Harihara
हरिहर
Shiv and Vishnu in one figure
Harihara is a single figure combining Hari (Vishnu) and Hara (Shiv), usually carved split down the middle. It is a cross-deity form, so it sits beside Shiv's own forms rather than inside them.
How the figure is shown
Sculptures divide the body down the centre. The commonly described arrangement puts Shiv on the left with matted hair piled high, ash-pale skin and a trident, and Vishnu on the right with a tall crown, jewellery, a chakra and a conch. Descriptions of which half carries which attribute vary between sculptures, so treat any single description as typical rather than universal.
Origin stories
Two tellings are commonly given. In the Skanda Purana, devotees of Shiv and Vishnu quarrel over whose deity is supreme, and the two gods merge into one to end the dispute. A second telling has Vishnu appear as the enchantress Mohini; Shiv is besotted, and the two then fuse. The earliest textual mention is often said to be in the Harivamsha. This site has only the secondary sources behind these tellings, not the primary chapters, so they are given as tradition, not read from the text.
Where it appears
Harihara images are widely attested: early examples in the Badami cave temples in Karnataka (6th century), at Namakkal and the Dharmaraja Ratha in Tamil Nadu, in Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Nepal, and across Southeast Asia in Cambodia (Prasat Andet, Phnom Da) and Java. Many dates are approximate.
A Purana on this site that bears on the idea
The Vayaviya Samhita of the Shiva Purana repeatedly stresses that Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra are all forms of Shiv, and that none is permanently superior. That is the Shiv-centred reading; Harihara itself presents the two as equals.
Read the source chapters
Source note
Built from a secondary encyclopedic overview and cross-checked only loosely; no primary Harivamsha or Skanda Purana chapter was read for this page. It should be upgraded when those chapters are read directly.