Onam welcomes Mahabali, the asura king whose rule Kerala remembers as its just age, permitted to visit his people once a year. The Bhagavata Purana tells how Vishnu came as the dwarf Vamana and asked for three paces of land — and how Bali gave his own head as the third.
Source: Bhagavata Purana 8.15–23
vāmana
The dwarf who measured the worlds in two steps. Bali's greatness in the Purana is that he kept his word when keeping it cost him everything.
Honoured deity: Vamana (Vishnu's fifth avatara) and King Mahabali
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