Matsya Purana is the sixteenth purana of the Hindu scriptures. During the period of mahapralaya

Pralaya

Pralaya, in Hindu cosmology, is an aeonic term which specifies different periods of time during which non activity situation persists, as per different formats or contexts...

, Lord Vishnu

Vishnu

Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....

 had taken Matsya

Matsya

Matsya was the first Avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism. The great flood finds mention in Hindu mythology texts like the Satapatha Brahmana, where in the Matsya Avatar takes place to save the pious and the first man, Manu and advices him to build a giant boat.-The Legend:According to the Matsya...

 Avatar

Avatar

In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....

 (fish incarnation) to save the seeds of all lives and Manu

Manu

-Geography:*Manú Province, a province of Peru, in the Madre de Dios Region*Manú National Park, Peru*Manú River, in southeastern Peru*Manu River, Tripura, which originates in India and flows into Bangladesh...

. Matsya Purana contains a comprehensive description of Manu and Matsya avatar.

Outline

This Purana is the story of the Matsya Avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu, Manu who was the King of Dravidadesa, and the first Mahapralaya (Great Deluge). In the end, Manu and all those he saves are safe in a large ship that he builds, atop the high Malaya Mountains

Malaya Mountains

The Malaya Mountains were a range of mountains that were mentioned in the Matsya Purana, the Kurma Purana, and the epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata...

. A number of Hindu scholars have taken the progression of forms assumed by Vishnu in the narrative, from fish to turtle to boar to "half-man, half-lion", to dwarf human, to human with an axe, to princely human, to Krishna (bringer of scripture) to Buddha (the enlightened one) to Kalki (the future human yet to come) as an analogy for evolution.