Philosophies of India – Dr Heinrich Zimmer [edited by Joseph Campbell]

The Milky Ocean of Immortal life out of which the transient universe arises and back into which it again dissolves …… is personified as Adi-sesa, the primordial giant serpent of the abyss, who carries the unfolded universe on his heads and is the life giving dragon in the depth of space……..

The serpent is both himself and his living couch, and supports him on the surface of the milky ocean which again is himself in his elemental form.  For this divine being is the primary life sap or substance, which evolves and nourishes all the shapes of all the living creatures in the universe.  The god is dreaming.  From his navel, as from the universal water, the lotus calyx grows on which Brahma is seated, the first born of the universe, who is about to supervise the cosmic process of creation.  The shining lotus is the flower of the world, which is the dream of visnu; and the god upon it, Brahma, the ‘Creator’, is an emanation from the world womb of Visnu’s cosmic sleep