VISHNU SAHASRANAAM

298. Kaamapradah –One who supplies the desired objects; One who fulfils all desires To the devotee, the Lord, is the giver of all desired objects, and to a man of meditation, the Lord is that state-of-mind where all desires are fulfilled- in the sense that no more can any desire linger in his heart after the Experience-Divine

299. Prabhuh -He is the Lord, the Master, the Owner, the proprietor. One who has all powers to do, not to do and to do otherwise is called the Great Lord.

Stanza 33

yugaadi-krit yugaavarto naikamaayo mahaasanah
adrisyo vyaktaroopascha sahasrajit anantajit.

300. Yugaadi-krit -One who is the creator of the divisions of aeons, described in our Puranas, as Yugas. These Yugas are four in number. Kritam, Tretaa, Dvaapara and Kali. In short, He is the Lord of Time. By the term Aadi, it must be understood to indicate all other divisions of Time as Centuries, Years, Months, Weeks, Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds. He is not only the Lord of the Yugas, but He is the Light of Consciousness that illumines the duration of each experience and the very interval between every pair of subjective experiences.

301. Yugaavartah  -In the previous term the Lord is indicated as the Creator of the Yugas, and here we are told that He is also the Power behind the wheel of time that goes on changing and repeating itself, i.e. not only He is the Lord of Time, but He is the Mighty Administrator of the performances of Time, the very Law behind the constant flow of the flood of time.

302. Naikamaayah -One whose delusory forms are endless and variegated. According to Puranas, for the sake of sustaining the world and maintaining its order and rhythm, the Lord had taken different forms, each of His manifestations well-suited for the times of His arrival. Thus, we have ten in- carnations. Also, in that mighty manifestations of the Lord, as Krishna and Raffia, we find descriptions of how one and the same entity generated different attitudes and emotions in different types of people. In short, one who has realised the Self, can thereafter freely play through all his existing Vaasanaas and none of them can ever entangle him, because he has grown to be the master of his own Vaasanaas. Maayaa, otherwise called as Avidyaa, is constituted of the Vaasanaas in us, forming our Causal Body. One who has transcended this is the One who has realised the Infinite. Lord is therefore, one who is without Maayaa in Him. An individual entity, like us, is one who is under the tyrannies of Maayaa. The Lord is one who can wield Maayaa for His purpose without Himself becoming involved in it.

303. Mahaasanah -This word can be dissolved as He who eats up everything. One who swallows up all perceptions, emotions and thoughts, created by the Vaasanaas, at the various levels of personality, due to our own individual Vaasanaas. At the time of Samaadhi when the limited ego is ended and the Supreme is experienced all the expressions of Vaasanaas are, as it were, swallowed by that Infinite Experience, and therefore, this Great Vishnu is called as the “Consumer of Everything.”

304. Adrisyah -Through the sense-organs, the mind and intellect at this moment, we are aware of the outer objects and our subjective emotions and thoughts. The ultimate Reality is neither the objects perceived by us, nor the instruments of our perception. He is the Subjective Core, the Eternal Essence, wherein, the perceived and the instruments of perceptions are all totally absent. This Subjective Reality must necessarily be, by Its very nature, not an object-of- perception, and hence, It is called as the Imperceptible meaning, He is the very Perceiver in all perceptions.

305. Vyakta-roopah -He who has a form- clearly perceptible to the meditator in his meditation. The contradiction is so smotheringly apparent because of the very placing of the term. It is only just-now, in the above term, that we are told that the Lord is imperceptible (Adrisyah) and the very following term declares that He is perceptible. Here it means that though He is not perceptible with the physical instruments of perceptions, yet on transcending the equipments, the Yogi intimately comes to experience the entire Divine Glory of the Self. Though, ordinarily it is not easy to see Him, in the devotee's heart, the Lord comes to play vividly and drives the devotee mad in his ecstasy.

306. Sahasra-jit -One who vanquishes thou- sands. In all the Puranas everywhere, it is found that the Incarnations manifest to destroy the diabolically fallen (Raakshas) who approach the good in endless hoards to annihilate them. One who conquers over these diabolical forces is the Lord Vishnu.

Subjectively the hosts of passions and lusts, greeds and jealousies which invade the inner bosom, and loot away the seeker’s tranquillity and peace, are all ultimately vanquished by this Higher Consciousness and therefore, the Self is indicated as the one who is ever victorious over all the hoards of our lower impulses.

307. Ananta-jit -Ever-victorious. The victory of the Lord is endless; in every Incarnation, He alone wins in the end. The victory over negative forces becomes complete when once the Higher Consciousness is experienced, and hence, the Self is indicated here as Ananta-jit.

Stanza 34

ishto visishtah sishteshtah sikhandee nahusho vrishah
krodhahaa krodhakrit kartaa visvabaahur maheedharah.

308. lshtah -This term can be interpreted in two ways. One who is invoked through the different types of Vedic rituals (Yajnas), is Ishtah. Or, it can also mean, One who is loved by all. The Lord being the very centre of all love in everyone. The Brihadaranyakopanishad very clearly indicates this idea in almost unvarnished words: “The man loves his wife not because of the wife, but because of himself. ...etc.”

All love spring from our personal love for the Infinite which is the Self in us.

309. Visishtah -One who is the noblest and the most sacred. Vishnu, the Lord, dwells in the heart of every- one. He is the sole essence presiding over every physical, mental and intellectual activities in every living creature and, therefore, He is indicated by this term.

310. Sishta-ishtah -To all spiritually minded good people and therefore sincere seekers, the Lord is the greatest beloved in-as-much as, He represents the Goal and the Destination of all devoted seekers. In short, He is the Supreme Beloved for all spiritually inclined divine hearts.

He can also mean that the Lord is one who Himself is sincere and ardent lover and courtier of all devotees, sincerely and diligently seeking Him. There are commentators who indicate that the term can also mean: One who is being constantly invoked and help in adoration by all true devotees with their physical, mental and intellectual activities.

311. Sikhandee -One who wears ‘Sikhanda’ meaning “the peacock feather”, Lord Krishna is described in Bhagavat as having adorned with the ‘eye’ of the peacock feather, especially in his early child and boy-hood.

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