Anantashayana Vishnu, Rock relief monument in Dhenkanal district, India

Anantashayana Vishnu is a 15.4-metre-long relief of the god reclining on the serpent Ananta, carved in the early 9th century from a single sandstone outcrop on the left bank of the Brahmani River. The four-armed figure holds a chakra, a shankha, a gada and a lotus, wears a tall conical kiritamukuta crown, and has a lotus sprouting from his navel with Brahma seated in meditation.

The relief was created in the 9th century when the Bhauma-Kara dynasty ruled the region and commissioned religious sculptures. This period saw a flowering of stone carving traditions dedicated to Hindu deities across central Orissa.

Local people still worship the four-armed reclining Vishnu here, and the Bhauma-Kara kings recorded grants made for carving rock-cut sculptures and temples on the occasions of Vishuvazakranthi and Devtesvaduadasi. The sculptor treated the river bank as the Kshirasagara, the cosmic ocean from which Brahma created the world.

The relief lies on the left bank of the Brahmani River at about 200 feet (61 m) elevation, reached by a 1.5 km road from Saranga village in Parjang tehsil. It is 3 km from Talcher, 23 km from Angul and 67 km from Dhenkanal, or 3 km off National Highway 42 between Cuttack and Sambalpur. The carving sits in the open on the riverbed, so Brahmani floods are its main hazard.

The sculptor treated the riverbank as the cosmic ocean Kshirasagara, from which Brahma, shown seated in meditation on a lotus sprouting from Vishnu's navel, creates the world. A second reclining Vishnu in sandstone, 12.6 metres long, lies at Khamkanaga in Angul district. Floods in the Brahmani are the main threat to the sandstone image.