Narasimha
நரசிம்மர் नरसिंह
Also Nrisimha, Ugra Narasimha, Lakshmi Narasimha, Yoga Narasimha.
Vaishnava
Who this is
Narasimha is the fourth avataram and the one that exists to defeat a technicality. Hiranyakasipu had arranged a boon with every loophole closed, and the god that answered it was neither man nor beast, came at neither day nor night, on neither inside nor outside, neither ground nor air, and used no weapon. He is the most immediately invoked of the avatarams in a crisis, because the lesson drawn is that no arrangement is airtight. He is also the avataram that frightened everybody after the killing, and much of his worship is about cooling him down.
How to recognise them
A lion head on a man’s body, seated on a threshold with the demon across his knees, claws in the belly, the entrails worn as a garland. In the Ugra form he is terrifying and alone; in the Lakshmi Narasimha form she sits on his lap and calms him; in the Yoga form he is seated in meditation with a band round his knees, which is how Ahobilam and the Tamil temples prefer him.
Family and companions
Vishnu. Lakshmi as Chenchulakshmi, a hill woman of the Chenchu people in the Andhra telling, which is unusual and is held by the Chenchus as their own kinship with the god. Prahlada, the devotee he came for, is a child and an asura, and his presence in the iconography is the point of it.
How they are worshipped
Narasimha Jayanti on the Vaishakha Shukla Chaturdashi; Swati nakshatra; Saturday.
Panakam, a cooling drink of jaggery, pepper and cardamom, is the characteristic offering, given because he is hot. Sandal paste is applied thickly at Simhachalam, where the image is covered in it all year and shown bare for twelve hours only. The Narasimha mantraraja is the mantra, said for protection, and the Narasimha Kavacham is worn or recited against fear.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The pillar at dusk
Hiranyakasipu had won a boon against death by man or beast, indoors or out, by day or night, on earth or in the air, by weapon. His son Prahlada would not stop saying the name of Vishnu, and survived poison, fire and a fall. At last the father struck a pillar in the hall and demanded to know if the god was in that too. Narasimha came out of it at dusk, in the doorway, set the king on his lap and opened him with his claws. The tradition reads the whole thing as an argument that terms and conditions do not bind what they were written against.
The cooling of him
After the killing nobody could approach him. Prahlada was sent and was unafraid, being a child and his devotee, and the anger subsided for him. The temples continue the work: Simhachalam keeps the image under sandal paste the whole year and uncovers it for one day, Ahobilam gives panakam, the Tamil shrines prefer the Yoga form with the knees bound, and Lakshmi is seated on the lap at most of them. More ritual effort goes into calming this avataram than any other, and the tradition is open that the fear is of the rescuer and not only of the demon.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Andhra and Telangana
- Ahobilam keeps nine shrines along the gorge where the killing is placed, Simhachalam the sandal covered image, and Yadadri the hill temple; the Chenchu people claim kinship through Chenchulakshmi.
- Tamil Nadu
- Sholingur and Singaperumal Koil keep the Yoga Narasimha, seated and calmed, and the Narasimha Kavacham is worn against fear.
- Karnataka
- The Madhwa tradition gives him great prominence, and Vijayanagara left the colossal monolith at Hampi.
- Odisha
- A Narasimha shrine stands within the Jagannath complex at Puri and has to be worshipped before the main deities during the temple rites.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Nava Narasimha Temples, Ahobilam Ahobilam, Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh
- Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, Simhachalam Simhachalam, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
- Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, Yadagirigutta Yadagirigutta, Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, Telangana
- Sholingur Yoga Narasimha Temple (Ghatikachalam) Sholinghur, Ranipet, Tamil Nadu
- Patalathri Narasimha Temple, Singaperumal Koil Singaperumal Koil, Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu
What is said
From the mantra library