
Nandaka ()
or Nandaki is the sword of the
Hindu god Vishnu
Vishnu (; , , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism, and the god of preservation ( ...
. Nandaka is generally depicted in images where Vishnu is represented with more than his usual four arms. The sword is compared to knowledge in Hindu scriptures.
In
Sri Vaishnavism
Sri Vaishnavism () is a denomination within the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism, predominantly practiced in South India. The name refers to goddess Lakshmi (also known as Sri), as well as a prefix that means "sacred, revered", and the god Vi ...
(a major Vaishnava tradition), the saints
Annamacharya
Tallapaka Annamacharya () (09 May 1408 – 23 February 1503), also popularly known as Annamayya, was a Telugu musician, composer, and a Hindu saint. He is the earliest known Indian musician to compose songs called '' samkirtanas.'' His devoti ...
and
Peyalvar are considered to be the
avatar
Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...
s of Nandaka.
Legend
According to the ''
Agni Purana'', the creator-god
Brahma
Brahma (, ) is a Hindu god, referred to as "the Creator" within the Trimurti, the triple deity, trinity of Para Brahman, supreme divinity that includes Vishnu and Shiva.Jan Gonda (1969)The Hindu Trinity, Anthropos, Bd 63/64, H 1/2, pp. 212– ...
was performing a sacrifice on
Mount Meru. The hundred-armed
asura
Asuras () are a class of beings in Indian religions, and later Persian and Turkic mythology. They are described as power-seeking beings related to the more benevolent Devas (also known as Suras) in Hinduism. In its Buddhist context, the wor ...
Loha obstructed the same. Vishnu manifested before Brahma from the sacrificial fire. Vishnu seized the sword called Nandaka from the asura and unsheathed it. The sword is described as blue-hued with a gem-studded handle. Wielding his mace, the asura drove several heavenly beings from the mountain. Vishnu slew the asura with the sword; the severed parts of the asura's body fell on earth and turned into iron due to their contact with Nandaka. Vishnu blessed the asura that his fallen body-parts will be employed for the manufacture of weapons on earth.
Literature

Vishnu is usually depicted as
four-armed with the four attributes in his hands: the
shankha
A Turbinella pyrum, shankha () has religious ritual importance in Hinduism.
In Hinduism, the shankha called panchajanya is a sacred emblem of the Hindu preserver deity Vishnu. It is still used as a trumpet in Hindu ritual, and in the past was us ...
(conch), the
Sudarshana Chakra
The Sudarshana Chakra (, ) is a divine discus, attributed to 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 (conch), the Kaumodak ...
, the ''
padma'' (
lotus) and the
Kaumodaki gada (mace). In eight- or sixteen-armed depictions of the deity, he may be shown holding a sword. The sword appears very rarely in the depictions of Vishnu. It appears in Vishnu iconography as late as the
Gupta era (320–550).
Nandaka is mentioned as the sword of Vishnu's
avatar
Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...
Rama
Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...
in the
Hindu epic ''
Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...
''.
The ''
Harivamsa'' as well as the ''Brihatbrahma Samhita'' prescribe that the sword be shown in Vishnu's four-armed images. The ''
Sattvata Samhita'' recommends that it be shown in a right hand of a six-armed Vishnu and in a left hand in a ten-armed Vishnu. Vishnu's avatar
Vamana
Vamana (, ) also known as Trivikrama (), Urukrama (), Upendra (), Dadhivamana (, ), and Balibandhana (), is an Dashavatara, avatar of the Hinduism, Hindu deity Vishnu. He is the fifth avatar of Vishnu and the first Dashavatara in the Treta ...
is described to hold the Nandaka in his right hand in the ''
Kalika Purana
The Kalika Purana (), also called the Kali Purana, Sati Purana or Kalika Tantra, is one of the eighteen minor Puranas (''Upapurana'') in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. The text was likely composed in Assam or Cooch Behar district, Cooch Behar ...
''. An 11th-century image shows the sword tied to his belt.
The ''
Vishnu Sahasranama'', which lists the 1000 epithets of Vishnu, mentions Nandaka twice. In a
mantra
A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...
, Vishnu is praised as the holder of the shankha, Nandaka, and the chakra. The 994th name of Vishnu is "Nandaki", the one who wields the Nandaka.
In a rare depiction in the ''Sheshashayi Vishnu'' panel of the Gupta temple at
Deogarh, Nandaka is depicted anthropomorphically as a young man holding a sword (see
Ayudhapurusha). He is depicted leading the other personified weapons of Vishnu against the demons
Madhu and Kaitabha.
Nandaka is also depicted as an ''ayudhapurusha'' in the scene of Madhu and Kaitabha in the
Mahishasuramardini mandapa,
Mahabalipuram
Mamallapuram (also known as Mahabalipuram), is a town in Chengalpattu district in the southeastern Indian States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu, best known for the UNESCO World Heritage Site of 7th- and 8th-century Hindu Group of ...
.
Symbolism
The ''
Vishnu Purana
The Vishnu Purana () is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of ancient and medieval texts of Hinduism. It is an important Pancharatra text in the Vaishnavism literature corpus.
The manuscripts of ''Vishnu Purana'' have survived into ...
'' says that Nandaka, "the pure sword", represents ''
jnana'' (knowledge), which is created from ''
vidya'' (translated variously as wisdom, knowledge, science, learning, scholarship, philosophy), its sheath is ''
avidya'' (ignorance or illusion).
The ''
Varaha Purana'' describes it as the destroyer of ignorance.
The ''
Krishna Upanishad'' equates the sword to the destroyer god
Shiva
Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...
. It says that the 'Great God' (Maheshvara, an epithet of Shiva) takes the form of a flaming sword of knowledge, one that destroys ignorance.
Notes
References
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{{Vaishnava philosophy
Weapons of Vishnu
Mythological swords
Indian swords