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SrI vishNu sahasra nAmam - Slokam 84 - tantu-vardhanah.

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champakam • January 21, 2003 


   SrI vishNu sahasra nAmam - Slokam 84 - tantu-vardhanah.

791. tantu-vardhanah – a) He Who increases the meshes.
		b) He Who augments the expansion of Himself into this 
world, by protecting it.
		c) He Who withdraws this world into Himself after 
creating it.
		d) He Who expanded the vasudva family through 
pradyumna and others.

The word vardhanah is derived from the root vRdh – vRddhau – to 
grow.  So this nAma can be viewed as an extension of the previous 
nAma – One who increases the meshes in the net, or One Who continues 
to maintain or sustain the growth or vistAra of this universe.

a) SrI BhaTTar gives the vyAkhyAnam – evam papa rUcibhih amsubhiriva 
samsAra-tantum santanoti iti tantu-vardhanah – "Thus, by aggravating 
the taste for sin in these people (who deserve to be punished), He 
strengthens the snare of samsAra as if by strong fibers."   SrI 
BhaTTar quotes from the following sources in support:

tAn aham dvishatah krUrAn samsAreshu narAdhamAn   |
kshipAmyajastram aSubhAn AsurIshveva yonishu      ||         (gItA 
16.19) 

"Those haters, cruel, the vilest and the most inauspicious of 
mankind, I hurl forever into the cycles of births and deaths, into 
the wombs of demons".  

	trayI-mArga samutsargam mAyAmohena te'surAh   |
	kAritAs-tanmayA hyAsan tathA'nye tat-pracoditAh   ||
	tairapyanye'pare taiSca tairapyanye pare ca te   |      (VP 
3.18.32)

"The foes of God being thus induced to apostatize from the religion 
of the veda-s by the enchanting power of vishNu, became in their turn 
teachers of the same heresies, and perverted others;  and these, 
again, communicating their principles to others, by whom they were 
still further disseminated, the veda-s were in a short time deserted 
by the daitya race". 

This is how bhagavAn "increased the meshes" – tantu-vardhanah.   

b) SrI Sa'nkara's interpretation is that the nAma signifies that He 
augments the web of this world, by protecting the world that He 
expanded from Himself - tameva tantum vardhayati iti.

c) Alternatively, SrI Sa'nkara gives another interpretation – He Who 
withdraws the world (at the time of pralaya) – vardhayati – 
chedayati – cuts down.  SrI Sa'nkara vyAkhyAnam is  chedayati iti vA 
tantu-vardhanah.

d)	SrI ananta kRshNa SAstry continues on his idea d) in the 
previous nAma, and interprets the nAma tantu-vardhanah as referring 
to His extending the progeny of the vasudeva family through pradyumna 
and others. 

-dAsan kRshNamAcAryan




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