Vishnu: Avatars

Before a great flood, a tiny fish asks King Manu (Satyavrata) to save it. It grows larger in every vessel he places it in until only the ocean can hold it, and Manu realises it is Vishnu. The fish tells him to build a boat and gather the seven sages, seeds of every plant and pairs of creatures. When the flood comes, Manu ties the boat to the fish's horn with the serpent Vasuki as a rope, and the fish carries them to safety. In the Bhagavata Purana Matsya also recovers the Vedas stolen by the demon Hayagriva.

When the devas and asuras churn the ocean of milk for the nectar of immortality, using Mount Mandara as the churning rod and Vasuki as the rope, the mountain begins to sink into the sea. Vishnu becomes a vast tortoise and takes the mountain on his back, so the churning can go on. From the ocean rise Lakshmi, the Kaustubha gem, the poison halahala and finally Dhanvantari with the pot of amrita. Kurma is worshipped at Srikurmam in Andhra Pradesh.

The demon Hiranyaksha drags the earth, Bhudevi, down into the cosmic ocean. Vishnu takes the form of a great boar, born, in one account, from Brahma's nostril, dives into the waters, kills Hiranyaksha after a long battle and lifts the earth back up on his tusks. Images such as the giant Varaha at Udayagiri in Madhya Pradesh show the earth goddess clinging to his tusk. The Vedic seed of the story is a boar that raises the earth in the Taittiriya texts.

Hiranyakashipu, brother of Hiranyaksha, wins a boon from Brahma that no man or beast can kill him, by day or night, indoors or out, on earth or in the sky, with any weapon. He persecutes his own son Prahlada for worshipping Vishnu. When he strikes a pillar and asks whether Vishnu is in it, Narasimha bursts out, half man and half lion, and kills him at twilight, on the threshold, across his own lap, with his claws, keeping every condition of the boon. The story is remembered on Narasimha Jayanti and in the bonfire of Holika Dahan.

The generous asura king Bali, grandson of Prahlada, conquers the three worlds. Vishnu is born as Vamana, a small brahmin boy, and comes to Bali's sacrifice asking only for as much land as he can cover in three steps. Bali agrees, despite the warning of his guru Shukracharya. Vamana grows into Trivikrama, covering the earth with one step and the heavens with the second, and Bali offers his own head for the third. Vishnu sends him to rule the underworld, Sutala, and in Kerala Onam celebrates Bali's yearly return to his people.

Born to the sage Jamadagni and Renuka, Parashurama receives an axe from Shiva. When King Kartavirya Arjuna steals his father's sacred cow and Kartavirya's sons later kill Jamadagni, Parashurama sets out to destroy the corrupt warrior kings of the earth, twenty-one times over. He is one of the chiranjivis, the long-lived ones, and appears in both epics: he confronts Rama after the breaking of Shiva's bow, and teaches Bhishma, Drona and Karna in the Mahabharata. Kerala and the Konkan coast are said to be land he reclaimed from the sea.

The eldest son of King Dasharatha of Ayodhya, Rama is exiled for fourteen years on the eve of his coronation, goes to the forest with Sita and Lakshmana, loses Sita to the rakshasa king Ravana, allies with Hanuman and the vanaras, builds a bridge to Lanka and defeats Ravana. He is Maryada Purushottama, the ideal of righteous conduct as son, husband, brother and king, and his reign, Rama Rajya, became the image of just rule. His story is the Ramayana; his birth is Rama Navami and his victory Dussehra.

Born at midnight in a Mathura prison to Devaki and Vasudeva and raised among the cowherds of Gokul and Vrindavan by Yashoda and Nanda, Krishna slays the tyrant Kamsa, founds Dwarka, and becomes the friend and charioteer of Arjuna in the Mahabharata war, where he teaches the Bhagavad Gita. His childhood play, his love for Radha and the gopis, and his lifting of Mount Govardhan are central to bhakti, and many traditions see him as the source of all avatars. His birth is celebrated on Janmashtami.

Many Puranas, from around the 6th century onward, include the Buddha as the ninth avatar, who teaches compassion and non-violence and turns people away from animal sacrifice. The poet Jayadeva praises him so in the Gita Govinda. Other lists, especially in Maharashtra, Odisha and South India, place Balarama, Krishna's elder brother and the bearer of the plough, ninth instead and treat Krishna as the source of all avatars. Buddhists themselves do not regard the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu.

Kalki is the avatar still to come. The Kalki Purana and the Bhagavata Purana say he will be born in the village of Shambhala to a brahmin named Vishnuyasha at the end of the Kali Yuga, when dharma has almost vanished. Riding the white horse Devadatta and holding a blazing sword, he will end the age of disorder and open a new Satya Yuga.