Shesha

Shesha is the thousand-headed serpent king of Hindu myth who floats on the cosmic ocean as the couch of the god Vishnu and holds up the earth on his hoods; his other name, Ananta, means "endless."

The Serpent Who Holds the World

Shesha is the eldest and greatest of the nāgas, the serpent children of Kadru. The Mahabharata tells that he was disgusted by the quarrels of his brothers and left them to practice austerities. Pleased, the creator god Brahma asked him to take the earth upon his head and hold it steady, and Shesha went down beneath the world to carry it.

He is best known as the couch of Vishnu. Between the ages of the world, Vishnu sleeps on Shesha's coils as he floats on the cosmic ocean, with Shesha's hoods spread above him like a canopy. From Vishnu's navel grows a lotus, and from the lotus Brahma is born to create the world again. This scene, called Anantashayana, "lying on Ananta," is one of the great images of Hindu art.

Appearance and Powers

The Puranas describe Shesha with a thousand heads, though artists often show five or seven hoods. His names explain him. Shesha means "remainder," the one who remains when the universe is dissolved, and Ananta means "endless." Texts such as the Bhagavata Purana connect him with the end of each age, when fire pouring from his mouths helps consume the worlds before they are remade.

Incarnations

Shesha comes to earth alongside Vishnu's avatars. He is born as Lakshmana, loyal brother of Rama in the Ramayana, and as Balarama, elder brother of Krishna. When Balarama dies at the end of the Mahabharata, a great white serpent leaves his mouth and returns to the sea. Tradition also counts the grammarian Patanjali as an incarnation of Shesha.

Legacy

One of the oldest surviving carvings of Vishnu on Shesha is the relief at the Dashavatara temple at Deogarh in central India, from around 500 CE. The Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala and the Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam are built around images of Vishnu reclining on the serpent. Shesha is a guardian and a servant of order, the opposite of the world-threatening serpents of other mythologies. See our India and Southeast Asia section for more.

Related

• Nāga: Nāgas are serpent beings of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain tradition, often cobras or half-human figures with cobra hoods, who live in underwater or underground kingdoms, guard treasure, and control rain and water.
• Vasuki: Vasuki is a king of the nāgas in Hindu myth who served as the churning rope when the gods and demons churned the cosmic ocean, and who coils around the neck of the god Shiva.
• Kaliya: Kaliya is a many-headed poisonous serpent of Hindu myth who fouled a pool of the Yamuna River until the young god Krishna leaped in, danced on his hoods, and banished him to the sea.
• Jörmungandr: Jörmungandr is the Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology, a child of Loki so huge that it encircles the world under the ocean and bites its own tail, and Thor's destined enemy at Ragnarök.
• Ouroboros: The Ouroboros is a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of eternity and endless cycles first found in ancient Egypt and later central to Greek alchemy and Western esoteric art.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• Dragon Species

Sources and Further Reading

• J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., The Mahābhārata, vol. 1, The Book of the Beginning (University of Chicago Press, 1973)
• H. H. Wilson, trans., The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (London: John Murray, 1840)
• J. Ph. Vogel, Indian Serpent-Lore, or the Nāgas in Hindu Legend and Art (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1926)
• Anna L. Dallapiccola, Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend (Thames & Hudson, 2002)

Cite this entry: “Shesha,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/shesha.