Amongst the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the Matsya, Kurma, Varaha and the Narasimha are cosmic in character, they are part animal, part human. The above row depicts the avatars Vishnu had assumed to save the world from devastating floods; to help churn the ocean for the divine elixir; to save the world from the demons Hiranyaksha & Hiranyakashipu respectively.
The lower half of this Kalamkari work shows historical personages who came to be endowed with divine attributes and later came to be regarded as incarnations of the deity himself. Some texts mention Buddha as the ninth incarnation but the artist here ignores that. Celestial beings with wings fill up the spaces in between the individual niches.
This description by Renu Rana.
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