Vishnu Dreaming Universes Out Of The Cosmic Ocean image copyright 1999, Laura Perkins   This image represents Vishnu, creator god of Hindu mythology, asleep in the cosmic ocean and dreaming a new universe.  As he sleeps, a lotus grows out of his navel, and within the center of the lotus will soon grow the lord Brahma, creator of a new universe.  Vishnu is surrounded by Ananta, the endless serpent, Vishnu's animal counterpart.  This is a departure from traditional Indian art, which normally shows Vishnu reclining on Ananta.  In this case, Vishnu is surrounded and protected by Ananta.  I thought the circular form of Ananta here worked well with the rest of the image.

Other universes are forming out of the cosmic ocean surrounding Vishnu, as represented by the flower-like forms and rays coming out of the fractal image.  Imagine an unseen Vishnu beneath each of these flowers in the vastness of the cosmic ocean.

I got the idea for this image from two Indian myths related in Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, by Heinrich Zimmer.  In the first myth, Indra, the king of gods (similar to Zeus in Greek mythology), is building an enormous and lavish palace for himself, so prideful is he because of his station.  This self-indulgence continues until he meets a wonderful and beautiful young boy who reveals to him that for every world there is an Indra, for every universe, countless Indras, and universes have been forming and dissolving endlessly for unimaginable eons of cosmic time.  Hindu mythology thus contains a concept of the vastness of time and space which western mythology typically does not even approach, yet this vastness is beginning to be confirmed by modern scientific research and theories.

The second myth relates how, between the time when a universe dissolves and when a new one forms in its place, Vishnu sleeps on the cosmic ocean and dreams the universe as it should be.  This perfect universe is contained within Vishnu himself, until finally, a lotus grows forth and Brahma comes out of the lotus and creates the new universe.

I usually create my images entirely in Photoshop, but this image is a departure from my normal work in that I used GrafZViZion by Stephen C. Ferguson to create the fractal which is the background of this image.  The rest of the work was then done in Photoshop as usual.