Foreword
I am immensely pleased that we are bringing out an important publication on Sri Vishnu Sahasranama stotrom at this moment, when it is bound to be very popular. All the thousand names have been explained in this book in a very succinct manner. Such an interpretation in a simple and masterly manner can only come from stalwart scholars. The author is Mahamahopadhyaya Sri MV. Ramanujacharya. He was born in 1866 in a family of scholars, whose ancestors had moved from native Sriperumpudur to Manalur (Tanjavur District) some five centuries earlier. His maternal uncle was a great Vyakarana Pandit, by name, Veeraraghavacharya. Young Ramanuja had travelled to Bombay and Benares in his love to learn Sanskrit, during which efforts, he had come into contact with Dr. Thibaut, who did much to help him join the Sanskrit college at Kasi. Family circumstances compelled him to return to the native district. With some years of Schooling in Mutts around Mayuram, he secured a Tamil Pandit's post in a High School at Kumbakonam. Here he studied for 18 years under the great Tamizh-thatha', Dr UV. Swaminatha Ayyar, who was teaching at Government College, there. When the master shifted to Madras, the student took up his place in the college. He served in this capacity from 1910 to 1921. He had, even while in service, taken on himself a massive task. The translation of Sri Mahabharata and publication of 48 volumes, each in about 200 pages, at a personal expense of Rs. 1.5 lakhs in those days with a missionary zeal with which he accomplished it, at great personal sacrifice, taking about 24 years (1908-1932) is a masy achievement for the Pandit He made Mahabharata accessible to the Tamils. He was honoured with Mahamahopadhyaya, by the Govt of India, in 1936. H? was also known as Bhasha-bharata-dhurandhara. He died in 1940.
In 1928, he published Sri Vishnusahasranama Bhashya in Tamil. We thought that it would be useful to re-print it, confining to Parasara Bhattar's interpretation for the thousand names, omitting the prologue and the epilogue. It was thought fit to give a free English translation. This has been provided by my good friend, Sri (Dr.) V.N. Vedantha Desikan, who has also furnished an Analytical Table of the names under a variety of categories and also a Glossary. I see that the book has a limited scope namely, of conveying the essence of the beauty and significance of the thousand names, as Sri Parasara Bhattar has interpreted them. The beauty, the genius and the grandeur of Bhattar's commentary cannot be fully revealed herein; for that, one ought to go to the original, which would indeed be too heavy and too abstruse. I Congratulate all those who have made this publication possible.
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