Dasavatara of Vishnu

Dashavatara (Sanskrit: दशावतार, daśāvatāra) refers to the ten avatars of Vishnu, the Hindu god of preservation. Vishnu is said to descend in form of an avatar to restore cosmic order.

The list of Dashavatara varies across sects and regions. The standard list is as follows: Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki. Sometimes, Krishna replaces Vishnu as the source of all avatars and Balarama takes Krishna's place in the list. In other versions, Krishna may be dropped from the list and substituted by regional deities like Vithoba, Jagannath or Balarama.

The order of the Dashavataras has been interpreted to be reflective of Darwinian evolution.

The word Dashavatara derives from daśa, meaning 'ten' and avatar (avatāra), meaning 'incarnation'.

God Vishnu incarnates on Earth from time to time to eradicate evil forces, to restore the dharma and to liberate the worthy ones or devotees from the cycle of births and deaths. Vishnu in his avatar as Krishna speaks in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4 Shloka 8: "To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of righteousness, I manifest myself, millennium after millennium".

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