Part 12 - Viṣṇu, Vasudeva and Kṛṣṇa

Viṣṇu, Bhagavat, Nārāyaṇa, Hari and Kṛṣṇa are often used in a large section of Indian religious literature as synonymous names of the supreme lord. Of these Viṣṇu is an important god of the Ṛg-Veda , who is one of the ādityas and who makes three strides in the sky, probably as he manifests himself in the eastern horizon, as he rises to the zenith and as he sets in the west. He is also represented in the Ṛg-Veda as a great fighter and an ally of Indra. It is further said that he has two earthly steps and another higher step which is known only to himself. But in the Ṛg-Veda Viṣṇu is certainly inferior to Indra, with whom he was often associated, as is evident from such names as Indrā-viṣṇu (R.V. iv. 55. 4; vii. 99. 5; vm. 10. 2, etc.). According to later tradition Viṣṇu was the youngest, the twelfth of the ādityas , though he was superior to them all in good qualities^[1]. His three steps in the Ṛg-Vedic allusion have been explained in the Nirukta as referring to the three stages of the sun’s progress in the morning, at midday and at evening.

One of the names of Viṣṇu in the Ṛg-Veda is Śipiviṣṭa, which Durgācārya explains as

“surrounded with the early rays”

(śipi-saṃjñair bāla-raśmibhir āviṣṭa)^[2].

Again, the sage praises Viṣṇu in the Ṛg-Veda in the following terms:

“I, a master of hymns and knowing the sacred customs, to-day praise that name of thine, Śipiviṣṭa. I, who am weak, glorify thee, who art mighty and dwellest beyond this world^[3].”

All this shows that Viṣṇu was regarded as the sun, or endowed with the qualities of the sun. The fact that Viṣṇu was regarded as dwelling beyond this world is probably one of the earliest signs of his gradually increasing superiority. For the next stage one must turn to the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa. In 1. 2. 4 of that work it is said that the demons (asura) and the gods were vying with one another; the gods were falling behind, and the demons were trying to distribute the world among themselves; the gods followed them, making Viṣṇu the sacrifice as their leader (te yajñam eva Viṣṇuṃ puraskṛtyeyuḥ), and desired their own shares; the demons felt jealous and said that they could give only so much ground as would be occupied by Viṣṇu when he lay down, Viṣṇu being a dwarf (' vāmano ha Viṣṇur āsa). The gods felt dissatisfied at this, and they approached him with various mantras and in consequence attained the whole world.

Again, in xiv. 1 of the same work, Kurukṣetra is referred to as being the place of the sacrificial performances of the gods, and it is said there that in industry, rigorism (tapas), faith, etc. Viṣṇu was the best of all gods and was regarded as being superior to them all (tasmād āhur Viṣṇur devānāṃ śreṣṭhaḥ), and was himself the sacrifice.

Again, in Taittirīya-saṃhitā, 1. 7. 5. 4, in Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā, 1. 30; 11. 6. 8; v. 21, in Atharva-Veda, v. 26. 7; viii. 5. 10, etc., Viṣṇu is referred to as the chief of the gods (Viṣṇu-mukhā devā). Again, Viṣṇu as sacrifice attained unlimited fame. Once he was resting his head on the end of his bow; and, when some ants, perceiving that, said,

“How should we be rewarded, if we could gnaw the strings of the bow,”

the gods said that they would then be rewarded with food; and so the ants gnawed away the strings, and, as the two ends of the bow sprang apart, Viṣṇu’s head was tom from his body and became the sun^[4].

This story not only shows the connection of Viṣṇu with the sun, but also suggests that the later story of Kṛṣṇa’s being shot with an arrow by an archer originated from the legend of Viṣṇu’s being killed by the flying ends of his bow. The place of Viṣṇu (Viṣṇu-pada) means the zenith, as the highest place of the sun, and it is probable that the idea of the zenith being the place of Viṣṇu led also to the idea that Viṣṇu had a superior place transcending everything, which was, however, clearly perceived by the wise. Thus, at the beginning of the daily prayer-hymns of the Brahmans, known as sandhyā , it is said that the wise see always that superior place of Viṣṇu, like an open eye in the sky^[5]. The word vaiṣṇava is used in the literal sense of “belonging to Viṣṇu” in the Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā, v. 21, 23, 25, Taittirīya-saṃhitā,v. 6.9. 2. 3, Aitoreya-brāhmaṇa, ill. 38, Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa, 1. 1. 4. 9; 111. 5. 3. 2, etc.; but the use of the word in the sense of a sect of religion is not to be found anywhere in the earlier literature. Even the Gītā does not use the word, and it is not found in any of the earlier Upaniṣads; it can be traced only in the later parts of the Mahā-bhārata.

Again, it is well known that the supreme man, or puruṣa, is praised in very high terms in the man-hymn (Puruṣa-sūkta) of the Ṛg-Veda , X. 90, where it is said that puruṣa is all that we see, what is past and what is future, and that everything has come out of him; the gods performed sacrifice with him with the oblations of the seasons, and out of this sacrifice puruṣa was first born, and then the gods and all living beings; the various castes were born out of him; the sky, the heavens and the earth have all come out of him; he is the creator and upholder of all; it is by knowing him that one attains immortality; there is no other way of salvation. It is curious that there should be a word nārāyana, similar in meaning (etymologically nara + phak, born in the race or lineage of man) to puruṣa, which was also used to mean the supreme being and identified with puruṣa and Viṣṇu.

In Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa, xiv. 3. 4, puruṣa is identified with nārāyaṇa (purusaṃ ha nārāyaṇaṃ Prajāpatir uvāca).

Again, in Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa, xm. 6. 1, the idea of the puruṣa-sūkta is further extended, and the puruṣa nārāyaṇa is said to have performed the pañca-rātra sacrifice (pañcarātraṃ ya-jña-kratum) and thereby transcended everything and become everything.

This pañca-rātra sacrifice involves the (spiritual) sacrifice of puruṣa (puruṣa-medho yajña-kratur bhavati, xiii. 6. 7). The five kinds of sacrifice, five kinds of animals, the year with the five kinds of seasons, the five kinds of indwelling entities (pañca-vidham adhyātmam) can all be attained by the pañca-rātra sacrifices. The sacrifice was continued for five days, and the Vedic habit of figurative thinking associated each of the days of the sacrifice with various kinds of desirable things, so that the five-day sacrifice was considered to lead to many things which are fivefold in their nature.

The reference to the five kinds of indwelling entities soon produced the pañca-rātra doctrine of the manifestation of God in various modes as the external deity of worship {area), inner controller (antar-yāmin), as various manifestations of His lordly power (vibhava), as successive deity-forms in intimate association as vyūha and as the highest God (para). This idea is also found in the later Pānca-rātra scriptures, such as Ahirbudhnya-saṃhitā (1. 1) and the like, where God is described as having his highest form along with the vyūha forms. Puruṣa is thus identified with nārāyaṇa, who, by sacrifice of puruṣa (puruṣa-medha), became all this world.

The etymological definition of nārāyaṇa as “one who has descended from man (nara),” as herein suggested in accordance with Pāṇini, iv. 1. 99, is not, however, accepted everywhere. Thus Manu, 1. 10, derives nārāyaṇa from nāra, meaning “water,” and ayana, meaning “abode,” and nāra (water), again, is explained as “that which has descended from nara ,” or supreme man^[6].

The Mahā-bhārata , 111. 12,952 and 15,819 and xii. 13,168, accepts Manu’s derivation; but in v. 2568 it says that the supreme God is called nārāyaṇa because he is also the refuge of men^[7].

The Taittirīya-Āraṇyaka , x. 1. 6, identifies nārāyaṇa with Vāsudeva and Viṣṇu^[8]. It may be suggested in this connection that even the Upaniṣad doctrine of the self as the supreme reality is probably a development of this type of ideas which regarded man as supreme God. The word puruṣa is very frequently used in the Upaniṣads in the sense of man, as well as in that of the highest being or supreme reality.

In the Mahā-bhārata nara and nārāyaṇa are referred to as being the forms of the supreme lord.

Thus it is said,

“The four-faced Brahmā, capable of being understood only with the aid of the niruktas, joined his hands and, addressing Rudra, said, “Let good happen to the three worlds. Throw down thy weapons, O lord of the universe, from desire of benefiting the universe. That which is indestructible, immutable, supreme, the origin of the universe, uniform and the supreme actor, that which transcends all pairs of opposites and is inactive, has, choosing to be displayed, been pleased to assume this one blessed form (for, though double, the two represent but one and the same form).

This nara and nārāyaṇa (the displayed forms of supreme Brahman) have taken birth in the race of dharma. The foremost of all deities, these two are observers of the highest vows and endued with the severest penances. Through some reason best known to Him I myself have sprung from the attribute of His Grace Eternal, as thou hast; for, though thou hast ever existed since all the pure creations, thou too hast sprung from His Wrath.

With myself then, these deities and all the great Rṣis, do thou adore this displayed form of Brahman and let there be peace unto all the worlds without any delay^[9].”

In the succeeding chapter (i.e. Mahā-bhārata, Śānti-parva, 343) nara and nārāyaṇa are described as being two foremost of sages (ṛṣi) and two ancient deities engaged in the practice of penances, observing high vows and depending upon their own selves and transcending the very sun in energy.

The word bhagavat in the sense of blissful and happy is a very old one and is used in the Ṛg-Veda, 1.164. 40; vii. 41.4; x. 60.12 and in the Atharva-Veda , 11. 10. 2; v. 31. 11, etc. But in the Mahā-bhārata and other such early literature it came to denote Viṣṇu or Vāsudeva, and the word bhāgavata denoted the religious sect which regarded Viṣṇu as Nārāyaṇa or Vāsudeva as their supreme god.

The Pali canonical work Niddesa refers to various superstitious religious sects, among which it mentions the followers of

• Vāsudeva,
• Baladeva,
• Puṇṇabhadda,
• Maṇibhadda,
• Aggi,
• Nāga,
• Suparṇa,
• Yakkha,
• Asura,
• Gandhabba,
• Mahārāja,
• Canda,
• Suriya,
• Inda,
• Brahmā,
• dog,
• crow, cow, etc.

It is easy to understand why a Buddhist work should regard the worship of Vāsudeva as being of a very low type; but at any rate it proves that the worship of Vāsudeva was prevalent during the period when the Niddesa was codified.

Again, in commenting upon Pāṇini, iv. 3.98 (Vāsudevār-junābhyāṃ vim), Patañjali points out that the word Vāsudeva here does not denote the Vāsudeva who was the son of Vasudeva of the Kṣattriya race of Vṛṣṇis, since, had it been so, the suffix vuñ, which is absolutely equivalent to vun, could well be by Pāṇini, iv. 3. 99 (gotra-kṣattriyākhyebhyo bdhulaṃ vun), by which vuñ is suffixed to names of Kṣattriya race. Patañjali thus holds that the word Vāsudeva is in this rule not used to refer to any Kṣattriya race, but is a name of the Lord (saṃjñaiṣā tatra bhāgavataḥ).

If Patañjali’s interpretation is to be trusted, for which there is every reason, Vāsudeva as God is to be distinguished from the Kṣattriya Vāsudeva, the son of Vasudeva of the race of Vṛṣṇis. It was well established in Pāṇini’s time that Vāsudeva was God, and that His followers were called Vāsudevaka, for the formation of which word by the vun suffix Pāṇini had to make the rule (iv. 3. 98). Again, the Ghosuṇḍī inscription in Rajputana, which is written in Brāhmī, an early form of about 200-150 B.C., contains a reference to the building of a wall round the temple of Vāsudeva and Samkarṣaṇa.

In the Besnagar inscription of about 100 b.c. Heliodorus, son of Diya, describes himself as a great devotee of Bhagavat (porama-bhāgavata), who had erected a pillar bearing an image of Garuda. In the Nānāghāt inscription of 100 B.C. Vāsudeva and Samkarṣaṇa appear together as deities to whom adorations are addressed along with other gods. If the testimony of Patañjali is accepted, the religious sect of Vāsudevas existed before Pāṇini. It is generally believed that Patañjali lived in 150 B.C., since in course of interpreting a grammatical rule which allowed the use of the past tense in reference to famous contemporary events not witnessed by the speaker he illustrates it by using a past tense in referring to the Greek invasion of the city of Sāketa (aruṇad Yavanaḥ Sāketam)-, as this event took place in 150 B.C., it is regarded as a famous contemporary event not witnessed by Patañjali. Patañjali was the second commentator of Pāṇini, the first being Kātyāyana. Sir R. G.

Bhandarkar points out that Patañjali notices variant readings in Kātyāyana’s Vārttikas, as found in the texts used by the schools of Bhāradvajīyas, Saunāgas and others, some of which might be considered as emendations of the Vārttikas , though Patañjali’s introduction of them by the verb pathanti, “they read,” is an indication that he regarded them as different readings^[10].

From this Sir R. G. Bhandarkar argues that between Kātyāyana and Patañjali a considerable time must have elapsed, which alone can explain the existence of the variant readings of Kātyāyana’s text in Patañjali’s time. He therefore agrees with the popular tradition in regarding Pāṇini as a contemporary of the Nandas, who preceded the Mauryas. Kātyāyana thus flourished in the first half of the 5th century B.C. But, as both Goldstūckerand Sir R.G. Bhandarkar have pointed out, the Vārttika of Kātyāyana notices many grammatical forms which are not noticed by Pāṇini, and this, considering the great accuracy of Pāṇini as a grammarian, naturally leads to the supposition that those forms did not exist in his time.

Goldstūcker gives a list of words admitted into Pāṇini’s sūtras which had gone out of use by Kātyāyana’s time, and he also shows that some words which probably did not exist in Pāṇini’s time had come to be used later and are referred to by Kātyāyana. All this implies that Pāṇini must have flourished at least two or three hundred years before Kātyāyana. The reference to the Vāsudeva sect in Pāṇini’s sūtras naturally suggests its existence before his time. The allusions to Vāsudeva in the inscriptions referred to above can be regarded as corroborative evidence pointing to the early existence of the Vāsudeva sect, who worshipped Vāsudeva or Bhagavat as the supreme Lord.

Turning to literary references to Vāsudeva and Kṛṣṇa, we find the story of Vāsudeva, who is also called-by his family name Kanha and Keśava (probably on account of his bunch of hair), in the Ghata-jātaka. The story agrees in some important details with the usual accounts of Kṛṣṇa, though there are some new deviations. A reference to the Vṛṣṇi race of Kṣattriyas is found in Pāṇini, iv. 1. 114 (ṛṣy-andhaka-vṛṣṇi-kurubhyaś ca). The word is formed by an uṇādi suffix, and it literally means “powerful” or “a great leader^[11].”

It also means “heretic” (pāṣaṇḍa) and one who is passionately angry (caṇḍa). It is further used to denote the Yādava race, and Kṛṣṇa is often addressed as Vāṛṣṇeya, and in the Gītā , x. 37, Kṛṣṇa says,

“Of the Vṛṣṇis I am Vāsudeva.”

The Vṛṣṇis are referred to in Kautilya’s Artha-śāstra, where the group of Vṛṣṇis (vṛṣṇi-saṅgha) is said to have attacked Dvaipāyana. The Ghata-jātaka also has the story of the curse of Kanha Dvaipāyana as the cause of the destruction of the Vṛṣṇis. But the Mahā-bhārata (xvi. 1) holds that the curse was pronounced by Viśvāmitra, Kaṇva and Nārada upon Śāmba, the son of Kṛṣṇa. Two Vāsudevas are mentioned in the Mahā-bhārata : Vāsudeva, the king of the Pauṇḍras, and Vāsudeva or Kṛṣṇa, the brother of Samkar-ṣaṇa, and both of them are mentioned as being present in the great assemblage of kings at the house of King Drupada for the marriage of Draupadī; it is the latter Vāsudeva who is regarded as God.

It is very probable that Vāsudeva originally was a name of the sun and thus became associated with Viṣṇu, who with his three steps traversed the heavens; and a similarity of Kṛṣṇa or Vāsudeva to the sun is actually suggested in the Mahā-bhārata, xii. 341. 41, where Nārāyaṇa says,

“Being like the sun, I cover the whole world with my rays, and I am also the sustainer of all beings and am hence called Vāsudeva.”

Again, the word Sātvata also is used as a synonym of Vāsudeva or Bhāgavata. The word Sātvata in the plural form is a name of a tribe of the Yādavas, and in the Mahā-bhārata, vii. 7662, the phrase Satvatāṃ varaḥ is used to denote Sātyaki, a member of the Yādava race, though this appellation is applied to Kṛṣṇa in a large number of places in the Mahā-bhārata^[12]. In the later Bhāga-vata-purāṇa (ix. 9. 50) it is said that the Sātvatas worship Brahman as Bhagavān and as Vāsudeva. In the Mahā-bhārata, vi. 66. 41, Samkarṣaṇa is said to have introduced the sātvata rites in worshipping Vāsudeva. If Sātvata was the name of a race, it is easy to imagine that the persons may have had special rites in worshipping Vāsudeva.

Yāmunācārya, the great teacher of Rāmānuja in the tenth century a.d., says that those who adore God (bhagavat), the supreme person, with purity (sattva), are called bhāgavata and sātvata ^[13]. Yāmuna strongly urges that Sātvatas are Brāhmaṇas by caste, but are attached to Bhagavat as the supreme lord.  Yāmuna, however, seems to urge this in strong opposition to the current view that Sātvatas were a low-caste people, who had not the initiation with the holy thread and were an outcast people originated from the Vaiśyas^[14].

The Sātvatas are said to be the fifth low-caste people, who worship in the temples of Viṣṇu by the orders of the king, and are also called Bhāgavatas^[15]. The Sātvatas and Bhāgavatas are those who make their living by worshipping images and are hence low and disreputable. Yāmuna urges that this popular view about the Bhāgavatas and the Sātvatas is all incorrect; for, though there are many Sātvatas who make a living by worshipping images, not all Sātvatas and Bhāgavatas do so; and there are many among them who worship Bhagavat, as the supreme person, solely by personal devotion and attachment.

From Patañjali’s remarks in commenting on Pāṇini, iv. 3. 98, it is seen that he believed in the existence of two Vāsudevas, one a leader of the Vṛṣṇi race and the other God. as Bhagavat. It has already been pointed out that the name Vāsudeva occurs also in the Ghata-jātaka. It may therefore be argued that the name Vāsudeva was an old name, and the evidence of the passage of the Niddesa , as well as that of Patañjali, shows that it was a name of God or Bhagavat. The later explanation of Vāsudeva as “the son of Vasudeva” may therefore be regarded as an unauthorized surmise. It is very probable that Vāsudeva was worshipped by the race of Yādavas as a tribal hero according to their own tribal rites and that he was believed to be an incarnation of Viṣṇu, who was in his turn associated with the sun.

Megasthenes, in his account of India as he saw’ it, speaks of the Sourasenoi —an Indian nation in whose land are two great cities, Methora and Kleisobora, through which flows the navigable river Jobares— as worshipping Heracles. “Methora” in all probability means Mathura and “Jobares” Jumna. It is probable that Heracles is Hari, which again is a name of Vāsudeva. Again in the Mahābhārata , vi. 65, Bhīṣma says that he was told by the ancient sages that formerly the great supreme person appeared before the assembly of gods and sages, and Brahmā began to adore Him with folded hands. This great Being, who is there adored as Vāsudeva, had first created out of Himself Samkarṣaṇa, and then Pradyumna, and from Pradyumna Aniruddha, and it was from Aniruddha that Brahmā was created. This great Being, Vāsudeva, incarnated Himself as the two sages, Nara and Nārāyaṇa.

He Himself says in the Mahā-bhārata , vi. 66, that “as Vāsudeva I should be adored by all and no one should ignore me in my human body”; in both these chapters Kṛṣṇa and Vāsudeva are identical, and in the Gītā Kṛṣṇa says that “of the Vṛṣṇis I am Vāsudeva.” It has also been pointed out that Vāsudeva belonged to the Kanhāyana gotra.

As Sir R. G. Bhandarkar says,

“It is very probable that the identification of Kṛṣṇa with Vāsudeva was due to the similarity of the gotra name with the name of Kṛṣṇa^[16].”

From the frequent allusions to Vāsudeva in Patañjali’s commentary and in the Mahā-bhārata, where he is referred to as the supreme person, it is very reasonable to suppose that the word is a proper noun, as the name of a person worshipped as God, and not a mere patronymic name indicating an origin from a father Vasudeva. Kṛṣṇa, Janārdana, Keśava, Hari, etc. are not Vṛṣṇi names, but were used as personal appellations of Vāsudeva. Patañjali in his commentary on Pāṇini, iv. 3. 98, notes that Vāsudeva, as the name of a Kṣattriya king of the race of Vṛṣṇis, is to be distinguished from Vāsudeva as the name of God. This God, worshipped by the Sātvatas according to their family rites, probably came to be identified with a Vṛṣṇi king Vāsudeva, and some of the personal characteristics of this king became also personal characteristics of the god Vāsudeva. The word Kṛṣṇa occurs several times in the older literature. Thus Kṛṣṇa appears as a Vedic ṛṣi, as the composer of Ṛg-Veda, viii. 74. In the Mahā-bhārata Anukramaṇī Kṛṣṇa is said to have descended from Aṅgiras. Kṛṣṇa appears in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (111. 17) as the son of DevakI, as in the Ghata-jātaka. It is therefore probable that Vāsudeva came to be identified with Kṛṣṇa, the son of Devakī.

The older conception of Kṛṣṇa’s being a ṛtvij is found in the Mahā-bhārata, and Bhīṣma in the Sabhā-parva speaks of him as being a ṛtvij and well-versed in the accessory literature of the Vedas (vedāṅga). It is very probable, as Dr Ray Chaudhury points out, that Kṛṣṇa, the son of Devakī, was the same as Vāsudeva, the founder of the Bhāgavata system; for he is referred to in the Ghata-jātaka as being Kanhāyana, or Kanha, which is the same as Kṛṣṇa, and as Devakī-putra, and in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, 111. 17. 6, also he is referred to as being Devakī-putra. In the Ghata-jātaka Kṛṣṇa is spoken of as being a warrior, whereas in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad he is a pupil of Ghora Aṅgirasa, who taught him a symbolic sacrifice, in which penances (tapas), gifts (dāna), sincerity (ārjava), non-injury (ahiṃsā) and truthfulness (satya-vacana) may be regarded as sacrificial fees (dakṣiṇā).

The Mahā-bhārata, 11. 317, describes Kṛṣṇa both as a sage who performed long courses of asceticism in Gandhamādana, Puṣkara and Badarī, and as a great warrior. He is also described in the Mahā-bhārata as Vāsudeva, Devakī-putra and as the chief of the Sātvatas, and his divinity is everywhere acknowledged there.. But it is not possible to assert definitely that Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa the warrior and Kṛṣṇa the sage were not three different persons, who in the Mahā-bhārata were unified and identified, though it is quite probable that all the different strands of legends refer to one identical person.

If the three Kṛṣṇas refer to one individual Kṛṣṇa, he must have lived long before Buddha, as he is alluded to in the Chāndogya, and his guru Ghora Aṅgirasa is also alluded to in the Kauṣītaki-brāhmaṇa, xxx. 6 and the Kāthaka-saṃhitā , 1. 1, which are pre-Buddhistic works. Jaina tradition refers to Kṛṣṇa as being anterior to Pārśvanātha (817 B.C.), and on this evidence Dr Ray Chaudhury thinks that he must have lived long before the closing years of the ninth century B.C.^[17]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ekādaśas tathā Tvaṣṭā dvādaśo Viṣṇur ucyate
jaghanyajas tu sarveṣām ādityānāṃ guṇādhikaḥ.
      Mahā-bhārata, 1. 65. 16.
      Calcutta, Bangavasi Press, second edition, 1908.

[2]:

Nirukta, v. 9. Bombay edition, 1918.

[3]:

Ṛg-Veda, vii. 100. 5, translated by Dr L. Sarup, quoted in Nirukta, v. 8.

[4]:

Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa, xiv. 1 .

[5]:

tad Viṣṇoḥ paramaṃ padaṃ sadā paśyanti sūrayah divīva cakṣur ātatam.
      Ācamana-mantra of the daily sandhyā prayer-hymn.

[6]:

āpo nārā iti proktā āpo vai nara-sūnavaḥ
tā yad asyāyanaṃ pūrvaṃ tena nārāyaṇaḥ smṛtaḥ.
      Manu, 1. 10.

Water is called nāra ; water is produced from man, and, since he rested in water in the beginning, he is called nārāyaṇa. Kullūka, in explaining this, says that nara, or man, here means the supreme self, or Brahman.

[7]:

Narāṇām ayanāc cāpi tato nārāyaṇah smṛtaḥ.
      Mahā-bhārata, v. 2568.

[8]:

Nārāyaṇāya vidmahe vāsudevāya dhīmahi tan no Viṣṇuḥ pracodayāt.
      Taittirlya Āranyaka, p. 700.
      Ānandāśrama Press, Poona, 1898.

[9]:

Mahā-bhārata, Śānti-parva, 342. 124-129. P. C. Roy’s translation, Mokṣa-dharma-parva, p. 817. Calcutta.

[10]:

Sir R. G. Bhandarkar’s Early History of the Deccan, p. 7.

[11]:

Ytūhema vṛṣṇir ejati,
      Ṛg-Veda, 1. 10. 2.

[12]:

Mahā-bhārata, V. 2581, 3041, 3334, 3360, 4370; ix. 2532, 3502; x. 726; xii. 1502, 1614, 7533.

[13]:

tataś ca sattvāḍ bhagavān bhajyate yaih paraḥ pumān
te sātvatā bhāgavatā ity ucyante ḍvijottamaiḥ.
      Yāmuna’s Āgama-prāmāṇya, p. 7. 6.

[14]:

Thus Manu (x. 23) says:

vaiśyāt tu jāyate vrātyāt sudhanvācārya eva ca
kārūṣaś ca vijanmā ca maitras sātvata eva ca.

[15]:

pañcamah sātvato nāma Viṣṇor āyatanaṃ hi saḥ
pūjayeḍ ājñayā rājñāṃ sa tu bhāgavataḥ smṛtaḥ.
      Ibid. p. 8.

[16]:

Sir R. G. Bhandarkar ’s Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism , pp. 11-12.

[17]:

Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Sect, p. 39.