SRI VISHNU SAHASRA NAMAM

Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam is panacea of all the good. It enriches inner divine qualities, elevates them to higher altitudes and makes man more perfect in all the endeavors. It removes inner problems like strain, stress, ego etc and paves the way to blossom from within. This is ‘hridaya vikasa ka:rini’. Universal and divine love springs up with prayer. It cultivates universal brotherhood and bridges the gap between man and man. 

Prayer brings harmony and unison. Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam is a miraculous universal prayer. It is the quintessence of all the saastras, the cream of Vedic knowledge. The great sages of the lore experienced the cosmic power during their meditation and observed the divine traits of the Lord of this universe and meditated on those traits. As a result of their rich inner experience, a few sounds were spontaneously released from their vocal cords. They could not resist their inner experience. The overwhelming joy flowed out in the form of a few sounds. The perfect combination of those sounds became powerful names of the Lord for the later disciples thus revealing the omniscience of the Lord. Each name is unique in it self focusing that particular quality of that Lord and became a mantra.

Bheesmacharya, the great grandfather of Kauravas and Pandavas as well, had experienced these wonderful mantras out of his penance. He used to practice them regularly, which made him unconquerable by anyone. Even Yama, the god of death, was at his beck and call. Such an authentic and more authoritative Bheesmacharya, like a bee that gathers honey from all the flowers, gathered all these mantras and revealed them to Yudhishtira, the eldest of Pandavas.

Lord Krishna instructed Bheeshmacharya to reveal this secret to Pandava:s while Bheeshma was on the bed of arrows. Chanting and/or listening and/or understanding the meaning enriches our lives by imbibing good qualities into us. Each nama describes various aspects of infinite kalya:na guna:s (attributes) of Lord Srimannarayana.