Sudarshana is the holy wheel which Lord Vishnu uses as his chief weapon.

Sudarshana is the holy wheel which Lord Vishnu uses as his chief weapon.

There is a story that the daughter of Viswa Karma, who was the architect of the God’s, was married to the sun God and she left him because of his immense heat. It seems Viswa Karma put Sun God in a cage and churned him to reduce his heat. The heat was reduced and Sudarshana Chakra, Trishoola and Shakthi, respectively the weapons of Lord Vishnu, Shiva and Subrahamnya were born out of the churning. Sudarshana Chakra is given the status of God by the followers of Ramanujacharya. He being a prime devotee is called the Chakrathazhwar, Sage of the wheel, and worshipped by Vaishnavas.

Vishnu's Sudarshana Chakra came into existence. The asuras, or demons, were extremely bad. They always tortured the cosmic gods. At one time, the cosmic gods were suffering so much from the attacks of the demons that they went to see Lord Vishnu. They wanted to seek his help in defeating the demons.

Vishnu said to them, "I do not have enough power to defeat or destroy the demons. I must seek help from Shiva. I will ask him to give me a special weapon that will help me defeat the demons."

When Vishnu went to Shiva, he found Lord Shiva in trance. Vishnu did not want to disturb Shiva's meditation, so he started praying and praying to Shiva with the hope that one day he would come out of his trance.

After many long years, Shiva came out of his trance. Vishnu's joy knew no bounds. He ran to gather one thousand lotus blossoms so that he could worship Lord Shiva and ask for a special boon. Shiva had already decided that he would grant Vishnu the boon, but first he wanted to play a trick on Vishnu. He secretly went to the spot where Vishnu had placed the lotus flowers and stole one flower. Now there were only 999 flowers.

After making all his preparations, Vishnu began to worship Shiva most devotedly. One by one, he offered the lotus flowers and chanted Shiva's name. When he came to the end, he realised that one flower was missing. He had only counted 999. That meant he had to go and find one more lotus. Instead of doing that, he immediately plucked out one of his eyes and placed it before Shiva. When Shiva saw that Vishnu had such devotion for him, he said, "I will grant you anything that you ask for." "Please give me something that will help me to conquer the asuras," said Vishnu. Shiva replied, "I give you this round disc. It will help you to conquer all your enemies. No matter how many demons come to attack you and the other gods, you will be able to defeat them all with this disc."

Om Namah Shivay