The Narasimha avataar is the fourth dashaavataar of Lord Vishnu and is believed to be the most ferocious avataar from his ten avataars. Just like the Varaha avataar, even in this avataar, Lord Vishnu assumes a hybrid form of half man and half beast. In the Narasimha avataar, Lord Vishnu has the head of a lion and the body of a human.

The mythological story around Lord Vishnu’s Narasimha avataar starts with the birth of two demon sons- Hiranyakashya and Hiranyakashipu to Sage Kashyap and his wife Diti. These two sons were evil and destructive in nature and had been granted boons by Lord Brahma which made them very powerful. The power added to their arrogance, greed and evil.

Hiranyakashya aspired to rule all the three worlds: heaven, earth, and the underworld. He became the king of the underworld and then started his quest for ruling the other two worlds. It is said that initially he had asked Lord Brahma to grant him the boon of immortality, but when he was refused, he requested for a boon where he could not be killed by a man or a beast, either during the day or  night, nor inside or outside, and no weapon could kill him. This born was closest to becoming nearly invincible which was granted to him by Lord BRamaha.

After being granted the boon, Hiranyakashipu started forcing everyone to worship him as God and killed everyone who would not do so. He was not ready to even spare his son, Prahlad who was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Hiranyakashipu used to get very upset at Prahlad’s devotion and tried to kill him many times by getting poisonous snakes to bite him, throwing him off mountains etc, but no harm came to Prahlad who continued to pray to Lord Vishnu.

Hiranyakashipu’s tryranny also started increasing. Once when he asked Prahlad to show him where his favourite God was, Prahlad answered that Lord Vishnu was everywhere. This enraged Hiranyakashipu and asked him if the Lord was in the pillar in their room. Prahlad said yes and the enraged demon broke open the pillar with his mace. From the pillar emerged Lord Vishnu in his Narasimha avataar. This was a half-man, half-lion avataar. The time was during twilight which is neither day nor night. Narasimha placed Hiranyakashipu on his lap so that it was neither land nor air and he used his claws to kill the demon king.

This unique incarnation of Lord Vishnu shows how the divine force will always protect the devotees.