Ananta

By Jit Majumdar

1. without end, inexhaustible.
2. immortal, eternal.
3. the cosmic serpent, or Śeşa, who symbolizes the residue of each cycle of creation in the Causal Waters, the life-force, and the building material of life (DNA), who was born of Kaśyapa and Kadru, and has a thousand heads, and on whose coils the preserving and sustaining Principle of the Supreme Divinity, Vişņu, rests as deactivated in cosmic sleep or yoganidrā, between each cycle of cosmic dissolution and the next cycle of creation; who is said to have incarnated as Lakşmaņa and Balarāma to accompany Vişņu’s incarnations of Rāma and Kŗşņa respectively; a captain in the army of Kārtikeya (M. Bh.); the asterism Śravaņa; another name for Brahmā Viṣṇu, Śiva and Balarāma; the creeper Gloriosa superba and its roots; the 14th Arhat of the Jains.
4. One of the epithets frequently used to describe or praise God in the scriptures. The Upaniṣads hold that Brahman is:
   • Satya - Truth
   • Jñāna - Knowledge
   • Ananta - consciousness and infinite

References

• The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari

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