Vishnu-Puran
Vishnu-Puran — 16 chapters, 160 questions. From several texts.
This gatha stands on the spine of the Vishnu Purana, but not on it alone. The list of ten avatars is found in the Vishnu Purana, the Bhagavata Purana, the Garuda Purana and the Matsya Purana — and those lists do not fully agree. Stories like Dhruva, Bharata and Yayati are the Vishnu Purana's own; Bhagiratha's story is also in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Krishna avatar gets only one chapter here, because his full story is told separately in Krishna-Leela. Every chapter says which text its episode comes from, and where the texts collide.
- Matsya — A fish so small came into a king's cupped hands that he could barely see it
- Kurma — Devas and asuras stood at opposite ends of one rope, and beneath them the mountain was sinking
- Varaha — The earth had been dragged down into the water, and the one who went looking was the size of a thumb
- Narasimha — There was no hole in the boon — which is exactly why the whole thing was one
- Vamana — The one who asked was the smallest there, and he asked for the smallest thing
- Parashurama — His father said kill your mother, and the son picked up the axe
- Rama — The avatar who, through his whole story, never knew he was one
- Krishna — This avatar knew who he was — and that is the whole difference
- Buddha — This chapter is about a claim, and about who is making it — keeping the two apart
- Kalki — The only avatar with no story at all — only a description
- Dhruva — A child was lifted off a lap, and walked from there until he came to rest in the sky
- Bhagiratha — Sixty thousand men were already ash, and saving them meant bringing a river down out of the sky
- Pururavas and Urvashi — There were three conditions for living together — one night, two of them broke, and that was enough
- Jada Bharata — A king gave everything up, and in the end was defeated by a fawn
- Yayati — He asked his son for his youth, and came back a thousand years later to return it
- The Kali Yuga — This chapter is not of a story but of a time — and the time sounds familiar