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SrI vishNu sahasra nAmam - Slokam 77 - Part 4.

From the Bhakti List Archives

Narasimhan Krishnamachari • October 14, 2002 


 

                     SrI vishNu sahasra nAmam - Slokam 77 -  a-vyaktah, Sata-mUrtih..

 

727. a-vyaktah – He Who is not manifest; He Who cannot be easily realized.

 

Om a-vyaktAya namah.

 

vyaktam means “manifest”.   vyaktam is anything that can be perceived through the sense-organs.  Since bhagavAn is beyond the sense organs, He is a-vyaktah.    

 

SrI BhaTTar gives the interpretation that bhagavAn is called a-vyaktah because in His human incarnations such as the kRshNa incarnation, His true nature is not manifest to everyone.  SrI BhaTTar gives the support for his interpretation from the gItA: 

 

                nAham prkASah sarvasya yoga mAyA samAvRtah    |

                mUDhoÂ’yam nAbhijAnAti loko mAm ajam avyayam   ||   (gItA 7.25)

 

“Veiled by My mAyA, I am not manifest to all.  The deluded world does not recognize Me as the unborn and immutable.”

 

                nAham vedair na tapasA na dAnena na ca ijyayA    |

                Sakya evam vidho dRashTum dRshTavAnasi mAm yathA   ||  (gItA 11.53)

 

“Not by the veda-s, nor by austerities, nor by gifts, nor by sacrifice, can I be seen in such a form as you have see Me” (kRshNa-s words to arjuna).

 

SrI rAdhAkRshNa SAstri gives references to the Sruti in support of His a-vyakta guNa:  na sandRSe tishThati rUpamasya na cakshushA paSyati kaScanainam   (SvetA. 4.20) – His form does not exist within the range of vision; no one sees this One with the eye.   SrI satyadevo vAsishTha quotes support from the atharva veda and from SvetAsvatara upanishad: 

 

                anti santi na paSyati anti santam na jahAti   |

                devasya paSya kAvyam na mamAra na jIryati   ||    (atharva. 10.8.32)

 

which conveys the idea that even thou bhagavAn is closeby and never far away, He is not seen, and He neither ages nor decays – such is His wonder.

 

                eko devah sarva bhUteshu gUDhah (Sve. 6.11) -  He is One Deity, but He remains hidden in all beings.

 

SrI v.v. rAmAnujan gives support from the prabandham:  “yavarkkum cindaikkum gocaram allan” (tiruvAi. 1.9.6) - He is beyond the grasp of anyone through mere logical analysis; “yArurmOr nilaimaiyan ena aRivaRiya emperumAn” (tiruvAi. 1.3.4) – (Except for His devotees) His true Nature is beyond comprehension.  Even when He reveals Himself at times momentarily, He immediately withdraws that memory from them, and becomes a-vyaktan again.  He revealed His viSva rUpam to arjuna, but after this incident passed, arjuna treated kaNNan as His charioteer only.  He revealed Himself to yaSodA, and following this incident, she continued to tie Him up and beat Him for His mischief anyway.    

 

SrI Samkara gives the interpretation that even though he has various forms in His incarnations, He is called a-vyaktah because He cannot be defined precisely in His true state in terms such as “He is of this nature, He is like this etc.” – yadyapi aneka mUrtitvam asya (previous nAma), tathApi ayam IdRSa eva iti na vyajyata iti a-vyaktah.   

 

728. Sata-mUrtih – He with a hundred forms.

 

Om Sata-mUrtaye namah.

 

The nAma Sata-mUrtih is very similar to the nAma aneka-mUrtih (nAma 726).  The term “hundred” in the current nAma is just a figurative expression, and means “many”.   The Sata Sabdam, the sahasra Sabdam, etc., are indicative of “many”.   In this sense, the words “Sata-mUrtih, sahsra-mUrtih, aneka-mUrtih, bahu-mUrtih, etc. all signify the same concept.  SrI BhaTTar seems to distinguish between the two nAma-s by interpreting “aneka-mUrtih” as representing different forms that He took as different incarnations at different times, and interpreting “Sata-mUrtih” as referring to His simultaneous display of different forms to the seer in His one form at a given instant in time.  (It should be noted that this distinction is not the result of anything specific to the words involved in the two nAma-s, but is the result of the bliss of different anubhavams by the vyAkhyAna kartA for the two nAma-s, and a great example of how the great interrpeters avoid punarukti or redundancy in the interpretation of the thousand nAma

 

                mallAnAm aSanih nRNAm nara-varah strINAm smaro mUrtimAn

                gopAnAm svajanah asatAm kshitibhujAm SastA sva-pitro SiSuh   |

                mRtyuh bhoha-pateh virAt avidushAm tattvam-param yoginAm

                vRshNInAm paradevatA iti viditah  Â…Â…                                        (bhAga. 10.43.17)

 

“As kRshNa enters the stage set by kamsa with His brother balarAma, the boxers saw in Him a thunder arriving, the menfolk saw Him as the best of men, the womenfolk saw in Him manmatha arriving, the gopa-s saw their friend arriving, the kings affiliated with kamsa saw Him as the enemy arriving to met out punishment to them, devaki and vasudeva saw their child arriving, kamsa felt that death was approaching him in kRshNa’s form, the ignorant saw a king coming, the yogi-s realized that the para tattvam was in front of them, and the yAdava-s felt that some divine force has arrived to redeem their prestige”.  

 

SrI SAstri also gives the analogy of the kalpaka vRksham – the tree that can give anything that anyone wishes while standing under that tree.    For example, all the different fruits and flowers that normally appear in different seasons will all be found at the same time in the kalpaka vRksahm, and whoever wishes whichever species of fruits or flowers will just see what he/she wishes in the tree at any given time.  BhagavAn is exactly that – He will appear in whatever form anyone wishes to see Him – Sata-mUrtih.

                

SrI Samkara distinguishes between the nAma-s aneka-mUrtih and Sata-mUrtih as follows:  He interprets aneka-mUrtih in terms of His different incarnations, and for Sata-mUrtih, he explains that even though vishNu is of the form of pure consciousness, He projects Himself as of many different forms by His own thoughts – nAnAvikalpajA mUrtayah samvida-kRteh santi iti Sata-mUrtih.  

-dAsan kRshNamAcAryan



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