FOURTEEN SPECIAL NAMES OF VISHNU

FOURTEEN SPECIAL NAMES OF VISHNU

Each name of God points to several concepts and ideas, not only those enshrined in the scriptures but scores of other philosophical and esoteric connotations that they suggest without actually spelling them out. There are fourteen nAmas (= names) of Lord Vishnu which are scripturally most sanctified and which are very often used for the most fundamental of all rituals, namely the Acamanam (See below for an explanation of this ritual). All these names occur in the V.S. (=Vishnu Sahasrannama). In fact some of them occur more than once. And commentators wax eloquent in producing different derivations and meanings for the different occurrences of the same name. These fourteen are made up of two sets of names, one consisting of three names and the other consisting of twelve names, with the proviso that one name (Govinda) occurs in both the sets. The first set is made up of three names: achyuta, ananta and Govinda. These three names are so purificatory that before every act of religious duty one recites achyutAya namah, anantAya namaH and govindAya namaH and sips a small drop of water after the recitation of each name and this ritual, being the first part of the Acamanam, is supposed to purify one spiritually. Without such an Acamanam no religious rite or ritual is begun and none is complete; more, at each stage of the ritual, on completion of one part of the ritual one does an Acamanam and on the beginning of the other part of the same ritual one does the Acamanam; so that during an elaborate ritual there are several occasions when one will be doing two Acamanams consecutively. The importance of the Acamanam for spiritual purification can never be overstated. The second part of the Acamanam consists of touching different parts of the body with specified fingers and movements of the right hand, saying as we go along, the remaining twelve names, namely, KeSava, nArAyaNa, mAdhava, Govinda, VishNu, MadhusUdana, trivikrama, VAmana, ShriIdhara, hRshIkeSa, PadmanAbha, dAmodara. These twelve nAmas have such a great sanctity that orthodox followers of Vaishnavism put marks on twelve parts of the body with each mark representing one of these names and this practice became so ingrained in the culture that these marks came to be called 'nAmams' in Tamil. It is significant to note that the famous Avatara-names, Rama and Krishna are not in these twelve. However, most of the names are also Krishna's names thus reverberating the general thought that Krishna's is a complete Avatara. The only Avatara referred to directly in these twelve names is the VAmana (= dwarf) incarnation in which the Lord after appearing as a dwarf later grows up in cosmic space to extend His feet to the three worlds of the universe and is therefore also referred to as trivikrama. (= the One who took three giant strides). This incarnation is mentioned in the vedas also very often. Leaving these two,  the rest are taken up below.

He is keSavaH -- which simply means one who has beautiful locks of hair. In the incarnation as Krishna, even as he was born, the description of the child makes special mention of the dense locks of hair through which the gems of the ornaments in the ears and the crown sparkle: (Shrimad BhA.10-3). Another meaning: He killed the demon keSi, so He is called KeSava, according to a statement of Narada in the Vishnu PurANa. A third etymological meaning is more interesting. KeSava is broken into kaH, aH, IsaH - that is, (according to the dictionary meanings of these monosyllabic words) BrahmA, Vishnu and Shiva - the three Lords of the Trinity. The word KeSava then means He in whose control are the three Lords. In other words KeSava is the transcendental God Supreme, of whom the three Lords are specific manifestations.

The eight-lettered mantra of Narayana and the five-lettered mantra of Shiva are the two greatest mantras of Hindu religion, next only, if at all, to the GAyatrI mantra. Volumes can be written about the name Narayana, which is to be pronounced as nArAyaNa, though we shall stick to the more popular spelling, Narayana. nara means Atman, that is, Brahman itself. All the elemental principles emanated from it, therefore they are nAra. They are the effects of the Supreme which is the Ultimate Cause, the Cause of all causes, for them all. The cause always pervades the effect. Without a cause, there is no effect. Wherever there is an effect there must be a cause. Therefore the effects which are the nAras are pervaded by the original cause, which is Brahman. This is what is indicated by the word Narayana. This name has been extolled to the skies in all the PurANas and other scriptures. The Tamil veda says: it is the word which does all the good more than the mother. Whatever sense experiences one goes through, whether it is inside or outside, everything is pervaded by the Lord Narayana -- says the Upanishad. They are all in me (mayi te) and I am in them (teshu caapyaham) says the Lod in the Gita (IX - 29). That everything is in Him is the bahir-vyApti (transcendence; bahih = outside). That He is in everything is the antar-vyApti (immanence; antah=inside). Transcendence and Immanence are the T and I of the TIP of the Iceberg that is the Godhead. These two are now in capsule form in the single name Narayana, where one takes the meaning of ayana as support, or base or substratum; ayana also indicates both the 'means' (upAya) and the 'end' (upeya). So Narayana may mean 'He (= His name) is the means and He is the end' as also 'He (= His Grace) is the means and He is the end'.

The name MAdhavaH occurs thrice. mA is lakshmi. Her beloved is MAdhavaH. In Ch.U. the technique of madhu-vidyA is taught. It is a way of worship by which one considers the Sun-God as the honey tasted by the divines and through that worship one attains the knowledge of Brahman. So He is the One who is realised by madhu-vidyA, therefore MAdhavaH. The third interpretation: mA is the flow of mind. The mind needs to be controlled from its getting dissipated by the sense organs bringing in several images and impressions of distractions. The three methods of controlling the mind are silence, meditation and practice of yoga. These make one get rid of the bondage to the sense-objects. The One who thus channelises the mind away from the sense objects (mAm cittavRttim dhavati dUrI-karoti) is mAdhavaH. Also the family of madhu is one branch of the yadu dynasty. And the One who belongs to the madhu clan is MAdhavaH. Again, mA is learning. The Lord of that learning is MAdhavaH.

The most important one of these twelve is Govinda. Already we have noted above that this name is common to the two fundamentally important sets of names. Govinda means the Lord of the Cows. Go means cow. That is why the lord is also called gopAla (the protector or sustainer of cows). Incidentally the name gopAla does not occur in the V.S. but the parallel word, gopati, having the same meaning, occurs. Go also means the word of the vedas. He confers (=vindate) the wisdom of the vedas on us, therefore Govindah. Also because He is known only by the word or mantras of the vedas. Go also means the Earth. In one of His cosmic manifestations (namely, varAha-Avatara, the incarnation as a giant boar) He recovered the Earth from the demon Hiranyaksha who had carried it away . So He is GovindaH. It is interesting to note that Adi Shankara chose this name of God to be used as the deity in his immortal poem 'Bhaja Govindam' which, within a short span of 30 verses comprises the whole of Hindu philosophy, mythology and metaphysics and is also one of the best devotional stotras that one can enjoy reciting. The folklore is that Shankara immortalised the name Govinda in his stotra because it was the name of his Guru! The name Govinda occurs twice in V.S. A lecture on spiritual matters, particularly the ones which seek to cover a PurANa or Ramayana or M.B. is usually preceded by a chorus recitation of the name Govinda, on the prompting of the speaker by the words: sarvatra Govinda-nAma-samkIrtanaM. The pilgrims who visit the Tirupati temple of the Lord always raise the cry of govindA, govindA throughout their way to the temple and to the sanctorum. The devout, almost till the previous generation, used to remember and recite the name of Govinda for every mouthful they eat. The name Govinda may thus be seen to pervade the entire cultural milieu of Hinduism.

Though the name Vishnu is commonly taken to denote the second God of the Trinity, responsible for the function of protecting and sustaining the Universe and its beings, it has a more profound meaning which transcends the legends associated with it in mythology. The word comes from the root verb vyApnoti - meaning, pervades. He pervades the fibre of every being. He pervades everything that you know of or can think of. Not only He pervades everything but He transcends them. The purusha sUkta of the vedas says: sa bhUmim viSvato vRtvA; atyatishTat dasAngulaM . He pervaded all the Earth and the Universe and then exceeded it by ten inches. Symbolically it means that He transcends everything. The first two names viSvaM and VishNuh of the V.S. take care of the 'I" and 'T' (that is, immanence and transcendence) of the TIP of the Iceberg,  that is God.

There are several names of the Lord which contain a whole mythological event within the name. One such name is madhu-sUdanaH. The story is pretty complicated. We extract it from devI-BhA. Chapter 1. After each deluge, the next morning (of the Cosmic Day of BrahmA) the Creator has to create from scratch. At the beginning of one such morning, two demons arose from the dirt of the Lord's ear (who was just rising up from His Cosmic yogic sleep) and from the tamo-guNa which was the first thing that emanated from the creator. These demons were Madhu and KaiTabha. The creator caused the first sound vibration of AUM and from that the vedas arose. But the two demons took away the vedas and made them inaccessible. The Lord took the manifestation as haya-grIva and brought the vedas back. The demons were furious and began to shake up the very foundations of the divine lotus stalk which was the seat of the Creator from which He was to start His work of creation. So the Lord decided to do away with the two demons who were nothing but tamo-guNa personified. The Lord promised to give them whatever they wanted. They were arrogant enough to throw back the same question to the Lord: What boon do you want from us? The Lord now replied: I want your death! They replied very 'cleverly', 'Yes, you can destroy us, provided you do it in sky uncovered by cloth'! The Lord removed the cloth covering His thighs, put them on his lap and destroyed them. It is important to note here that in the Lord's Cosmic Form, His feet are the Earth and His thighs are the space of the sky. (cf. bhUh pAdau yasya nAbhir viyat … -- Preliminary shlokas in V.S.) So His act of removing the cloth from His thighs fulfilled the demons' requirement of a sky uncovered by cloth. What they thought would not happen did happen by the Lord's strategy. This is the lIlA of the Lord to kill the two asuras Madhu and KaiTabha. Therefore He is madhu-sUdanaH.

ShrIdharaH is His name because He holds ShrI, the divine Mother, the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity, in His divine chest. She is therefore the most proximate to the Lord and that is why we pray to Her to plead for our cause.

hRshIkeSaH is His name because He is the Lord of the senses which bring us all the pleasures of life. harsha is happiness or pleasure. hRshIkA is that which causes pleasure. The Lord of all the hRshIkAs is hRshIkeSaH. . He is the One who remains as the Moon in our mind, as the Sun in our eyes, and other deities in our various senses and make them sense. So He is the lord of these all, therefore hRshIkeSaH. Also hRshI means the light rays from the Sun and the Moon; they are the ones which bring us the pleasures of Mother Nature. They are His keSas, that is, they are His rightful property, therefore hRshIkeSaH.

PadmanAbhaH appears three times in the V.S. Padma means lotus and nAbhi means the navel. The three meanings of PadmanAbha are: He in whose navel stands the lotus from which the creator BrahmA, the source of the universe, originated; He whose navel is beautifully shaped like a lotus; He who resides in the central part of the heart lotus - the reference here being to the vedic passage which says: It (The Supreme) lies below the heart as an inverted lotus, the stalk of the lotus reaching just above the navel:  padma-koSa-pratIkASam hRdayam cApy-adho-mukham / adho nishTyA vitastyAnte nAbhyAmupari tishTati // In addition to these three meanings PadmanAbha has an esoteric meaning derived from the fact that the word mahA-padma stands for the number million-million (10 raised to the power 12). The name symbolically states that the Transcendental Supreme is the Ultimate source of Time.

The name dAmodara has the unique distinction of building into itself the two parts of the Lord - one, the naivete that was exhibited by Him when He as a child was bound by a few feet of rope tied around his waist by His mother Yasoda; and the other, the divine grandeur which in its cosmic form has the entire universe in its stomach. dAma means rope. His stomach (udara) was bound by the rope affectionately tied round his waist by the mother. dAma also means abode; the abode of the whole universe is His stomach. A third meaning is: he is greatly compassionate (udAra) towards even sinful people, because of his self-control (dama).

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