Devalok
How a tradition frames it · 1 telling · Pan-India

Vishnu cannot wake until the Goddess withdraws

In the Devi Mahatmya Vishnu lies in yogic sleep on the waters while Madhu and Kaitabha threaten Brahma; only when Brahma praises Mahamaya and she leaves Vishnu's body can he rise and fight.

Who is in it

The story, beat by beat

  1. At the end of an age Vishnu lies asleep on the cosmic waters.
  2. Two asuras, Madhu and Kaitabha, spring from the wax of his ears and turn on Brahma seated on the lotus.
  3. Brahma sings to the Goddess as the sleep that holds Vishnu, asking her to withdraw.
  4. She leaves Vishnu's limbs, he wakes, and he wrestles the pair for five thousand years before killing them.

sleep supremacy demon slaying

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Devi Mahatmya (Markandeya Purana 81–93)

Pan-India Shakta

The first episode of the Devi Mahatmya makes the point that even Vishnu's action depends on the Goddess. While he sleeps on the waters at the end of an age, two demons born from the wax of his ears rush at Brahma on the navel lotus. Brahma does not wake Vishnu; he addresses the sleep itself, Mahamaya, as the power who both disturbs and restores the world, and asks her to leave. Only when she withdraws from Vishnu's body does he rise, and the fight that follows lasts five thousand years. The Shakta frame is that the Goddess permits both the danger and its cure.

Devi Mahatmya — Wikipedia; Madhu-Kaitabha — Wikipedia unverified

Sources: Devi Mahatmya — Wikipedia; Madhu-Kaitabha — Wikipedia

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