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XIV] Vişņu, Vāsudeva and Kyşņa
537 Again, it is well known that the supreme man, or puruşa, is praised in very high terms in the man-hymn (Puruşa-sūkta) of the Rg-Veda, X. 90, where it is said that puruşa is all that we see, what is past and what is future, and that everything has come out of him; the gods performed sacrifice with him with the oblations of the seasons, and out of this sacrifice puruşa was first born, and then the gods and all living beings; the various castes were born out of him; the sky, the heavens and the earth have all come out of him; he is the creator and upholder of all; it is by knowing him that one attains immortality; there is no other way of salvation. It is curious that there should be a word nārāyaṇa,similar in meaning(etymologically nara + phak, born in' the race or lineage of man) to puruşa, which was also used to mean the supreme being and identified with purușa and Vişņu. In Satapatha-brāhmaṇa, xiv. 3. 4, puruşa is identified with nārāyaṇa (purusam ha nārāyaṇam Prajāpatir uvāca). Again, in Satapatha-brāhmaṇa, xiii. 6. I, the idea of the puruşa-sūkta is further extended, and the puruşa nārāyana is said to have performed the pañca-rātra sacrifice (pañcarātram yajña-kratum) and thereby transcended everything and become everything. This pañca-rātra sacrifice involves the spiritual) sacrifice of purusa (purusa-medho vaiña-kratur bhavati, XIII. 6. 7). The five kinds of sacrifice, five kinds of animals, the year with the five kinds of seasons, the five kinds of indwelling entities (pañca-vidham adhyātmam) can all be attained by the pañca-rātra sacrifices. The sacrifice was continued for five days, and the Vedic habit of figurative thinking associated each of the days of the sacrifice with various kinds of desirable things, so that the five-day sacrifice was considered to lead to many things which are fivefold in their nature. The reference to the five kinds of indwelling entities soon produced the pañca-rātra doctrine of the manifestation of God in various modes as the external deity of worship (arcā), inner controller (antar-yāmin), as various manifestations of His lordly power (vibhava), as successive deity-forms in intimate association as vyūha and as the highest God (para). This idea is also found in the later Pānca-rātra scriptures, such as Ahirbudhnyasamhitā (1. I) and the like, where God is described as having his highest form along with the vyūha forms. Puruşa is thus identified with nārāyana, who, by sacrifice of puruşa (puruşa-medha), became all this world. The etymological definition of nārāyaṇa as “one who has descended from man (nara)," as herein suggested in accordance
