Vishnu
Vishnu South and Central AsiaAs preserver and restorer, Vishnu is a very popular deity with Hindu worshippers. The root of his name, vish, means ‘to pervade’, and he is regarded as the all-pervading presence, whose power has been manifested to the world in a variety of forms called avataras, or ‘descents’, in which a part of his divine essence was incarnated in a human or supernatural form. An avatar has appeared whenever there was urgent need to correct some great evil influence in the world. ‘When order, justice, and mortals are endangered’, remarked Vishnu, ‘I come down to earth.’ Though the devotees of Shiva propose twenty-eight incarnations for their own deity, it is the ten principal avatars of Vishnu that hold the stage in Hindu mythology.
Vishnu is generally represented pictorially as a handsome youth of a dark blue colour, and dressed like an ancient king. In his four hands he holds a conch shell, a discus, a...
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