Dallas Asian

Thousand Names of Vishnu

Names, like images, are limits and boundaries. But the utterance of one thousand names approaches an infinity of sound and meaning, as is surmised from viewing the One Thousand Names of the Hindu god Vishnu (Vishnu Sahasranama) translated from Sanskrit and inscribed on the windows of the Skybridge. The names, accruing to the Vishnu story over many generations, were passed on in poetic form as part of the Indian epic, the Mahabharata, compiled between 300 bce to 300 ce. (There are traditional grouping of one thousand names for other Hindu deities as well.)

Many devotees of Vishnu recite his “Thousand Names” daily from memory. Each name calls up an aspect of the god, a quality, a story. The names are organized into 107 verses, with internal rhyme and meter. Name sequences seem to range all over the map. In some places they line up like an orderly family of sound and meaning; elsewhere they abut as contradictions or take off in an entirely new direction. Some sequences unfold with the logic of rap music, others exhale like a lullaby. The god, it is understood, exceeds them all.

This exhibition covers the windows of the Sky Bridge leading into the Indian Gallery.