Universal form of Vishnu by ScanHinduHeritage

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

A brass cast of 'Vishvarupa' ("Universal form", "Omni-form").It is an iconographical form and theophany of the Hindu god Vishnu or his avatar Krishna. It is said to be the physical manifestation of the indescribable Supreme Being. Vishvarupa is considered the supreme form of Vishnu, where the whole universe is described as contained in him. Hindu mythology has multiple mentions of this manifestation of Vishnu that has overwhelmed the human senses because of its infinite nature. Seen here with 'Adishesha' (the foremost of snakes) forming a protective umbrella over Vishnu.
The Vishvarupa has innumerable forms, eyes, faces, mouths and arms. All creatures of the universe are part of him. He is the infinite universe, without a beginning or an end. He contains peaceful as well as wrathful forms.The literary sources mentions that Vishvarupa has "multiple" or "thousand/hundred" (numeric equivalent of conveying infinite) heads and arms, but do not give a specific number of body parts that can be depicted. Early sculptors were faced with difficulty of portraying infiniteness and multiple body parts in a feasible way. Despite this there are a number of iconic sculptures describing this vision of Vishnu dating back to 430-60 CE.
Source:
Wikipedia-Vishvarupa