Talk:Vishnu sahasranama

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Perhaps the actual list of all 1000 names would more appropriately live at wikisource.org?

-- Eric 14:43, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Article name 2 Pronounciation 3 Benefits of chanting Vishnu Sahasranama 4 New section 5 "Greatness"? 6 Rig veda 7 Vishnu_sahasranama/Full_prayer 8 Pronunciation 9 Too many quotes

[edit] Article name

This is inconsistant.

Should this article be renamed "Vishnusahasranama" (one word), or should all references to it within the article be changed to "Vishnu sahasranama" (two words).

-- Eric 23:56, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be called Vishnu sahasranama with two words. You can change it. The actual text has already been broken down under Prayer. Raj2004 15:01, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have changed it. Raj2004 15:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation

An example: Sanskrit/Hindi has three letters representing S, which are represented here as 's' (as in save), 'sh' (as in shave), the third 'sh', as used in the Sanskrit word shatkona (Hexagon), Vishnu, Krishna and others is actually a retroflex phoneme and has no equivalent in English. Retroflex phonemes are those where the tongue is slightly coiled back in the palate and released along with the phoneme's sound. An analogous example is the hard 't' in 'tyre'. Do the same thing with a 'sh' sound to get the correct pronunciation of the 'sh' as used in Vishnu. Also, the 'n' in Vishnu and Krishna is retroflex. In formal transliteration of Sanskrit alphabet to English, this setup is denoted by placing dots above or below the letter 's', which would be too cumbersome to do here.

I don't see what is too cumbersome. The letters can be easily produced:

śṣ

The whole pronounciation discussion do not belong to this page. Sanskrit#consonants page should be referred here and the text above should be moved on the sanskrit page. --Arjuna 20:34, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Benefits of chanting Vishnu Sahasranama

My personal opinion, of course, but a simple recitation of a prayer in this form is highly non-neutral. The wording is entirely from the point of view of the religion and involves no analysis or critique. It is purely a form of religious advocacy. Could somebody perform some critical analysis on this section? Thank you. — RJH 19:38, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I introduced a NPOV view.

Raj2004 20:23, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New section

I remember having read that the Sahasranama interpretation can be seen in different ways - such as in four parts , the first describing his universal qualities, the second his personal, humanlike qualities etc. A section that gives a brief overview/summary of the sahasranama may be a good addition. I will try to find out more - but may be too much for me - as Smarta tradition, Shankaracharya, Ramajuna etc may summarize the names differently.--Pranathi 21:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Greatness"?

I'm a Hindu myself and I do consider the Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram a very profound religious text, but in the context of this being Wikipedia, I find this article not very neutral at all. I'd recommend its being edited slightly.

[edit] Rig veda

Rig Veda V.I.15b.3

is incorrect. This is not the way rigveda is indexed. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/ Tintin (talk) 03:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

don't be hasty now. There are at least three ways to "index" the Rigveda. dab (ᛏ) 08:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vishnu_sahasranama/Full_prayer

full texts should be kept at wikisource. I was going to move it there, but it needs to be converted into some proper transliteration first. dab (ᛏ) 08:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

I deleted all the pronunciation examples because many of them were wrong. There are no retroflex consonants in English, for example (except /r/ in American). Someone seems to think the 't' in tyre is retroflex. Not hard to see why:

Non-native pronunciations of English

The English alveolar stops /t/ and /d/, are likely to be perceived by many native Indic and Dravidian language speakers as the retroflex consonants /ʈ/ and /ɖ/ respectively. /l/ may also be retroflex. This leads to the "hollow" pronunciation of English by many Asian Indians.

I think if we want to have pronunciation in the article it would be best to use IPA.

There was also a paragraph about north and south Indian 't', some of which was dubious and some of which was hard to understand. If you want to put it back in please rewrite and also fact-check it. Thanks Arvindn 03:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too many quotes

The second half of the page is full of quotes from various scholars and Hindu acharyas. It looks awful. I think it would be better if the quotes were paraphrased for some of the notable ones and the rest removed altogether. Gizza^{Chat ©} 23:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)