Dhanvantari Ji

Dhanvantari is venerated as the physician of the gods, an avatar of Vishnu, and the deity credited in the Puranas with promulgating the practice of Ayurveda, India's traditional system of medicine.

He carries no single distinguishing epithet beyond his own name, which Puranic tradition treats as inseparable from his role as divine healer, the source to whom Ayurveda itself is traced.

He is generally shown with four arms, holding a conch, a pot of amrita (the elixir of immortality), medicinal herbs, and sometimes a book representing Ayurvedic knowledge, an iconography built entirely around his identity as healer rather than warrior or creator.

According to the Bhagavata Purana, he emerged from the Ocean of Milk during the Samudra Manthana, the churning undertaken by devas and asuras with Mount Mandara and the serpent Vasuki, appearing with the pot of amrita in hand. Tradition also holds that he later incarnated on earth as a king of Kashi (present-day Varanasi), through whom Ayurvedic knowledge was transmitted to humankind.

Regarded as an avatar of Vishnu; his role positions him within the Vaishnava avatar tradition specifically as the divine source of healing knowledge rather than as a warrior or cosmic-order avatar.

Dhanvantari Trayodashi (Dhanteras), two days before Diwali, is celebrated in his honour and is widely observed as an auspicious day for health and new purchases; he remains the patron figure invoked at the start of Ayurvedic study and practice across India.

His worship is strongest in South India, particularly Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where Ayurveda is most actively practised and where dedicated Dhanvantari temples, such as the well-known Thottuva temple in Kerala, are found.