49 Fun Facts About Vishnu

Within the Hindu Trimurti, Vishnu is known by which title?

The Preserver: Brahma creates and Shiva destroys, while Vishnu's task is to step in whenever evil gains the upper hand and restore the balance.

Shaligrams, the spiral-marked black stones worshipped as natural forms of Vishnu, are the fossils of which sea creatures?

Ammonites: these squid relatives lived in the long-vanished Tethys sea, and Nepal's Kali Gandaki river now washes their coiled shells out of Himalayan rock.

Vishnu's skin is traditionally shown in which colour?

Dark blue: the old texts liken his colour to a rain-heavy cloud, and the name Ghanashyam means 'dark as a cloud'.

What is the name of Vishnu's conch, blown as the Bhagavad Gita opens?

Panchajanya: the name comes from Panchajana, a demon said to have lived inside the shell until Vishnu killed him and kept his home as a war trumpet.

The Sudarshana Chakra held by Vishnu is what kind of weapon?

A spinning discus: in one telling the gods' craftsman shaved off some of the Sun's unbearable glare and forged this weapon, and Shiva's trident, from the filings.

Kaumodaki, one of the four objects Vishnu holds in his hands, is what?

A mace: some sculptors show it as a woman, Gadadevi, standing at Vishnu's side with his hand resting on her head.

Which flower does Vishnu hold in one of his four hands?

Lotus: it opens spotless above the muddy water it grows from, which made it India's emblem of purity and of a soul rising free of the world.

Which gem from the churning of the ocean does Vishnu wear on his chest?

Kaustubha: it floated up with the other treasures as gods and demons churned for the nectar of immortality, and in one reading it stands for every living soul, carried on Vishnu's chest.

Vishnu is traditionally shown reclining on the coils of which serpent?

Shesha: the name means 'what remains', because he alone is left, unchanged, each time the universe dissolves at the end of an age.

Vishnu's serpent is believed to have incarnated on Earth as Lakshmana and as which brother of Krishna?

Balarama: legend says he was conceived by Krishna's imprisoned mother, then moved as an embryo into another wife's womb to save him from a murderous king.

What is the name of Vishnu's mount, the king of birds?

Garuda: in his best-known tale he raids heaven for the gods' nectar of immortality, the ransom demanded to free his mother from the mother of all snakes.

Vishnu's bird mount is the national emblem of Thailand and of which Muslim-majority country?

Indonesia: the Hindu eagle stayed on as a legacy of the islands' old Hindu kingdoms, and the country named its national airline after him too.

Who is Vishnu's consort, the goddess of wealth and fortune?

Lakshmi: on Diwali night families set rows of oil lamps in their windows and doorways to help her find her way into their homes.

In one popular image type, Vishnu's consort is shown flanked by two of which animal?

Elephants: the pair bathe her with water poured from their trunks, an image of royal good fortune that ancient Indian rulers stamped on their seals.

What is the name of Vishnu's heavenly abode?

Vaikuntha: devotees hope to arrive there after death, since souls who reach it are said to stay for good, free at last from the cycle of rebirth.

Which gatekeepers of Vishnu's heavenly abode were cursed to be reborn as his enemies?

Jaya and Vijaya: they turned a group of sages away from the gate, and the curse that followed cast them as the demon kings Vishnu's avatars came down to kill.

Which god has the most hymns in the Rigveda, where Vishnu is a minor figure?

Indra: about a quarter of the hymns go to the thunderbolt-wielding king of the gods, yet it was the minor Vishnu who later rose to be one of Hinduism's supreme deities.

The Vishnu Sahasranama, recited in the Mahabharata's Anushasana Parva, lists how many names of Vishnu?

1,000: in the epic they are recited by a dying warrior lying on a bed of arrows, as his answer to a king who asks which prayer can free a person from rebirth.

During Chaturmas, the four monsoon months when Hindu weddings are traditionally put on hold, Vishnu is believed to be doing what?

Sleeping: he is said to slumber through the rains, and the autumn day he wakes opens the Hindu wedding season.

Matsya, usually counted as the first avatar, took what form to rescue Manu from the great flood?

A fish: the tiny creature Manu rescued outgrew every vessel he put it in until only the sea could hold it, then came back to bring his boat safely through the flood.

In later versions of the legend, Matsya slays which demon for stealing the Vedas?

Hayagriva: confusingly, the same name also belongs to a horse-headed form of Vishnu who, in other tellings, wins the stolen Vedas back himself.

As Kurma the tortoise, Vishnu bore the weight of which mountain during the churning of the ocean?

Mandara: gods and demons spun the mountain as a giant churning rod, with a serpent for a rope, and the tortoise's shell was the base that held it up.

How did Varaha, the boar avatar, carry the earth out of the cosmic ocean?

Between his tusks: temple sculptors love the moment, carving the rescued earth as a small goddess clinging to the tusk of a towering boar-headed figure.

Narasimha, the man-lion avatar, killed which demon king, whose own young son was a devotee of Vishnu?

Hiranyakashipu: his sister Holika tried to burn the boy on a pyre and died in the flames herself, the story behind the bonfires lit on the eve of Holi.

To get around the demon's boon, Narasimha killed him at twilight, on his lap, using his claws, and where?

On a palace threshold: the boon ruled out death indoors or outdoors, and a doorway is neither, just as dusk is neither day nor night and claws are no weapon.

The dwarf avatar Vamana asked the king Bali for how much land?

Three paces: a bargain, the king thought, until the dwarf's strides spanned earth and sky; in one telling the third lands on the king's own bowed head.

King Bali was the grandson of which child devotee, saved from his father by the man-lion avatar?

Prahlada: the grandson's tale ends kindly too, since in one telling he may visit his old kingdom once a year, a homecoming celebrated as the harvest festival Onam.

The sixth avatar, Parashurama, is named for which weapon that he carries?

An axe: parashu is Sanskrit for a battle-axe, so his name means 'Rama with the axe', and legend has him turn it on the warrior kings to avenge his father's murder.

In legend, what happened when the warrior avatar Parashurama hurled his weapon out over the Arabian Sea?

The sea drew back: the water is said to have retreated as far as the weapon flew, and the strip of India's south-west coast it gave up is nicknamed Parashurama's land.

In the Mahabharata, Parashurama was the guru of Drona, Karna and which grand old warrior?

Bhishma: teacher and pupil later met in battle over a wronged princess, a duel that raged for days until gods and ancestors begged both men to stop.

Which two avatars of Vishnu are the most widely worshipped, with temples across India and beyond?

Rama and Krishna: devotion runs so deep that some traditions turn the ranking around, worshipping Krishna as the supreme god from whom Vishnu himself comes.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna reveals his universal form, the Vishvarupa, to which warrior?

Arjuna: he needs a gift of divine sight even to look, and the vision so terrifies him that he begs Krishna to go back to a gentler, familiar form.

In the Vaishnava Puranas, which religious founder is treated as the ninth avatar of Vishnu?

The Buddha: in these texts he comes to lure the demons away from the Vedas with false teaching, leaving them weak enough for the gods to defeat.

Which is the only avatar of the Dashavatara that has not yet appeared?

Kalki: he is due at the end of the present dark age, the Kali Yuga, to sweep away a corrupt world and start the cycle of ages again.

Which is the only female avatar of Vishnu?

Mohini: she so dazzled the demons that they handed her the nectar of immortality to share out, and she poured it for the gods instead.

Which staple food is off the menu in even the mildest form of Ekadashi, the twice-monthly fast kept for Vishnu?

Rice: grains and beans are ruled out while milk and fruit are often allowed, in a fast meant to trim the body's demands and free the day for prayer.

Which English word comes from the towering chariots hauled through Puri each year for a form of Vishnu?

Juggernaut: the word is an English mangling of Jagannath, 'lord of the world', and spread with travellers' lurid, doubtful tales of pilgrims crushed under the wheels.

The Ratha Yatra chariot festival fills Puri, on the Bay of Bengal in which Indian state?

Odisha: the three towering wooden chariots are built afresh for every festival, then hauled through the town by crowds of devotees.

Many pilgrims to Vishnu's hilltop temple at Tirumala give up what as an offering, which the temple later sells abroad?

Their hair: men, women and children alike have their heads shaved by the temple's barbers, and the hair is sold on to the world's wig and extension makers.

Tirumala's hill temple, above Tirupati, stands in which Telugu-speaking Indian state?

Andhra Pradesh: the temple's sweet laddu, given to pilgrims as a blessing, is protected by law much as Darjeeling tea is, so nobody else may sell a sweet under its name.

In 2011, vaults beneath Vishnu's Padmanabhaswamy Temple gave up gold and jewels worth billions in which south-west Indian city?

Thiruvananthapuram: in 1750 the king of Travancore signed his whole kingdom over to the temple's Vishnu, and he and his heirs ruled on as the god's servants.

Which sacred river is said to spring from Vishnu's foot?

Ganges: in one telling his big toe tore a hole in the shell of the universe and the heavenly river poured through, hence its old name Vishnupadi, 'from Vishnu's foot'.

Angkor Wat, built as a temple to Vishnu, appears on the national flag of which country?

Cambodia: unlike its east-facing neighbours the temple faces west, towards the land of the dead, which is why many scholars think its king built it as his own tomb.

Vishnu was born a mortal prince of Ayodhya in order to kill which ten-headed demon king?

Ravana: a boon had made him proof against gods and demons alike but not against humans, so Vishnu had to come as a man to bring him down.

Theravada Buddhists in which country revere Vishnu as a guardian god of their land and faith?

Sri Lanka: in the island's ancient chronicle the dying Buddha asks the king of the gods to protect it, and he passes the task to a god long identified with Vishnu.

The sacred plant Tulasi, or holy basil, is identified with which pious devotee of Vishnu?

Vrinda: the bond is still marked every autumn, when Hindu households hold a full wedding ceremony between a basil plant and an image of the god.

The order of Vishnu's ten avatars has been read by some writers as an early hint of which scientific theory?

Evolution: read in order, the avatars climb from water creatures to a land animal, then a half-beast, a dwarf and finally full-grown men, a ladder some have set beside Darwin's.

In legend, Vishnu swoops down to save which elephant king from the jaws of a crocodile?

Gajendra: he had been a devout human king in a former life, cursed by a sage to be reborn as an elephant, and the rescue freed him from rebirth altogether.

Which Tamil poet-saints, their name traditionally read as 'those immersed in God', travelled singing Vishnu's praises?

The Alvars: they sang in everyday Tamil rather than Sanskrit, and their 4,000 verses, later gathered by the teacher Nathamuni, are still chanted in temples as a Tamil Veda.