Matsya, the first avatar of Vishnu, is shown as a hybrid image with his human torso rising up out of the mouth of the fish incarnation. He has four arms which originally held the attributes of Vishnu, of which only fragments now remain. A published drawing, Moor (1861), shows the figure holding a chakra in his upper right hand, which is also now missing two fingers, and a gada in the left upper hand of which only the bottom of the handle survives in his hand. Of the lower two hands his right one formerly held a conch with the left hand holding a lotus blossom in full flower with a curving stem, of which only a small portion now survives in his hand. The avatar has a Vaishnavite caste mark on his forehead and wears a headdress with a pointed cap embellished with a band which encircles the front and sides of his head decorated with rosettes and upstanding tufts of either peacock feathers or lotus buds, which are broken off on the right hand side. He wears a sacred thread across his body with jewellery consisting of two necklaces, rosette earrings, wrist bangles and an armband decorated with a rosette on his arm just below his right shoulder.The fish below has a scaly body which rests on a plinth with its tail curving back on the left hand side. The circular plinth has a moulded rim ornamented with lotus petals.