In her book, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard", J. K. Rowling includes a story, "The Tale of Three Brothers." In that Death offers the brothers boons of their choice. The first two make unwise choices, but the youngest in effect wisely asks the boon of dying at his choice. (The end comments, purportedly by Prof. Dumbledore point out that everyone has to die eventually.) Even in Hindu semantics, "Mruthyunjaya" means one who is not afraid of death, but can die at his choice but cannot be immortal. Rowling states that her story is inspired by "The Pardoner's Tale" in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", where all three brothers die almost together.
In Katha Upanishad, due to hasty remarks by his father, Vajasrabasa, his son Nachiketa, meets the (God of) Death & asks for the secret of Immortality. Death tries to put him off but finding Nachiketa stubborn, teaches him that true immortality is the soul's union with the Divine.
So, to put it in medical terms, Rowling proposes a palliative solution, whereas Katha Upanishad provides a prophylactic solution.
The artists who illustrated famous books became in many cases, inseparable from the authors themselves. The classic example being Gustav Dore, whose woodcuts for "Don Quixote" became so legendary that they have been collected together in a book of their own.
Then there is George Cruikshank, who illustrated "Grimm's Fairy Tales" & many other notable books. Arthur Rackham's illustrations for the above book & copious output put him among the all time greats. Ernest Shepard, the "Punch" cartoonist, became more famous as the picturiser of "Winnie the Pooh", much to his discomfiture.
His daughter Mary, illustrated the "Mary Poppins" books, pleasing even the
fastidious author, P. L. Travers, who harassed Walt Disney for 20 years & even then was dissatisfied with his film, which however found universal acclamation.
Foremost among these Illustrators is Sir John Tenniel, whose pictures for the Lewis Carroll oeuvre are immortal. Among the later ones is Inga Moore, who inspired by the Impressionists, illustrated memorable editions of "The Wind in the Willows" & "The Secret Garden" among others.
Not to be forgotten are the two authors who illustrated their own best selling books, Antoine de Saint-Exupery his "The Little Prince" & Beatrix Potter her "Peter Rabbit".
Driven by the recent spectacular advances in colour printing technology, many later artists like Anna Bond (Alice) & Guiliano Ferri (Aesop) have also illustrated many books in a contemporary, if quirky way.
The first Avatar was Matsya or fish. It had a double purpose, to save Manu, the progenitor of the human race (Adam?) from a deluge (Noah's Ark?) & to recover the Vedas from the demon Hayagriva. It can be surmised that reading & writing were invented by this time to preserve the Vedas, which were heretofore orally transmitted from one generation to the next.
The second Avatar was Koorma or tortoise, who acted as the pedestal for the churning stick in the Amrita Manthan episode, when the Devas & Danavas fought for the elixir of immortality.
The third Avatar was the Varaha or boar whose function was to kill
Hiranyaksha, a demon, who had kidnapped Bhoodevi or Mother Earth.
It may be noted that the above three Avatars, along with the well-known Narasimha Avatar (fourth in the series), who incarnated to save his devotee Prahlada (incidentally a Danava by birth, who was harassed by his father, Hiranyakashipu), were in the Satya Yuga or Righteous Age, when Dharma was supposedly fully stable on all four legs.
A very popular deity, who does not fit into the Avatar list is Lord Venkateswara (of Tirumala).
