Surrounded by palm trees, Lord Vishnu stands benevolent and omnipresent in this Tanjore painting. He is the part of the trinity that maintains order over the whole universe—where Brahma is the creator and Shiva is the destroyer. Vishnu is the one who maintains and sustains the cosmos, guarding humankind as he lays on Sheshanag. In the whole pantheon of Hindu gods, he is one of the most venerated and important gods. He is the one whose ten avatars (incarnations) have maintained the cosmic balance throughout eons.
The ten avatars are Buddha, Shri Krishna, Shri Rama, Parshurama, Narsimha, Vamana, Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, and Kalki. During the great churning of the milky ocean that lasted a millennium, the devas and asuras needed someone to support the mountain they were going to turn and so they called upon Lord Vishnu. He took the form of Kurma (a giant tortoise) and supported the huge mountain on his shell. The devas and asuras kept churning for ages until amrita, the essence of life, sprung up as a result. Both sides coveted it and were going to fight over it. To help the devas, Vishnu took the form of Maya, a beautiful apsara, to distract the asuras. It worked and the gods could hold the essence of life.
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