Garudapurana 3.15

The glorious Garuḍa Purāṇa — 15
Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / Then, to make incarnations, the great-souled lord Hari, named Puruṣa, entered into meditation. / He who is an ocean of all good qualities appeared; he alone is Viṣṇu, and he is the primal seed.

He who is the primal seed, Viṣṇu named Puruṣa, became the great-souled Vāsudeva / in order to perform the creation of Vāyu named Puruṣa in [the śakti] called Māyā, as he is the root form.

He who was Vāsudeva was born as Saṃkarṣaṇa, the embodiment of all noble qualities, / the supreme Self of complete consciousness, in order to perform the creation of Vāyu, the thread-soul, in [the śakti] called Jayā.

He whose name was Saṃkarṣaṇa was also famed under the name Pradyumna; / for the sake of creating Sarasvatī and Bhāratī, he became the root form of the goddess.

Having created the principle of Mahat in subtle form, endowed with sixteen parts, / the Lord sported together with Ahaṅkāra. Hear from me the sixteen parts:

the elements, the five organs of action, the organs of perception here, and the mind. / Thence appeared he named Aniruddha, having gathered the individual souls, endowed with fully complete power.

This lord created all the gods, beginning with Brahmā, with gross bodies. / Likewise that Viṣṇu, called Puruṣa, attained the state of Sanatkumāra, O best of birds,

in order to practice lifelong studenthood, impossible for anyone else to achieve, and always to dry up the ten senses. / The Kumāra enumerated first with Sanandana and the others is none other than he; there is no doubt in this matter.

That very Viṣṇu attained the form of a boar to lift up the earth, to slay the asura body / of Hiraṇyākṣa for the sake of the good, O King of Birds, and to establish the earth, being God.

Then Hari, being the great-souled one, attained the state of being Madvidāsa upon the wife of the sage, Yāminī; / in that incarnation, he, being independent, did not receive gifts, in order to teach the entire Pañcarātra.

That very Viṣṇu became [manifest] at Badarī under the name of Nārāyaṇa, destroying impurity, / in order to perform penance, to instruct the sages, and to humiliate a thousand apsarases.

Then Hari, having attained the state of Kapila, desiring to lift up the doubt regarding the twenty-four / principles obscured by the power of time, being the great-souled one, taught Āsuri.

That very lord of Ramā became Datta upon Anasūyā, the supreme Self in the form of Atri's [son]; / that great-souled one bestowed the science of good dialectics, named rational inquiry, upon the one named Alarka.

He also appeared in the lineage of the Sun, he who was the form of being, consciousness, and bliss, upon Ākūti; / and together with the gods, O King of Birds, he protected the Svāyambhuva manvantara.

That very Viṣṇu of wide strides was born to Nābhi upon Merudevī, the daughter of Āgnīdhra, / in order to show what is exceedingly wonderful to the proud who take delight in learning, O King of Birds, always.

Then Hari assumed the form of a tortoise as the gods and asuras churned the ocean, / in order to support Mount Mandara upon his back; or rather, the great-souled Lord was able to support the universe.

Then Hari, the great-souled one, appeared, Dhanvantari by name, having the radiance of an emerald, / holding a full pot of nectar in his hand, precisely to dispel disorders caused by improper diet.

Then Hari assumed a splendid female form, whom people in the world call Mohinī, / being the great-souled one, Hari, in order to thoroughly deceive the power of the unruly sons of Diti.

Then Hari appeared, the great-souled one, the Lord named Nṛsiṃha, infinite; / and the daitya Hiraṇyakaśipu was placed upon the region of his thighs and torn apart with claws.

Then Hari, the divine Lord, became Vāmana, the god of gods, born of Aditi through Kaśyapa, / wishing to grant this [world] to Indra, O King of Birds, and for that purpose to purify and protect it.

Then Hari became the son of Jamadagni; all in the world call him Rāma Jāmadagnya; / wishing to rid the earth of kṣatriyas, those who hate Brahmā, O King of Birds, he was the great lord.

Then that Viṣṇu, having the form of Vyāsa, was complete four times for the descendant of Raghu; / he was born from Parāśara upon Satyavatī in order to make divisions of the Veda along with Paila and the others.

Then Hari descended in the line of Raghu, born of Kausalyā, a descendant of Raghu in the Solar dynasty, / being the Lord capable of making war across the ocean and slaying Rāvaṇa and others on earth, O King of Birds.

Then Hari took the form of Vyāsa in the twenty-eighth Dvāpara, the embodiment of wisdom, / born from Parāśara upon Satyavatī, the god himself who divided the Vedas.

Then Hari took the form of Kṛṣṇa, that Viṣṇu born of Devakī through Vasudeva, / desiring utterly to slay Kaṃsa and others, and thoroughly to protect the Pāṇḍavas, O King of Birds.

Then, when the Kali [age] has commenced, Hari, in order to thoroughly delude the asuras, O King of Birds, / was born in the Kīkaṭa lands under the name of Buddha, precisely to reject the authority of the Vedas.

Then Hari, named Kalkin, O King of Birds, will be born at the junction between the two yugas, / to slay the earthly rulers who have become like thieves, Hari [born] in the house of Viṣṇugupta.

There are the twenty-four beginning with Keśava, Saṃkarṣaṇa and the others, / the thousand beginning with Viśva, and those beginning with Para are remembered as limitless.

Innumerable indeed are the incarnations of Viṣṇu, of Nārāyaṇa; / they are themselves Nārāyaṇa, not differing even by an atom,

neither in strength, nor in form, nor in attributes whatsoever; / infinite in infinite qualities, Viṣṇu is complete, not otherwise.

Thus in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa, in the uttarakhaṇḍa, in the third section, in the theological section, the fifteenth chapter, named 'The Exposition of the Incarnations of Viṣṇu.'