Bhishmasamprokshana
Partha Desikan
Some historians believe that the Mahabharata was composed in three stages. According to them Sri Vishnu Sahasranaama and Srimad Bhagavad Gita occur in a part that could not have been the first instalment.
This blog does not concern itself with this view or its opposite.
I have been a great admirer, ever since I
learnt some Sanskrit, of the marvellous thousand name hymn to Vishnu. It is not just a devotional poetic composition that falls mellifluously over the ear, simultaneously filling the reciter and the listener with a joy difficult to describe. It is much more.Commentators such as Sankara and Parashara Bhatta have discovered special philosophical insights in its lines as well as sequential patterns related to different avataras of Vishnu on earth.
But lay perusers like me too every now and then stumble upon contiguous name clusters giving a collective message.
I wish to share one such that occurred to me this morning.
An entire line containing five names suggests something significant.
The line is
archishmaan architah kumbho vishuddhaatmaa vishodhanah.
Never mind what the wise commentators say about these five names. Let us look at them as simple Sanskrit words with direct meanings. The line means
worshipper, worshipped, kalasha pot, purified soul, purifier.
Does this not suggest to you a kumbha filled with water made holy by the invocation of the infinite principle, its representative Varuna, or cosmic energy itself , through dedicated chanting of appropriate mantras? Do you not visualize an auspicious function at home or in a temple, especially a Mahasamprokshanam of an idol to be installed or kumbhabhishekam of the shrine itself?
Is it an accident? Or was Bhishma blessed by the all-powerful who was standing close to him to have cosmic vision, including the truth that in every samprokshana, the Lord is the functionary, the object of worship, the water filled vessel, the object to be purified and the purifier?
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-06-09 04:51:26
Sankara, Parasarabhatta and other learned commentators have found Bhishma's list of Vishnu's names to fall into groups describing cosmic history on the one hand and the popular descriptions of Hari on the other,namely
1.by way of his vyuhas projected strongly during the Krishna manifestation, namely Vasudeva, Sankarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha,
2. by way of his vyuhantaras which contain the twelve names starting with Kesava,Narayana, Madhava, Govinda etc and twelve more
3. by way of his vibhavas or avataras, which include the ten well-known ones and finally
4. as the possessor of all kalyanagunas, when contemplated upon as sagunabrahmam.
My exercise and yours are lovely examples of what is described as Bhagavan's saulabhya or accessibility, namely the realization that divinity appears to one exactly the way he/she visualizes it.
Thank you for your enthusiastic participation.
Regards. Partha
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written by Avi Das, 2008-06-06 21:49:36
Thank you. The wonderful thing about magic words such as these, indeed all words, are they offer a mirror to reflect our inspiration back at us. I guess what I stated was "one" of the possible many interpretations. But I must admit that it does give me/us a path to travel?
And I continue along that route. If we were to take the next set of names: anniruddhah apratirathah pradyumnah amitavikramah kaalanemi-nihaa, does these offer the attainments of the process?
anniruddhah: invincible
apratirathah: unopposed
pradyumnah: has multiple meanings, but it also means Hero/Heroic as also cupid?
amitavikramah: Of immeasurable prowess
kaalanemi-nihaa: Slayer of Kaalanemi (Slayer of Asura)?
Leaves further food for thought as to what these words/names may contain?
Thank you for this inspiring article.
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-06-06 11:59:22
You write and I quote,'keep your mind clear of preoccupations, distractions, preconceptions and enamourments, so that you may receive soul speak and through it be unified with God?'
What an inspired insight!
Undertanding the body-mind complex as a container for the soul which must be purified regularly by the soul contemplating and offering homage to the Divine, is indeed the right interpretation of this accidentally or intentionally joined group of name-words in Vishnu sahasranama. Thank you.
Regards. Partha.
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written by Avi Das, 2008-06-06 05:07:23
archishmaan architah kumbho vishuddhaatmaa vishodhanah
I have very limited knowledge of Sanskrit (read negligible), so am using my common sense here. If one were to consider that archismAn and architah were both derived from Archana (sacred offering), then would this mean that the one who offers and the one whom its offered to? In such a scenario an offering is always made 'on' something. In which case here kumbho (the container) would act as a conjoiner between offerer, offered and purifued, purifier. Thus would the sentence read as, offerer, the offered, container, soul purified, purifier. If soul is looked upon as the main agent in each case, putting in soul for vishuddhaatmaa may be redundant, as both Archismaan and architah both pertains to the soul. In which case the sentence would read, The offerer, offered, container, purified, the purifier.
In such a case its only the container which is the anomalous object here. Thus is the container the body or the mind.
If the mind is to be considered the platter, then the archana which takes place is that which is contained in the mind at the moment. As archana is always of something fresh, would it signify that what is to be kept on the platter has to be something fresh, i.e. something which has not been contaminated. Now we all know that we only carry contaminated thoughts in our mind. In the sense they are reflections of our past or affected by prevalent thought patterns which are in themselves products of the past. In such scenario the fresh produce could only be that of the moments inspiration.
In such scenario, to me it would read as "Offerer", the soul, offers to the exalted, inspiration, in the container (mind) and the container then contains purified the soul by the purifier.
The mantra, to me, would then be to constantly seek that the mind is clean enough to receive inspiration. The constant flow of inspiration would be both the offering and the purifier of the container (the mind/body).
The sentence seems to tell me, that keep your mind clear of preoccupations, distractions, preconceptions and enamourments, so that you may receive soul speak and through it be unified with God?
And this, if one looks upon it, is the basis of Yoga, where by the mind forsakes thought produces and yokes itself to divine inspiration. This is what pranayama tries to do.
Isn't this what Buddha tried to teach, through anna-paan and Vipassana.
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-05-01 15:00:17
I shall accept eighty percent of your thanks and appreciation.
I had kind of rushed into free translation and have no business translating archishmaan into archayan or archaka, the worshipper. The other four words form a cogent cluster which still hangs together, relating to the samprokshana idea. This word meaning luminous, properly does not get into the scheme. My apologies to all our friends.
Regards. Partha
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written by narensomu, 2008-05-01 08:45:09
Thanks for the thoughts.
Yes,the concept of he who is the purifier as well as the purified is similar to what Sankara says to the Panchama in Maneesha Panchakam.
Concepts from a higher plane I should say.For a small mind, it is hard to grasp fully but somehow one is touched by that thought that he is everything .
Regards
ns
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Having gotten stuck still trying to absorb the context of the VishnuSahasranama (Bhishma's dialogue with Yudhishtira, while he lies on the bed of arrows, and gives him Dharma upadesha ), I like the fact that you explain there is this system by which one can 'understand' the thousand names. My intellectual evolution still being blunt (in need of much sharpening), I still read to my self the preamble, till I feel worthy of moving on to a thorough reading of the names...