The Dashavatara refers to Vishnu's ten primary incarnations (avatars), the Hindu conservation god with Rigvedic origins. To restore cosmic order Vishnu is said to descend in the form of an avatar. The word Dashavatara derives from daśa, which means 'eight' and avatar , which is roughly equivalent to 'incarnation.'
MATSYA Avatar
In MATSYA Avatar in this universe, Lord Vishnu manifests himself as a fish. In Sata-yuga 's earliest yuga (era), a king named Manu had for thousands of years performed severe penance. One day while performing river-water ablutions, a small fish came into his hands and just as he was about to throw the fish back into the river, the fish asked the king to save his life. Heeding his request, the king placed the fish in a jar of water, but the fish began to grow and the jar wasn't large enough for it. Then the king threw it into the river, but it soon overflowed the river and then the king threw it into Ganges, then into the ocean.The king realized it was Vishnu himself and then the lord made an appearance and made a request to the king in particular. It predicted that in seven days the world would end with a massive flood and asked the king to create a huge boat and take the seven wise people, seeds of all plants, one animal of each sort and tell him that he will appear as a fish to propel the boat to Himavan for survival of the flood to the next yuga.True to his word, the Lord appeared after seven days and the king tied the boat to the fish using the royal serpent Vasuki and the fish took them all to Mt. Himavan and kept them there until the flood was over and in the new era the king began procreation for the new era.
KURMA Avatar
Lord Vishnu embodies himself as a Turtle in KURMA Avatar. It is an interesting story with both the gods (devtas) and asuras (demons) involved. In the ongoing saga of combat between gods and asuras, the gods abruptly lost all their power on one occasion because of a curse by the short-tempered sage Durvasa. The sage had once presented Indra, king of gods, with a garland of flowers, who carelessly delivered it to his elephant who trampled it.
For assistance the Devtas approached Vishnu. After introducing medicines to the ocean Vishnu told them to churn the ocean of milk. The churning stick he said could be used at Mt Mandara. He asked them to ask Asuras' help in lifting the mountain in exchange for offering the share of immortality nectar that would result from the churning. The ocean was churned by both the devatas and the asuras using the serpent Vasuki as rope. Playing a Machiavellian trick at the beginning, Indra, king of the gods, asked the asuras for vasuki's head end. But asuras suspecting foul play had taken the head end, only to be misled as Vasuki's poison gradually weakened them.But as the churning continued the mountain sinked and then Lord Vishnu took the form of the KURMA turtle and kept the mountain afloat. The asuras caught it until the bowl of amrita, the nectar of immortality, was out. Then Lord Vishnu took the form of an apsara, a beautiful maiden, and seduced the asuras to allow her to distribute the nectar as well as to comply with her distribution order. The maiden disappeared as soon as the devatas were served thus totally deceiving the asuras and rendering them totally weak.
VARAHA Avatar
In VARAHA Avatar, in this world Lord Vishnu embodies himself as a boar. A demon Hiranyaksha, praying for Lord Brahma, gave him a blessing that no beast, no man, no god could destroy him. But somehow the word boar was absent from the list of beasts. It was his lacunae that proved this. He then started a plundering campaign across the worlds. He moved the universe to the loka of Pataal, or the sea beneath.He stole the Vedas, the Lord Brahma's holy scriptures, when he was sleeping and perpetrated immense atrocities. To retrieve the Vedas and save the world, Lord Vishnu took on the role of a boar and, using his two tusks, brought the earth out of the bottom of the ocean. It then killed Hiranyaksha and retrieved the Vedas from the asura, bringing them back to Lord Brahma's safe custody.
NARASIMHA Avatar
In Avatar NARASIMHA Lord Vishnu embodies himself in this world as a semi-man, semi-lion. Hiranyakasyapa, the King of Demons (asuras), wanted to become immortal, and wanted to remain young forever. He meditated for Lord Brahma to this end, and the gods were scared because of his extreme penance, and asked Brahma to pacify the king. Brahma was pleased with his conservatism and expressed a wish for him. HiranyaKasyapa wanted him neither to be killed by a man or a beast, nor in daylight or at night, nor inside or outside a building. Having obtained the wish he considered himself the supreme God and frobbed anybody's worship of Gods.
But his son, Prahlada, was an ardent Vishnu devotee. This greatly enraged Hiranyakasyapa. He ordered numerous ways to kill Prahlada that included asking his sister Holika to sit in the fire with Prahlada. But Prahlada has escaped unhurt each time. Enraged, he once requested that Prahlad show him Lord Vishnu. "He's everywhere," Prahlad said. Hiranyakasyapa, further enraged, knocked down a pillar and asked if Lord was there. Then Lord Vishnu emerged as a half-lion, half-man from the pillar that was neither within the house nor outside, and the time was night, night or day. He killed then Hiranyakasyapa thereby saving his devotee Prahlada 's life.
VAMANA Avatar
Lord Vishnu incarnates himself in this world as a Dwarf priest in VAMANA Avatar. Prahlada's grandson Bali was a very valiant and powerful asura. He conquered the whole world by his penance and his might. Indra and other gods, fearing that he would conquer all three worlds with asuras, went to Lord Vishnu for help. Lord Vishnu was born then in a brahmana (priest's) household as a dwarf Vamana. On growing up, he went to Bali, and asked for alms. Bali was pleased to give him everything he asked for while his priest told him it was Lord Vishnu.
Vamana then asked for the amount of land which might come under his three feet. Bali agreed gracefully. Then Lord Vishnu grew in size, and in two steps covered the earth and the heaven. And due to lack of room, he himself put his third leg on Bali and crushed Bali to the nether or the Patala loka (underground world) thereby helping the gods out.
PARASHURAMA Avatar
In PARASHURAMA Avatar Lord Vishnu manifests himself in this universe as a brahmana (priest). He was brought into this world to venge all the kshatriyas who had become arrogant and suppressed the world's brahmines. He was born to Renuka and Jamadagni, and belonged to the Brighu clan. Parashurama also bore an ax from Lord Shiva, of whom he was an ardent devotee, given to him. Kartavirya, a powerful king, went to Jamadagni 's home once when he was out and stole the Kamadhenu cow after a meal, which was supposed to offer endless quantities of milk.
Jamadagni was furious, and he went and killed the king, and brought back Kamadhenu. The king's son came back on hearing this, and killed Jamadagni.
Parashurama was angry at this, and he went and avenged his father's death by killing all kshatriyas in 21 battles.
RAMA Avatar
In RAMA Avatar, Lord Vishnu is the central character in the epic Ramayan, incarnating himself as RAMA. In the epic, it is expected that the character RAMA will show the world the characteristics of an ideal person, including ideal son, ideal husband, ideal king and an ideal person. RAMA was incarnated on this earth with ten hands, Ravana, who Brahma had given a boon of protection from gods, and other celestial beings, to get rid of the Asura.Ravana was too vainglorious to think a man was victorious. Thus RAMA was born, and Lord Vishnu 's wife Lakshmi was born as Sita, his wife to be in this lifetime. Ramayan 's story is an exciting, nail-biting story of Rama's raged war against various evil world elements and ultimately against Ravana.
Ramayan epitomizes man's ideal behaviour, with a particular focus on the relationship between man and wife, the relationship between son and father and the rules for ideal governance by a king.
KRISHNA Avatar
Lord Vishnu embodies himself as KRISHNA, the central character in the epic MAHABHARATA, in KRISHNA Avatar. A myriad of topics are covered in the greatest epic of Indian mythology including war, love, brotherhood, politics etc. Essentially it is the story of two warring cousin brother groups, the PANDAVA and the KAURAVA. During the war KRISHNA, as part of the Mahabahrata, gives his disciple ARJUNA a long discourse, collectively called Bhagvad-Gita.
During his childhood Krishna was responsible for Kamsa 's murder. Also Krishna is regarded as an ultimate playboy who was responsible for charming all the gopikaas around him.
Unlike Ramayan, Mahabharata deals with issues such as politics, human nature, human weaknesses more down to earth and doesn't try to idealize the characters as in Ramayan.
BUDDHA Avatar
Lord Vishnu incarnates himself in BUDDHA Avatar as BUDDHA, the ascetic prince who has renounced the throne to lead the world on the path of peace. He is the founder of the internationally prominent BUDDHIST religion. He is considered a divine incarnation of Lord Vishnu in many sects of Hinduism. He was born into Suddhodana and Maya as the crown prince of the Kapilavastu. He was named Siddhartha, meaning the king "fulfilled everything." But soon after his birth his mother died but maya 's sister Prajapati brought up Siddhartha.
The Buddha was saddened by the death of living creatures from his childhood days and used to ask: "Alas! Do all living creatures kill each other?" He was not happy with any answers given to him and he decided to find out the meaning and the absolute truth and left his wife and child to a forest hermit 's life, and one day he became the enlightened. His preaching spawned the Buddhist religion now popular throughout the world.
KALKI Avatar
Lord Vishnu will embody himself in KALKI Avatar as KALKI, the machine-man, who will come riding his white horse and with his blazing sword in his hands. That is expected to be Lord Vishnu 's future avatar. He will punish all the evil doers in this world at the end of Kali Yuga (present eon), destroy this world and recreate a golden age again.
KALKI is the last of the avatars of Lord Vishnu.