Matsya This article concerns the Hindu avatar . For the ancient kingdom , see Matsya Rajya . Incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish , from a devotional text . Matsya ( Fish in Sanskrit ) was the first Avatara of Vishnu . According to legend , the mantri to the king of pre-ancient Dravida , Satyavata who later becomes known as Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save it 's life . He put it in a jar , which it soon outgrew ; he successively moved it to a tank , a river and then the ocean . The fish then warned him that a deluge would occur in a week that would destroy all life . Manu therefore built a boat which the fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came , and thus he survived along with some `` seeds of life '' to re-establish life on earth . The Bhagavata Purana narrates the following tale about Vishnu 's Matsya incarnation ( avatar ) : - `` Long ago , when life first appeared on the earth , a terrible demon terrorized the earth . He prevented sages from performing their rituals and stole the Holy Vedas , taking refuge in a conch shell in the depths of the ocean . Brahma , the creator of the world approached Vishnu for help and the latter immediately assumed the form of a fish and plunged into the ocean . He killed the demon by ripping open his stomach and retrieved the Vedas . Four forms emerged from the demon 's stomach representing the four Vedas : Rig , Sam , Atharva , and Yajus . `` Matsya is generally represented as a four-armed figure with the upper torso of a man and the lower of a fish . See also Deluge Noah 's Ark References Matsya , the Fish Incarnation of Vishnu Weekly podcast on Hindu Mythology , including the story of Kurma Hinduism | Dashavatara of Vishnu Matsya | Kurma | Varaha | Narasimha | Vamana | Parashurama | Rama | Krishna | Balarama | Buddha | Kalki Hinduism | Hindu mythology | Itihasa Female Deities : Gayatri | Saraswati | Lakshmi | Dakshayani | Parvati | Durga | Shakti | Kali | Sita | Devi | Radha | Mahavidya | more ... Male Deities : Vishnu | Shiva | Rama | Krishna | Ganesha | Kartikeya | Hanuman | Lakshmana | Indra | Surya | more ... Texts : Vedas | Upanishads | Puranas | Ramayana | Mahabharata This box :   view • talk • edit Categories : Forms of Vishnu In other languages : Deutsch | Français | Italiano | 日本語 | Polski | Português | Svenska | தமிழ் 