Kṛṣṇāmṛtamahārṇava

An anthology of verses on worshipping Vishnu, with exact rules for the eleventh-day fast and for who must keep it.

by Madhva30 passages held

Sanskrit, the original language

Original language: Sanskrit

Overview

Anyone over eight and under eighty, this anthology rules, must fast on the Ekādaśī, the eleventh day of each half of the lunar month, and must not fast on the wrong day. If the tenth day still lingers at dawn — reckoned as four ghaṭikās, about an hour and a half, before sunrise — the eleventh is tainted and the fast moves to the twelfth. Gāndhārī, the poem recalls, kept the tainted fast and lost her hundred sons. Scriptures that teach otherwise, it explains, were put into the world by Vishnu in the form of Vyāsa, to mislead demons and heretics. The Kṛṣṇāmṛtamahārṇava, "the great ocean of Krishna's nectar", is an anthology rather than a treatise: some 230 Sanskrit verses drawn from older scripture, many of them spoken by Brahmā, Śiva, the sage Nārada and other gods and sages. Madhva's followers count it among his thirty-seven works, and the tradition says he composed it in the village of Kokkada for a devotee. Mādhva scholars wrote several commentaries on it, and in 2009 the German scholar Thomas K. Gugler published the Sanskrit text with an annotated German translation. Its subject is practice. Remembering Vishnu and repeating his name destroy sin. Worshipping another god in his place is like leaving nectar to drink poison. Stones marked with Vishnu's discus and worshipped as him, the śālagrāma among them, sanctify the ground around them even in a foreign land. Without the upright mark worn on the forehead, every rite is wasted. The last verses insist that even someone who has knowledge must keep the rites the Vedas prescribe, performed without desire for their fruits.

Key concepts

What is Ekādaśī?

Ekādaśī is the eleventh day of each half of the lunar month, so it falls twice a month, and Vaiṣṇavas keep it as a fast for Vishnu. The anthology treats the fast as a duty for everyone between eight and eighty, and spends many verses on how to reckon the right day, because a day still touched by the tenth does not count.

What is a śālagrāma?

A śālagrāma is a stone bearing markings taken as Vishnu's discus, and it is worshipped as Vishnu himself, not as a picture of him. The anthology counts it among the stones marked with the discus that make a place holy. Where one is worshipped, the verses say, the ground around it is sanctified, even in a foreign land.

What does remembering Vishnu mean in this anthology?

It means keeping Vishnu in mind and repeating his name, a practice open to anyone at any time, with no priest or temple needed. The verses give it great power: remembering him and saying his name destroy sin, and they count as worship in their own right rather than as a preparation for it.

What does it mean to keep the rites without desire for their fruits?

It means doing the duties the Vedas prescribe because they are prescribed, not to gain the rewards that each rite promises, such as wealth or a better rebirth. The closing verses make this the right way to keep them, and they deny that anyone grows beyond them: even a person who has knowledge goes on performing the rites in this spirit.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The Eleventh-Day Fast

Can keeping a fast on the right day matter as much as keeping it at all? The anthology says yes, and builds a whole calendar of obligation around the answer.

On the eleventh day of each half of the lunar month, everyone between eight and eighty is to fast for Vishnu, and the verses fix the day with a precision that surprises a modern reader. If the tenth day still lingers about an hour and a half before sunrise, the eleventh counts as tainted and the fast moves to the twelfth. Gāndhārī kept a tainted fast and lost her hundred sons. Scriptures that teach other rules are explained away as Vishnu's own work, put out in the form of Vyāsa to mislead demons and heretics.

fasting
ekadashi
dvadashi
ritual calendar
lunar timekeeping
religious discipline
ritual observance
religious merit
scripture
mortality

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Vishnu's Name and Signs

What does a life turned towards Vishnu look like from one day to the next? The verses answer with things a person can do with mouth, hands and forehead, and with what each is worth.

Gathered from older scripture and spoken by gods and sages, the verses make practice the measure of devotion. Remembering Vishnu and repeating his name destroy sin. Worshipping another god in his place is like leaving nectar to drink poison. Stones marked with his discus and worshipped as him, the śālagrāma among them, make the ground around them holy even in a foreign land, and without the upright mark on the forehead every rite is wasted. Knowledge excuses no one: even the knower keeps the Vedic rites, done without desire for their fruits.

divine remembrance
divine name
chanting
sin
sin and purification
purification
atonement
devotion
devotional worship
worship
ritual marks
ritual purity
divine hierarchy
pilgrimage
prasada
desireless action
desire and reward
knowledge
liberation

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Within this work

passages held: 30
distinct concepts: 63
by passages held, corpus-wide: #728

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “devotion” and “liberation”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 7 concepts, joined by 10 pairings. 30 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
devotion	liberation	7
devotion	worship	4
divine remembrance	liberation	4
ekadashi	fasting	4
liberation	worship	4
devotion	divine remembrance	3
devotional worship	fasting	2
divine remembrance	worship	2
devotional worship	liberation	1
ekadashi	liberation	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Aṇubhāṣya
It condenses Madhva's reading of the Brahma Sūtras into four short chapters of verse, written, the tradition says, so that his disciples need not read the whole commentary every day.
SA
Anuvyākhyāna
Of the four works Madhva wrote on the Brahma Sūtras, this verse supplement to his commentary carries the argument against the other schools.
SA
Kṛṣṇāmṛtamahārṇava you are here SA
Mahābhārata-tātparya-nirṇaya
A retelling in verse of two epics and the life of Krishna, it carries into narrative the theology that Madhva's commentaries argue line by line.
SA
Pramāṇalakṣaṇa
One of Madhva's short monographs, it sets down in a few pages the theory of knowledge that his commentaries and polemics take for granted.
SA

— or open another of their works