Vishu Sahasranamam

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The Vishnu Sahasranama was composed by the ancient Indian sage, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, known also as Badarayana or Veda Vyaasa. He is the editor and compiler of the four holy books of the Hindu tradition, the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. Vyasa is also credited with the authorship of the Mahabharata, an epic classical work, probably the longest poem to ever be penned in the history of humankind.

The Mahabharata is the tale of the five Pandava princes and their fight against injustice by their cousins, the Kauravas. The noble Pandavas are helped by Sri Krishna, one of the most popular Dieties in the Hindu tradition.

Lord Krishna is worshipped by Hindus as the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu (although the Gaudiya and Nimbarka traditions consider Lord Krishna to be the source and Lord Vishnu to be the avatar).

The Mahabharata contains two holy texts embedded within it.

One of them is the Bhagavad-gita, a section containing eighteen chapters and 700 verses. This book, often called the Hindu bible, is a conversation between Lord Krishna and his devotee and warrior friend Arjuna (one of the Pandava brothers) before the holy battle of Kurukshetra which, according to the Hindu calendar, took place nearly 5000 years ago.

The conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna as captured in the Bhagavad-gita is considered by Hindus to contain the quintessential philosophy of the Hindu religion throwing light on the different pathways to God culminating in Lord Krishna's final instruction to surrender oneself completely to the will of God (known as saranagati or prappati in Sanskrit)

The second holy text embedded in the Mahabharata is the Vishnu-Sahasranama.

At the end of the same war before which the Bhagavad-gita was spoken, Prince Yudhisthira, the eldest of the pandavas, approached the grandsire of the family Bhishma who was lying on his death bed. Yudhishthira, asked six questions on righteous conduct and salvation.

One of the questions recorded in the Mahabharata is: "What is the best religious activity amongst all extant religious activities that can lead onself to the highest salvation? Whose name shall humans call upon in order to attain liberation from the cycle of birth and death?"

In his answer to these questions, Bhishma informs Yudhishtra that the Vishnu or Krishna was the person who was most qualified to be worshipped by humans as he is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, capable of delivering everyone. He then instructs Yudhishtra to chant the one thousand names of Lord Vishnu and goes on to chant them all.

These names of Vishnu as chanted by Bhishma and recorded in the Mahabharata are called the Vishnu Sahasranama.

Many devout Hindus chant them every morning or evening.

In the Sri Vaishnava tradition the Bhagavad-gita and the Vishnu Sahasranama are considered the two eyes of spiritual revelation.

In other Vaishnava traditions too, the Vishnu Sahasranama is considered an important text (although the Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider the chanting of the names of Krishna and Rama to be superior to that of Vishnu based on another verse in the Mahabharata which says that the benefit of chanting the one thousand names of Vishnu can be derived from chanting one name of Rama, and a Puranic verse equating the benefit of chanting three names of Rama with one name of Krishna).

Even the great Shankaracharya has composed an elaborate commentary on the Vishnu Sahasranama, a clear indication of its importance in the Hindu tradition.