Where Śiva dissolves, Viṣṇu maintains; the pair forming, with Brahmā, the tradition’s best-known triad of creator, preserver and dissolver. Viṣṇu is pictured recumbent on the serpent Ananta, the lotus of the next universe rising from his navel: preservation as patient, cosmic sleep.
The descents
The doctrine of avatāra holds that Viṣṇu descends when dharma declines, classically ten times, from the fish and tortoise of the old flood myths to Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. It is as Kṛṣṇa, charioteer and teacher, that he speaks the Bhagavad Gītā.
In the living tradition
Vaiṣṇava worship, Rāma and Kṛṣṇa lineages above all; is among the largest devotional streams in India, and the mahā-mantra of the bhakti traditions calls his names (it lives in the mantra collection).
Related entries
- Śiva , The ascetic on the mountain and the dancer at the centre of the universe, the deity of destruction-as-renewal, yoga's own patron.
- Devī: the Goddess , The Goddess in her ten thousand names, Sarasvatī, Lakṣmī, Pārvatī, Durgā, Kālī; the divine as power, wisdom and fierce love.
- Bhagavad Gītā , The 700-verse dialogue between prince Arjuna and his charioteer Kṛṣṇa, the most beloved scripture of the Indian tradition and the seedbed of every path on this site.
Mentioned in
References
- Viṣṇu Purāṇa & Bhāgavata Purāṇa (the Vaiṣṇava corpus)
- The Bhagavad Gītā (Kṛṣṇa as Viṣṇu's eighth descent)