Lord Vishnu Mantras Sahasranaama and aarties
Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one
of the five primary forms of God, and his supreme status is declared in
the Hindu sacred texts like Yajurveda, the Rigveda and the Bhagavad Gita.
The Vishnu Sahasranama declares Vishnu as Paramatma (supreme soul) and
Parameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as the All-Pervading
essence of all beings, the master of?and beyond?the past,
present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one
who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops
all elements within.
In the Puranas, Vishnu is described as having the divine color of clouds
(dark-blue), four-armed, holding a lotus, mace, conch and chakra (wheel).
Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a ‘Universal
Form’ (Vishvarupa) which is beyond the ordinary limits of human sense
perception.
The Puranas also describe each of the dasavatara of Vishnu. Among these
ten principal avatars described, nine of them have occurred in the past
and one will take place in the future, at the end of Kali Yuga. In the
commentary of creator Brahma in Vishnu Sahasranamam, he refers to Vishnu
as “Sahasrakoti Yuga Dharine”, which means that these incarnations
take place in all Yugas in cosmic scales. The Bhagavad Gita mentions
their purpose as being to rejuvenate Dharma and vanquish negative forces
as also to display His divine pastimes in front of the conditioned/fallen
souls. In almost all Hindu denominations, Vishnu is either worshiped
directly or in the form of his ten avatars, such as Rama and Krishna.
The Trimurti (English: ?three forms?; Sanskrit: trimurti)
is a concept in Hinduism “in which the cosmic functions of creation,
maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahma the
creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver, and Shiva the destroyer
or transformer.” These three deities have been called “the
Hindu triad” or the “Great Trinity”.