MantraOnNet.com: Vishnu Sahasranaama

701. Sattaa – The Lord is the “One without a

second,” and, therefore, remains ever the same, without any

differences of genus, species or in Itself.

702. Sad-bhootih ? “0ne Who has Rich

Glories.” The term ‘Glories’ means wealth, power,

happiness. Or “One Who has taken different kinds of

Incarnations,” exhibiting in all of them the glories of the

Supreme. So immeasurable are the Lord’s Glories that even

all these splendours scarcely reveal His Divine Might. Him,

whom even the Devas know not; only the Yogis in meditation

come to perceive His Eternal Glory.

703. Sat-paraayanah ? The Supreme Goal for

the “Good” who pursue the path of Truth. Here the “Good”

means those who are the Knowers of Brahman,

704. Soora-senah ? “One Who has heroic and

valiant armies.” The Incarnations as Rama and Krishna are

indicated here in whose armies there were valiant people like

Hanumaan and Lakshmana, Arjuna, Bheema and others.

705. Yadusreshthah ? “The Best among the

Yadava clan.” The Glory of the Yadavas?Lord Krishna,

Who was an Incarnation of Sree Hari.

706. Sannivaasah ? “The Abode of the

Good.” The great souls of realisation come to live in Him, the

Self; drowned in God-Consciousness, they beam out from that

Abode their divinity all around. Bhagavan in Geeta says: “My

devotee thus knowing (realising the Truth, the jneyam, seated

in the heart of all) enters into My Being.”

707. Suyaamunah ? One Who is attended by

the righteous Yaamunas?meaning Gopas who live on the

Yamuna banks. In a metaphysical sense, these Gopas are not

the keepers of ‘cows,’ but the keepers of the sacred milk of

Knowledge?Upanishads.

708. Bhootaavaasah ? “The very dwelling place

of the Great Elements.” “Since the Beings (Elements) dwell

in You, You are called ‘Bhootaavaasa,'” so says Harivamsa.

Bhagavaan Himself says in the Geeta: “I am the Source of all

Creation.” Therefore He is also called the ‘Bhootayoni.’

709. Vaasu-devah ? One Who envelops the

world with His Maayaa-powers of veiling and agita-

tions. The Lord discloses: “I pervade the whole world

with My Glory, as the Sun with its rays.”

710. Sarvaasu-nilayah ? “The Abode of

all Life-Energies.” One Who is the very Substratum for the

life and existence of all creatures. He is the Self, the Life in

all of us?therefore, He is the very support for the Praana in

each living creature.

711. Analah ? “0ne Who is of Unlimited

Wealth, Power and Glory.” There is no boundary for His

Glories?there is no limit for His Greatness, as He is, by His

Nature, beyond all Naama-roopaadi and All-Pervasive. ‘Of My

Divine Glories there is no end’, Bhagavan Himself reveals to

Arjuna.

712. Darpahaa ? “The Destroyer of pride in

evil-minded people.” Easily He curbed the pride oflndra and

others by lifting the mountain and protecting the cows of the

Yamuna banks.

713. Darpadah ? “One Who gives pride to the

righteous,”?meaning. One Who creates in the Good an

anxious urge to be the best among the righteous and virtuous.

This pride is their protection from compromising in even a

small way in any act. This is a positive ‘pride’ of the higher

order. There is also a reading of A-darpadah when the meaning

would be: “One Who never allows His devotees to become

proud.” In this way, devotees who totally surrender unto Him

all their virtues, acting on purely as His agents, are freed by

Him from the bondage of spiritual pride. For such pride,

resulting from a preponderance of Saliva guna and sense of

doership, would make them vain-glorious of their goodness.

714. Driptah ? One Who is ever drunk with the

Infinite Bliss of His own essential nature as Sat-Chit-Aananda.

715. Durdharah ? The object of contemplation

which is indeed very difficult to attain:?the One Who is re-

alised by Yogis through arduous processes of intense, single-

pointed contemplation. Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita

admits: “Greater is their trouble whose minds are set on the

Unmanifest; for the goal, the Unmanifested, is very hard for

the embodied to reach.”

716. A-paraa-jitah ? “The Unvanquished.”

“Never-Conquered” is the Glory of the Self, for, conquering

is of’objects’; the ‘Subject’ can never be conquered. This, being

the Reality in all, the senses, mind, etc., including the faculties

(Devas} can never reach or conquer Him. Even when the mighty

senses and the terrible Asuras fight against It, still these over-

whelming powers of desires and passions can never vanquish

the Self, the divine Narayana

717. Visvamoortih ? “Of the Form of the

entire Universe.” Lord is the total?created, so His Form is

called Visvaroopa. The total-gross-form of the Universe to-

gether represents His gross-Form-Divine.

718. Mahaa-moortih ? The Great-Form-

Divine of the Lord as He reclines upon the Sesha couch as the

very support for the Creator to bring into existence the Universe

of forms and plurality. The entire Universe and the Creator of

the Universe are but an aspect of Sree Narayana, the Supreme

Self.

719. Deepta-moortih ? “0f the Resplendent Form.” As Consciousness, He is ever bright and fully

effulgent, illumining all experiences at all times. Sanjaya re-

ports: “If the splendour of a thousand Suns were to blaze

out at once in the sky, that would be like the splendour of that

Mighty Being.”

720. A-Moortimaan ? “Having no Form.”

Though He is described above as Deepta-moorti: “of the

Resplendent Form”; Mahaa-moorti: “of Great Form”;

Vishva-moorti: “of the Universal-Form”?He has, in reality,

“No-Form”; A-moortimaan. He pervades all, but nothing

limits Him. The limited alone has a form?the Unlimited, like

‘Space’, has no form. The Infinite Brahman being so subtle,

“Subtler than the subtlest,” Sree Narayana as the Self-in-all,

allows everything to remain in Him, but He is not conditioned

by any one of them, ever.

721. Aneka-moortih ? “Multi-Formed”: One

Who Himself has become the world of varieties of Forms

?Who has Himself taken the various Incarnations in order to

help the world of beings to evolve quicker and fuller.

722. Avyaktah ? “Unmanifest.” Things are

called manifest when they can be perceived by the sense-

organs. As the Self, the Consciousness in us, Sree Hari is the

very faculty of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching

in the five sense-organs. He being, thus, the very subject. He

cannot at the same time be the object of the sense-organs.

Hence, He cannot be defined or described.

723. Sata-moortih ? “0f Myriad-Forms”: even though Consciousness, like Light, has no form of its own,

all thought and the thought-projected world of infinite forms

are all illumined by the Supreme. Therefore, the Self, function-

ing through the fluctuations of the restless mind “creates” the

illusion of forms?all those forms as His, just as all dream-

forms are created by the waker’s mind only.

724. Sataananah – “Many-Faced”: because

He is of the Universal-Form, all faces are His only. “Hands and

feet everywhere, with heads and mouths everywhere. His ears

everywhere, stands (The Lord), enveloping all”

725. Ekah ? “The One. The One-without-a second.” As the Infinite is without any of the three distinctions,

He, Sree Narayana, the Brahman, can only be the One without

any otherness.

726. Naikah ? “The Many.” One Who, though

the One, yet plays in the bosom of all the living creatures.

Just as we are one entity, but our thoughts are many, the

Supreme Consciousness, Sree Narayana, though One, His

reflections as ‘Jeevas’ play in all mind-intellect-equipments.

Because He is thus seen to be manifested in the world of plurality, He is “Not One.” Again, “The One” is a definition, a

quality. The Lord is Indefinable, quality-less (unqualified).

Hence after making the student grasp that He is “The One,”

where the pluralities are all merged, the teacher is immediately

pointing out that He is “Not even One.” For, to conceive “The

One” is to conceive the Truth with our intellect?He is to be

experienced on transcending the intellect. “The One” has a

meaning only with reference to the many. “The One” is a

relative statement. To show that the Infinite is to be “experienced” by the “becoming” and not by “knowing,” the teacher has

negated “Not even One.” Sruti says “The Lord sports with

many forms by His Maayaa.”

727. Savah ? “He Who is of the nature of the

Sava?Sacrifice.” The sacrifice in which the Soma juice is

squeezed out is called Sava.

728. Kah ? “Happiness.” One Who is of the Nature

of Bliss. Since He transcends the body-mind-intellect-equip-

ments, which are the seats of sorrow, in Him there can be only

Bliss. Or Kah means a question: He Who is ever a “question without an answer” to the human intellect ? He who can

be experienced only on transcending the intellect and not apprehended through intellection.

729. Kirn ? “What.” Since the Lord is the final

Goal to be reached, He is the One Who is to be enquired into

or diligently sought through constant questioning upon What

is His Nature. Also because the Truth is realised through this

process of enquiry and discrimination?the final Goal of all

“What” enquiring?the Lord, is termed here as “What,”

(Kirn).

730. Yat ? “Which.” The pronoun “Yat” means

“that which is self-existent.” Hence in the Upanishads we find

the usage of this term frequently. It may also be noted that the

pronoun “Which” (Yat) denotes an already existing object.

Thus the Self-existence of the Supreme Reality, independent

of the existence and non-existence of things in the world is

indicated when Lord Sree Hari is termed as “Which.”

731. Tat ? “That.” The Supreme is indicated by

this term in all the Upanishadic literature, and one of the

Mahaavaakya is “That Thou Art”. Here “That”

means the Truth that is not comprehended now, but is to be

apprehended through listening to the Teacher (Sravana),

reflections upon what you have heard (Manana) and meditation. In Geeta, Bhagavan says: “Om Tat Sat”

are the three designations of Brahman. Or again, the term Tat

can mean “That which expands all the world of plurality.”

732. Padam Anuttamam ? “The Unequalled State of Perfection: The Supreme State of Truth.”

Lord Vishnu is the Way and the Goal and the

very pilgrimage. “He than Whom there is no Higher.”

733. Loka-bandhuh ? “Friend of the World.”

Everyone is inextricably bound to Him in His Love Infinite,

and He is the Father to all. Since there is no well-wisher or

friend dearer than one’s own Father, He is the One unfailing

sure Friend of the world of beings and things. The Lord serves

Tor the uplift of the world whenever the creatures come to

suffer sorrows created by their own immoral negative ways.

734. Loka-naathah ? “0ne Who is the

“Lord” of the World,” or “One Who is ‘solicited’ by the world

of beings for the fulfilment of all their desires and needs. Or

it also means, “One Who ‘adds glory’ to the world. There are

also interpretations for the term ‘Naath’ (‘TPT) which express

“shines, praised by or loved by”: in all these different meanings,

Sree Hari is described as the Lord of the World Lokanaatha.

735. Maadhavah ? “One Who was born in the

family of Madhu.” The Vaisaakha-month is called Maadhava-

month because the Lord is the Spirit of Beauty behind the

Spring and its regal lush.

736. Bhakta-vatsalah ? “One Whose Love

for the devotees knows no bounds.” He is ever merciful and

endlessly kind towards His devotees.

737. Suvarna-varnah ? “Golden Coloured” is

Sree Narayana for He is, in the devotee, the pure Self; and

in all. He is the very All-Illumining Pure Awareness. Mundaka

Upanishad declares: “When the Seer sees Him of Golden-

hue.”

Upon witnessing the Self-Effulgent (Golden) Being, the seer’s

realization is completely transforming, and “then that wise one,

shaking off all deeds of merits and demerits, becomes stainless,

and attains the supreme State of Equipoise.”

738. Hemaangah ? “One who has limbs of

Gold.” The description of the Lord functioning through the

orb of the Sun is well-known: Hiranmaya?”of pure-golden-

form.” Sruti mentions it: “This Golden Person seen in the disc

of the Sun” … This same Upanishad insists further that

“Mind is Brahman” and the “Sun is Brahman.” Lord Hari,

as the Infinite Brahman, plays in the Sun (Soorya-Narayana)?

thus the term is most appropriate.

739. Varaangah ? “With beautiful limbs.”

Also, Vara can take the meaning “lovable,” therefore, Sree

Narayana is described here as “One whose form (limbs) is

supremely “lovable” to the yogi-of-devotion.”

740. Chandanaangadee ? This is made

up of two terms, “Joy-giving” (Chandana) and “armlets”

(Angada). Thus the phrase means “One Who has attractive

armlets.” It can also be used as describing “One Who is

smeared with the sandal.”

741. Veerahaa ? “The destroyer of the valiant

heroes”?in order to uphold righteousness. Lord Hari takes

His Incarnations and destroys the intrepid and daring Asuras

in battle. Again, it may be interpreted as One Who destroys

the powerful and mighty forces of likes and dislikes?Dvandva

?pairs of opposites, the hosts of our own negativities in our

hearts.

742. Vishamah ? “Unequalled.” Arjuna, in

Bhagavad-Gita, estimates his experience of the Lord’s

Cosmic Form and says: “None there exists who is equal to

You; how can there be then another superior to You in the

three worlds, 0 Being of unequalled power?”

743. Soonyah ? “The Void.” Here Void means

the total absence of (a) the equipments-of-experiences?the

body-mind-intellect; (b) the fields-of-experiences?the objects-

emotions-thoughts; (c) the experiencer-attitudes?the perceiver-feeler-thinker personality. In Brahman, the Pure Consciousness, all these three (a, b and c) are totally absent as the

devotee of Hari transcends them all. So the Lord, in His

Infinite Nature, is ‘without attributes;’ seemingly then. He is

the “Void.” This is not “non-existence” of the Buddhists.

This is Pure Existence without the object-emotion-thought

world?the Self, Sree Narayana.

744. Ghritaaseeh ? “One Who has no need for

any good wishes from any one.” The Infinite Lord, perfect

and transcendental, has no need for any of the objects of the

world to make Him complete since the state of incompleteness

is indeed the springboard for all desires to gush forth. It can

also mean one who has eaten away the ghee stolen from the

cow-herds’ store-rooms in Brindavan.

745. Achalah ? “The non-moving.” Either it

can signify One Who never falls and therefore does not move

away from His own Infinite nature, or it may mean that since

the Lord is All-Pervading, He cannot move as there is no place

where, at any time. He is not. He is Ever-Present everywhere.

746. Chalah ? “Moving.” By the juxtaposition of

these two opposite qualities, we are reminded that the ap-

parent world of plurality that constitutes the realm of change

is also nothing other than the immovable Atman interpreted

through our personal equipments of experiences. Unconditioned

by the body, mind and intellect, the Lord in His Infinitude is

motionless, but as conditioned by the vehicles He apparently

seems to move. We have already explained this relationship

earlier. It is something like a traveller, though himself sleeping,

is able to travel all the night since he is conditioned by the

vehicle which carries him.

747. Amaanee ? “One who has no false

vanity.” Since He knows His own real divine nature. He has

no false identifications with the equipments of not-Self such

as the flesh, the emotions or the thoughts.

748. Maanadah ? “One who gives, or causes,

by His Maayaa the false identification with the body.” The

Sanskrit term ‘maana’ can also mean ‘honour,’ and therefore,

”maanadaK can mean One who honours all His true devotees.

The root ‘rfa’ in Sanskrit means ‘blasting’, and therefore, the

same term can also mean one who blasts all false notions from

the bosom of his devotees.

749. Maanyah ? “One Who is to be honoured.”

He is the most worshipful as He is the very material Cause for

the world of plurality. Bhagavan Sankara says: “If he, who

has realised the Supreme, is so blessed and to be honoured

in this world,” how much more worshipful is the Lord who

is the very substratum and support of the whole universe and by

Whom all are blessed and inspired to gain their experiences in

the world of things and beings!

750. Lokasvaamee ? “Lord of the Universe.” Here the word ?loka? in Sanskrit means ‘field-of-experience.’ The One Who is the Controller, Director, Who

is the Lord and Governor of all fields-of-experiences of all living creatures, at all times, everywhere, is the consciousness that illumines matter. Therefore, the term Loka-svaamee is extremely appropriate.