Introduction
Bali, honoured as Mahabali, "great Bali", is an Asura king, the grandson of Prahlada and son of Virochana. He is remembered as an extraordinarily generous and just ruler, whose conquest of the three worlds was undone by Vishnu's dwarf avatar Vamana, but who was rewarded for his surrender with rule over the netherworld.
This article follows the Puranic tradition. Where a detail differs between texts, the article says so.
Family
- Father: Virochana
A just ruler
Bali extended his rule over heaven, earth and the netherworld by his own strength and virtue, and, unusually among the Puranic Asura kings, is consistently described as righteous, generous and beloved by his subjects, prosperous and free of want under his rule.
Vamana's three steps
Concerned that even a devoted Asura ruling the three worlds upset the cosmic balance, the gods appealed to Vishnu, who was born as Vamana, a dwarf Brahmin student. At Bali's great sacrifice, Vamana asked for only as much land as he could cover in three steps. Bali's guru Shukracharya warned him it was Vishnu in disguise, but Bali, true to his principle of never refusing a request made at a sacrifice, granted it. Vamana then grew to a cosmic size, covering the earth with his first step and the heavens with the second. For the third, with nowhere else to place it, Bali offered his own head, and Vishnu's foot sent him down to the netherworld, Sutala.
The boon
Pleased by Bali's generosity and humility, Vishnu granted him rule over Sutala as a splendid kingdom, promised he would become the Indra of a future age, and agreed that he could return once a year to visit his former subjects on earth.
Onam
In Kerala, this annual return is celebrated as Onam, the state's major harvest festival, during which Mahabali is remembered as a righteous king whose rule was a golden age, and the festival is understood locally less as a story of defeat than as a celebration of his continuing goodwill toward his people.