Vishnu
విష్ణువుविष्णुவிஷ்ணுವಿಷ್ಣು
The deity of the Vaishnava traditions, worshipped in temples both in his own forms and as his avatars. Temples in this corpus record the specific form each one uses — Ranganatha reclining, Badrinarayan seated in meditation, and so on.
8 temples
The ASI protects the group as the 'Remains of Sixteen Temples': sixteen are believed to have stood here, and fourteen survive.
- Panch Badri
Answering the prayers of sages, Vishnu takes birth as Nar-Narayan and performs austerities at this place for the good of the world, to counter the demon Sahasrakavacha. Lakshmi becomes a badri, a plum tree, to shield…
- Char Dham
- 4 · Chota Char Dham
- Panch Badri
The temple committee records a belief about the end of the present age. When the Kali yuga reaches its height, the mountains called Jai and Vijay at Patmila, near Vishnuprayag, will collapse and Badrinath will become…
- Panch Badri
A man fighting a tiger recurs in the sculpture of the Hoysala temples. The man is Sala, who in the legend kills the tiger, and UNESCO's description of the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas treats this episode as…
In the account drawn from the temple's palm-leaf records, the sage Divakara Muni Vilwamangalam shelters an orphaned child who is in fact Vishnu. When the sage scolds him in anger, the child disappears into the…
Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangam
ஸ்ரீரங்கம் அரங்கநாதசுவாமி கோயில்
Ranganatha · Srirangam, Tamil Nadu
After Rama had defeated Ravana he gave an image of Vishnu to Vibhishana, Ravana's brother, who set out with it for Lanka. On the way he set it down on the bank of the Kaveri. When he tried to pick it up again he…
In the temple committee's account, Animath is the older seat of Badrinath's image: the idol was worshipped here before Badrinath became one of the four dhams. At the start of the Kali yuga Vishnu removed himself from…
- Panch Badri
Pandukeshwar is named after Pandu, father of the Pandavas. The temple committee's account places the region in an older geography called Panchaldesh, where Pandu married Kunti. A generation later, after ruling…
- Panch Badri