Introduction
Matsya, "the fish", is the first of the ten major avatars of Vishnu. He is the form in which Vishnu saved the first man, Manu, and the seeds of life from a great deluge, and, in some accounts, rescued the Vedas from a demon.
Avatars (avataras, "descents") are the forms in which Vishnu is said to come to the world when dharma is in decline. The idea is stated in the Bhagavad Gita (4.7 to 4.8), where Krishna says that he takes birth in every age to protect the good, destroy the wicked and restore dharma. The most widely accepted list, the Dashavatara, has ten avatars: Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha (man-lion), Vamana (dwarf), Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki. Other lists exist, for example with Balarama in place of Buddha, and the Bhagavata Purana speaks of twenty-two avatars and says they are innumerable. The Dashavatara is the subject of many temples and works of art, from the rock-cut reliefs of Ellora (the Dashavatara cave) and Mahabalipuram, to Jayadeva's twelfth-century poem the Gita Govinda, which opens with a hymn to the ten avatars.
Family
- Incarnation of: Vishnu
Sources
The flood story is first told in the Shatapatha Brahmana (about the seventh century BCE or earlier), where a fish saves Manu but is not yet identified as Vishnu. The story is told in the Mahabharata (Vana Parva), the Matsya Purana (which is named after him), and the Bhagavata Purana (Book 8), where the fish is Vishnu.
The story
Manu, the king (in the Bhagavata Purana, Satyavrata, the king of Dravida) was washing his hands in a river when a tiny fish asked him to save it from bigger fish. Manu put it in a jar, and it grew until he had to move it to a pond, a lake and finally the ocean. The fish told Manu that in seven days the world would be destroyed by a flood, and told him to build a boat, and to take with him the seven sages, herbs and seeds of every kind. When the flood came, the fish appeared with a great horn, and Manu tied the boat to it with the serpent Vasuki as a rope. The fish towed the boat safely through the waters, and taught Manu the Puranas.
The Vedas
In the Bhagavata Purana, Matsya also kills the demon Hayagriva (or Somaka in some versions), who had stolen the Vedas from Brahma while he slept, and restores them.
Iconography
Matsya is depicted as a fish or as a human torso with a fish tail, holding the conch, discus, mace and lotus, or as a human with a fish head.
Worship
Matsya Jayanti is celebrated on the third day of the bright half of Chaitra. The Vedanarayana Swamy Temple at Nagalapuram in Andhra Pradesh is well known for its Matsya form.
Comparative
Scholars have compared the story with other ancient flood myths, including the Mesopotamian story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the biblical story of Noah.
Meaning
The story is a myth of preservation. The first avatar shows the protection of life, knowledge (the Vedas) and the ordering of the world by Vishnu, in the most elementary form.