Vishnu and I (your dear sustainer, Bhumi) go way back. This isn't my first encounter with him.

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A long time ago, there was a terrible demon named Hiranyaksha who wreaked havoc on the universe. He was once a man who was rather pious, but his pitfall was that he was too pious. He did great penances, and his austerity caught the eye of Lord Brahma, who granted Hiranyaksha a boon. Of course, the ambitious fool that Hiranyaksha was, he asked that he not be able to be killed by any being or any weapon - basically, for immortality. From this, he grew immensely powerful - who wouldn't if no one could stop them?

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His first target for conquest was me. The Earth, Bhumi. He managed to grow to massive proportions, and, with his immense power, snatched me out of the solar system and kidnapped me. I put up a big struggle - I tried to wriggle out of his arms, and threw whatever insults that I could at him, but to no avail. Thanks to my wonderful friend Brahma, though, he was too powerful even for me. He took me and forcefully hid me in the celestial oceans, meaning to keep me as his own and rob me of my wealth.

 

How is it that, so often, people turn against the very people that once sustained them? That, I can never understand. If Hiranyaksha were alive, maybe I would ask him. 

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Oops, I may have spoiled it. Oh well - you saw it coming anyway. After he kidnapped me, the other gods ran to Vishnu and told him about the ordeal, bringing to his attention the threat that Hiranyaksha posed to the stability of the universe as a whole. Vishnu was the only one powerful enough to destroy the demon. 

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Or so people think. Again, people forget my power - I am not just Earth, but a manifestation of the Supreme Being (the Adi-Parashakti) as a whole. My power is embedded within my name itself: "adi" means "before all creation" and "parashakti" means "great, primordial power." I am the great, primordial power that preceded all creation. Everything I do is planned, and happens for a reason. Had I wanted, I could have reduced Hiranyaksha to mere dust when he grabbed and kidnapped me. I could have done the same to Brahma, too. I gave Vishnu the power to kill the demon and purposefully let him have the honor of doing so - I felt that he needed the attention. Too many people dwell on how powerful Vishnu was without giving me credit for giving him the power to do so....

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But, never mind that. Incarnating for the third time to heed to the gods' pleas, Vishnu took on the form of a boar named Varaha and ferociously fought Hiranyaksha. Because a boar was not on the blacklist for what couldn't kill him, Vishnu succeeded. He fought the demon for what seemed like thousands of years, and the entire universe watched anxiously the whole time. I pretended to watch anxiously, since I knew the result anyway. 

 

Upon, his success, celebrations resounded across the universe upon. To fulfill his task, Varaha lifted me out of the ocean with his tusks and restored my place in the universe. Peace was restored. 

 

Good job, Vishnu. Or, should I say, good job me....

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Author's Note: This story is based on the mythology of Varaha, Vishnu's third avatar, and the demon Hiranyaksha. One of the most famous legends of Hinduism are the ten avatars of Vishnu, which loosely follow the process of evolution: a fish (Matsya), a turtle (Kurma), a boar (Varaha), a man-lion (Narasimha), and a series of humans. The details of the original story as I was told when I was younger are very close to what was relayed here: a demon named Hiranyaksha gets massive powers from Brahma as a reward for a penance, and then uses his powers to wreck havoc on the world. He kidnaps Bhumi, disrupting the balance of the universe, and the gods go appealing to Vishnu for help. Vishnu takes on the form of a boar to kill the demon, because that animal is not on the "blacklist" of beings that cannot kill Hiranyaksha. However, I added my own twist by emphasizing Bhumi's role as a form of the Supreme Goddess, stating that none of it would have been possible without the will and power of Bhumi. This aspect of the Goddess and her power is not encapsulated in the original; most of the Goddess's power is depicted in other stories, like that of Durga and Kali (which are two ferocious forms of the Goddess). Bhumi, in this version, remarks about how she could have overtly destroyed Hiranyaksha if she desired, but she chose to covertly orchestrate events, instead. Thus, while the events are no different, it makes it seem like what happened was a result of Bhumi's power rather than Vishnu's.