Matsya Purana - Outline

Outline

This Purana is the story of the Matsya Avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu, Manu who was the King of Dravidadesa, and the first Mahapralaya (Great Deluge). In the end, Manu and all those he saves are safe in a large ship that he builds, atop the high Malaya Mountains. A number of Hindu scholars have taken the progression of forms assumed by Vishnu in the narrative, from fish to turtle to boar to "half-man and half-lion", to dwarf human, to human with an axe, to princely human, to Krishna (bringer of scripture) to Buddha (the enlightened one) to Kalki (the future human yet to come), as an analogy for evolution.

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