Sudarshana Chakra
The Sudarshana Chakra is a divine discus, attributed to the god Vishnu in the Hindu scriptures. The Sudarshana Chakra is generally portrayed on the right rear hand of the four hands of Vishnu, who also holds the Panchajanya, the Kaumodaki, and the Padma.
In the Rigveda, the Sudarshana Chakra is stated to be Vishnu's symbol as the wheel of time. The discus later emerged as an ayudhapurusha, as a fierce form of Vishnu, used for the destruction of demons. As an ayudhapurusha, the deity is known as Chakraperumal, Chakratalvar, Chakradhara, or Chakrapani.
Etymology
The word Sudarshana is derived from two Sanskrit words – Su meaning "good/auspicious" and Darshana meaning "vision". In the Monier-Williams dictionary the word Chakra is derived from the root क्रम् or ऋत् or क्रि and refers among many meanings, to the wheel of a carriage, wheel of the sun's chariot or metaphorically to the wheel of time. In Tamil, the Sudarshana Chakra is also known as Chakratalvar.Literature
Rigveda
The Rigveda mentions the Sudarshana Chakra as a symbol of Vishnu, and as the wheel of time.Mahabharata
The Mahabharata features the divine discus as a weapon of Krishna, identified with Vishnu. The deity beheads Shishupala with the Sudarshana Chakra at the rajasuya yajna of Emperor Yudhishthira. He also employs it during the fourteenth day of the Kurukshetra War to obscure the sun. The Kauravas are deceived, allowing Arjuna to slay Jayadratha, avenging the death of his son.Ramayana
The Ramayana states that the Sudarshana Chakra was created by the divine architect, Vishvakarma. Vishnu slays a danava named Hayagriva on top of a mountain named Chakravana, seizing the discus from him.Ahirbudhnya Samhita
The Ahirbudhnya Samhita is a Hindu Vaishnava text belonging to the Pancharatra tradition. It is a Tantrika composition, composed possibly over several centuries within the 1st millennium CE, most probably at 200 CE. Ahirbudhnya Saṃhita literally means a compendium of the serpent-from-the-depths.In the Ahirbudhnya Samhita, Vishnu emanated in 39 different forms. The Samhita is characteristic for its concept of Sudarshana. It provides mantras for Sudarshana, and details the method of worship of the multi-armed Sudarshana. Its chapters include explanations on the origin of astras, anga, Vyuhas, sounds, and diseases, how to make Sudarshana Purusha appear, how to resist divine weapons and black magic, and provides method for making and worshipping the Sudarshana Yantra. The Ahirbudhnya Samhita is the source of Taraka Mantra, Narasimhanustubha Mantra, three occult alphabets, Sashtitantra and select astra mantras. It also mentions the Purusha Sukta. The four Vyuhas in this samhita are Vasudeva, Samkarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha.
Puranas
The Puranas also state the Sudarshana Chakra was made by Vishvakarma, featuring a legend regarding its origin: Vishvakarma's daughter, Sanjña, was married to the sun god, Surya. However, due to her consort's blazing light and heat, she could not approach him. When she informed her father regarding this, Vishvakarma diminished the brilliance of the sun so that his daughter could be with him. From the splendour of the Sun, Vishvakarma produced three divine objects: the aerial vehicle Pushpaka Vimana, the Trishula of Shiva, and the Sudarshana Chakra of Vishnu.Following the self-immolation of Sati in the Daksha yajna, a grieving Shiva carried around her lifeless body, and was inconsolable. To liberate him from his anguish, Vishnu employed Sudarshana Chakra to cut the corpse of Sati into fifty-one pieces. The fifty-one parts of the goddess' body are believed to have scattered across the earth, venerated as the Shakti Pithas.
Vishnu granted King Ambarisha the boon of the Sudarshana Chakra to reward him for his devotion.
The Sudarshana Chakra was also used to behead Rahu and cut the celestial Mandara mountain during the Samudra Manthana.
Historical representations
The chakra is found in the coins of many tribes with the word gana and the name of the tribe inscribed on them. Early historical evidence of the Sudarshana-Chakra is found in a rare tribal Vrishni silver coin with the legend Vṛishṇi-rājaṅṅya-gaṇasya-trātasya which P. L. Gupta thought was possibly jointly issued by the gana after the Vrishnis formed a confederation with the Rajanya tribe. However, there is no conclusive proof so far. Discovered by Cunningham, and currently placed in the British Museum, the silver coin is witness to the political existence of the Vrishnis. It is dated to around 1st century BCE. Vrishni copper coins dated to later time were found in Punjab. Another example of coins inscribed with the chakra are the Taxila coins of the 2nd century BCE with a sixteen-spoked wheel.A coin dated to 180 BCE, with an image of Vasudeva-Krishna, was found in the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum in the Kunduz area of Afghanistan, minted by Agathocles of Bactria. In Nepal, Jaya Cakravartindra Malla of Kathmandu issued a coin with the chakra.
Among the only two types of Chakra-vikrama coins known so far, there is one gold coin in which Vishnu is depicted as the Chakra-purusha. Though Chandragupta II issued coins with the epithet vikrama, due to the presence of the kalpavriksha on the reverse it has not been possible to ascribe it to him.
Anthropomorphic form
The anthropomorphic form of Sudarshana can be traced from discoid weapons of ancient India to his esoteric multi-armed images in the medieval period in which the Chakra served the supreme deity as his faithful attendants. While the two-armed Chakra-Purusha was humanistic, the medieval multi-armed Sudarshana was speculatively regarded as an impersonal manifestation of destructive forces in the universe; that, in its final aspect, combined the flaming weapon and the wheel of time which destroys the universe.The rise of Tantrism aided the development of the anthropomorphic personification of the chakra as the active aspect of Vishnu with few sculptures of the Pala era bearing witness to the development, with the chakra in this manner possibly associated with the Vrishnis. However, the worship of Sudarshana as a quasi-independent deity concentrated with the power of Vishnu in its entirety is a phenomenon of the southern part of India; with idols, texts and inscriptions surfacing from the 13th century onwards and increasing in large numbers only after the 15th century.
The Chakra Purusha in Pancharatra texts has either four, six, eight, sixteen, or thirty-two hands, with double-sided images of multi-armed Sudarshana on one side and Narasimha on other side within a circular rim, sometimes in dancing posture found in Gaya area datable to 6th and 8th centuries. Unique images of Chakra Purusha, one with Varaha in Rajgir possibly dating to the 7th century,
and another from Aphsad detailing a fine personification dating to 672 CE have been found.
While the chakra is ancient, with the emergence of the anthropomorphic forms of chakra and shankha traceable in the north and east of India as the Chakra-Purusha and Shanka-Purusha; in the south of India, the Nayak period popularized the personified images of Sudarshana with the flames. In the Kilmavilangai cave is an archaic rock-cut structure in which an image of Vishnu has been hallowed out, holding the Shanka and Chakra, without flames. At this point, the Chakrapurusha with the flames had not been conceived in the south of India. The threat of invasions from the north was a national emergency during which the rulers sought out the Ahirbudhnya Samhita, which prescribes that the king should resolve the threat by making and worshiping images of Sudarshana.
Though similar motives contributed to the installation of images of Sudarshana during the Vijayanagara period, there was a wider distribution of the cult during the Nayak period, with Sudarshana's images set up in temples ranging from small, out-of-the-way temples to large temples of importance. Though political turmoil resulted in the disintegration of the Vijayanagara Empire, the construction and refurbishing of temples did not cease; with the Nayak period continuing with their architectural enterprises, which Begley and Nilakantha Sastri note "reflected the rulers' awareness of their responsibilities in the preservation and development of all that remained of Hinduism.
The worship of Sudarshana Chakra is found in the Vedic and in the tantric cults. In the Garuda purana, the chakra was also invoked in tantric rites. The tantric cult of Sudarshana was to empower the king to defeat his enemies in the shortest time possible. Sudarshana's hair, depicted as tongues of flames flaring high forming a nimbus, bordering the rim of the discus and surrounding the deity in a circle of rays are a depiction of the deity's destructive energy.