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Concept
Varaha
Summary
| gender = Male
Varaha (वराह, ) is an avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu, in the form of a wild boar. Varaha is generally listed as third in the Dashavatara, the ten principal avatars of Vishnu.
Varaha is most commonly associated with the legend of lifting the earth (personified as the goddess Bhudevi) out of the cosmic ocean. When the asura Hiranyaksha stole the earth and hid her in the primordial waters, Vishnu appeared as Varaha to rescue her. Varaha slew the asura, and retrieved the earth from the ocean, lifting it on his tusks, restoring Bhudevi to her place in the universe.
Varaha may be depicted as a boar or in an anthropomorphic form, with a boar's head and a human body. His consort, Bhudevi, the personified earth, is often depicted as a young woman, lifted by Varaha.
The deity Varaha derives its name from the Sanskrit word varāha (Devanagari: वराह, ) meaning "boar" or "wild boar".
The word varāha is from Proto-Indo-Iranian term *warāȷ́há, meaning boar. It is thus related to Avestan varāza, Kurdish beraz, Middle Persian warāz, and New Persian gorāz (گراز), all meaning "wild boar".
The Sanskrit grammarian and etymologist Yaska (circa 300 BCE) states that the word varaha originates from the root √hr. The Monier-Williams dictionary states that the root √hr means "'to offer/present', 'to outdo, eclipse, surpass', 'to enrapture, charm, [and] fascinate', and 'to take away or remove evil or sin'" and also "to take away, carry off, seize, deprive of, steal, [or] rob".
As per Yaska, the boar is a beast that "tears up the roots, or he tears up all the good roots" is thus called varaha. The word varaha is found in the Rigveda, for example, in its verses such as 1.88.5, 8.77.10 and 10.28.4 where it means "wild boar".
The word also means "rain cloud" and is symbolic in some Rigvedic hymns, such as Vedic demon Vritra being called a varaha in Rigvedic verses 1.61.7 and 10.99.6, and Soma's epithet being a varaha in 10.97.7. Later the rain-relationship led the connotation of the term evolve into vara-aharta, which means "bringer of good things" (rain), which also mentioned by Yaska.
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