Jaya and Vijaya are the outer aspects of Vishnu. Vishnu preserves the
universe, and He preserves all beings. Existence, consciousness and
bliss all proceed from Vishnu, and it is these essential attributes that
bring about the involution and evolution of all beings. In minerals,
there is existence, but it is Tamasic. Consciousness and bliss are
completely eclipsed by the Tamasic opacity of gross matter.
In the vegetables, there is existence and something more -- the bare
dawning of perceptive consciousness. There is predominating Tamas in the
vegetables also. But Rajas also tries to manifest itself.
In the animals, Rajas asserts itself by increasing activity, and by the
action of the senses. The animals exist, they are conscious and they
have blissful experiences.
In men, Rajas plays the most important part. Through the ever increasing
activities of mind and the development of consciousness, man runs after
all sorts of experience, pleasurable and painful, till at last the idea
of lasting and real bliss settles down in him, and he knows more of
bliss than any other being in the universe. The future evolution of man
lies in the permanence of spiritual bliss, which is purely Satvic in its
character.
Vishnu preserves all beings in their Tamasic, Rajasic and Satvic stages.
For preservation means the maintenance as well as the improvement of
beings. Therefore preservation is Satvic, and Vishnu is the Preserver.
We live and move onwards in all stages of our being. But in Rajasic and
Tamasic stages, it is the attendants of Vishnu, the door-keepers, that
preserve us, and the Daityas are the lower manifestations of Jaya and
Vijaya. One is Tamasic and the other Rajasic.
Hiranyaksha is Tamasic. He represents the original inertia of matter,
its primary resistance to the onward process of evolution. There was
existence after Pralayic sleep But it was homogeneous existence, with
little or no phenomenal change. Varaha got over this homogeneal tenacity
by the killing of Hiranyaksha, and he set going the process of planetary
and individual life.
Hiranyakasipu came next. He was the favoured son of Brahma. He helped
the evolution of individual life. Minerals became vegetables. Vegetables
became animals, and animals became men. The intellectual power of men
rapidly increased, and there was material and moral progress. The limit
of moral progress was reached by Prahlada. But the ideal of Prahlada was
based upon the conception of differences and of individualities. It is
for this reason that Varna and Ashrama Dharma, or the separate duties of
life for separate classes of men, is dealt with in the discourses with
Prahlada.
But though Prahlada was a son of Hiranyakasipu, he was an exception to
the general run of material evolution which was fostered by
Hiranyakasipu. Hiranyakasipu hated the development of Satvic virtues, he
hated Hari, the embodiment of Satva. Nrisinha killed the great Daitya,
and Satva made its appearance in men.
Hiranya means gold.
Hiranyaksha is gold-eyed.
Hiranyakasipu is gold bedded.