Madhu and Kaitava
At the beginning of creation when the entire
universe was submerged in causal water (i.e. unmanifest, cause of all beings,
not real water, probably an illusion of the form of water), Vishnu, the great
Lord was sleeping on His bed of Ananta or Infinite, depicting the infinite
cosmic energy in a coiled up form. From His navel, sprang up a beautiful lotus
on which was born the great grandfather of the cosmos, Brahma. In the meanwhile
two demons called Madhu and Kaitava had come to the place. When they saw The
Lord Hari resting on her bed and when they also saw Brahma, they began to
disturb Brahma in different ways. They were invincible demons and hence could
not be killed by anybody except Narayana Himself. So Brahma began to mentally
pray to the Lord Narayana who woke up and seeing the two danavas, began to
address them. Narayana said that He was gratified by the two danavas and wanted
to give them boons. At this the proud and haughty demons said that they were
pleased with Narayana and would like to give boon to Him. The Lord of the
Universe smiled and solicited a boon by which He should be able to kill the
demons. The demons were now in a quandary. However they had great presence of
mind. Seeing water (causal water or unmanifest where no created beings, save
themselves and Brahma were present), they wanted to be killed in a sport where
it is free of water. The greatest of all gods then after careful deliberation
chose His own thigh to be such a spot, and killed the demons on that spot. Thus
the two earliest demons were killed by the Lord and he came to be known as
Madhusudana or killer of Madhu. It is also said that the flesh of the two
demons, called Med in sanskrit, created the earth and therefore earth came to be
known as Medini.
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