Shesha
शेष śeṣaThe remainder or remnant; what is left when all else is accounted for. Distinct in tone from the polluting ucchishta, it names the residual as the irreducible ground, as in Ananta-Shesha, the cosmic serpent of endless remainder.
Where this term appears
- Who is Vishnu? Deities
…on would picture so vividly: Narayana reclining on the coiled serpent Shesha, also called Ananta, the endless one, asleep on the ocean of milk between the dissolution of one universe and the birth of the next, …
- Hindu cosmology: the fourteen worlds and the ages of the universe Essentials
Hindu cosmology describes not one creation but a beginningless cycle. The universe is a brahmāṇḍa, a cosmic egg, breathed out and drawn back in across immense spans…
- Tirupati: The Temple of Venkateshwara Temples
By tradition the seven hills are the body and heads of Ananta , also called Shesha , the great serpent on whom Vishnu rests.
- Earth and Water Treatise
The yakshas and nagas are ancient nature-spirits who belong to the earth and the water rather than to the celestial world of the great gods. Yakshas are the spirits…
- The Court of Vishnu Treatise
Vishnu, like Shiva, is never alone — but where Shiva's retinue is a wild cremation-ground host, Vishnu's is an ordered celestial court, and it carries the most…
- The reversal Treatise
The same instinct names the cosmic serpent on whom Vishnu sleeps Ananta-Shesha, the endless remainder.
- The word for what is left over Treatise
A near-synonym is shesha , remainder, the same idea seen from the other side: the portion that remains rather than the scrap that is thrown away.
- The Monsoon and the Midnight Birth Treatise
Vishnu sleeps on the coils of the great serpent Shesha between the cycles of creation.