Vishnu

Narayana, the Preserver

The supreme being of the Vaishnava traditions: the preserver who rests on the cosmic waters as Narayana and descends as the avataras, including Rama and Krishna.

A quick reference entry. For the full account, follow the guides below.

Guides and journal

Who is Vishnu? Deities
…o command the most verses are Indra the storm-king and Agni the fire. Vishnu is there too.
Who is Krishna? Deities
…vaja , a standard topped with Garuda, the eagle mount associated with Vishnu and Vasudeva, and that it was set up by Heliodorus , son of Dion, an envoy of the Indo-Greek king Antialkidas of Taxila to the court …
What is the Bhagavad Gita? Scriptures
The Bhagavad Gita, "the Song of the Lord," is a Sanskrit scripture of about 700 verses in eighteen chapters, set as a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and…
Jagannath Puri and the Ratha Yatra Temples
The name comes from two Sanskrit words, jagat , the world, and natha , lord. He is worshipped here as a form of Vishnu and of Krishna.
The Dashavatara: The Ten Avatars of Vishnu Deities
Walk into almost any Vishnu temple and somewhere, carved in a row or painted in a band, you will find them: a fish, a tortoise, a boar, a creature half-lion and half-man, a dwarf, an axe-wielding warrior, two p…
Tirupati: The Temple of Venkateshwara Temples
By tradition the seven hills are the body and heads of Ananta , also called Shesha , the great serpent on whom Vishnu rests.
Vishnu's Emblems: Conch, Discus, Mace and Lotus Deities
Each great deity holds a fixed set of objects, an identity kit, and Vishnu's is the most famous of all: a conch, a discus, a mace and a lotus, one in each of his four hands.
What are the Puranas? Scriptures
Purana comes from the Sanskrit pura , "formerly, before," and the word means, plainly, "old" or "ancient" (Wilson, Vishnu Purana , 1840).
What is an Avatar? Deities
And it leaves the divine unchanged in its own nature: Vishnu descends as Rama, as Krishna, as the boar and the man-lion, and throughout remains the unborn, undiminished absolute.
Who is Lakshmi? Deities
Of all the beings in the three worlds she chose Vishnu, the preserver, and became his eternal consort.
The jewelled earring Treatise
When Shiva and the Goddess first brought Kashi into being, before the rest of the cosmos existed, Shiva gave Vishnu the task of creating everything else.
How Shiva lost his city Treatise
The teacher on the ghat The one who finishes the work is Vishnu, and he finishes it not by breaking Divodasa's dharma but by making the king want something dharma cannot give.
The Court of Vishnu Treatise
If you want to test whether the retinue really is the deepest structure of Hindu theology, the strongest test is not Shiva at all. It is Vishnu.
The Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās Lineages
The rites that bathe and clothe and feed Ranganatha, the reclining Vishnu, come in large part from the Pāñcarātra, the Vaiṣṇava branch of the tantric revelation.
The Vishnu Sahasranama Worship
That list is the Vishnu Sahasranama, and this is the story of why the tradition met its largest question not with a definition but with a naming.
What is Vaishnavism? Lineages
Its inscription is one of the oldest dated records we have of the worship of the god the tradition would come to call Vishnu.
When will Kalki come, and what will he look like? Journal
Kalki, the tenth and last of the ten great descents of Vishnu, the Dashavatara , comes at the close of our present age, the Kali Yuga.
Who is Rama? Deities
The descent of Vishnu Rama is the seventh of the ten great descents of Vishnu, the avatara in which the preserver of the worlds takes a human birth.
Why is Krishna blue? Journal
The Mahabharata tells how Vishnu took two hairs from his own body, one black and one white, and sent them into the world.