According to legend, the king of pre-ancient Dravida, Satyavrata who later becomes known as Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save it. He put it in a jar, which it soon outgrew; he successively moved it to a tank, a river and then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a Great Flood would occur in a week that would destroy all life. Manu therefore built a boat which the fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth.

The Bhagavata Purana narrates the following tale about Vishnu's Matsya incarnation (avatar):

Long ago, when life first appeared on the earth, a terrible demon terrorized the earth. He prevented sages from performing their rituals and stole the Holy Vedas, taking refuge in a conch shell in the depths of the ocean. Brahma, the creator of the world approached Vishnu for help and the latter immediately assumed the form of a fish and plunged into the ocean. He killed the demon by ripping open his stomach and retrieved the Vedas. Four forms emerged from the demon's stomach representing the four Vedas: Rig, Sam, Atharva, and Yajur.

Matsya is generally represented as a four-armed figure with the upper torso of a man and the lower of a fish.

See also

• Deluge
• Noah's Ark

References

• Matsya, the Fish Incarnation of Vishnu

Former monarchies | Forms of Vishnu

Matsya | Matsya | マツヤ | Matsja | Matsya | Matsya | மச்ச அவதாரம்