Prahlada and the Pillar

There was once a demon king named Hiranyakashipu, and he was as proud and cruel as a king can be. Long ago he had been given a powerful blessing that made him almost impossible to harm, and it had gone entirely to his head. He decided he was the greatest being in all the worlds, greater even than God, and he ordered everyone to worship him, and only him.

But his own little son would not.

The boy’s name was Prahlada, and he was gentle and thoughtful, and he loved Lord Vishnu with his whole quiet heart. “Father,” he said simply, “I cannot worship you instead of Lord Vishnu. He is everywhere, and in everything.”

This made the demon king furious. He tried everything to frighten his son out of his faith. He had him thrown from high places, but the boy was not hurt. He sent fierce and scary things at him, but the boy stayed calm. Through all of it Prahlada was never angry and never afraid. He simply kept on loving God, and kept on being kind, even to the father who was so unkind to him.

At last Hiranyakashipu pointed at a great stone pillar in his hall, shaking with rage. “You say this god of yours is everywhere,” he sneered. “Is he in this pillar, then?”

“Yes,” said Prahlada quietly. “He is even there.”

The demon king struck the pillar with all his strength.

And the pillar split open. Out of it stepped a form unlike anything in the world, neither only a man nor only a lion but somehow both at once, blazing with a light too bright to look at. It was Vishnu himself, come in the form of Narasimha, the great lion-man, to stand between a cruel king and the child who had never stopped believing. And in that moment the demon king’s long reign of fear was over at last, and all his terrible power melted away like mist in the morning.

Little Prahlada was safe.

And the very first thing the gentle boy did, once the danger had passed, was to bow his head and ask, kindly, that his proud and foolish father be forgiven.