Varaha

The Boar Avatar

Domain: Rescue, Earth & Strength
Alignment: Lawful Good
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: Lifting Tusks

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5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Hindu peoples

Region

Indian subcontinent

Period

c. 1500 BC – present

The Hindu deities have been worshipped for over three thousand years across the Indian subcontinent, from the Vedic hymns to the living Hinduism of today. Billions of devotees dedicate to them temples, festivals such as Diwali and Holi, and daily rituals in the home. It is one of the largest religious traditions still practiced in the world.

Diwali lights up India with oil lamps in honor of Lakshmi, and Holi celebrates spring with clouds of colored powder. At the Kumbh Mela, the largest pilgrimage on Earth, tens of millions bathe in the sacred rivers, and daily puja brings flowers, incense, and food to the altars.

At a glance

Varaha is the third primary avatar of Lord Vishnu in classical Hindu tradition and Dashavatara theology. Appearing as a divine cosmic boar—represented either in purely animal form or as the hybrid anthropomorphic Nrivaraha—he descended into the primordial cosmic waters to rescue the personified earth goddess Bhudevi from the mud abyss, slaying the demon Hiranyaksha in single combat and reestablishing terrestrial equilibrium.

4 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The boar, the tusks, the raised Earth and the ocean

Family

Varaha

Unions

Bhudevi

Children

Narakasura

Genealogy according to Taittiriya Samhita 7.1.5; Shatapatha Brahmana 14.1.2.11; Bhagavata Purana 3.13-19; Vishnu Purana 1.4

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, Taittiriya Samhita. translation: Arthur Berriedale Keith, Harvard Oriental Series, vols. 18-19, Cambridge, Mass., 1914. read
Anonymous, Shatapatha Brahmana (Kanda 14). translation: Julius Eggeling, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 44, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900. read
Anonymous, Bhagavata Purana (Canto 3). translation: G. V. Tagare, Ancient Indian Tradition & Mythology, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1976. read
Anonymous, Vishnu Purana (Book 1, Chapter 4). translation: Horace Hayman Wilson, London: John Murray, 1840. read

Studies

Stella Kramrisch, The Art of India: Traditions of Indian Sculpture, Painting and Architecture. Phaidon Press, London, 1954. open
Michael Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009. open
Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2006. open
Jan Gonda, Aspects of Early Viṣṇuism. N.V. A. Oosthoek's Uitgevers Mij, Utrecht, 1954. open

Name and epithets

The Sanskrit noun Varāha (वराह) translates literally as wild boar. In archaic Vedic texts such as the Taittiriya Samhita and the Shatapatha Brahmana, the primeval cosmogonic boar is designated as Emusha, celebrated as t…

In the ancient sources

Taittiriya Samhita, c. 10th–8th century BCE. Contains the oldest surviving textual attestation of the divine boar plunging into cosmic waters to retrieve and spread the earth. Shatapatha Brahmana, c.

The myths

The Emergence from Brahma's Nostril and Colossal Growth. According to the third canto of the Bhagavata Purana, when Brahma was meditating upon the sunken condition of the earth within the dark cosmic waters of Garbhodak…

Worship and archaeology

The worship of Varaha enjoyed immense royal and popular prestige in ancient and medieval India, functioning as the foremost emblem of political legitimacy for dynasties seeking to establish civic stability after periods…

How the god was depicted

Hindu sacred sculpture renders Varaha in two distinct modes: the anthropomorphic hybrid (Nrivaraha) and the monolithic zoomorphic form (Yajna-Varaha).

What scholars debate

Integration of Vedic Fire Ritual into the Body of Yajna-Varaha. Indologists such as Vasudeva S. Agrawala and Jan Gonda analyzed the Vishnu Purana passage mapping Vedic sacrificial implements onto Varaha's anatomy: his f…

After antiquity

The monumental depictions of Varaha remain among the crowning achievements of classical Indian sculpture. The colossal rock-cut panel at Cave 5 of Udayagiri is widely cited in art history as the definitive masterpiece o…

Did you know?

At the Tirumala Temple complex, established protocol mandates that pilgrims worship at the Varaha shrine prior to entering the Venkateswara sanctum sanctorum.

Codex relic

Lifting Tusks. The tusks with which he lifted the Earth from the waters of the abyss, saving the world from submersion.

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