Vishnu Sahasra Naamam-Vol III-RR-edit.pub - Ibiblio

nammAzhvAr echoes this same sentiment: paNNAr pADal in kavigaL yAnAit
tannait tAn pADi…, where nammAzhvAr says that bhagavAn sang His own
praise by Himself through tiruvAimozhi using nammAzhvAr as the vehicle or
means.
SrI Samkara's interpretation is that bhagavAn is Himself the Hymn. SrI
cinmayAnanda explains this by pointing out that when a glorious hymn, praising
His Divine Nature, is sung with full devotion and ardent aspiration to realize
Him, this praise lifts the devotee into the experience of the Nature of Truth.
Thus, the nAma (praise here) and the nAmee are one and the same in
experience.
SrI rAdhAkRshNa SAstri observes that words that praise Him are by their
very nature good words, and so they are His manifestation (Note that Lord
kRshNa declares in the gItA that all that are best in this world are but His
manifestations).
The dharma cakram writer explains that the great Rshi-s to whom bhagavAn
has revealed Himself, have a mind which is pure and where He resides. When
these sages reveal their experience of Him through words to others, this
becomes the mantra or the word of praise or stotram. Thus the stotram or
the mantra becomes the representation of Him. This is what AzhvAr declares
when he says: "nalam tarum Sollai nAn kaNDu koNDEn nArAyaNA ennum
nAmam". One is reminded of the incident of draupadi being saved by invoking
the nAma of kRshNa which saved her even before kRshNa could personally
come and save her. In this sense, the nAma or the stotram is even more
powerful than Him.
SrI satyadevo vAsishTha interprets stotram in the current context to refer
to veda - stUyate anena iti stotram vedah - that by which bhagavAn is praised,
is veda.
Since bhagavAn is the object of praise of the veda-s, He is stotram Himself:
vedasya pradhAna vishayatvA brahmApi stotram.
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