Vishnuਵਿਸ਼ਨੂੰ

Vishnu is the preserver of the universe in Hindu belief, the god who maintains order and steps in when the balance of the world is threatened. Hindus picture him resting on the coils of the great serpent Shesha on the ocean of milk, his consort Lakshmi at his feet, calm between one age of the world and the next. Yet he is anything but idle: again and again, the scriptures say, he has descended to earth in human and animal form to defeat evil and restore dharma.

Who is Vishnu?

In the Trimurti, Vishnu's role follows Brahma's creation and comes before Shiva's dissolution: he preserves. In the Vaishnava tradition, followed by a large share of Hindus, he is more than a preserver: he is the supreme God, and even the other gods are his aspects. Curiously, in the oldest scriptures, the Vedas, Vishnu is a minor figure, remembered chiefly for three great strides with which he measured out the universe. In the centuries that followed he absorbed the worship of older heroes and local gods, above all Narayana and Vasudeva-Krishna, and rose to the centre of Hindu devotion.

The ten avatars

The best-known teaching about Vishnu is the avatar, from a Sanskrit word meaning descent. In theory his descents are countless; in practice ten are honoured as the Dashavatara: Matsya the fish, Kurma the tortoise, Varaha the boar, Narasimha the man-lion, Vamana the dwarf, Parashurama the warrior with the axe, Ram the hero of the Ramayana, Krishna of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddha, and Kalki, the avatar still to come. Two of them, Ram and Krishna, are loved so widely that each has a full page of his own in this set. The dwarf Vamana grew from the old Vedic story of Vishnu's three strides: as a tiny Brahmin he asked a proud king for three paces of land, then grew to cover earth and heaven in two steps.

Forms and symbols

Temple images show Vishnu standing in royal dress with four arms holding the conch, the discus, the mace and the lotus; seated beside Lakshmi and the earth goddess Bhumidevi; or reclining on Shesha asleep between the ages of the world. His skin is painted dark blue, on his chest is the srivatsa curl of hair, and around his neck hangs the Kaustubha jewel. His mount is Garuda, half man and half eagle. Devotees repeat his thousand names as an act of prayer; among the best known are Narayana, Hari and Vasudeva.

Festivals and temples

Vishnu is honoured on the many Ekadashi fasts through the year and above all at Vaikuntha Ekadashi; his avatars bring their own festivals, including Ram Navami for Ram, Janmashtami for Krishna and Diwali, which celebrates Ram's homecoming. His temples are among the most visited shrines on earth. On Jugti you can explore the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Andhra Pradesh, among the richest and most visited temples in the world; Badrinath in the Himalaya; Dwarkadhish at Dwarka, Krishna's capital; the Jagannath Temple at Puri; the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala; and Muktinath in Nepal, sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike.

Vishnu in Punjab

Vishnu is shown with four arms, and each hand holds an emblem his devotees can read. The conch, Panchajanya, is the sacred sound Om, the first vibration from which creation unfolds. The discus, Sudarshana, is the wheel of time and the sun, which cuts down ignorance and protects the good. The mace, Kaumodaki, stands for strength and discipline, and the lotus for purity and unfolding creation. Round his neck hangs the Kaustubha gem and the garland Vaijayanti, and on his chest rests the Srivatsa mark, where Lakshmi herself is said to dwell. A crowned, serene figure, he is the god as king and guardian, and his vehicle Garuda, half eagle and half man, carries him swiftly wherever his devotees call.

The 108 sacred abodes

The Tamil Alvar saints sang of 108 earthly abodes of Vishnu, the Divya Desams, and they remain the map of Vaishnav pilgrimage. Greatest of them is Srirangam, an island temple city in the Kaveri river whose Vaikuntha Ekadashi festival draws lakhs of devotees through its legendary Paramapada gate. Kanchipuram, Tirupati and the other Divya Desams are joined each year by pilgrims from across India and the Tamil diaspora, and a Vaishnav who has visited all 108 is held to have walked the whole sacred geography of his faith.

No offering to Vishnu is complete without a leaf of tulsi, the holy basil, which is sacred to him and bound up with Lakshmi in the devotional imagination. A tulsi plant grows in the courtyard of countless Hindu homes, watered and circled with a lamp each morning, and the month of Kartik, when Vishnu wakes from his sleep, is also the season of tulsi weddings, when the plant is ceremonially married to the god.

Vaishnava devotion runs deep in Punjab's Hindu life: Ram and Krishna are household names, Janmashtami and Ram Navami fill the temples, and the Ramayana is retold in Ramlila performances every autumn. Vishnu's consort Lakshmi is welcomed into homes and shops at Diwali. Punjabi Hindus travel in large numbers to his great shrines, and diaspora temples from Brampton to Brisbane keep his festivals through the year.