What is "ranganatha"

Ranganātha ( Tamil: அரங்கநாதர், Sanskrit :' रङ्गनाथ') also known as Sri Ranganatha, Aranganathar, Ranga and Thenarangathan is a Hindu deity, more well known in South India, and the chief deity of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangam. The deity is a resting form of Lord Vishnu, recumbent on the great form of the serpent god Adisesha, one of the foremost of Hindu Gods. His consort is Goddess Lakshmi, also known as Ranganayaki Thayar (mother in Tamil). His two other consorts seen next to his recumbent figure are Bhudevi and Nila Devi. Most of the deities portray a 'smiling' lord in a reclining position over the celestial serpent Adisesha in the sea of cosmic dissolution ( pralaya). This is the form in which he is open to listening to all of his devotee's woes, and blesses them. Apart from being worshipped by all Hindus, this form is of particular importance to the Sri Vaishnava community. His name in Tamil means "leader of the place of assembly", coined from two Tamil words 'Arangam' and 'Nathan'. This temple is of particular interest for scholars in the south because of the vast history attached to it in shaping the religion in the south. However, the lack of proper mention about this temple or Lord Vishnu as "resting on a bed of snake in an ocean of milk" in the " Puranas", the Vishnu Sahasranama or other Sanskrit texts pertaining to North India makes it a center of lesser importance in the north.

Symbolic representation of Ranganatha and Nataraja has been compared as the meaning of both is the same except for their locations. In Ranganatha, ‘Ranga’ means "stage" and which in the broadest sense refers to "the world, the cosmos or better still of the body and the senses". Nataraja also means the "Lord of the Stage" and in this case his stage is in ‘ Chidambaram’ meaning the "sphere of wisdom", while Ranganatha rests on the milkyway, which is a metaphysical or esoteric concept which is not easy to interpret as it is perceived in different ways by different people.