Everyone and everything
Krishna
Vasudeva · Gopala · Govinda · Dwarkadhish
Born in Kamsa's prison at Mathura and carried across the Yamuna to Gokul; the cowherd of Braj, the king of Dwarka, the…
Rama
Ramachandra · Raghava
Prince of Ayodhya and hero of the Ramayana; born to Dasharatha and Kausalya on Chaitra shukla navami, exiled for…
Jagannath
Nila Madhava · Purushottama · Darubrahma
The wooden lord of Puri, worshipped with Balabhadra and Subhadra, whose bodies are carved anew from chosen neem trees…
Venkateswara
Srinivasa · Balaji · Venkatachalapati · Govinda
Vishnu as the lord of the Venkata hill, the temple tradition's answer to why the god left Vaikuntha: after Bhrigu's…
Bali
Mahabali · Bali Chakravarti
Grandson of Prahlada, the generous asura king who gave Vamana three paces despite Shukra's warning and offered his own…
Ranganatha
Sri Ranganathaswamy · Arangan · Periya Perumal
The reclining Vishnu of the Kaveri island, whose image faces south because it refused to move on from Srirangam when…
Vithoba
Vitthala · Panduranga · Pandharinath
The god who stands arms-akimbo on a brick at Pandharpur because the devotee Pundalik, busy serving his parents, tossed…
Hiranyakashipu
Asura king armed with a boon that no man or beast, weapon, day or night, indoors or outdoors, could kill him; father…
Narasimha
Nrisimha · the man-lion
The man-lion who bursts from a pillar to kill Hiranyakashipu in a way that slips past every clause of the king's boon…
Prahlada
Boy devotee of Vishnu taught by Narada in the womb, who survived every attempt of his father Hiranyakashipu to kill him…
Jaya and Vijaya
Jaya-Vijaya · dvarapalas of Vaikuntha
The two gatekeepers of Vaikuntha who barred the child-like Kumaras and were cursed to be born away from Vishnu; they…
Padmanabhaswamy
Ananta Padmanabha · Sree Padmanabha
The reclining Vishnu of Travancore, seen through three doors as face, body and feet. Two origin accounts: the Kerala…
Shrinathji
Nathji · Govardhannathji
The Pushtimarg's child Krishna lifting Govardhan, an image held to have emerged of itself from the hill near Mathura —…
Tulsi
Vrinda · Tulasi
Vrinda, wife of the asura Jalandhara, whose chastity shielded him until Vishnu deceived her in his form; she cursed…
Udupi Krishna
Udupi Sri Krishna · Kadagolu Krishna
The child Krishna with a churning rod, found by Madhvacharya inside a lump of gopichandana clay from a ship he had…
Vamana
Trivikrama · Vamanamoorthy
The dwarf brahmin who asks King Bali for three paces of land and then grows to cover heaven and earth in two strides…
Vrikasura
Vrika · Vrikasura son of Sakuni
The demon of Bhagavata 10.88. On Narada's advice he worships Shiva at Kedara with his own flesh, wins the boon that…
Balabhadra (of Puri)
Jagannath's elder brother in the Puri triad, worshipped as Balarama; his chariot Taladhwaja leads the Rath Yatra, and…
Bhagavata Purana
Srimad Bhagavatam
The central Vaishnava Purana; cantos cited here: 3.20 (navel lotus), 7.4–10 (Prahlada), 8.5–12 (churning, Lakshmi's…
Gajendra
The elephant king seized by a crocodile who, exhausted, raised a lotus and called on Vishnu; in his previous life the…
Guruvayur
Kerala temple town named for Guru (Brihaspati) and Vayu, who installed its Krishna image; the adjacent Mammiyoor temple…
Narayana (Anantashayana)
Anantashayana · Padmanabha · Garbhodakashayi Vishnu · Sheshashayi
Vishnu as the cosmic being who rests on the waters. Manusmriti derives the name from the waters (nara) that were his…
Padmavati
Alamelu Manga · Alarmelmangai
Daughter of Akasha Raja and an incarnation of Lakshmi, married to Srinivasa at Narayanavanam; her shrine is at…
Badrinarayan
Badri Vishal · Badrinath (deity)
The small black stone Vishnu of Badrinath, held to be self-manifested and, by tradition, recovered from the Tapt Kund…
Badrinath
Badrika Ashrama · Badarikashrama
Himalayan Char Dham shrine on the Alaknanda, with the Tapt Kund hot spring below it; documented history is clear only…
Bhadrachalam
Rama temple on the Godavari built in 1674 by the tax officer Ramadasu after a tribal woman found the images in an…
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
Gauranga · Nimai
Bengali saint (1486–1534) who taught the Hare Krishna mantra and congregational chanting, spent his last two decades at…
Ekadashi (Yogamaya)
The female power that rose from Vishnu while he slept and killed Murasura; he named her Ekadashi and blessed those who…
Guruvayurappan
Guruvayoorappan · Unnikrishnan
The four-armed Vishnu-Krishna of Guruvayur, whose image temple lore traces from Vishnu's own hands in Vaikuntha through…
Kanakadasa
Sixteenth-century Haridasa poet-saint of a herding caste, barred from the Udupi temple, for whom the Krishna image is…
Parashurama
The axe-bearing brahmin warrior who humbles the kshatriya kings; Kerala and Konkan tradition credit him with raising…
Puri
Purushottama Kshetra · Jagannath Puri
Seat of Jagannath, one of the four Char Dham; the present temple was founded by Anantavarman Chodaganga in the early…
Rath Yatra (Puri)
The chariot festival of Ashadha's bright half in which Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra ride to the Gundicha temple…
Sita
Rama's wife, found in a furrow and taken to Lanka by Ravana; returns with Rama to Ayodhya on the night the north keeps…
Subhadra (of Puri)
The sister in the Puri triad, riding the chariot Darpadalana between her brothers; her Nabakalebara tree is chosen by a…
Tirumala
Tirupati · Venkata hill · Seshachalam
The seven-hilled seat of Venkateswara above Tirupati; the temple's nine-day Brahmotsavam in October and the Vaikunta…
Vaikuntha
Vishnuloka · Parama Padam · Paramapadam
Vishnu's abode, whose name is read as the place without care or flaw. Ramanuja calls it the highest station; the…
Vaikuntha Ekadashi
Mukkoti Ekadashi · Swargavathil Ekadashi · Mokshada Ekadashi
The bright-fortnight eleventh day of solar Dhanu (mid-December to mid-January) when the gate of Vaikuntha is believed…
Balarama
Balabhadra · Baladeva
Krishna's elder brother, the plough-bearer, who takes the Buddha's place in the southern Sri Vaishnava and Smarta…
Dnyaneshwar
Jnaneshwar · Jnanadeva
The 13th-century Marathi saint whose verse commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the Dnyaneshwari, is the scripture of the…
Jambavati
Krishna's queen, daughter of the bear-king Jambavan, whose wish for a son like Pradyumna sent Krishna to Upamanyu's…
Kabisthalam
Kapisthalam
Divya Desam on the Kaveri held to be where Gajendra bathed and was freed; the Gajendra Varadha temple shows Vishnu on…
Kurma
The tortoise avatar whose shell holds up Mount Mandara while gods and demons churn the ocean of milk. Its own cycle…
Nilamadhava
Nila Madhava
The blue-stone image of Vishnu that tradition says the Sabara chief Viswavasu worshipped in secret in the forest before…
Padman
Serpent king and Vishnu devotee of the Sankarankovil sthala puranam, the other party in the quarrel that Gomathi's…
Purandara Dasa
Purandaradasa · Srinivasa Nayaka
A Haridasa composer of the late 15th and 16th centuries, initiated by Vyasatirtha at Hampi, who wrote Kannada keertanas…
Sankardev
Srimanta Sankardev
Assamese saint-poet (1449–1568 by tradition; some historians place the birth 1479–84) who founded Ekasarana Dharma —…
Sudarshana Chakra
Sudarshan · Chakraperumal · Chakrattalvar
Vishnu's spinning discus. The Ramayana credits Vishvakarma with making it; the Puranas add that it was shaped from the…
Tukaram
Sant Tukaram
A 17th-century Marathi poet-saint of Dehu whose abhangas to Vitthal and whose community kirtans shaped the Varkari…
Tulsi Vivah
The ceremonial wedding of the tulsi plant to Vishnu (as a shaligrama or an amla branch) between Prabodhini Ekadashi and…
Udupi
Madhvacharya's temple town on the Karnataka coast, where eight mathas rotate charge of the Krishna shrine every two…
Vyasatirtha
Vyasaraja
The Madhva scholar-saint of Vijayanagara who initiated Purandara Dasa and Kanakadasa and gave the Haridasa movement its…
Ahobilam
Nine-shrine Narasimha pilgrimage centre in the Nallamala hills, held to be where the man-lion tore open the pillar and…
Akasha Raja
The king of the Tirupati region who found Padmavati and gave her in marriage to Srinivasa, in the Venkatachala…
Alandi
Town on the Indrayani river where Dnyaneshwar took samadhi; the starting point of the Varkari palkhi procession to…
Andal
Kodhai · Goda Devi
The only woman among the twelve Alvars, whose Thiruppavai is sung every Margazhi; tradition says she merged into…
Annamacharya
Tallapaka Annamacharya · Annamayya
A 15th-century Telugu poet-composer, the earliest known writer of sankirtanas in the south, who addressed more than…
Ayodhya
Rama's birthplace on the Sarayu; pilgrims bathe in the river on Rama Navami, and the Ram Mandir enshrines the infant…
Bhadrachala Ramadasu
Kancharla Gopanna · Ramadasu
A 17th-century revenue official under the Golconda sultanate who built the Bhadrachalam Rama temple with state money…
Bhakta Ramadasu
Kancharla Gopanna
The Golconda revenue officer who built the Bhadrachalam temple in 1674 with state money and was jailed for it…
Brahmavaivarta Purana
Purana whose Ganesha birth has Vishnu promise to be born as Parvati's son, Shani's glance take the child's head and…
Buddha (as avatar)
The Buddha was drawn into the Vaishnava avatar list by about the 8th century, usually in the ninth place. Sri Vaishnava…
Dehu
Tukaram's home town on the Indrayani, from which his palkhi sets out each year on the Wari to Pandharpur.
Dhanvantari
The physician of the gods who rose from the churned ocean carrying the pot of nectar; the Bhagavata calls him a partial…
Dwarka
Krishna's royal city on the Gujarat coast; the Dwarkadhish temple, a Char Dham and the 98th Divya Desam, was destroyed…
Garuda
Garutman · Periya Thiruvadi
Vishnu's eagle mount, on whom he flies to rescue the elephant Gajendra. Every Vishnu temple places a Garuda shrine…
Govardhan
The hill Krishna lifted to shelter Braj; the Shrinathji image is held to have emerged from it and was first worshipped…
Hayagriva
The horse-headed form of Vishnu who, in the Mahabharata's Shanti Parva and the Bhagavata line, kills Madhu and Kaitabha…
Huhu (the crocodile)
The gandharva Huhu, cursed by the sage Devala into a crocodile, who seized Gajendra and was freed from his form when…
Indradyumna (of Avanti)
The king of Avanti in the Skanda Purana who sent his priest to find Nila Madhava and built the first temple of…
Kalki
The future avatar on a white horse who closes the Kali Yuga; the thinnest of the ten in the sources, with the Kalki…
Kamba Ramayanam
Ramavataram · Kamban's Ramayana
Kamban's 12th-century Tamil epic of Rama, in which Rama is divine from the start yet never claims to be Vishnu's…
Kirtan Ghosha
Sankardev's collection of Krishna songs in the Brajavali literary language, arranged in 26 sections, sung in the…
Kumbakonam Brahma Temple (Vedanarayana Perumal)
A Vishnu temple popularly called the Brahma temple: Vedanarayana Perumal with Vedavalli in the sanctum, Brahma flanked…
Madhvacharya
Thirteenth-century founder of Dvaita Vedanta who established the Udupi Krishna shrine and its eight mathas after…
Mathura
Krishna's birthplace, where the Janmasthan complex marks Kamsa's prison; a Gupta-era temple stood here around 400 CE…
Matsya
The fish avatar who warns Manu of the deluge and tows his boat to safety; rooted in the Shatapatha Brahmana flood story…
Murasura
Mura
The demon of the Padma Purana slain with the help of the power Vishnu named Ekadashi, the legend behind Vaikuntha…
Naalayira Divya Prabandham
Tamil Veda · Divya Prabandham
The four thousand Tamil verses of the Alvars, compiled by Nathamuni; 247 of them praise Srirangam, more than any other…
Nara and Narayana
The twin sages of the Vishnu Purana who chose the Badrinath site for their austerities; Narayana is read as Vishnu…
Narakasura
The demon of Pragjyotisha killed by Krishna (with Satyabhama) on the day South and West India keep as Naraka…
Nathdwara
The Pushtimarg town in Mewar that grew where Shrinathji's cart sank into the mud in 1672 under Maharana Raj Singh.
Padma Purana
A large Vaishnava Purana cited here for the Vrinda-Tulsi story, the Murasura legend behind Vaikuntha Ekadashi and one…
Pandharpur
Vithoba's town on the Bhima river, goal of the Varkari pilgrimage; worship attested by 1189, the present shrine most…
Pokala Dhammakka
Dammakka
A tribal woman of the Bhadragiri hills who, in the local telling, was led by a dream to find self-formed images of…
Pundalik
The devoted son who, busy serving his parents when Krishna called, threw a brick out for the god to stand on; the…
Shesha
Adishesha · Ananta · Adisesha
The many-hooded cosmic serpent on whom Vishnu-Narayana reclines in the ocean of milk; read as time itself, and as the…
Simhachalam
Hill temple of Varaha-Narasimha, a Prahlada pilgrimage centre where the image is kept under sandal paste all year.
Srirangam
Island in the Kaveri holding the Ranganathaswamy temple — 63 hectares, 81 shrines, the largest functioning temple…
The Alvars
Azhwars · Naalayira Divya Prabandham
Twelve Tamil poet-saints — Poigai, Bhutha, Pey, Tirumalisai, Nammalvar, Madhurakavi, Kulasekhara, Periyalvar, Andal…
The four Kumaras
Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, Sanatkumara
Brahma's mind-born sons who refuse to procreate; in the Bhagavata their refusal provokes the anger from which Rudra is…
Thiruvananthapuram
Trivandrum · Ananthapuri
Capital of Travancore and of Kerala, named for Ananta, the serpent of the reclining Padmanabhaswamy; the Ananthankadu…
Thrikkakara
The Vamanamoorthy temple near Kochi, the focal shrine of Onam, where the festival flag is raised on Atham day and the…
Thuluka Nachiyar
Bibi Nachiyar
The Delhi Sultan's daughter who, in Srirangam tradition, loved the processional icon carried off in the 1311 raid and…
Uddhava
Krishna's friend and disciple who retrieved the Guruvayur image as Dwarka sank and handed it to Brihaspati and Vayu.
Vakula Devi
The foster mother of Srinivasa on the Venkata hill, held to be Yashoda reborn so that she could see Krishna married.
Vallabhacharya
Founder of the Pushtimarg who, by tradition in 1493, recognised the Shrinathji image at Govardhan; his son…
Varaha
The boar avatar who lifts the earth goddess Bhumi from the cosmic waters and slays Hiranyaksha, the first hostile birth…
Vibhishana
Ravana's brother who sided with Rama and became king of Lanka; Rama gave him the Ranga Vimana, which he could not carry…
Vilwamangalam Swamiyar
Divakara Muni
The Kerala ascetic to whom Vishnu appeared as a boy and then as a falling tree that became the reclining Ananta…
Vishvaksena
Vishnu's gatekeeper and commander. In the Shaiva Bhikshatana cycle he bars the skull-bearing Shiva from Vaikuntha, is…
Vrindavan
Braj · Vraja
The forest town of Krishna's childhood — the Rasa lila, Kaliya's pool, Govardhan nearby; Chaitanya's 1515 visit sought…
Yadagirigutta
Hill shrine of Narasimha in Telangana, the third of the Narasimha–Prahlada centres named with Ahobilam and Simhachalam.
Dharmavarma
The Chola king of the Kaveri island who had long prayed for the Ranga Vimana and kept it at Srirangam on condition the…
Ikshvaku
Founder of the solar dynasty of Ayodhya who, in the Sriranga Mahatmyam, brought the Ranga Vimana from Satyaloka to…
Sutapas
The king who with his wife Prishni received the Guruvayur image from Brahma after long austerities, in the Narada…
Vidyapati
Indradyumna's brahmin envoy who married the Sabara chief's daughter Lalita and scattered mustard seeds to mark the…
Vishnu Purana
Six books, about 7,000 surviving verses, a dialogue of Parashara and Maitreya, dated anywhere from 400 BCE to 900 CE…