Anantaअनंत

Ananta (अनंत), the Endless, also called Śeṣa, the Remainder, is the cosmic serpent of Hindu cosmology: the thousand-hooded nāga who floats on the causal waters, serves as Vishnu's couch, and carries the worlds on his heads. When the direction-guardians are counted as ten rather than eight, the nadir, the downward direction, is assigned to him, with Brahma at the zenith; the serpent below and the creator above frame the eight quarters of the horizontal world.

The remainder

The name Śeṣa carries the theology. When the universe dissolves at the end of a cosmic age, he is what remains, the residue of existence coiled on the waters, upon whom Vishnu sleeps until creation begins again. In Pancharatra and Bhagavata thought he is identified with Sankarshana, an emanation of the divine. Tradition places him beneath the netherworlds, holding the earth steady on his hoods, and folk belief attributed earthquakes to the shifting of his burden. At the close of each age, fire from his mouths consumes the worlds he has carried.

Couch of Vishnu

The most familiar image in Vaishnava art is Anantashayana: Vishnu reclining at ease on Shesha's coils in the ocean of milk, the serpent's hoods spread as a canopy, Lakshmi at his feet, Brahma rising on a lotus from the god's navel. Repose on the infinite is the picture's meaning; the serpent is not the god's threat, as in other mythologies, but his rest.

Births in the world

Tradition holds that Shesha accompanies Vishnu into his descents: he is born as Lakshmana, Rama's inseparable brother, and as Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna, whose emblem is the plough and over whose head the serpent hoods sometimes appear in art. Some lineages likewise honour the grammarian-sage Patanjali as his incarnation. The pattern is constant: wherever the Lord goes, the Remainder follows, bearing him up.