As the night of Brahma ended, a new day (Kalpa) began. The creator opened his eyes, sitting on the enormous lotus that sprang out from the naval of Narayana. But there was nothing but a celestial ocean. He could not see any landmass to begin with. Thus, from his breadth came out a white boar, just about the size of your thumb. The boar continued to become large and large and large. It even became much bigger than the Himalayas.
The Varaha (boar) drived into the celestial ocean and found the earth submerged deep inside the water. Varahadeva picked up the earth (Bhudevi) with his tusks and brought her up to the surface. On the surface of the celestial ocean, the earth remained floating like an enormous vessel. Then Brahma started his creation process. There appeared mountains, trees, rivers, animals, birds, and all other living and nonliving entities.
As Varahadeva rescued Bhudevi (the planet earth) from the celestial water, Bhudevi appeared as a goddess and expressed her gratitude to Varahadeva. From their union, Bhudevi gave birth to another celestial body, Mangal (the planet Mars), meaning the auspicious one. As the Kalpa began with the rescue of planet earth by Lord Vishnu in the form of a white boar, the Kalpa is known as Sveta-varaha Kalpa (sveta means white).
Lord Vishnu used to reside on his plane in the sky, known as Vaikuntha loka. Once, he had two gatekeepers, Jaya and Vijaya. They were the biggest devotees of Lord Vishnu. One day, the Sanat Kumars, the mindborn children of Lord Brahma, came to visit Lord Vishnu. The Sanat Kumars were so pure in nature that they never aged and remained as children forever. As Jaya and Vijaya did not know them, they were astonished to see the small children in the adobe of Vishnu. They stopped the sages there. As the sages claimed to be the sons of Brahma, the brothers took them lightly. Thus, the Sanat Kumars got angry and cursed them to be born as demons.
As a result, the brothers were born as two formidable demons, the sons of Diti and Rishi Kashyap. They were Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha. They created havoc everywhere, from heaven to earth and from earth to the underworld. Both of the brothers observed severe austerity and obtained boons from Lord Brahma. Hiranyaksha pleased Lord Brahma and earned the blessing of unimaginable power. He once decided to drag the Bhudevi (the planet Earth) down the celestial ocean. Every living creature and god became afraid, as that would end their lives on earth, and without the sacrificial offerings of the mortals, the gods would perish. But Hiranyaksha, with his unfathomable power, truly pulled the earth into the depths of the ocean.
Then Lord Vishnu appeared as Varahadeva to rescue Bhudevi once again and to end the menace of Hiranyaksha. Varahadeva appeared in a formidable manner. He was near ten yojanas in width and a thousand yojanas in height. His skin was as dark as a rain cloud, and his eyes were like two blazing suns. His roar was like a thunderstorm. Varahadeva placed the earth on his tusks, took it out of the ocean, and again placed it in its proper position. Then he placed four giant elephants in four directions to stabilize the earth.
Afterward, Varahadeva attacked Hiranyaksha with all his might, and a severe battle broke out. Hiranyaksha was so powerful that he was able to dislodge the mace from the hand of Varahadeva. But ultimately, Varahadeva knocked down Hiranyaksha with his hoofs and killed him by piercing him with his tusks. As the Lord killed the demon, the celestial ocean became red in his blood.
After killing the demon, Varahadeva reduced his size again and placed his footsteps on Bhudevi. He cleaned his body in a lake and decided to make that place his adobe. Thus, Tirumala Hills became his abode, and it is the Swami Pushkarini where Varahadeva bathed after killing the demon.
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