Prithu | |
---|---|
Devanagari | पृथु |
Affiliation | Vaishnavism, Chakravarti sovereign |
Weapon | Bow and arrow |
Genealogy | |
Parents | Vena (father) |
Consort | Archi |
Children | Vijitsatva |
Prithu (Sanskrit: पृथु, IAST: Pṛthu, lit. "large, great, important, abundant"),[1] also called Pruthu, Prithi and Prithu Vainya ("Prithu — the son of Vena"), is a sovereign (chakravarti) in Hinduism. He is an avatar of the god Vishnu.
Prithu is "celebrated as the first consecrated king, from whom the earth received her (Sanskrit) name, Prithvi."[2] He is mainly associated with the legend of his chasing the earth goddess, Prithvi, who fled in the form of a cow and eventually agreed to yield her milk as the world's grain and vegetation. The epic Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana describe him as a part-avatar of Vishnu.[3]