Prahlada's Faith

The king leaned forward on his throne and smiled at his little son.

"Tell me," he said, "what is the best thing your teacher has taught you?"

The boy answered without fear. The best thing he had learned, he said, was to love Vishnu, who has no beginning and no end, and who lives in every creature.

The smile vanished from the king's face.

The king who wanted to be god

The king was Hiranyakashipu, the mighty ruler of the Daityas. Through long and fierce penance, he had won great powers. He had conquered the earth, the skies and the worlds below, and driven the gods from their homes.

Now he made a law. No one was to worship any god. Everyone must worship him.

Most people obeyed, out of fear. But in his own palace lived someone who did not: his son, Prahlada.

The patient pupil

Prahlada was sent to the best teacher in the kingdom. He was polite and attentive, and he learned everything he was taught. But when anyone asked him what was most important, he always gave the same answer. Vishnu was in everything, he said, in the teacher, in the king, even in the people who hated Vishnu.

The teacher was terrified. He scolded the boy and taught him again. Again Prahlada answered in the same gentle way.

At last the king lost his patience. If his son would not obey, he said, then his son must be destroyed.

Nothing could touch him

What happened next is told in the old books as a series of wonders.

The king's soldiers came at Prahlada with weapons, but the weapons broke and could not hurt him. Snakes were set upon him, but they could not harm him. Great elephants were sent to trample him, but they could not. He was put into a fire, and the flames felt cool to him, like a bed of lotus petals.

All the while, Prahlada did not shout or fight. He kept his mind on Vishnu, and he felt no hatred, not even for those who were hurting him.

The boy who prayed for his enemies

Then the royal priests made a terrible spell to destroy the boy. But the spell turned back on the priests themselves, and they fell to the ground.

Prahlada did not rejoice. He ran to them and prayed. If he had never wished harm to anyone, he said, if he saw Vishnu in everyone, even in those who wanted to hurt him, then let these priests live.

And the priests rose up, alive and well. They blessed the boy and went back to the king.

The sea and the mountains

Still the king would not give up. He had poison put in his son's food, but it did him no harm. He had him thrown from the high walls of the palace, but the earth caught him gently.

At last Prahlada was bound and thrown into the sea, and great rocks were piled on top of him.

Deep under the water, the boy prayed with his whole heart. And Vishnu appeared to him. The ropes fell away, the rocks rolled aside, and Prahlada rose up from the sea.

Two wishes

Vishnu was pleased with the boy and offered him a wish.

Prahlada asked only that his love for Vishnu should never fade, in this life or any other.

Vishnu granted it, and offered another wish.

This time, Prahlada asked for something nobody expected. His father had hated him and tried again and again to hurt him. Prahlada asked that his father should be forgiven for it, and freed from that wrong.

Vishnu granted that too.

The end of the cruel king

In the Bhagavata Purana, the story ends in a famous scene. The king, mocking his son, asked whether this Vishnu was inside the stone pillar in front of him. He struck the pillar. Out of it burst Narasimha, a form of Vishnu who was half man and half lion, and the king's long reign of cruelty came to an end at last.

Prahlada became king after him. He ruled with kindness, and he never stopped loving Vishnu.

About this story

Prahlada's story is told in the first book of the Vishnu Purana, translated into English by H. H. Wilson in 1840, and in the seventh book of the Bhagavata Purana, which describes Narasimha and the pillar. The story of Prahlada's aunt Holika, who tried to burn him and was burned herself, comes from later tradition and is remembered each year at the festival of Holi. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.