Vishnu
Vishnu is the preserver — Narayan, who holds creation together and takes birth in it whenever dharma weakens. Ram and Krishna are his avatars, and the ten avatars are told as the story of that one promise kept again and again. Thursday is his weekday and Ekadashi his tithi — twice each lunar month, twenty-four times a year. Tulsi is dearer to him than any flower, and a bhog without a tulsi leaf on it is held to be incomplete. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, the twelve-syllable mantra, is the core of his upasana.