The Sudarshan Chakra of Lord Vishnu suddenly appeared in my vision as the second chakra symbol after Buddha’s Dharma Chakra. Then I first went back to its origins to investigate the identity of this deity.
Lord Vishnu, worshipped as Krishna in Nathdwara and Puri, is generally known as the God to maintain this world. He is said to be black in colour, to hold a club (gada or danda), a conch (shank), a wheel (sudarshan chakra) and a lotus flower (padma) in each of his four hands, to ride on a divine falcon called Garuda and to dwell in the heavenly realm called Vaikuntha with Goddess Lakshmi as consort.
Then, when evil flourishes and the world order is disturbed, he descends in the form of an avatara (incarnation) and casts the Sudarshan chakra to destroy evil.
Vishnu’s name first appears in the Rig Veda, which is said to be the oldest document written in the Indo-European language. This scripture, a collection of Indo-Aryan hymns to the gods, is said to have been established between 1500 BC and 1200 BC.
In it, Vishnu is depicted as ‘Trivikrama’, the striding god who straddles the three worlds of heaven, sky and earth with three steps, or as the deity who pervades all the world at large and sustains heaven and earth.
Rigveda 1.154.1
viṣṇor nu kaṃ vīryāṇi pra vocaṃ yaḥ pārthivāni vimame rajāṃsi | yo askabhāyad uttaraṃ sadhasthaṃ vicakramāṇas tredhorugāyaḥ ||
I will now proclaim the heroic deeds of Visnu, who has measured out the terrestrial regions,
who established the upper abode having, wide-paced, strode out triply…Translated by Jan Gonda
Wikipedia “Vishnu”
His three steps symbolise sunrise, meridian and sunset originally said to be a deification of the sun’s illuminating action, which shone down on all the earth. It was a god of grace who, like the sun, brought light all over the earth and sustains life.
The image of the sun may be at the root of the Lord Vishnu, who is worshipped in Hinduism up to the present day as the supreme god who sustains the world and is part of the Trimurti, along with the creator god Brahma and the destroyer god Shiva.
As I mentioned before, I had been on this journey of exploration with the ‘holy chakra (wheel)’ as a definite subject ever since I came across the stick rotating technique. And when I discovered a passage in the Rig Veda which states clearly the image of the ‘Rotating Wheel of Vishnu‘, I just gasped.
Rig Veda 1.155. Vishnu-Indra 6.
from Wisdom Library
caturbhiḥ sākaṃ navatiṃ ca nāmabhiś cakraṃ na vṛttaṃ vyatīm̐r avīvipat | bṛhaccharīro vimimāna ṛkvabhir yuvākumāraḥ praty ety āhavam ||
“He causes, by his gyrations, ninety and four periodical revolutions, like a circular wheel, vast of body, and evolving in many forms, through the praises (addressed to him); ever young, though not infantine, he comes at our invocations.”
A popular interpretation is that this ‘regular cycle of 90 and 4’ is the number obtained by adding: 1 year, 2 solstices (summer solstice and winter solstice), 5 seasons, 12 months, 24 half months (black moon and white moon), 30 days (of a month), 8 equinoxes (of a day) and 12 palaces of the ecliptic (astrology) apparently.
It describes all the seasons and times of the year as compared with the Sun God Vishnu’s ‘wheel-like’ turning, circulating and unfolding action itself.
This would simply be understood as a macroscopic image of the sun moving in a semi-circle from the eastern edge of the earth to the mid-sky and then to the western edge of the earth. Then overlapped with the yearly cycle of it as a round circle, those all can be grasped like a huge rotating wheel as a whole.
Either way, it was a major gain to discover an obvious ‘Chakra (Wheel)’ context in the image of Vishnu who upholds the Sudarshan Chakra.
This ‘cycle of seasons and time’ is also consistent with the fact that the Sudarshan Chakra’s alias was ‘Kala Chakra (Wheel of Time)’, which was mentioned in the previous post.
The way the sun is centred and shines in all directions at 360 degrees also overlaps with the shape of the spokes radiating out from the centre hub of the wheel. Taken together, this may be how the wheel (chakra) was adopted as a sacred weapon of Vishnu.
There are various myths about the Sudarshan Chakra, some of which were closely associated with the sun, so let’s look at them.
In the Puranas, the Sudarshana Chakra was made by the architect of gods, Vishvakarma.
Vishvakarma’s daughter Sanjana was married to Surya. Due to the Sun’s blazing light and heat, she could not go near the Sun. She complained to her father about this. Vishvakarma made the sun shine less so that his daughter could hug the Sun.
The leftover stardust was collected by Vishvakarma and made into three divine objects, (1) the aerial vehicle Pushpaka Vimana, (2) Trishula of Shiva, (3) Sudarshana Chakra of Vishnu. The Chakra is described to have 10 million spikes in two rows moving in opposite directions to give it a serrated edge.
From Wikipedia “Sudarshana Chakra”
Here we can see the image of the Sudarshan Chakra being made of pieces of the sun, or ‘the sun itself’. The image below is a modern drawing of the Sudarshan Chakra often seen on the internet, where this golden dazzling figure must literally be the Sun shining through.
Next, although this is a literary Shaivite source, I would like to introduce a verse that equates Shiva-Rudra with the creator Brahman and praises the creation of the cosmic world by Brahman Shiva as a metaphor for ‘the unfolding of the wheel (Brahma chakra) and its movement’.
It should be helpful because the Vaishnava sect, which worships Vishnu as the supreme deity, often equates Vishnu with Brahman, the creator.
Svetasvatara Upanishad：1. 4.
tam eka-nemim travrtam sodasantam satardharam vimsati pratyarabhih
From Hiduwebsite
astakaih sabdhih visva-rupaika-pasam tri-marga-bhedam dvini mittaika moham
“We know Him with one hub, three divisions, sixteen ends, sixteen supports (spokes), six sets of eight each, whose one noose has innumerable forms, whose paths are distinguished as three and whose delusion arises out of two causes.”
The verse envisions creation as a moving wheel (chakra), as a manifestation or projection of Lord Shiva.
The Śvetaśvatara Upanishad was probably established relatively early after the Buddha’s death, around the 5th-4th century BCE.
It is too complicated in detail with a strong bias towards so-called Samkhya thought, but the important point here is very simple that…
The creation and development of the cosmic world is attributed to and praised as the Great Work of the ‘Appearance of the Cosmic Wheel and its Rotation’ by the One Supreme God (Brahman).
This is the point I would like to stress here.
I understood this to be exactly in one line with the hymn to Vishnu in the Rig Veda mentioned above, in which it superimposes the turning wheel on the movements of this universe in the same manner.
It seems that there was something “Chakra Cosmology” in ancient Vedic thought.
Let’s continue by looking at the Surya Chakra=Sun Wheel of the God Surya, which was referred to in the previous page as the ‘third chakra’.
There are several hymns in the Rig Veda dedicated to the sun god Surya, who was depicted as a luminous figure riding a celestial Ratha chariot drawn by seven divine horses.
Rig Veda 1.50.8
sapta tvā harito rathe vahanti deva sūrya | śociṣkeśaṃ vicakṣaṇa ||
From Wisdom Library
Divine and light-diffusing Sūrya, your seven coursers bear you, bright-haired, in your car.
Here was the original image of the Surya deity riding a Ratha chariot going through the sky. This Rig Vedic view of Surya has been faithfully followed in modern Hinduism. He is the divinity that continues to be worshipped in the most unaltered form.
Similar images to the above are commonly sold on postcards, calendar etc. all over India, and are the universal image of Surya in modern times, but here the identification with Lord Vishnu is clear, as holding a Sudarshan Chakra and a Conch Shell.
The Sun Temple at Konark was the embodiment of this clear vision of a Ratha chariot with Lord Surya riding it through the sky, and the giant wheel (chakra) was its symbol.
As already mentioned, Vishnu as the sun god presided over the turning and running of the seasons and time (or turned himself around) like a wheel.
The giant wheel installed in 12 numbers throughout the Sun temple also corresponds to the 12 months of the Hindu calendar, symbolizing the rotation of the seasons and time.
Let me quote two more interesting hymns about the Surya and the Ratha chariot in the end.
Rig Veda 5.63.7 Mitra and Varuṇa
dharmaṇā mitrāvaruṇā vipaścitā vratā rakṣethe asurasya māyayā | ṛtena viśvam bhuvanaṃ vi rājathaḥ sūryam ā dhattho divi citryaṃ ratham ||
Discerning, sagacious, Mitra and Varuṇa, by your office you protect pious rites, through the power of the emitter of showers; you illumine the whole world with water; you sustain the sun, the adorable chariot in the sky.
From Wisdom Library
The next hymm is about Indra. It is interesting to read alongside the verses above.
Rig Veda 1.175.4
muṣāya sūryaṃ kave cakram īśāna ojasā | vaha śuṣṇāya vadhaṃ kutsaṃ vātasyāśvaiḥ ||
From Wisdom Library
Sage Indra, who are the lord, you have carried off by your strength one wheel of (the chariot of) the sun. Take up your bolt for the death of Śuṣṇa, and proceed with your horses, swift as the wind, to Kutsa.
Indra taking away one of the wheels from the Ratha chariot of Surya which Mitra Varuna supported in the heavens. It is extremely interesting to see what this image means and what influence it has had on later Indian religion…
So far, we have identified the unfolding of the cosmic world and its operation and circulation as the image of rotating ‘divine wheel (Brahma Chakra or Vishnu Chakra)’ based on the characteristics of the sun, and the image of the sun’s ‘Ratha chariot’ driving through the sky.
Naturally, the relationship between the ‘Wheel’ of the Ratha chariot and the ‘unfolding and turning Cosmic Wheel‘ extolled in the verses to Vishnu and Brahman is of great concern.
The concept of celestial law “ṛta”, meaning the laws of nature in this universe, appears frequently in the Rig Veda, which may be an image of a smoothly turning wheel superimposed on a regularly running cosmic world cycle, I guess.
Either way, as intuited in the previous section, there can no longer be any doubt that the Ratha chariot and its Chakra-Wheels have a special significance in Indian thought since very ancient times.
Another thing that caught my attention while going through the Rig Veda in terms of ‘Ratha chariot’ was God Indra, who appeared above with a episode of “stealing a chakra from Ratha of Surya.
He was the most widely sung military deity in the Rig Veda and was worshipped by the people as a sort of principal deity, and interestingly was often depicted as Vishnu’s partner (Indra was later adopted into Buddhism and introduced to Japan became Taishaku-ten).
Further research revealed a dramatic also sad situation happened at the dawn of Indian history.
~to be continued~
INDIA~The Land of Holy Chakra 