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| Sarve Janaah Sukhino Bhavanthu | 
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VISHNU
SAHASRANAMAM
Stanza 17upendro
vaamanah praamsur- (151)
Upendrah -The
younger brother of Indra. In His Incarnation as Vaamana, He was born to
Aditi, who was the mother of Indra, and hence, the Lord is known as the
“Younger brother of Indra”. In Sanskrit the prefix upa denotes ‘Above’ in
the sense of ‘superior to’; therefore, Upendra may also mean “One who is
superior to Indra”, the king of gods. Such an explanation we find in the
Harivamsa (76-47). Indra,
the king of the sense-organs, is the mind and the Consciousness, which is
the Self, is the One factor that dynamises the mind. Since life is that
which controls even the mind, certainly It is superior to the mind and
this Self is the Maha Vishnu. (152)
Vaamanah -Of
the ten great incarnations, the fifth one is Vaamana; and the very name
indicates ‘One who has a small body’. It was in the form of a child (vatuh
=A child student in a gurukula) that Vaamana approached the divinely
righteous Emperor Mahaabali to beg of him a little land, of the length of
his tiny three steps-and the Lord measured in His three steps all the
three worlds and thus conquered Mahaabali. He checked (Vamayati) the
rising pride of possession in Bali, hence He, in that incarnation as a
Vatu, is called Vaamana. The
term Vaamana also means ‘worshipful’: “Him, the Dwarf, sitting in the
middle of the heart, all gods adore”, so we read in the Kathopanishad
(5-3). However, here the emphasis should be upon the meaning “short
statured” because of the contrast it makes with the following name.
(153)
Praamsuh -One
whose body is vast is called Praamsuh. Vaamana, when He got the promise
from the righteous King, and when He started measuring, the Lord took His
Cosmic Form, and with each step measured the earth, the interspace, and
the heaven. In Harivamsa (262-263) there is a beautiful description of the
little Vaamana growing into His Total Form. The rate of His expansion is
described with reference to two fixed factors the Sun and the Moon. When
He took the form, the Sun and the Moon were His eyes; as He measured the
earth, they came to His bosom; as He was measuring the space, the Sun was
at His navel and as He lifted His feet to measure the Heaven, the Sun and
the Moon were just below His knees. (154)
Amoghah -One
whose activities are ever a fulfilment of some great purpose. Even
insignificant actions, which, ordinarily, people would think are empty and
purposeless, are never really so, when they spring from Him. Even when He
punishes, it is only for inaugurating a greater evolutionary blessing.
(155)
Suchih -One
who is spotlessly ‘clean’, and therefore, Ever-Pure. Impurities in a
substance are things other than itself; when dust is on the cloth, the
cloth is impure, unclean. Since the Self, the Aatman, is the Non- Dual
Reality, having nothing other than Itself in It, Ever-pure alone must It
always be. And Suchih is One who gives this purity to those who
contemplate upon Him constantly. (156)
Oorjitah -One
who has infinite strength and vitality. Wherever, in the organism, we meet
with any strength and vitality they are all the strength and vitality of
the Self. The Infinite Vishnu is the One All-Pervading Self, and
therefore, He is the very springhead for all
strength. (157)
Ateendrah -One who is beyond Indra in
knowledge, glory and strength. Since Indra represents the ‘mind-intellect’
equipment, Aatman, the Self is denoted here as that which transcends the
mind. (158)
Samgrahah -One
who holds the entire world of beings-and-things together in an
indissoluble embrace unto Himself. Just as the hub of a wheel holds the
rim unto itself by its endless spokes, so too the Aatman, the Self within,
lends Its vitality to every cell in the body and to every thought in the
inner-equipments. In
none can anything happen which is not a glory borrowed from Him. And, the
Self, being the same everywhere, in all existence, in both the movables
and immovables, gross and subtle -in the manifest as well as in the
unmanifest - He certainly is the One who holds the world of phenomena unto
Himself in a vast embrace of Love and Oneness.
(159)
Sargah -One
who has created out of Him- self the whole world. It therefore must also
connote One, who has the whole created world as His own form, since the
creation is His own manifestation as the Subtle and the Gross.
(160)
Dhritaatmaa -One
who supports Himself by Himself. In the previous epithet Samgrahah, He was
shown as the Cohesion of Love in the world of matter and energy, and in
Sargah, He, as the One material and efficient cause of creation, was shown
as also the very supporter of the manifested world. But who supports Him?
He is Dhritaatmaa - He is established in Himself.
(161)
Niyamah -The Appointing Authority: It is He, who orders all the
mighty forces of nature and prescribes for each the Laws of their conduct,
the ways of their behaviour and the methods of their functions. The Sun,
Moon, Air, Waters, Dik-Paalakas, Death etc. are all appointed and ordered
by the Lord. (162)
Yamah -One
who is the mighty Power that administers all the forces of Nature under
His Law. Everything in nature strictly obeys ever all His
Laws. Stanza 18
vedyo
vaidyah sadaa-yogee 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20-30 Rituals Home |
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