Śesha-śayyā
Śesha-śayyā · śesha-śayyā, “the bed that is Śesha”
The Śesha-śayyā is the divine bed in the Kshīra Sāgara, the ocean of milk, on which Bhagavān Vishṇu lies in Yoganidrā.
Śrī Kṛshṇa tells King Yudhishṭhira the cause of the Vishṇu-śayana in the words of Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. Yoganidrā pleased Bhagavān Vishṇu by her tapas and asked for a place in his limbs. Finding every limb already occupied, he gave her a place in his eyes and said that she would rest in him for four months of the year.
When in Yoganidrā he lies on the Śesha-śayyā in the Kshīra Sāgara, near Brahmā, Bhagavatī Lakshmī presses his two feet with her lotus hands, and the waves of the Kshīra Sāgara wash his feet.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 70
At the end of the pralaya
In the Brahma Purāṇa, Vyāsa tells the munis how the naimittika pralaya, the dissolution at the end of Brahmā‘s day, comes to its close. The rains of the pralaya clouds rise until the three worlds become one ocean (ekārṇava), up to the place where the Saptarshis dwell. Bhagavān Vishṇu, who is all beings, beyond thought, without beginning and yet the beginning of the world, scatters the clouds with the wind of his breath over more than a hundred years. Then he draws in all the wind, takes the form of Brahmā and lies on the Śesha-śayyā, the bed of Śesha, in that one ocean.
There the siddhas of Janaloka, Sanaka and the others, and the dwellers of Brahmaloka praise him, and those who seek moksha meditate on him. Contemplating his own form as Vāsudeva, Parameśvara rests in Yoganidrā, which is the form of his own māyā. Because Hari lies there in the form of Brahmā as the nimitta (instrumental) cause of the next creation, this dissolution is called naimittika. Brahmā’s night is as long as his day, a thousand caturyugas; when it has passed, Bhagavān Vishṇu begins creation again in the form of Brahmā.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 233
Sources
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 70
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 233