Parvati, all of us stand under her. Knowing this, he steadied his mind and began a hymn to that same goddess Yoganidra, who pervaded every limb of Vishnu’s body.
O goddess, you alone are the cause of this world; this I have learned from the words of the Vedas. Who can fathom your play of illusion, in which Vishnu himself lies helpless and asleep. The scholars of Sankhya call Prakriti insentient; yet were you mere inert matter, how could you render Vishnu, the support of the worlds, so wholly without consciousness. You are intelligence itself; you dwell in every living being as Lakshmi, as fame, as reason, as steadiness, as radiance, as faith, and as love. At the three junctures of the day the sages meditate upon you by the name Sandhya. Should the learned fail to utter ‘svaha’ in the fire-rite, the gods could not receive even their portion; in this way it is you who nourish and sustain the gods as well. O goddess, seeing these two demons drunk with pride, I am afraid, and I take refuge in you. Either set the primordial lord Vishnu free at this hour, or slay these two great demons yourself.
Pleased by this hymn, the tamasic goddess came out from Vishnu’s body and stood beside him. The instant she released every one of his limbs, Vishnu, whose splendor has no equal, sat up, yawning again and again. Seeing Brahma tremble with fear, he asked why he had left his austerity and come here, and why he was so afraid. Brahma told him that two great demons, born from the wax of his own ears, meant to kill him. Vishnu said, be free of fear now; their death is near.
The war of five thousand years
Just then the two intoxicated demons, still searching for Brahma, arrived on the spot and challenged Vishnu. Vishnu, in turn, called them to fight. Madhu fell upon him first, and when he tired, Kaitabha took up the fight; and so, turn by turn, the two demons grappled with Vishnu like wrestlers, arm against arm. Brahma, and the primordial goddess poised in the sky, were witnesses to the battle. Five thousand years went by, and still the demons showed no fatigue, while a weariness began to settle on Vishnu. In a state of deep concentration he came to know that the two of them held the goddess’s boon of death at will, and that this was what kept them unconquerable.
Then Vishnu set aside every worry and took refuge in the goddess Yoganidra, who stood in the sky, and with folded hands he praised her: O Mahamaya, O maker and dissolver of creation, O gracious Shiva who grants both worldly joy and liberation, I bow to you. By your power alone I dissolved into sleep and lost all consciousness, and by your boon alone these demons are drunk with pride; now it is you who must help me. Smiling, the goddess said: Vishnu, fight them once more. These warriors can be slain only when they are lured into a spell; I will enchant them with a sidelong glance, and in that very moment you shall strike them down.
The goddess’s glance and the birth of Medini
Hearing the goddess’s affectionate words, Vishnu returned and planted himself on the field of war. When the two demons rushed into the fight, the goddess of the reddened eyes looked toward them and, with a faint smile, cast her sidelong glances upon them as though they were a second set of Kama’s arrows. That glance of the goddess left the sinful Madhu and Kaitabha utterly enchanted, and taking it for her special favor upon them, they halted where they stood. Recognizing his moment, Vishnu said with a laugh: O warriors, ask for whatever boon you wish; your astonishing battle has pleased me greatly. Swollen with pride, the two demons replied: Vishnu, it is we who bestow boons; ask us instead for whatever you desire. Vishnu answered at once that if they were pleased, they should grant this one boon, that the two brothers now be slain by his own hands.
At this the two were stunned, and knowing themselves outwitted, they fell into grief. Yet true to their word, they looked around at the endless water on every side and said: O Madhusudana, slay us on some waterless ground, for only then can we be killed; now prove yourself a speaker of truth. Calling to mind his Sudarshana discus, Vishnu laughed, spread out both his thighs above the water to reveal a patch of dry land, and said: look, there is no water here, this is solid earth; lay your heads down upon it. The two demons stretched their bodies until they were thousands of yojanas long and broad, and Vishnu made his thighs twice as vast again. To make their own words come true, they set their heads upon those wondrous thighs, and in that very instant Vishnu severed their enormous heads from their trunks with the Sudarshana discus.
The moment Madhu and Kaitabha died, their marrow-fat spread across the whole ocean and covered it over. For this reason the earth came to be called Medini, and from that time clay was held unfit to be eaten. Suta says that this supreme power, Paratpara, is the one worshipped by all gods and demons alike; in the three worlds there is none greater than she. The wise should forever worship that very Mahamaya, the great knowledge, whether in her form with attributes or in her formless being.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)