1. The or fidt-Aratara.-1Vben, at the end of the last mundane age, the Blffigavata-PnrAn'a relates, Brahman, the first god of the Trimurti, had fallen asleep, a powerful demon, Hayagrira, stole the Vedas which had issued from the mouth of Brah man, and lay by his side. About that time, a royal saint, Satyarrata, had by his penance attained the rank of a 3lanu, and Vislinin, who had witnessed the deed of Hayagriva, and intended to slay him, assumed for this purpose the form of a very small fish, and glided into the hands of the saint when the latter made his daily ablutions in the river. Maim, about to release the little fish, was addressed and asked by it not to expose it to the danger that might arise to it from the larger fish in the river, but to place it in his water-jar. The saint complied with its wish; hut in one night the fish grew so large. that at its request he had to transfer it to a pond. Yet soon the pond also becoming insufficient to contain the fish, Manu bad to choose a larger pond for its abode; and, after successive other changes, he took it to the ocean. Satyavrata now understood that the fish was no other than .Ncireiyan' a or Vislin/u, and, after he had paid his adoration to the god, the latter revealed to him the imminence of a deluge which would destroy the world, and told him that a large vessel would appear to him, in which he was to embark together with the seven Hishis, taking with him all the plants and all the seeds of created things. Maim obeyed the behest of the god: and when the water covered the sur face of the earth Vishn'u again appeared to him in the shape of a golden fish with a single horn, 10,000 miles long; and to this horn Mann attached the vessel, by means of Vislin'u's serpent serving as a cord. While thus floating in the vessel,.Manu was instructed by the fish-god in the philosophical doctrines and the science of the supreme spirit; and after the deluge had subsided, the fish-god killed Hayagriva, restored the to Brahman, and taught them to the Mann Satyavrata, who in the present mun dane age was born under the name of S'roddlatdeva, as the son of Vivasvat.—A fuller account of this Avathra is given in the Illatsya-Puran'a, where the' instruction imparted to Menu by the fish-god includes all the usual detail contained in a Purarffil (q.v.), that relating to creation, the patriarchs, progenitors, regal dynasties, the duties of the differ ent orders, and so forth. In the Malifiblihrata, where the same legend occurs, hut without either that portion concerning Ilayegriva, or the instruction imparted by the fish, there is, besides minor variations, that important difference between its story and that of the Pu•anas, that the fish is not a personification of VishnIn, but of Brahman, and that the deluge occurs in the present mundane age, under the reign itself of the Menu, who is the son of Vivasvat.—The origin of this Avatara is probably a kindred legend, which occurs in the S'atapathabrahman'a, of the White Yajurveda (see YEDA): but there the fish does not represent any special deity, and the purpose of the legend itself is merely to account for the performanee.of certain sacrificial ceremonies.
2. The Karma- or tortoise-Avatcira.—When, of old, the gods felt their powers impaired. and were desirous of obtaining Amr'ita the beverage of immortality, "V directed them to churn, together with the demons, the milk-sea, by taking the mountain Mandara for their staff, and his serpent Veisliki for their cord, the gods to stand at the tail, and the demons at the head of the serpent; while he himself consented to support the mountain on his back, after having assumed the shape of a gigantic tortoise. The result of this churning of the sea of milk, was, besides the ultimate recovery of the Aineita, the appearance of a variety of miraculous things and beings; lint it also led to a violent contest between the gods and demons, in which the latter were defeated. See
idea of the lord of creation assuming the shape of a tortoise, and that of sacrificial liquids, especially clarified butter, becoming tortoise-shaped (Karma, the word for tortoise, meaning literally, " badly or slowly going"), occurs also in the but the legend on which the tortoise-Avatilra of ITiSlintu is based seems to belong entirely to the post-Vedic period of Hinduism.
3. The Vanilla- or boar-Arattira.—It is supposed to have taken place when, at the period of creation, the earth was immersed in water, and Vishn'u, in order to raise it up, assumed the form of a gigantic boar. In the earlier recension of the Ramayan'a and the it was Brahman, the creator of the universe, who transforrnsd nto a boar for reselling the earth from its imperiled position; and in the Black Yaiurveda, where this idea is first met with, it is likewise said that the lord of creation upheld the earth, assuming the form of a boar. At a later period, however, this Avathra is generally attributed to Vishn'u. Between both conceptions there is however, also this great difference, that in the former the transformation of the deity into a boar has apparently a purely cosmical character, whereas in the latter " it allegorically repre sents the extrication of the world from a deluge of iniquity, by the rites of religion." (Wilson's translation of the Vishn'u-Pardn'a, 2d ed., by F. Hall, vol. i. p. 59, note.) For the boar, as an incarnation of Vislin'u, is the type of the ritual of the Vedas. He is described as the sacrifice personified; his feet being the Vedas; his tusks, the sacri ficial post to which the victim is tied; his teeth, the sacrificial offerings; his mouth, the altar; his tongue, the fire; his hairs, the sacrificial grass; his eyes, day and night; his head, the place of Brahman; his mane, the hymns of the Vedas; his nostrils, all the oblations; his snout, the ladle of oblation; his voice, the chanting of the Siimaveda; his body, the hall of sacrifice; his joints, the different ceremonies; and his ears as having the properties of voluntary and obligatory rites vol. i, p. 63); and similar descriptions of the boar occur in the Harivan's'a (q.v.) and elsewhere; besides those relating to the immense size and wonderful appearance of the mysterious animal. In the 13hagasata-Pard n'a, another legend is also connected with this incarnation of Vislin'u, still more distinctly proving that at the Puribilc period, it was viewed in a purely religious light. According to this legend, Jaya and Vijaya, two doorkeepers of Vishn'u, once offended some Munis who claimed admission to the paradise of Vishu'u, and in consequence were doomed to lose their position in Vishn'u's heaven, and to be reborn on earth. They became thus the sons of Kits' yapa and Diti, under the names of Ifiran' yakas'ipu and Iliran'ycilcsha. The former subdued the three worlds, and the latter went straight to heaven, to conquer also the gods. Thus threatened in their existence, the gods implored the assistance of Vishn'u; and Vishn'u, who at that period was the mys terious or primitive boar, slew Hiran'yilksha. A similar contest between Vislin'u as boar and numerous demons, the progeny of Diti, always ending in the defeat of the latter, is also described in the iliolcshadharrua, one of the later portions of the Mahabha rata; and from this and similar descriptions, it follows that the boar-Avatilra had gradu ally lost its original character, and assumed that common to the remaining Avataras, of representing the deity as become incarnate, for the purpose of remedying moral or religious wrong, or of destroying influences hostile to the pretensions of the Brahmanic caste.