The battle between the Gods (good) and Demons (evil) goes on forever. It so happened that the demon king Bali due to his tapas or ascetic heat, acquired such power that he conquered Indra's heaven and all the gods had to flee from heaven. Chaos prevailed and Indra along with all the gods was greatly troubled. They went to Vaikunth and implored Lord Vishnu to restore law and order. Lord Vishnu incarnated himself as a Brahmin dwarf Vamana and went to Bali seeking alms, as was the custom of Brahmins. Bali gave him food, clothes, and many rich presents, but Vamana insisted that he wanted land. Bali offered him many great and fertile lands; however, Vamana declared that he wanted only that land which he could measure by his three steps. Bali thought that a dwarf could measure only a very small portion of the land with his three small steps, and thus accepted. However, Vamana tricked Bali and started to increase his size. So big his size became, that with his first step, he covered the entire earth and with his second step, he covered the entire heaven.
While he was covering heaven, sweat from Vamana's feet emanated and so Brahma washed the feet of Vishnu and collected the water in his kamandalu or water vessel. From this water, Ganga was born and thus she is also known as Vishnupadi or emanating from the feet of Vishnu.
With the third step, Vamana pressed Bali on the head and forced him to the nether world.
Rajen Jani is a professional freelance writer with 18+ years of experience. http://rajenjani.wordpress.com/
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