Vaikuntha is where Vishnu lives with Lakshmi, a realm the Bhagavata paints with gardens that shine like release itself and trees in fruit and flower all year. Two guards, Jaya and Vijaya, stand at its door and the general Vishvaksena leads its army. Tradition sets it far beyond the highest of the material worlds. For Ramanuja and the Sri Vaishnavas it is the supreme station, the imperishable place of God, and the gate at Srirangam that opens once a year takes its name from that idea.
An older cosmography, still repeated in encyclopedic summaries, sets Vishnu's heaven on the summit of Mount Meru, a city of gold and jewels at the centre of the world rather than beyond it.
Places Vaikuntha within the material cosmos on Meru instead of beyond Satyaloka.
Sources: Vaikuntha — Wikipedia; Vaikuntha Ekadashi — Wikipedia; Vishnu — World History Encyclopedia
The Maitri Upanishad names Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu together as portions of one being, matched to the three gunas.
The sage Atri and his wife Anasuya earn great merit through their conduct and austerity.
Vishnu and Shiva are shown as one figure divided down the middle.
A seven-metre three-faced bust fills the south wall of Elephanta's Cave 1.
Three Pallava shrines on one platform: Shiva in the centre, Vishnu on the right, and a disputed left shrine read as Brahma by Vogel but as Subrahmanya or Brahmasasta by later scholars; a Durga panel stands beside.
During the dissolution Vishnu lies on the serpent Ananta in the cosmic waters.
Shiva alone exists before the world.
Brahma grows a fifth head, and with it pride or a false word.