Dharma, devotion and release

Maṅgaḻa, and its near word śubha, is what brings good and turns harm away. The hymn names the Lord the Supreme Auspiciousness, the highest good and the highest giver of it, and Bhīṣma's first verses already speak of Him as the auspiciousness of all that is auspicious. So for the devotees of Vāsudēva nothing inauspicious is to be found anywhere.

The word spreads through many names. He is Śiva, the Auspicious One, for the word means good and kindly and spotless; the teachers read the name as the One who brings auspiciousness, and find it used of Him in the Nārāyaṇa Upaniṣad. He is Śubhēkṣaṇa, whose glance brings only good; Śubhāṅga, of auspicious limbs, from the crown to the lotus feet; and Śrēyaḥ Śrīmān, the highest good, full of Śrī.

Why the Lord is called auspicious is told in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa's words: the Supreme is known as the good because remembering Him alone wards off evil and brings a long train of blessings. The tradition adds that nothing He touches stays unblessed: a garland, a jewel or a flower laid at His feet is made fortunate by the touch.

Tapas, from tap, to heat or to burn, is austerity: the discipline by which a seer is made strong and pure. The hymn reveres it in the seers, for Vyāsa is greeted as a treasure-house of austerity, and it names the Lord Himself as the highest and greatest austerity, as He is the highest radiance, the highest Brahman and the highest refuge.

The Lord's tapas is not hardship, for nothing is lacking in Him, but the heat of will and knowledge. The Upaniṣad says of Him that His tapas is made of knowledge, by which the worlds were brought forth, and so the teachers read the name Mahātapāḥ as the One of great knowledge. The tradition also remembers Him as Nārāyaṇa the sage, who with Nara practised tapas at Badarī for the good of the world, and the name Sutapāḥ is read so.

Austerity alone does not win Him. Neither wealth nor learning nor austerity can win Him, the hymn says; He is won by single-hearted devotion. In a few names the word brahma carries it too, as in the Friend of the Vēda and of austerity, and the seeker's settled observances, niyama, count austerity among their number, beside purity, contentment, study and surrender to the Lord.

Ānanda is bliss, a delight with nothing lacking in it. The hymn does not say that the Lord has bliss but that He is bliss: Ānanda, Bliss itself, whose happiness is not a thing He holds but what He is, and the nyāsa names the supreme Brahman as bliss. Whatever joy a creature knows is a small portion of His, and He is the giver of it all.

The Upaniṣad counts bliss in steps, each a hundred times the last, and the end of the count is His; so He is Śatānanda, of a hundredfold bliss, whose bliss has no measure. The same Upaniṣad says that He is delight itself, and that one who reaches Him becomes blessed. Bhaṭṭar hears this in the name Puruṣa: the Person who gives in plenty, bestowing on the freed the joy of Himself, which is their reward and their goal. Śarma names bliss and shelter at once: the bliss that those who reach Him enjoy, and the shelter that keeps it safe.

Bhakti is love of the Lord that shows itself in worship: to remember Him, praise Him, bow to Him and offer to Him alone. The word is from the root bhaj, which carries the sense of sharing in and holding to, and one who has it is a bhakta, a devotee. Asked for the highest dharma, Bhīṣma answers that it is to worship the lotus-eyed Lord always with devotion, in hymns of praise; and in the verses that follow, worship, meditation, praise, bowing and sacrifice stand together, with devotion as the spirit of them all.

The hymn gives devotion its fruit and its answer. The reciter who praises with devotion crosses what is hard to cross, and in the devotees of the Supreme Person, who have gathered merit, there arises no anger, no envy, no greed and no evil thought. The Lord answers love with love: He is Vatsala, tender to His own as a cow is to her calf, and Bhaktavatsala, tender to His devotees, who does not turn from them for their faults; and He is the Lord of the Sātvatas, who are His devotees.

The Lord Himself says in the closing verses that to those who think of Him and of no other, and who wait on Him in worship, ever steadfast, He carries both the gaining of what they lack and the keeping of what they have. The burden passes from the devotee to Him.

Dharma comes from dhṛ, to hold or support, and means what upholds: for a person, right conduct and duty; for the world, the order that keeps it from falling apart. Yudhiṣṭhira's question at the start of the telling asks which dharma Bhīṣma holds to be the highest of all, and Bhīṣma answers, as his own judgement, that it is this: that a man should always worship the lotus-eyed Lord with devotion, through hymns of praise. The thousand names are such a hymn.

Two families of names carry the word. In the first the Lord is dharma itself and all that goes with it: Dharma the Upholder, the Overseer, the Guardian and the Establisher of dharma, the Righteous One, the Best of those who know dharma, and the Post to which dharma is bound. In the second the hymn uses vṛṣa, which also names dharma, the bull that showers its fruit: He whose deeds, form and steps are dharma, the Showerer who is dharma itself, and the Lover of dharma.

Bhaṭṭar adds that He is Dharma because He sustains all beings by giving them prosperity and release. In the name Dharmakṛt Bhaṭṭar hears the One who leads His devotees to follow dharma, and holds that plain dharma, without beginning or end, cannot be reached even by the wise without His grace; the name is also heard as the One who keeps dharma Himself, so that the world may learn from His example. The tradition speaks of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa as dharma in a body, and holds the old saying that dharma guards those who guard it.

Grace, kṛpā or anugraha, is kindness that is given freely and not earned. The hymn shows it as the Lord's own nature: His eyes rest on His own with grace; Amōgha is the One whose grace never fails, Suprasāda is of perfect graciousness, and Viśvadakṣiṇa shows His grace to every being without exception, giving each what is good for it.

It is quick, and asks little. To bow at His feet is called the simplest road to His grace, and the One whom no sense can reach shows Himself, by grace, to those who seek Him. Śrī, the Mother who is never apart from Him, speaks for the souls that come, and so His majesty is made mild to those who approach in need; the Śrīvaiṣṇava teachers speak of Her as the one who recommends the soul to the Lord.

The tradition holds that His own births are a gift of grace and no bondage of deeds, and that the will to follow dharma is itself His grace to those who follow it. How the soul's own turning and His grace meet is told in the schools of the tradition with two images.

Karma is deed, and the working of deeds: the teaching that every deliberate act, good or ill, bears fruit, in this life or in later births, and that this holds a soul in the round of birth and death. It is not the same as fate, for the deed was one's own. The hymn speaks of the teaching most in what it says the Lord is free of.

The tradition holds that His births are no bondage of karma but a gift of grace. He is Saṃbhava, who comes among beings by His own wish in every age; Aja, to whom no womb gave birth; Ayōnija, who comes from no source beyond Himself; and Amūrti, who has no body of matter, shaped by karma and bound by it, as ours are. The forms He takes are His own choice, made of pure radiance, and Śrī is never apart from Him in any of them.

A different use of the word should not be mixed with this. Mahākarmā, of great deeds, speaks of what He does for the sake of those who cannot help themselves, and not of the doctrine. Dharmādhyakṣa, the Overseer of dharma, sees that each deed meets its fruit; and Bhaṭṭar, hearing the name Sraṣṭā, the Maker, says that as He gives release to those who long for it, so He gives the round of birth to those who ask for it by their deeds.

Prāṇa is the breath, and with it the life that moves in every living creature. In the Upaniṣads it is the chief breath of the body, and the later teaching distinguishes five, prāṇa, apāna, vyāna, udāna and samāna, each with its place and work. The hymn calls the Lord Prāṇa, the life within every life, and Prāṇada, the giver of life, and the pair stands several times, each time with a fresh sense.

In the eighth śloka they name Him as the giver of life and strength to every creature, and the life within that life. In the thirty-fifth, He is the vital breath that warms the limbs and holds the body together as one, and the giver of body, senses and breath to the soul at the start of a creation, out of mercy. In the forty-fourth He is the Life of the loving soul, which cannot live apart from Him, and the giver of its true life, nearness to Himself. Later He is the dwelling of all that breathes and the One who holds up all life, and the giver of each breath, so that the very air on which a reciter's praise rises is His gift. The meditation on the world as His body has the wind for His life-breath.

A refuge is a place to run to when afraid, and the place where one finally rests. Yudhiṣṭhira's second question asks for it: in all the world, who is the one God, and what is the one final refuge? Bhīṣma answers that He is the highest final refuge, and the phalaśruti says that the mortal who takes Vāsudēva as refuge and as highest goal, cleansed of every sin, goes to the eternal Brahman. One English word stands here for several in Sanskrit, shown in the table.

To take refuge is to come to the Lord with the whole self and trust Him to guard and to lead. The invocation does so at the very start, taking refuge in Viṣvaksēna, chief of His attendants, and the meditation takes refuge in Kṛṣṇa, with Rukmiṇī and Satyabhāmā at His side, whom the tradition knows as Śrī and Bhūdēvī. In the Śrīvaiṣṇava way the Lord is always approached together with Śrī, and the name Śaraṇam says that with Her beside Him none who comes is turned away.

The word Śaraṇa holds two senses at once, protection and home: He is the Refuge of those in misery, and the final home of those who reach Him, who come to live in Him. The tradition's own word for the act of taking refuge is prapatti, surrender.

Mōkṣa, from muc, to free, is release from the bond of birth and rebirth. It is what the invocation promises: by the mere remembrance of the Lord one is set free from that bond. It is the matter of Yudhiṣṭhira's question, by reciting what is a living being freed?, and of the hymn's answer, and it is what the closing verses promise to the distressed who speak even the word Nārāyaṇa. The hymn calls the Lord the highest goal of the freed, and Mukunda, the Giver of liberation.

In the Śrīvaiṣṇava teaching release is not the soul melting into the Lord and ending. The freed soul keeps its own being and goes to Vaikuṇṭha, His world, where it shares in His bliss and serves Him without end; Nirvāṇa is read as the quenching of the fire of sorrow and rebirth, not the ending of the self but its coming home to Him. Bhaṭṭar hears the five names that follow the highest goal of the freed as the reasons why the freed choose Him: He does not send back those who have reached Him, He gives them His bliss in plenty, He is pleased to see their joy, He knows the right place for them, and His greatness is not lessened by their enjoying Him.

The tradition counts four ends that people seek, righteousness, wealth, enjoyment and release, and says that release is His gift above them all.

Saṃsāra is the going round: the wheel of birth and death on which a soul turns, taking body after body, in the bond of its own deeds. The invocation calls it the bond of birth and the round of rebirth, and Yudhiṣṭhira's question asks by what recitation a living being is freed from it. It is a weary round, and the meditation on the Lord at rest on the serpent calls Him the One who takes away the fear of worldly existence.

The hymn names the Lord both as the One who sets the wheel turning and as the One who ends it: Āvartana, who sets the wheel of the worlds turning, with the round of births in which souls turn until they reach Him; Virāma, who ends the weary round for the soul that comes to Him; the Bridge, who carries souls over the ocean of births and deaths; and Tīrthakara, who makes the teaching by which beings cross the sea of rebirth.

The tradition holds that those who reach Him are not turned back to rebirth. Bhaṭṭar reads the name Avyaya in that sense: He is the One who does not send back those who have come to Him, as the Yama Smṛti says of one who reaches the Supreme Lord in Vaikuṇṭha. The phalaśruti names the four fears that every living being must face, birth, death, old age and sickness, and says that for the devotees of Vāsudēva they do not arise.

Pāpa is wrong done, with the stain and trouble that follow it; puṇya is good done, with the holiness, purity and fruit that follow that. Both come of deeds. The hymn is offered at its opening as the names that take away sin and fear, and near its end stands the name Pāpanāśana, the Destroyer of sin, which recalls the promise made to Arjuna in the Gītā: to free from all sins the one who gives up every other refuge and comes to Him alone.

Puṇya is also His name. He is the Holy, merit itself, the purity that remains once wrong deeds are cleared away, and every good deed that was ever done draws what merit it has from Him. To hear of Him or to sing His glory is itself a holy act that gains merit and cleanses, and the hymn calls Him the One whose hearing and praising purify. The phalaśruti promises the reciter that he is cleansed of every sin, and speaks of the devotees of the Supreme Person as those who have gathered merit.

The tradition adds that the Lord Himself is never stained by deeds, good or bad, though He dwells in every body; the fruits of deeds fall to the souls, and it is He who sees that each deed meets its fruit.

Prapatti, also called śaraṇāgati, coming for refuge, is the act of laying oneself down at the Lord's feet and asking Him to be one's protector, with Śrī beside Him as the one who speaks for the soul. One who has done so is a prapanna. It is the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition's way of taking refuge, and the hymn speaks of it when it says that nothing offered to the Lord is wasted, since worship, surrender and a look of love all bear fruit, and that the pledge of protection that He gives to those who surrender is never broken. The teachers count it as five accessories and the act of surrender itself, six parts in all, as the table shows.

The two schools of the tradition picture the soul's part in different ways. The Vaḍakalai teachers liken the soul to a young monkey that clings to its mother, so that its own holding on is a real part of its being saved; the Teṅkalai teachers liken it to a kitten that the mother cat carries, so that the Lord does all. Both rest on His grace, and both hold that the One who saves is the Lord Himself.

Yōga is from yuj, to join or yoke, and its senses are union, discipline and means: a way of joining the seeker to the Lord, the steadiness of mind that the way asks for, and the way itself. One who practises it is a yōgī. The hymn calls the Lord Yōga, and the Leader of those who know yōga; Yōgī, the master of yōga, and Yōgīśa, the Lord of the yōgīs; and Sadāyōgī, ever steady in yōga.

Of the first name, Yōga, Bhaṭṭar takes the sense of means: the Lord Himself is the means by which He is reached, the natural and independent cause of release, needing no help from anything else. Other teachers hear in the word union, or meditation, so that He is the One whom the yōgīs reach in the heart. In the name Sarvayōgavinissṛta the word means a tie or a connection, and the name says that no tie of any kind holds Him.

Among the Gītā verses that close the hymn, one calls Kṛṣṇa the Lord of yōga, and another has the Lord promise those who think of Him alone that He carries the gaining and the keeping of what they need, which the word yōgakṣēma means.