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From the Bhakti List Archives

N Krishnamachari • June 23, 1997 


Dear Devotees:

I have been unsuccessful in sending the next posting on Sri VishNu sahasranAmam
because of some mail difficulty at my end.  I hope to succeed in sending it out
tomorrow.  In the meantime, I would like to express my sincere thanks to
Sriman Sadagopan for his detailed article on the numerous occurrances of the
name visvam in Rg veda.  This opportunity to learn more details on each of
these names is exactly what I had prayed and hoped for when I undertook this
effort, and I am glad that my wishes are materialising.  

Sri Parthasarathy Ranganathan was kind enough to send me the writings of Sri
Srivilliputhur Gopalan Srinivasan sometime back in the Bhakti group on Sri
VishNu sahasranAmam along the lines of what I am attempting now.  I was not
aware of this previous effort till I heard from Sri Ranganathan.  I notice a
lot of redundancy because our sources are the same.  I also do not know
whether Sri S. G. Srinivasan is still in the mailing list of our group, and
would very much like to hear from him and coordinate my write-ups with his if he is
still planning to take up the effort where he left off.
My sincere thanks to Sri Ranganathan for
bringing this to my attention and also providing the electronic copy of the
earlier writings.

Sometime back I had requested our fellow members for guidance on the
pronunciation of the word Brahma.  Last week, one of my friends pointed out to
me a passage in Volume 2 of Daivattin Kural by Sri Kanchi Kamakoti
Sankarachariar Swamigal (page 484 or thereabouts), which addresses this exact
issue.  Therein, the Acharya has pointed out that this word is one of two
exceptions in Sanskrit where we write one thing but pronounce it differently.
Thus, we write the word as Brahma (with m coming after h) , bur peonounce it 
as Bramha (with the h after the m).  Unfortunately, he has not given the
reason for why it is done this way.  The fact that he has explicitly referred to this
word and indicated that this is an esception at least answers the issue of how
to pronounce the word.  I have not yet understood why this word is pronounced
the way it is, and so there is still something more to learn on this issue.

-Dasan Krishnamachari