Itihāsa / Mahābhārata / Viṣṇu Sahasranāma

Viṣṇu Sahasranāma (विष्णुसहस्रनाम)

A litany of a thousand names of Viṣṇu, spoken in the Anuśāsana-parva (अनुशासनपर्व). In the vulgate it is chapter 149. The critical edition numbers the parva differently, so this page keeps the vulgate numeral and does not invent the other one. The frame is an examination. Yudhiṣṭhira asks Bhīṣma what the one deity of the world is, what the one dharma is, and by praising whom a person crosses. Bhīṣma, still on the bed of arrows, answers with the names. A fruit-telling closes the litany: what the hearing is said to do. Śaṅkara wrote a commentary on the names. Houses recite them as a stotra. The philosophical claim is the one inside the frame. The deity is one, and the thousand names are ways of saying that one, not a crowd of gods added together.

The thousand names are not sat on this shelf, name by name. A list half-remembered would be a false text. When they are sat, each name will be a sitting: Devanagari, the IAST, the split of the compound, and a sentence of this shelf's own. Until then the page is the frame, the place in the parva, and the claim.

नेपालीमा

विष्णुसहस्रनाम अनुशासनपर्वको स्तोत्र हो। प्रचलित पाठमा अध्याय १४९। आलोचनात्मक संस्करणको अङ्क अर्कै छ। यो पृष्ठले प्रचलित अङ्क राख्छ। युधिष्ठिरले भीष्मलाई संसारको एक देवता को हो, एक धर्म के हो, र कसको स्तुतिले पार हुन्छ भनेर सोध्छन्। भीष्म बाणको शय्याबाट हजार नामले जवाफ दिन्छन्। अन्त्यमा फलश्रुति छ। शङ्करले नामहरूमाथि टीका लेखे। घर-घरमा यसलाई स्तोत्रझैँ जप्छन्। दाबी यो हो: देवता एक हुन्। हजार नाम त्यही एकलाई भन्ने तरिका हुन्, थपिने देवताको भीड होइनन्। नामहरू अझै एकपछि अर्को गरी समावेश गरिएका छैनन्। आधा सम्झेको सूची झुटो पाठ हुन्छ।

Where it sits

It comes after the Mokṣadharma, while Bhīṣma can still speak, and before he leaves at the sun's turning. The tenth chapter of the Gītā is the same gesture in short: wherever something is splendid, that splendor is his. The Bhāgavata will spend a whole skandha on the life those names point at. The Nārada Bhakti Sūtras are the sūtra book of the love this litany is recited in.