His form, marks, weapons and images

The bow is Śārṅga, the bow of the Lord. The hymn calls Him its wielder in the last śloka, and in the names before it He is the Bowman, the great Archer and the Bearer of the bow; the nyāsa sets it, with the mace, as the weapon of the mantra, and the closing prayer for protection names it again. It is one of His five weapons, borne, as the names say, only to stand between His own and every danger, and never raised for pride.

The Rāmāyaṇa tells that Paraśurāma, who held the bow of Viṣṇu, yielded it to Rāma when Rāma strung it, and so the tradition hears Rāma in the names that speak of the bow: the Lord as the Bowman among His descents, who bent the bow to guard the righteous. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa gives each weapon a meaning, and there the bow stands with the conch for ego in its two kinds, with the arrows as the powers by which creatures act and perceive. The commentaries hear in it the bow whose twang destroys His foes, and also the senses and the ego.

The word is not to be mixed with the bow of obeisance, the bending of the body or the head in salutation, with which the hymn begins and ends. In English the two share a spelling and nothing else.

In the hymn the bull stands for strength, for dharma and for showering. Vṛṣabha, name 260, is the bull, the chief of its kind, and the word also comes from the root vṛṣ, to shower, so the name is 'the Showerer': He pours blessings on His devotees as rain on the fields, giving each what is asked as it is sought, and He is the strong upholder of dharma. The Vēdas already call the gods who shower bounty bulls, and a prayer of the midday worship calls the Sun the bull, the red-eyed, the wise one.

Vṛṣa is the bull and also dharma itself, which the tradition says is called the bull because it showers the fruit of deeds. Many names open with the word: He whose day is dharma (259), He whose steps are dharma, the stair by which one rises to Him (262), He in whom dharma abides (263), and He whose eyes rain grace (604), whom Parāśara Bhaṭṭar hears also as the axle of dharma on which the wheel of rebirth turns. So the Bull of dharma is not a fierce beast but the Lord who gives and upholds.

The conch, śaṅkha, is the Lord's conch Pāñcajanya, held in one of His four hands. The hymn calls Him its bearer, Śaṅkhabhṛt, at the start of the last śloka, and the meditation verses show it with the discus in the hands of the four-armed Lord. It is one of the signs by which His own know Him: in the Śrīvaiṣṇava way His servants take its mark, with the discus, on their shoulders, as the sign that they belong to Him.

The name Pāñcajanya is told in two ways. The Mahābhārata says that the Lord slew the asura Pañcajana, who lived in the conch, and took the conch for His own, and a Purāṇic telling adds that He slew Pañcajana in the sea to bring back the son of His teacher Sāndīpani. The commentary reads the conch as the principle of ego from which the five elements come, and reads the name Bearer of the conch as the Lord feeding the conch with the nectar of His lips, as Āṇḍāḷ sings. In the Gītā Kṛṣṇa sounds Pāñcajanya before the battle, and the conch is held to give the primeval sound of creation when it is blown.

The discus is Sudarśana, a name that means 'good to see', and it is the foremost of the Lord's five weapons. It is a wheel, cakra, ringed with flame, that in the commonest image He holds in the upper right hand; Periyāḻvār's Tiruppallāṇḍu blesses it as the discus that dwells in His right hand. It turns there to guard the good and to cut down what threatens them. The hymn calls Him its bearer, Cakrī, and the one with the chariot-wheel in His hand, Rathāṅgapāṇi, and names it with the mace in Cakragadādhara. The word Sudarśana is also a name of the Lord Himself, 'whose sight is auspicious', and one commentary hears the discus in it.

The Mahābhārata tells that at the burning of the Khāṇḍava forest Agni gave Kṛṣṇa a discus with an iron pole fixed at its centre, a weapon that returned to His hand after it was hurled. The Śrīvaiṣṇava teachers do not think of the discus as a thing He takes up at one moment: they count it among the living attendants who are ever with Him. In many southern temples it has a shrine of its own, where it is honoured as Cakkarattāḻvān, and in the Śrīvaiṣṇava way His servants take the marks of the discus and the conch on their shoulders as the sign that they belong to Him.

The Viṣṇu Purāṇa gives the discus a meaning too: it is the mind, whose thoughts, like the discus, move with great speed. The tradition tells that Tirumaḻisai Āḻvār was a portion of the discus come among men.

The five weapons are the conch Pāñcajanya, the sword Nandaka, the discus Sudarśana, the bow Śārṅga and the mace Kaumōdakī, in the order in which the last śloka of the hymn names them; the closing prayer for protection names them again, and the nyāsa sets the bow and the mace as the weapon of the mantra. The Lord's very last name, Sarvapraharaṇāyudha, widens the five to every weapon there is: whatever can strike is His weapon, and nothing in the world stands outside His service.

The Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition does not think of them as tools or ornaments only. It counts them as living attendants who watch over Him and stand ready for His service, and in many southern temples the discus has a shrine of its own. Old texts show them as persons: in the Mahābhārata and in later plays and sculpture they appear in human form. The names say what they are for: they are borne only to protect, and the Lord is the foremost of all who bear weapons.

Each has a meaning besides. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa reads the mace as intellect, the conch as ego, the discus as the mind, the sword as knowledge and the arrows as the powers of action and perception, so that the Lord wears the whole of creation as His weapons and ornaments for the good of living beings. The tradition also tells that several of the Āḻvārs were portions of the weapons: Poykai Āḻvār of the conch, Bhūtattāḻvār of the mace, Pēyāḻvār of the sword, Tirumaḻisai Āḻvār of the discus and Tirumaṅgai Āḻvār of the bow.

Four-armed, caturbhuja, is the form in which the Lord is most often pictured and meditated upon. The four hands bear His signs, the conch, the discus, the mace and the lotus, and the hymn says so in the names He of the four arms and the One of fair and mighty arms: they shelter the worlds, and are ever ready to protect and to give. The opening invocation, the meditation verses on Viṣṇu and the verse on Kṛṣṇa all show Him so.

Which hand holds which sign varies from image to image. In the commonest image the discus is in the upper right hand and the conch in the upper left, and the mace and the lotus are in the lower hands, or the lower hands are held out to protect and to give. The tradition counts twenty-four forms of the Lord, among them Kēśava, Nārāyaṇa, Mādhava and Gōvinda, whose images look alike and differ only in which of the four signs lies in which hand.

The hymn counts in fours around the four arms: in one śloka stand the four arrays and the four tusks, in another the four forms, the four goals and the four Vēdas.

Four-tusked is the Lord's name caturdaṃṣṭraḥ, at name 142: He has four great teeth. Catur is four, and daṃṣṭra is a large tooth, a tusk or a fang, a word already found in the Ṛgveda. The Śrīvaiṣṇava teachers take the four in two ways. For Parāśara Bhaṭṭar they are the four fine canine teeth, a mark of a great person, and he points to the Rāmāyaṇa, where Hanumān, describing Rāma to Sītā, speaks of his limbs matched in fourteen pairs, his four strong teeth and his four lordly gaits. Others hear the fangs of the Man-Lion, terrible to the wicked and a shelter to the good.

The name stands in a run of four names that open with the same word, catur: fourfold in self, of the four arrays, four-tusked and four-armed. The four arrays are Vāsudēva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, and the four arms bear the conch, the discus, the mace and the lotus. The Boar who raised the earth on his tusk has names of his own in the hymn.

The garland of the forest, vanamālā, is the long garland of woodland flowers that the Lord wears, hanging from His neck down to His feet and falling over His chest. The tradition calls it Vaijayantī, the garland of victory. The hymn calls Him its wearer, Vanamālī, and again Sragvī, the wearer of the garland, and the closing prayer for protection begins with it before it turns to the five weapons.

Of what is the garland made? The commentary says it is made of five kinds of flowers, one for each of the five elements, and counts it the deity of the five elements and of fragrance. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa speaks of the Vaijayantī as a garland set with five precious gems and reads it as the five subtle elements gathered together. Both readings tie the garland to the elements, which the Lord wears as their ruler.

It is one of the three marks that the tradition names beside the weapons: the Śrīvatsa, the Kaustubha and the forest garland. It is not the seat of garlands of pearls on which the first meditation verse sets Him by the Milk Ocean, nor the necklace that hangs beside the Kaustubha. The tradition tells that Toṇḍaraḍippoḍi Āḻvār, who served Raṅganātha with garlands of flowers, was a portion of the Vanamālā.

On His own right, which is the left as one faces the image, the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition places Śrī, the Mother of the worlds, who dwells on His chest and is never apart from Him; the Śrīvatsa, the curl of hair that marks Her dwelling, is on that same right side. For the left of the chest the tellings differ, and some give it to Bhūdēvī, the Earth. The teachers rest the right side on the Tiruppallāṇḍu, in which Periyāḻvār blesses the Goddess who lives on the Lord's right chest. The Kaustubha is not given a side: it is the great jewel that shines on the chest beside the necklace, and the verses set it to neither side. This hymn names the chest and what is on it but not the side, which the tradition and its images supply.

What stands on the left is told differently in different places. In the images where the Goddesses stand beside Him, Śrī is commonly on His right and Bhūdēvī, the Earth, on His left; some tellings give the left of the chest to Bhūdēvī too, and at Tirumala Padmāvatī is spoken of there, though accounts of that image differ. These accounts belong to particular images and teachers and do not all agree. The steady point is that Śrī is on the right.

Besides the Goddess, three things adorn the chest: the Śrīvatsa, the Kaustubha, and the forest garland that falls over it. The Śrīvatsa is the mark of Śrī, which the commentary reads as the sign that He is Lakṣmī's beloved, and which the Viṣṇu Purāṇa reads as primal matter resting on the Eternal One. The Kaustubha is the jewel that rose from the Milk Ocean at the churning, which the same Purāṇa reads as the pure soul that He wears as His ornament.

The hymn gives the reason the chest matters: it is where the Mother dwells, in the names Śrīvatsavakṣāḥ, Śrīnivāsa, Śrīdhara and Śrīgarbha, and so those who come to Him for refuge find Her beside Him, speaking for them.

The Kaustubha is the jewel that the Lord wears on His chest, the most splendid of gems. The meditation verses show His body lit by it, and show it shining on His chest beside the necklace, naming no side for it. The tradition tells that it was among the treasures that came up when the Milk Ocean was churned, and that the Lord took it as His own. The hymn gives it no name of its own, but speaks of its light: in the name of great splendour, His form, His ornaments and the Kaustubha shine with a light greater than all lights.

The Viṣṇu Purāṇa reads the jewel as the pure soul, free of the qualities of matter, which the Lord wears as His ornament; beside it the Śrīvatsa is primal matter. The tradition tells that Kulaśēkhara Āḻvār, the king who sang of the Lord, was a portion of the Kaustubha.

In the hymn the lotus is where the Lord and the world meet. It rises from His navel, and on it Brahmā is born, so that the making of the world begins in a flower that grows from the Lord. It is in His eyes, wide and fair as its petals. It is in His hand, the fourth of the signs His arms bear with the conch, the discus and the mace, and the hymn calls Him the Bearer of the lotus. And it is in the heart of the devotee, the lotus where He dwells.

The tradition sees in the lotus purity and gentleness. It grows from mud and still water, yet its flower rises clean; its leaf is not wetted by the water, and the Gītā uses that leaf as the picture of one who acts without clinging; and it opens to the sun. It is also the flower of Śrī, who is shown seated on a lotus and holding lotuses, so that wherever the lotus is named She is near. The tradition speaks too of His lotus feet, the refuge to which the soul comes.

Sanskrit has several words for it, which the hymn and its meditation verses use side by side: padma, kamala and aravinda for the lotus, and puṇḍarīka for the white lotus. Lotuses are white, pink or red, and the Āḻvārs often sing of the red lotus, which they see in His eyes.

Perumāḷ's eyes are red at the corners as a lotus is tinged with red, and the hymn says so at name 59, lōhitākṣaḥ, 'the red-eyed' (lohita is red). The tradition takes the red as a mark of beauty and of feeling, and not as a flaw. The same hymn calls Him lotus-eyed in several names, puṇḍarīkākṣaḥ, aravindākṣaḥ and padmanibhēkṣaṇaḥ among them, and the two go together: His eyes are long and wide as lotus petals, and at their corners there is a red tinge, a beauty that His devotees love to dwell on.

The teachers give several reasons for the red, all of them reasons of the heart. Parāśara Bhaṭṭar hears it as the flush of His supreme joy, the delight that shows in His eyes. Others hear in it His anger at the wicked who trouble His own, for whose undoing He comes in each descent. The elders of the tradition enjoy a third reason, close to the name 'of beautiful eyes' (svakṣaḥ, name 624): the corners of His eyes are red because His side-glance rests always on the rosy beauty of Śrī, and Her eyes are dark because She looks always on His dark form. The teachers who explain Tiruppāṇāḻvār's verse on the eyes of the Lord of Śrīraṅgam say that the redness comes from His being the Lord of Śrī and from His tender love for those who come to Him.

The picture is old. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad the Person seen in the sun has eyes like a lotus, and Rāmānuja, explaining the comparison, speaks of a lotus with a clean stalk, risen from deep water and opened by the rays of the sun. A Vēdic prayer of the midday worship in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka calls the Sun the bull, the red-eyed, the wise one, and the tradition holds that the Lord is the Self within the Sun. The Āḻvārs sing of the eyes again and again: Nammāḻvār calls Him the Lord with eyes of the red lotus, and Tiruppāṇāḻvār, seeing the Lord of Śrīraṅgam, sings of eyes dark and wide, shot through with red lines, that spread to the ears and bewildered the poet.

The lotus-eyed names are one beauty seen in several ways. Puṇḍarīka is the white lotus and aravinda the lotus; the eyes are 'like lotuses' at name 348 and 'lotuses' at 350, and a glance from them is grace to those who come to Him. Parāśara Bhaṭṭar also hears in puṇḍarīka the Lord's supreme, undying home, Vaikuṇṭha, of which He is as the eye.

The mace, gadā, is the club the Lord carries in one of His four hands, and its name is Kaumōdakī. The hymn calls Him its bearer, Gadādhara, in the last śloka, and names it with the discus in Cakragadādhara; the meditation verses show it in His hands, the nyāsa sets it with the bow as the weapon of the mantra, and the closing prayer for protection calls Him Gadī. It is the weapon that breaks the strength of the proud, and with the discus He guards His own and breaks what stands against them.

The Mahābhārata tells that at the burning of the Khāṇḍava forest Varuṇa, the lord of the waters, gave Kṛṣṇa the mace Kaumōdakī, which could slay any Daitya and roared like thunder when it was hurled. The commentary calls it the queen of maces, giving Him joy and burning on every side like the fire at the world's end, and the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition counts it among the living attendants, and later works picture the mace as a slender woman. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa reads the mace as intellect, which abides in the Lord.

In the meditation verses the Lord's colour is the deep dark of a rain-cloud: mēghavarṇa and mēghaśyāma, 'cloud-coloured' and 'dark as a cloud', and ambudaśyāma, 'dark as the water-giver', with śyāma the dusky blue-black of a cloud heavy with rain. It is His own bodily hue, the one in which the tradition loves to see Him. One verse paints Him resting on the serpent, like the sky, cloud-coloured and fair of limb; another shows Him dark as a rain-cloud, in yellow silk, with the Śrīvatsa on His chest and the Kaustubha lighting His body; another seats Him under the Pārijāta tree, dark as a cloud and wide of eye.

A cloud is dark and cool, and it gives: it pours on all without being asked, and the colour is loved as the sign of His giving. Āṇḍāḷ, in her Tiruppāvai, calls on the rain-god to take the Lord's own look before the rain falls: a dark body like the form of the Lord, lightning like His discus, thunder like His conch, and showers like the arrows of His bow. The teachers remark that a cloud grows pale once it has rained, while the Lord's kindness never thins. The hymn itself calls Him the cloud that pours rain on all.

The hymn carries the colour in names. Kṛṣṇa, at names 58 and 557, means the dark One, and also the One who draws all hearts; at 557 the name is heard too as being and bliss joined in one. Hari, at 659, is the dark, cool green of a young leaf or an emerald; Parāśara Bhaṭṭar cites the Lord's own words in the Mahābhārata that His complexion is green, and so He is called Hari, and Toṇḍaraḍippoḍi Āḻvār sees in His body a great green mountain.

The Śrīvatsa is the mark on the Lord's chest, a curl of hair that the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition takes as the place where Śrī dwells; the bronze images of the south show it as an inverted triangle on the right side of the chest. The word joins śrī, fortune and the Goddess, with vatsa, a beloved one, and so the name is read as the favourite of Śrī. The hymn's name Śrīvatsavakṣāḥ says that He is the One whose chest bears it, and the meditation verses show it on the breast of Viṣṇu and of Kṛṣṇa.

Teachers have read the mark in more than one way. The Śrīvaiṣṇava commentary on this hymn reads it as the sign that He is Lakṣmī's beloved. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa reads it as primal matter, prakṛti, resting on the Eternal One, as the Kaustubha beside it is the pure soul; and another telling sees in it the shining of the Kaustubha reflected on His chest. The tradition also tells that Tiruppāṇ Āḻvār, who sang of Raṅganātha at Śrīraṅgam, was a portion of the Śrīvatsa.

Haṃsa, name 194, is the swan, the white water-bird, for the Sanskrit word covers the wild goose as well. The old books say that it can drink the milk from a mixture of milk and water and leave the water behind. So the name says that the Lord is wholly good, with nothing in Him that is not, and that He shows the seeker how to tell the self from the body and the real from the unreal. The teachers add the swan's beauty, above all its graceful walk, to the beauty of the Lord in thought, word and deed.

The tradition also hears in the name a form of the Lord, Haṃsa, the swan descent. The Bhāgavata tells that when the sons of Brahmā, Sanaka and the rest, put a question to Brahmā, and Brahmā turned to the Lord in meditation for the answer, the Lord came as a swan and taught them. The Āḻvārs sing of the swan as well: Tirumaṅgai Āḻvār and Periyāḻvār praise the Lord who, as a swan, gave the Vēdas when the worlds lay in darkness. Bhaṭṭar hears this descent already in an earlier name, the Joy of the gods.

Nandaka is the Lord's sword, one of His five weapons. The hymn calls Him Nandakī, the bearer of Nandaka, in the last śloka, and the nyāsa and the closing prayer for protection use the same word. The name comes from nanda, joy, and one commentary hears the Lord keeping the sword with the wish that it bring Him joy.

The tradition reads the sword as knowledge, the knowledge that cuts through ignorance, and He holds it ready for the good of His own. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa too reads it as wisdom, a blade that ignorance can cover over, as a sheath covers a sword. The sword is seldom shown in His images, which usually show the conch, the discus, the mace and the lotus. The tradition tells that Pēyāḻvār was a portion of Nandaka.

The Lord wears a garment of yellow silk, which the tradition calls pītāmbara, 'clad in yellow'. The first of the two meditation verses that name it sets it beside the dark of His body, 'dark as a rain-cloud, clad in yellow silk', and the second shows it with the crown and the earrings. The word for silk there, kauśēya, means silken, and the picture is of bright yellow cloth against a body dark as a rain-cloud.

The same picture stands in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, where the child Kṛṣṇa appears at His birth four-armed and clad in yellow, with the Śrīvatsa on His chest, the Kaustubha shining at His neck, and the beauty of a dense rain-cloud. The yellow cloth belongs to the Lord's usual picture in the tradition, beside the Śrīvatsa, the Kaustubha and the forest garland.