Three minutes, please.

There are more than thousand references on Vishnu Sahasranamam in the internet. There are nearly half a million references on ‘Om’ or ‘Aum’ and an equal number of references onthe ancient scientists of India. There are hundreds of references on other related spiritual matters and scriptures. Is this booklet, then, yet another one, to this already existing long illustrious list? The answer is NO, because this booklet, as the title indicates is, ‘an attempt at alternate analysis’.
Both religion, through its scriptures and science, through its theorems, make truth-claims, one by a process of perception, and the other by the process of proof. Initially, the Karmakaanda of the Vedas contained only detailed accounts of rituals. Intense questioning of , ‘why, how, and what’, resulted in the Upanishadic doctrines, either by direct answers, or, where a direct answer was not possible, by deductive negation (the famous ‘Na Iti, Na Iti’) logic. Strange as it may seem, science blossomed forth in the scriptures in easily acceptable simple statements of facts (without venturing with either proofs or deductive logic) when it was dealt with artistically. Thus came the Itihaasas Ramayana and Mahabharata which Valmiki and Vyasa respectively sculpted by words in a vast canvas of beautiful poetry. Vishnu Sahasranamam forms part of the Mahabharata. There are a number of ways in which the relationship between science and scriptures (read religion) can be approached.

i) Religious doctrines and scientific theories express the same truth about the
world, but in different formats.
ii) Both are not necessarily seeking to maintain the same point but, in certain
fundamental instances, science supports religion and needs religion for its
intellectual completion. We are aware that many scientific statements made early
on, or that we learnt in our schools are modified and changed later on, or as we
study in our university curriculum, to a more empirical relationship, by conveniently using a Constant to validate the formula. For example, Newtonargued that the orderliness of the solar system is a witness to the skill of the creator. Thus, science requires theological insight for its intellectual completion and what science can explain is, in turn, taken as already perceived by the scriptures.
iii) One need not compare science and religion with each other because they are
different intellectual approaches, laying claims to truths in their respective fields
of enquiry. If this approach is carried to its logical end, we will end up in two
contradicting intellectual worlds, which will fail to realize that truth can be and
is, but one. Such a situation disappears only when the systems take into account
all the points which the other system has been stating and which was, perhaps,
initially ignored or not adequately understood.
iv) Religion (read scriptures) and science can be seen as involved together in
producing a single harmonious truth, which links together the creator, and the
created. The scriptures produce an overall understanding committed to the
perception that every valid insight into reality leads ultimately to a single
unifying factor that is beyond body, mind and intellect. Scientific discoveries are
part of this data input in the overall mosaic of religious statements through
scriptures. Science has its own dictum that a fact is not a fact until it has been
repeatedly tried and failed to disprove it, over a period of time.

We thus pass through cycles of statements of what is conceived as truth, then being questioned by so called rationalists, resulting in acceptance or modification of what was stated, then a period of renaissance and a final realization that both science and religion state and explain the same truth and that the difference, if any, between the two are only apparent and not real, and that they are indivisible one, the Advaitam.

Thus, we have the evolution of the Upanishads and the scientific philosophies enunciated by great Rishis and the intense discussions on them during the Vedic period. Then, we have had the great composers of the two Itihaasas, who extracted the scientific truths from them in a more understandable statement of facts. This was further churned by the rationalists, which resulted in great scientific development as by Aryabhatta, Kanaada, Nagarjuna, Charaka, Sushruta, Varahamihira, Patanjali and others. Prosperity brings in complacency and a certain lack of faith in the concept of something beyond self. Thus, the cycle repeated and came the period of Purvamimamsakas, Charuvakas, Vaiseshikas, Nyaya School of thought, and other such rationalists. While this resulted in further scientific discoveries and finds, it had also an ill effect on the higher religious philosophies, which could not be conclusively established as truth. Prosperity also helps development of art and culture. When religion, science and art combine, they produce some of the most beautiful composite mosaics. This was the period of early renaissance when great philosophers like Adi Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhvacharya, poets like Kalidasa, Dandini, Bhaaravi, Magha and Harsha and scientists like Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya, Bharadwaja and others appeared on the scene. This period of renaissance finds a beautiful expression of co existence and mutual support of science and religion and that the ultimate
goal is the same. Their contributions were acknowledged all over the world.

Unfortunately, subsequent invasion of the country and later, the colonization of India resulted in either ignoring or demeaning these great contributions and their further developments until after independence.

As modern scientists discover more and more about the macrocosmic and microcosmic phenomenon, the galaxy, the cell, the genome, the evolution, origin of life, plate tectonics etc, one wonders how much and more of this have already been perceived in the scriptures already. The glory of Vishnu Sahasranamam is that it appears to be a statement of these facts, in the garb of 1008 names of Vishnu, that there is something beyond what is perceived by the body, mind and intellect, even beyond what may still be discovered in the future centuries and millennia. He is Vishnu.

This booklet is an attempt to carry the reader by a random selection of some of the 1008 names through the understanding of this truth from the statement in the scriptures, then as revealed by the understanding of ancient scientists of India, and as now understood by modern scientific discoveries. At the end, when one realizes that what we have understood is only a drop in the ocean as admitted by great scientists, one subjects oneself in all humility to the greatness of the one beyond what is perceived.

In order to facilitate the readers, the text of Vishnu Sahasranamam in Sanskrit and English is given in appendix 1.
Appendix 2 is a small compilation by the author in 2006 on ‘Vedas and Gayatri’, aimed at enabling an youngster, at the time of Upanayanam (the holy thread ceremony) to understand the significance and importance of Gayatri and some of the aspects of Sandhyavandanam.
Readers may please be cautioned that this is not ‘light reading’ material. But, the author will consider himself blessed, if the reader goes through the whole booklet, slowly and carefully by a second or even third reading. Happy reading.

"Sarve Janaah Sukhino Bhavantu"