Gods, avatars and forms
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…
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…
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 —…
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…
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…
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…
Guruvayurappan
Guruvayoorappan · Unnikrishnan
The four-armed Vishnu-Krishna of Guruvayur, whose image temple lore traces from Vishnu's own hands in Vaikuntha through…
Nilamadhava
Nila Madhava
The blue-stone image of Vishnu that tradition says the Sabara chief Viswavasu worshipped in secret in the forest before…
Hayagriva
The horse-headed form of Vishnu who, in the Mahabharata's Shanti Parva and the Bhagavata line, kills Madhu and Kaitabha…