Vishnu Slays Madhu and Kaitabha

When the world ended — when every mountain had crumbled, every river had dried, every living thing had dissolved back into the primal waters — there was only the ocean. One vast, dark, silent expanse stretching in every direction without shore or bottom. On that ocean, Vishnu slept. He lay stretched out on the great serpent Shesha, whose coils encircled the entire earth. Shesha's energy was limitless, his hood a canopy over the sleeping god. Vishnu wore a diadem and the Koustubha gem on his chest. His garment was yellow silk. He blazed with a radiance equal to a thousand suns — but it was a quiet radiance, the light of something that had no need to announce itself. From Vishnu's navel, while he slept, a lotus sprouted. It rose through the dark waters and opened, and from its center emerged Brahma — the grandfather of the worlds, the preceptor of all beings. He had four faces and four forms, and he was the four Vedas made flesh. Brahma looked around at the empty ocean and saw no one. Then Madhu and Kaitabha saw him. They were danavas — a class of asuras, ancient and powerful. They had survived the dissolution. They saw Brahma on his lotus, and they saw Vishnu sleeping in the serpent's coils, and they were surprised. But surprise curdled quickly into something else. They began to terrify Brahma — deliberately, methodically, pressing in on him from both sides. Brahma, shaken, did the only thing he could. He grasped the stalk of the lotus and shook it. Vishnu woke. He saw the two danavas standing before him — immense, powerful, unafraid. And he spoke: "You are welcome. I am pleased with you. Ask for the best of boons." Madhu and Kaitabha laughed. They were not accustomed to being offered boons by gods. They were accustomed to granting them. "O supreme among gods," they said, "we are the ones who grant boons. Ask for a boon from us. Without hesitation, ask, and we will grant it." Vishnu accepted. "I will accept a boon from you. Grant me what I desire. Both of you are endowed with great valor, and there is no man who is your equal. I wish to kill you — for the welfare of the world. Grant me the boon that this desire is satisfied." Madhu and Kaitabha looked at each other. They had never uttered a falsehood, not even in jest. They had always been steadfast in dharma and truth. There was no one their equal in strength, beauty, valor, tranquility, dharma, austerities, generosity, conduct, power, or self-control. They knew this. And they knew what it meant. "A great calamity confronts us," they said. "But do what you have said. It is impossible to overcome destiny. Only one thing we ask: kill us on a spot that is completely uncovered. No ground above us, no sky below us. And we will become your sons." Vishnu agreed. Then he looked for an uncovered spot. He searched heaven. He searched earth. Everywhere he looked, there was something — sky above, ground below, water beneath. He could find no place that was completely uncovered. Until he glanced at his own thighs. They were bare. Uncovered by anything. Vishnu laid the two danavas across his thighs and sliced off their heads with the edge of his sharp and terrible chakra. Madhu and Kaitabha died on the only uncovered ground in all of existence — the body of the god who killed them. And as promised, they became his sons.