24 Vishnu Avatara

This list comes from the Bhagavata Purana, Canto 1, Chapter 3 — conventionally titled "the Twenty-Four Incarnations," though independently verified sources consistently enumerate 22 individually named avatars in that chapter, not 24. The likely reconciliation (not universally confirmed) is that some counts include Vishnu’s cosmic purusha-forms described earlier in the same chapter alongside the 22 named pastime-avatars. The text itself (via Srila Prabhupada’s commentary) states this list is illustrative, not exhaustive — avatars are traditionally held to be innumerable. Several early sage-avatars have no standardized short mantra in circulation and are shown without one.