Vishnu Sahsranam — Introduction
Some people in Bharat or India chant Vishnu Sahsranam which in English means “one thousand names of Vishnu”.
These are not mere random names of Vishnu like most of us have multiple names — pet names, nicknames, official names, etc.
Instead, Vishnu Sahsranam is a code. These are 1000 ways to :
- Understand the creation.
- Realize the soul.
- Contemplate about life and death.
- Understand and practice happiness.
- Detach from the world.
- Practice life as a yagya for Yog(Union) with self.
- Understand the Avatars.
- View all humans as one.
Vishnu Sahsranam can be thought of as a formula with 1000 variables or 1000 constants. Variables because each person's understanding will be dependent on that person’s interpretation of the names and constant because whatever approach you take to understand all 1000 names reveals the one and same constant reality.
There are other Sahasranams like Ganpati Sahasranam, Lalita Sahasranam, etc... All of them point to the same as Vishnu Sahsranam. However, the other Sahasranams are even more difficult to practice. The easiest is Vishnu Sahsranam. So, I will focus on Vishnu Sahsranam only which I will refer to as VS going forward.
Based on my limited knowledge and practice in chanting I have found that the names of VS can be broadly categorized into the following categories. The first column is the category and the second is the count of names.
I will explain each category in my other blogs and a rudimentary way of ध्यान ( meditation ) on those.
