The Vishnu Purana stands as one of the great narrative reservoirs through which the vision of Vishnu has entered Indian cultural life. By organizing myths of the cosmic Vishnu, the cycles of creation and dissolution, and especially the ten principal avatāras, it offers a framework that later Sanskrit and regional literatures repeatedly draw upon. Its devotional emphasis toward Vishnu and his incarnations nourishes the bhakti imagination, shaping later texts such as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and, through them, the poetry of various regional traditions. Ethical reflections on dharma and the ordered structure of society further inform didactic writings and philosophical discourse in Vaishnava schools, so that theology, cosmology, and devotion are held together in a single narrative vision.

In the visual arts, the Purana functions almost like an iconographic charter. Descriptions of Vishnu with four arms bearing conch, discus, mace, and lotus, attended by his consort and retinue, become standard motifs in sculpture and painting. The great narrative cycles of the avatāras—Matsya, Kūrma, Varāha, Narasiṃha, Vāmana, Paraśurāma, Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Buddha, and Kalki—are repeatedly carved on temple walls and painted in manuscripts and murals. Scenes such as the churning of the ocean, the rescue of the earth as Varāha, or Narasiṃha’s fierce manifestation are not merely illustrations but visual meditations on divine protection and the restoration of order. Images of Vishnu reclining on Śeṣa in the cosmic ocean, with Brahmā emerging from the lotus, give artistic form to the Purana’s vast cosmological imagination.

Temple architecture absorbs this vision into stone and space. The placement and form of Vishnu icons, the arrangement of sanctums and subsidiary shrines, and the narrative friezes that encircle many temples are all shaped by Purāṇic description and its later technical elaborations. Dashāvatāra panels, Vaikuṇṭha Vishnu images, and sculpted sequences of demon-slaying episodes create a sacred environment in which the devotee quite literally walks through the Purana’s world. References to holy places and sacred geographies reinforce pilgrimage networks and temple complexes centered on Vishnu and his avatāras, so that landscape itself becomes an extension of the text’s sacred map.

In the performing arts, the Vishnu Purana’s stories become living, moving theology. Classical dance forms such as Bharatanāṭyam, Kuchipuḍi, Odissi, and Kathak, as well as dramatic traditions like Kathakali, Yakṣagāna, and various rāma- and kṛṣṇa-līlās, repeatedly turn to its narratives for plot, characterization, and devotional mood. Episodes like Prahlāda’s unwavering devotion or the churning of the ocean are enacted not only for entertainment but as shared contemplative practice. Devotional music—bhajans, kīrtans, and nāmasaṅkīrtana—absorbs the Purana’s understanding of Vishnu as supreme sustainer, accessible through loving surrender, so that theology, art, and communal worship converge in a single stream of praise.