Matsya Avatar Vishnu (Source- Exotic India Art)
Matsya avatar, the first incarnation among the Dashavatara (10 forms) of Vishnu, is a rarely depicted aspect of the Hindu preserver god. Revered in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, and epics, the legend of Matsya avatar is the story of Vishnu coming to the aid of the residents of earth, for the first time. Associated with the cosmic narrative of Pralaya or deluge, the Matsya avatar is a lesser-known form of Vishnu, rooted in the ancient traditions of India. Let us learn about the history, iconography, stories, and temples of Matsyavataram, and understand why Vishnu took the form of a fish.
The Great Fish Form, Central India, 9th-10th century CE (Source- Wikimedia Commons)
The mention of Matsya, a divine fish comes first in the Rig Veda, where the king Manu performs a Vedic sacrifice in the honor of Agni, the fire god. A detailed description comes from the Shatapatha Brahmana, where the Matsya form is not linked to a particular deity. The text discussed a great flood and how the creation is protected by a mighty fish.
Matsya Vishnu, 19th Century, Watercolor and Gold (Wikimedia Commons)
In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, Vaivasvata Manu is visited by a golden fish who asks for his protection and promises that it will protect the king when a massive, world-ending flood arrives. Manu places the fish in various containers but it keeps on growing beyond the size of the carriers and ultimately is sent to the ocean through the sacred river Ganga. The divine fish directs Manu to build a ship, take members of each species, and prepare for a flood. When the time of deluge comes, the fish drives the ship through the waters. After safely placing Manu on land, the fish reveals itself as Brahma and gives Manu the task of creation.
A Scene From Matsya Purana, Manu with Seven Sages in the Boat and Vishnu Fighting Shankhasura (Source- Wikimedia Commons)
The Matsya Mahapurana is one of the 18 major Puranas, dedicated to the fish incarnation, which identifies the form with Vishnu. The story in the Purana is similar to Mahabharata, except for the mention of Adi-Shesha, the serpent of Vishnu beings used as the rope to tie the ship with the horn of the fish. Experts of culture suggest that this description is symbolic, that the tying of the ship with the fish with Shesha (all that remains) suggests the association of two Kalpas or time periods with the residual time and matter that is embodied by Adi Shesha.
Matsya-Vishnu with the Boat and Hayagriva under the Under, Uttar Pradesh (Wikimedia Commons)
The legend of the Matsya avatar is richly narrated in the sacred Bhagavata, where a demon Hayagriva is troubling the earth when it is challenged by Vishnu in the fish form. According to the Purana, the demon stole the Vedas, repositories of ancient knowledge, from a sleeping Brahma, which catches the eye of Vishnu. As a fish, the Lord travels to the human realm, where he reaches Satyavrata, a king residing in the Dravida (South Indian) region. As the Raja stood in the Vaigai river and performed rituals of offering water by making an anjali (cupping his hands), he saw a little golden fish swimming in his palm. From this point, the story is similar to the tale of Manu, where the fish asks for refuge and keeps on outgrowing its containers until it becomes larger than the ocean. Satyavrata soon discovers that the fish is Vishnu himself, who reveals to the king that a flood is about to happen in 7 days.
The fish tells the king to collect members of each species on a massive boat. The sages amongst the travellers of the boat are educated by Matsya avatar about the highest knowledge of the cosmos. According to Bhagavata, this wisdom is later collected and preserved as a Purana, which many believe to be the Matsya Maha Purana. Through this episode of the Bhagavata, one can observe a connection being highlighted between the knowledge of the Veda that is learned through oral teachings, and the sacred Puranas that came as a “fruit of the Vedas”.
Matsya-Vishnu Fighting Shankhasur, Punjab Manuscript Painting (Source- Wikimedia Commons)
The largest of the 18 major- Mahapuranas, Skanda Purana tells a different version of the Matsya avatar story. Shankha (literally conch), the son of Sagara (ocean) took away the powers of the gods and then to become ultimately powerful, stole the Vedas from Lord Brahma, while Vishnu was sleeping. On the occasion of Prabodhini Ekadashi, when Vishnu-Narayana woke up, he assumed the form of Matsya and defeated the demon to protect the Vedic wisdom.
The Purana dedicated to Vishnu’s Krishna avatar, Brahmavaivarta Purana mentions that it was Krishna, the supreme divinity or Param Brahman, who took the Matsya avatar in order to save the ancient wisdom of the Vedas.
Matsya Avatar by Raja Ravi Varma (Source- Wikimedia Commons)
In his Dashavatara, Lord Vishnu takes on different forms and appearances depending on the circumstances and context. Therefore, the Matsya avatar is naturally suited to the episode of the great deluge, since fish are adept at navigating water during the Jala-Pralaya.
The earliest depictions of the Matsya avatar of Vishnu come from the ancient sites of Sarnath and Mathura. The one at Sarnath is a fish form while Mathura has a “Narayana-mishrit Vigraha”- half-fish, half-god. The representation of the Matsya aspect is either zoomorphic (animal form) or zoo-anthropomorphic (half man, half fish). According to the VIshnudharmottara Purana which contains ancient techniques and iconography of Hindu art, the Matsya avatar has to be depicted as a horned fish.
Matsya Avatar, Channakeshava Temple (Source- Wikimedia Commons)
A rare representation of the Matsya avatar comes from the Channakeshava Temple, where a fish head is depicted atop the four-armed divine form of Vishnu. The most common form of the Matsya avatar is the lower half fish and the upper half shows the Chaturbhuja Narayana Roopa, often engaged in a battle with the demon or appearing in front of sages and Manu with a divine atmosphere.
In comparison to the popular incarnations of Vishnu such as Rama and Krishna and other powerful aspects such as Narasimha and Varaha whose grand and dramatic representations have been well-appreciated and revered, the Matsya avatar has few depictions and even fewer temples in the Indian subcontinent.
Some of the known temples where Vishnu resides in his Matsya avatar are-
Vishnu along with Sridevi and Bhudevi- his wives, is worshipped in this temple as the protector of Veda or “Vedanarayana”. The town and temple belong to the reign of the famous ruler Krishnadeva Rai.
The only temple of Matsya avatar in Karnataka, this temple is located on the seaside, with a majestic statue of Vishnu as Matsya surrounded by 108 pillars that give the sacred arena a grand air.
The Macche or Matsya Narayan Temple in Nepal is a unique site, located in the center of a pond where Vishnu’s first avatar is worshipped.
Lost today to the ravages of time, this sacred temple in Sri Lanka is mentioned in the Kanda Purana of Kachiyappar as a temple of Matsya-Narayana.
There are a number of temples of Vishnu’s fish aspect in the state of Kerala. Sree Matsyavathara Mahavishnu Temple (Meenagadi, Waynad), Mootli Sree Mahavishnu Temple (Kozhikode), Perumeenapuram Vishnu (Kakkur, Kozhikhode) are a few prominent ones. In the Perumeenapuram temple, Lord remains as Matsya avatar and the main ceremony is known as “minut” or “feeding the fish”.
The temple in Kozhikode is also a part of the recently launched Dashavatara pilgrimage scheme of the government, covering the temples of VIshnu’s ten incarnations which are interestingly located in close proximity to the city.
Matsya Roopa of Vishnu though a lesser-known incarnation among his Dashavatara, is deeply connected to Indian antiquity. Earliest sources mention only Brahma or Prajapati as the cosmic divine, who looks after the tasks of creation and preservation. With time, as the trinity- Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva were popularly worshipped, the roles of Prajapati were divided among the three. Thus Brahma got the role of creation, Vishnu was actively engaged in preservation and Shiva became the ender of all things. The first incarnation of the Vishnu-Matsya avatar, highlights this handing over of roles from Prajapati to the trinity, a unique moment of written, static text representing a process.
Temples are not the only place where the reverence and importance of the Matsya form are depicted. The fish motif was used by the mighty Pandya dynasty in their coins. Even in modern times and beyond India, the fish aspect remained popular among people, for whom the animal represented prosperity, auspiciousness, and wealth acquired from water bodies.
Articulated Silver Fish Representation of Matsya Avatar, 18th-19th Century (Source- Michael Backman)
This 18th-19th century silver fish is a modern rendition of the Matsya avatar, identified by the U-shaped Vaishnava tilak on its forehead, with a realistic body that mirrors the scaly form of the fish. The artwork belonged to the collection of Michael Backman, UK.
Nepalese Statue of Vishnu as Matsya with Vedas, Source- History Encyclopedia
This is a gem from the collection of Nepal Museum, showing Vishnu as Matsya carrying the four Vedas in the form of four children, who cling to their savior - a rare artistic depiction of the fish form in Nepalese idiom.
It could be because fish represented an abundance to the earliest civilizations who flourished on the river banks or it could be because almost all ancient civilizations envisioned a humongous golden fish as their protector, the Maha-Matsya (great fish) Vishnu swam through the river of time and continues to be cradled by Hindu culture as a powerful form of the supreme emancipator.
To read the ancient legends of Matsya-avatar, visit Exotic India Art and explore the selection of Matsya Purana in various Indian languages, paintings, and statues of Matsya avatar and discover the powers of Matsya Yantra that remove all Vaastu-doshas.
Source-
Matsya Purana
Garuda Purana
Vishnu: An Iconology
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