Vishvarupa
To appease him, Krishna discourses with Arjuna about life and death as well as dharma (duty) and yoga in form of the Bhagavad Gita.
[4][5][6] Fully encouraged by the teachings and darshan of Krishna in his full form, Arjuna continues the Mahabharata War.
[5][7] There are two more descriptions in the Mahabharata, where Krishna or Vishnu-Narayana offers the theophany similar to the Vishvarupa in the Bhagavad Gita.
Vishvarupa-Krishna appears with many arms and holds many weapons and attributes traditionally associated with Vishnu like the conch, the Sudarshana chakra, the gada (mace), his bow, his sword Nandaka.
It misses the multiple body parts of Vishvarupa, but conveys the vastness and cosmic nature of the deity.
Vamana, arrives at the asura king Bali's sacrifice as a dwarf Brahmin boy and asks for three steps of land as donation.
Various deities; celestial beings like Vasus, Maruts, Ashvins, Yakshas, Gandharvas, Apsaras; Vedic scriptures and sacrifices are contained in his body.
[15] The Bhagavad Gita may be inspired by the description of Purusha as thousand-headed, thousand-eyed and thousand-footed or a cosmic Vishnu ("creator of the universe").
The Vishvarupa is a cosmic representation of gods and goddesses, sages and asuras, good and the bad as we perceive in our own particular perspective of existence in this world.
[19] Early Gupta and post-Gupta sculptors were faced with difficulty of portraying infiniteness and multiple body parts in a feasible way.
[21] Vishvarupa becomes crystallized as an icon in the early Vishnu cult by the time of Guptas (6th century CE).
Another early image (70 cm high) is present in the Changu Narayan temple, Nepal, dated 5th-6th century.
The central image is ten-headed and ten-armed and is surrounded by the three regions of Hindu cosmology, Svarga (heavenly realms, upper portion of the stone relief), Prithvi (the earth, the middle) and Patala (the underworld, the bottom) and corresponding beings gods, humans and animals and nagas and spirits respectively.
[22] A 5th century Garhwa image shows Vishvarupa with six arms and three visible heads: a horse (centre, Hayagriva-avatar of Vishnu), a lion and a boar.
[23] Three Vishvarupa icons from Shamalaji, Gujarat dated sixth century have three visible animal heads and eight arms, with a band of beings emanating from the upper part of the deity forming an aureole.
[26] Some iconographic treatises prescribe a fourth demonic head at the back, however this is generally not depicted in iconography.
[26] Another iconography prescribes that Vishvarupa be depicted with four faces: male (front, east), lion/Narasimha (south), boar/Varaha (north) and woman (back/west).
The other fourteen hold hala (plough), shankha (conch), vajra (thunderbolt), ankusha (goad), arrow, sudarshana chakra, a lime fruit, danda (staff), pasha (noose), gada (mace), sword, lotus, horn, musala (pestle), akshamala (rosary).
His neck is maharloka, his mouth the janaloka, his forehead the tapaloka and his head the satyaloka, abode of Brahma.
They include Vishnu's animal avatars Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha (lion) as well as heads of vahanas (mounts) of Hindu deities: elephant (of Indra), eagle (Garuda of Vishnu), swan (Hansa of Brahma) and bull (of Shiva).
Other artistic representations of Vishvarupa in Nepal have varying number of heads, hands and legs and some have even attributes of Mahakala and Bhairava, such as flaying knife and skull bowl.
