Shesha (Ananta)

Shesha left his mother and went away from his brothers. He practised severe austerities, lived on air and kept rigid vows. He travelled among sacred places, including Gandhamadana, Badari, Gokarna and Pushkararanya, and continued his practice on the slopes of the Himalayas. Brahma found him there with his hair matted and his body dried by the austerities. He warned Shesha that these austerities were causing pain to all beings. The grandfather asked what Shesha wanted. Shesha asked that his mind remain fixed on dharma, tranquillity and austerities.

Brahma granted the request, then pointed to a different need. The earth, with its mountains, forests, towns, habitations and oceans, was unstable. He told Shesha to bear it up properly. Shesha encircled the earth with his endless coils. The Mahabharata later calls him Ananta and says he lived beneath the ground, holding the earth on Brahma’s command. Brahma told him that this work served the welfare of all creatures. Garuda was appointed to help him. Shesha had left his brothers to find quiet, but Brahma gave that quiet a task beneath the world they lived on.