Vishnu Ji

Vishnu is the "Preserver" of the Trimurti, alongside Brahma the creator and Shiva the destroyer: the deity who sustains cosmic order (dharma) and, when that order slips too far, descends to earth in one form or another to set it right again.

Narayana ("resting on the waters") describes his cosmic sleep on the serpent Shesha between cycles of creation. Hari means roughly "one who takes away," referring to sin and suffering rather than possessions. Govinda, Madhava, and Keshava are epithets tied specifically to his Krishna avatar. Vishnu himself is often glossed as "the all-pervading one." Devotional literature also gives him a thousand names (the Vishnu Sahasranama), of which these are the load-bearing few.

Usually shown with four arms (sometimes two), each holding a symbol: a conch (the primordial sound of creation), a discus (cosmic order and time, and his weapon of choice), a mace (authority), and a lotus (purity). His mount is Garuda, a giant eagle. He's often pictured reclining on the serpent Shesha, afloat on the cosmic ocean in his heaven, Vaikuntha, or standing in royal dress flanked by his consorts Lakshmi (Shri) and Bhudevi (the Earth).

The central idea here is the Dashavatara, his ten principal descents, each arriving "whenever dharma declines": Matsya the fish saves the first man, Manu, from a great flood; Kurma the tortoise supports a mountain during the churning of the cosmic ocean; Varaha the boar rescues the earth from a demon; Narasimha, half man and half lion, kills a tyrant who thought himself un-killable by exploiting the exact wording of that tyrant's boon; Vamana the dwarf reclaims the three worlds from an overreaching king in three strides; then come Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, and, in most lists, the Buddha (some South Indian traditions swap in Balarama instead), with Kalki still to come, an apocalyptic figure meant to close the current age. A well-known line from the Bhagavad Gita, spoken by Krishna as Vishnu, sums up the doctrine behind all of this: whenever righteousness fades, he sends himself forth to restore it. The churning of the cosmic ocean itself, Vishnu appearing twice over, first as Kurma the tortoise and later as the enchantress Mohini, secures the nectar of immortality for the gods.

His consorts are Lakshmi, goddess of fortune, and Bhudevi, the earth itself. His avatars carry their own separate family lines, Rama's household, Krishna's household, rather than Vishnu in his base form having children of his own.

Vaishnavas turn to him for the restoration of moral order, protection from evil, and personal refuge on the path to liberation. In practice, his Rama and Krishna avatars draw by far the most devotion of any of his forms.

Vaishnavism itself splits into several major traditions that don't fully agree on the details: Sri Vaishnavism (South Indian, associated with the philosopher Ramanuja) treats Lakshmi as an essential mediator between devotee and god; the Madhva tradition holds a stricter dualism between soul and god; Vallabha's Pushti Marg, from western India, centres on grace given freely rather than earned; and Gaudiya Vaishnavism, from Bengal and the teacher Chaitanya, is built almost entirely around Krishna rather than Vishnu's other forms. Even the core Dashavatara list isn't fixed everywhere and whether the Buddha belongs on it at all varies by sect and region.