Queries on "garuda-purANam"

[Guest guest]

Dear friends/members,

 

A few questions below on the "garuda-purANam"... Perhaps someone

knowledgeable amongst you can please favour with a reply:

 

(1) The "garuda-purANam" is regarded a 'sAtvika-purANam'. It contains

a famous dialogue between Garuda and Sriman Narayana dealing with a

wide variety of matters relating to death, death-rites and the

passage of the soul after death... I learn it is customary to read

out this 'purANam' (or excerpts from it) aloud as part of the

consummative obsequies on the 13th day after funereal consignment

("subhasveekAram").

 

Since this 'purAnam' is so closely associated with death, obsequies

and the after-life, would it be right to say therefore that it is not

wholly auspicious to be read at home at other normal times?

 

(2) There is a section in this "purANam" which details a different

kind of "Vishnu-Sahasranamam"! It sets forth 1000 "namA-s" of Vishnu

which are as felicitous to the ear and heart as those of the

"Sahasranamam" in the "anusAsana-parvA" of the Mahabharatha! Vyasa

seems to have thus actually composed 2 "vishnu-sahasranamam-s" ...

one in the Mahabharatha and one in this 'garuda-purAnam'! ANd yet it

is the former which the world celebrates while the latter appears to

have always languished in relative obscurity. Sankara and Bhattar

wrote 'bhAshyA-s' on the Mahabharata version of the

Vishnu-Sahasranamam; but I have never so far heard of any 'bhAshya'

on the "garuda-purANam" version of the Vishnu-sahasranamam. Is this

silent admission (on the part of our "purvAchAryA-s") that one, by

its intimate association with Death and moribund matters, is somehow

inferior to the other?

 

(3) Is the recitation of the Vishnu-sahasranamam from the

'garuda-purANam' taboo? Does it fetch the same felicity and

auspiciousness to one who chants the other one from the Mahabharatha?

 

Thanks in advance,

Regards,

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

 

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