As per Hindu beliefs, at the end of a cycle of creation, the
cosmic dissolution takes place. The universe then lay dissolved in Ekarnava,
the only primordial Ocean. Ekarnava has a deep symbolic meaning and is mentioned
in many Puranas and the epics.
Symbolically, Ekarnava is that state of the universe when
there is complete stillness. The universe stays in this form for period of
thousands of years before the first creation appears.
Vishnu stays asleep atop the interminable coils of
Ananta Sesha on the waters of Ekarnava.
In some scriptures, Ekarnava is the great ocean with
mountainous waves which absorbs the entire universe during the end of a cycle
of creation.
Is Ekarnava an ocean as imagined by human beings? Or is it
something that we humans have never seen or imagined which has the power to
dissolve the entire universe.