Meaning of Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram

These verses bow to Vishnu, the all-pervading, and to Sage Vyasa, seeking freedom from obstacles for the recitation. One verse salutes the Lord by whose very remembrance a person is freed from the bondage of birth and the cycle of worldly life.

Yudhishthira asks Bhishma: who is the one deity in the world, and the one refuge? By praising and worshipping whom do people attain what is good? What is the highest dharma, and what chanting frees a person from the bondage of birth and the worldly cycle?

Bhishma replies that one who constantly praises Vishnu, the beginningless and endless Lord of the universe, with a thousand names and with devotion, goes beyond all sorrow. He describes Vishnu as the highest light, austerity and Brahman, from whom all beings arise and into whom they dissolve, and names the seer, metre and deity of the hymn.

Before the names, the hymn assigns its seer (Vyasa), metre (Anushtubh), deity, seed and power, and the reciter touches parts of the body with mantras. A meditation then pictures Vishnu on the shore of the milk ocean, cloud-dark and four-armed with conch, discus, mace and lotus, with Lakshmi beside him.

The names praise Vishnu as the universe itself, the one who pervades it, the Lord of past, present and future, the inner witness and the supreme goal of the liberated. They also recall his forms and avatars, such as Narasimha, Vamana, Varaha, Rama and Krishna. The section ends with a verse asking Vasudeva to protect the reciter.

Bhishma declares the fruits: no inauspiciousness comes to one who hears or recites the names; the ill, the bound and the fearful are freed; and anger, envy and greed do not arise in devotees. The verses affirm that the whole universe is sustained by Vasudeva, that a single verse pleases the Lord, and that the name Rama equals the thousand names. Brahma offers a final salutation to the thousand-formed Lord.

Sanjaya's verse says that where Krishna and Arjuna stand, fortune, victory and sound judgement are sure. Krishna promises to carry the needs of those who worship him with a single mind and to return in every age to protect the good. The last verses say that the distressed are freed from sorrow by uttering 'Narayana', and offer every action of body, speech and mind to Narayana.