Matsya
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article concerns the Hindu avatar. For the ancient kingdom, see Matsya Rajya. For other uses, see Matsya (disambiguation).
| Matsya | |
 Incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish, from a devotional text |
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| Devanagari | मत्स्य |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Avatar of Vishnu |
| Weapon | Chakra and Mace |
Matsya (Sanskrit: मत्स्य) (Fish in Sanskrit) was the first Avatar of Vishnu in Hindu mythology.
According to legend, the mantri to the king of pre-ancient Dravida, Satyavrata who later becomes known as Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save its life. He put it in a jar, which it soon outgrew; he successively moved it to a tank, a river and then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a deluge would occur in a week that would destroy all life. Manu therefore built a boat which the fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth. This land or kingdom of Dravida that was ruled over by Satyavrata or Manu might have been an original, greater Dravida, that might have stretched from Madagascar and East Africa to Southernmost India and further to Southeast Asia and Australia.
The Bhagavata Purana narrates the following tale about Vishnu's Matsya incarnation (avatar):-
- "Long ago, when life first appeared on the earth, a terrible demon terrorized the earth. He prevented sages from performing their rituals and stole the Holy Vedas, taking refuge in a conch shell in the depths of the ocean. Brahma, the creator of the world approached Vishnu for help and the latter immediately assumed the form of a fish and plunged into the ocean. He killed the demon by ripping open his stomach and retrieved the Vedas. Four forms emerged from the demon's stomach representing the four Vedas: Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda, and Yajur Veda."
Matsya is generally represented as a four-armed figure with the upper torso of a man and the lower of a fish. Similar legends are found in many other cultures around the world.
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