Vishnu himself, and begins to sing
Vishnu’s praises.
The fish then informs Manu
that the destruction of the world is
imminent—first through blazing fire
that will scorch all life, then through
floods that will turn the entire earth
into a single cosmic sea. Vishnu informs
Manu that the gods have built a boat
from the Vedas, and directs Manu to
collect all the creatures of the earth
and put them on the boat for safekeep-
ing. He promises Manu that all the
creatures on this boat will survive the
coming destruction, and when the
world returns to normal with the
advent of the Krta Age, Manu will be
the ruler of the earth.
Manu does as he has been directed,
and when the destruction of the world is
imminent, Vishnu appears in the form
of a great horned fish. Manu ties the
boat to the fish’s horn and, protected by
Vishnu’s power, all the beings on the
boat survive to repopulate the earth.
Five Forbidden Things
See panchamakara.
Float Festival
Festival celebrated in the city of
Maduraiin the southern Indian state of
Tamil Nadu, on the full moonin the
lunar month of Magh ( January–
February). This is the birthday of King
Tirumalai Nayak(r. 1623–1659), dur-
ing whose reign large parts of
Madurai’s MinakshiTemple was built.
During the festival the goddess
Minakshi and her consort Sundareshvara
(an epithet of Shiva) are taken in pro-
cession to an artificial lake east of
Madurai, where they are put on richly
decorated floats and drawn back and
forth over the lake’s waters.
Flood, Legend of
See Fish avatar.
Four Dhams
(“[divine] abodes”) Four major pilgrim-
age sites in the four geographical cor-
ners of India, which lay out the
boundaries of India’s sacred geography:
Badrinathin the Himalayas; the city of
Puriin the east, on the Bay of Bengal;
Rameshvaram in the south; and
Dwarakain the west. Each site is associ-
ated with one of the four Sanyasi maths
all supposedly founded by the great
philosopher Shankaracharya: Badrinath
has the Jyotir math in the town of
Joshimath (about thirty-five miles
south of Badrinath), Puri has the
Govardhan math, Dwaraka has the
Sharada math, and Rameshvaram has
the Shringeri math (in Shringeri). The
first three of these maths are close to
their associated sacred sites (tirthas),
but Shringeri is about 450 miles away
from Rameshvaram.Four Great Crimes
In the dharma literature, four actions
are deemed such heinous offenses that
the person performing them becomes
an outcast from society. These four
actions are murdering a brahmin
(brahmahatya), stealing a brahmin’s
gold (steya), drinking liquor (sura-
pana), and adulterywith the wife of
one’s guru (gurutalpaga). Aside from
expulsion from society, another indica-
tion of the gravity of these acts was that
their penalties were so severe that they
normally ended in death, and in some
cases this outcome was specifically pre-
scribed. In addition to prescribing such
punishments for the actual offenders,
the dharma literature also prescribed
expulsion for anyone who knowingly
associated with such people for a period
longer than one year.Four States of Consciousness
A hierarchy of states of experience that
is first outlined in the Mandukya
Upanishad. In its description, the upan-
ishad moves from greatest duality to
utter nonduality; these four states areFour States of Consciousness