About Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram

📜 About Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram

The Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram is a revered hymn that lists a thousand names of Lord Vishnu. It appears in the Anushasana Parva of the Mahabharata and is traditionally attributed to Sage Vyasa.

In the text, Bhishma, resting on his bed of arrows, answers Yudhishthira's questions about the one supreme deity and the path to lasting good, and teaches these thousand names.

Each name points to a quality or form of Vishnu, such as Keshava, Madhava, Govinda and Purushottama, and many carry several layers of meaning. Adi Shankaracharya and Parashara Bhatta wrote well-known commentaries on the hymn.

The hymn opens with invocation verses, nyasa and dhyana, followed by the thousand names and the phalashruti, which describes the blessings of reciting it with devotion.