Vamana and Mahabali

Heaven! A realm where all wishes are fulfilled ... A realm where the Devas reside ... A realm that accomadate wish fulfilling gem Chintamani , wish fulfilling cow Kamadhenu and a wish fulfilling tree kalpavriksha ... It is a realm that we all wish to be in .. It is the realm we all constantly try to achieve.

Mahabali was a great Asura king. Grandson of the great Prahalath. He was a king who acknowledged this inner desire of his subjects to achieve Swarga or in other words, make this world a heaven where all wishes are fulfilled , a place of unlimited resources. Therefore he set forth to conquer the universe. All three worlds succumbed to his might . Indra was terrified and approached Vishnu for help. But Vishnu declined to help him defeat Mahabali because afterall he was a good guy. But then arose the real problem... The cosmic balance was disrupted. Power and resources were concentrated on one being and since he being very benevolent and generous, the world transformed into something else that is very uncharacteristic of the real world. This is when Vishnu decided to interfere.

His took his 5th Avatar, his first human avatar. Meanwhile, Mahabali was busy getting things ready for a big yajna that could transform him into an omnipotent being. Mahabali who was the King of the entire universe made a declaration that he will give away anything as a gift if asked upon before the yajna. Mahabali was very confident while making this declaration since according to him, he could actually give anything as a gift since he had access to unlimited resources... As soon as he made this declaration, a dwarf brahmin of the name Vamana came into the scene.

Vamana was offered Gold, cows and other materialistic assets but he rejected all those. Instead he asked for three paces of land so that he could sleep on it. Since he was a dwarf, three paces of land was more than enough for him to sleep on it. Seeing this Mahabali easily accepted thinking that 3 paces of land will cost him nothing. But soon the dwarf vamana transformed into the giant Trivikrama. With one step his feet covered the entire heaven, with the next step ,his feet covered the entire earth and netherworld .. Since there was no other place left for the third step, and since Mahabali was unable to fulfill the promise, he offered himself and vamana placed his feet on Mahabali's head and pushed him down to netherworld.. Seeing his purity of character, Vishnu offered him immortality and permission to visit his subjects once every year .. This day is celebrated as onam.

Vamana and Mahabali's story conveys a lot of messages. Mahabali thought that materialistic achievements are the ultimate and never considered conquering the spiritual dimension. Also when Vamana asked for three paces of land, Mahabali approached the issue in subjective terms thinking that a dwarf's three paces will be small but in reality he was a giant whose three feet could not be contained in this entire universe. Vishnu conveys an important message that Cosmic balance is extremely necessary for sustaining the balance and that if humanity gains access to unlimited resources that can satisfy their unlimited needs , then there will be no purpose of life.

Even though Vishnu ended the rule of Mahabali, he is not considered a villain. In fact he is the symbol of human struggle to achieve Swarga . Onam marks the day when Mahabali returns to earth to see his subjects. We all love him regardless of whether he is in Pathala(the netherworld) or not. After all we all wish that our wishes are fulfilled easily 😁.

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