Kanchi Mahaswami on 'Dhoomaketu' continued...
There was a demon named dhoomasuran. Like the asuras (demons) who come in bhagavatam, such as vrudasuran, mahabali, some demons also have good qualities, and devotion. However, the demonic qualities will also be showing up dominantly in their behavior. One such demon is dhoomasuran. At that time there was a king. Dhoomasuran came to know that he will be killed by the lord Vishnu will be born as the son to the pregnant wife of the king. Therefore, he ordered his general to go at night time to the bedroom of the king and kill the queen. However, when the general went there, he had no heart to kill a noble woman, that too a pregnant woman. He did not also have the heart to separate the couple. So he picked them both a couple along with their cot and threw then in the thick of the forest. The couple who were devotees of lord vignewarar prayed to him constantly, seeking his grace to remove all obstacles and difficulties for a safe delivery of the child and to return to the kingdom.
Dhoomasuran came to know that the king and queen were hiding invisibly the forest. Immediately he went there armed with all his weapons. What do you think the weapon that he had specialized in? What is his name? Dhoomasuran? Dhooma means smoke? He was skilled in using a weapon which will create toxic smoke.
Even in these days, don't we have weapons such as the "tear gas" which are not so harmful, to gas shells which contain life threatening toxic gases? What is created using chemicals now was created using the power mantra in those days.
With the intention of killing the pregnant queen with the child in the womb, and the king next to her, when he went to them, he found that there was already a child in her lap! The lord vigneswarar had manifested there, listening to the prayers of the king and queen, in the form of the son, representing the incarnation lord Vishnu. He also showed by this miracle, that he is the embodiment of all deities. <b>The fact that son of lord Siva was born as the incarnation of Vishnu, also highlights the unity between saivism and vaishavism. This is acknowledged in the first sloka "suklambaradaram vishnum."</b>
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