Purusha Suktam- Introduction and Significance

 The Purusha Suktham is one of the most common and powerful Veda Mantras.


It occurs in all the 4 Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda.


The Purusha in the title refers to the Parama Purusha, Purushottama, Narayana in his cosmic form as the Viraat Purusha (Vishwaroopa), the Supreme Being.


He is the source of all creation.

The first 3 sentences of the Purusha Suktham can be translated as follows: Thousand-headed is the Purusha, thousand-eyed and thousand-legged.


Enveloping the earth from all sides,

it thus describes this form of the Supreme Person as having countless heads, eyes, legs, manifested everywhere - meaning that the entire cosmos / universe is pervaded by Him. In other words, there is nothing in the universe that is not Him.


Purusha Suktham is also chanted at the time of doing Abhishekham to the Lord with the holy water in the Kumbham or Kalasham (vessel) in which various deities have been invoked and which has been sanctified by Vedic Mantras.


As the Purusha Suktham is seen in all Vedas, Veda Vyasa has called it the essence of all the Vedas.


The Uttara Narayanam is the concluding portion of the Purusha Suktham itself. Uttara Narayanam begins with "Adbhyasambhoota pritivyai ..."

Comments

  1. ParthaSeptember 23, 2020 at 1:27 PM

    Very informative! Thanks, Partha

    ReplyDelete
  2. LalithaSeptember 24, 2020 at 7:40 PM

    Supreme being is that which exists devoid of name and form. To say that the "The Purusha in the title refers to the Parama Purusha, Purushottama, Narayana in his cosmic form as the Viraat Purusha (Vishwaroopa)" misleads the Vedic thought of the Supreme as सत् . There is no cosmic form or any other form before creation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 28, 2020 at 7:45 AM

    We the mortal beings have no capacity whatsoever to describe or define or deliberate fully about the glories of the ultimate Reality. Human has words to communicate to others but the limitations are there, without form quality etc. Word become helpless. The Almighty, the uncaused cause of entire universe being beyond word or sound etc. a realised Soule can take refuge in some words which may at the most become an Arrow pointing to Reality! The preceptor of this writer likened such words to the nearest branch of a tree visible to point to the small spark of moon hidden far on the sky in the evening hours to help us to recognise that far away moon. Is it not working the lakshya? Our Rishies of Upanishads used same technic to point to the Reality! They know the tree is not moon but it's branch help is look at the moon we want to see: otherwise we have no direction to look or search. Upanishads are Not the ultimate Truth satchitaananda Parahbrahma.
    Chandrasekharan Hari Om.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RajeshFebruary 18, 2022 at 10:48 PM

    Dhantavaadah for the essence of this vedam.

    ReplyDelete

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