HYMNS OF DEVAVRATA (Paperback)

Book Review The free Verses in Vashishta’s Hymns of Devavratacombine brilliant offering with military history and traditional stories. Its 45 verses under four parts include Vishnu My Ineffable Lord, Devavrata and the Bed of Arrows, the Royal Command of Maharaja Yudhishthir, the Lord of Thousand Names, Aum the Sound, Banshidhar the Holder of the Celestial Flute, Breeze The Iconic Prana, Vishnu, Vishnu Hey Govinda, The Mellow Octave, The Lotus. Each entry is brief. Some are composed of a few lines. Each word counts in these Verses, including their titles, which are often essential to comprehension. Enormous subjects exist in these jewels boxes because of their precise and beautiful linguistic tunes, clear line breaks, and uses of synonyms and alliteration. The collection is full of pleasures. Verses are both imaginative and erudite and in intellectually pleasing entries concerned with the human status and reality of the world: I am a king, …….detached … While most of the verses of part I, III and IV of the book move around the story of tenth parve of the Mahabharat – the Commander-in-Chief that is Devavrata, a few of them are concerned with independent features but in the name of God: Jalaja, …..The moist, … Thus He is the HariVishnu ! Vigorous verses take on Naaraayann – the Lord of thousand names and the Limitless Lord God of all Gods: TubhayamnamamiNaaraayann ! …..HariHari ! … and whose japa, ….of this world ? In some other verses, a kind of rhythmical pleasure is available. There are starting and beautiful words and expressions flow throughout, it includes a wide range of styles. Most of the Verses of Vashishta’s Hymns of Devavrata are easy to understand. But some verses requiring significant home work from the reader to comprehend – elementary knowledge of Mahabharat and a large number of beautiful and meaningful words of other languages– Hindi and Sanskrit used by the author. This book asks us to read it again and again, knowing that not