As the guardian of the earth, the Hindu god Vishnu assumes a succession of heroic animals and semi-mortal saviors, called avatars, through which he intervenes in times of crisis or unrighteousness. In his fourth avatar, Vishnu manifested as Narasimha (man-lion) to save the pious Prahlada from his bigoted father, the Demon King Hiranyakashipu, to whom the god Brahma had given a boon making him invulnerable to man or beast, unable to be killed indoors or outdoors, and unconquerable in day or night. To subvert the boon, Vishnu ingeniously assumed a form that was half-man and half-lion (neither man nor beast), and he attacked while his foe was standing on a porch (neither indoors nor outdoors) during the twilight hour (neither day nor night).
Narasimha has a lion’s head with a long mane and flaring whiskers. His head is crowned by a lotus. Originally, he had a large nimbus that is now mainly missing. He wears a twisted necklace, armlets in the form of a makara (mythical aquatic creature), a long forest garland (vanamala) that hangs below his knees, and a dhoti with drapery folds between his legs. He has four arms that hold his symbolic attributes. In his upper left hand, he holds a conch. His upper right hand is now broken but may have originally held a myrobalan fruit or a lotus. His two lower hands rest on personified attributes. The discus is on his left and the mace is on his right. The mace is represented as a female because the Sanskrit word for mace (gada) is feminine in gender.
