Sūrya’s Names of the Paramātmā
Paramātma Nāma, “the names of the Paramātmā”
Sūrya’s Names of the Paramātmā are the names by which Bhagavān Sūrya describes to Brahmā the Paramātmā whom he himself worships. Brahmā tells this secret to Yājñavalkya in the Brahma Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa.
The setting
Brahmā tells Yājñavalkya that one dawn he praised Sūrya Deva with a stotra to have his pratyaksha darśana. Sūrya appeared, bowed in bhakti, in the posture of one worshipping some deva. Wondering, Brahmā asked: “O Bhagavān Sūrya, in the Vedas and the Purāṇas you are praised as aja (unborn), śāśvata (eternal), Dhātā, the best of the best; all this world is established in you, and those in the four āśramas worship your forms every day. You are mother and father of all. What deva do you yourself worship?” Sūrya answered: “Brahmā, this is an ancient secret of mine, not to be made public. Because you have bhakti I shall tell it to you as it is.”
The names, in order
Bhagavān Sūrya describes the Paramātmā as subtle, not to be known, unmanifest, unmoving and eternal, free of the senses and their objects, the antarātmā of all beings, and names him:
- Kshetrajña, the knower of the field: the kshetras and the seeds of good and ill are his bodies, and that yogātmā knows them all.
- Purusha: he lies in the unmanifest pura (city).
- Hiraṇyagarbha
- Bhagavat, the one endowed with bhaga (all excellence)
- Buddhi
- Mahān and 7. Pradhāna, as the yoga-śāstras call him; the Sāṃkhya recites him under many names.
- Viśva-bhūtātmā, the ātmā of all the universe, and 9. Viśva-sambhava, from whom the universe arises; he bears the three worlds as his own.
- Viśvarūpa: because he is in all the universe and exists in many forms.
- Mahāpurusha, the ancient one.
- Īśāna, 13. Purusha and 14. Bīja, the seed: apart from him nothing among the moving and unmoving is eternal.
He is the embodied one in all bodies, untouched by karma, the witness in every body; saguṇa and yet nirguṇa, all-pervading, known by jñāna alone. On all sides he has feet, hands, heads, faces and ears. As rain takes the taste of each soil, as one breath stands in five ways in the body, as one fire is called dāvāgni, baḍabāgni and jaṭharāgni, and as one lamp lights many, so he, being one, takes many forms. From him arose the unmanifest of three guṇas, called Prakṛti, the door of creation.
The close
“So there is no other than he. He is the father, he is Prajāpati; know him as my ātmā. Him I worship.” Those who bear bodies bow to him alone and by his grace reach sadgati; devas, rākshasas and the followers of many paths worship the first Parama Purusha alone. Bhagavān Sūrya ends: “Knowing this, I worship that eternal Paramātmā. He is Bhāskara, Devadeveśvara, Sarvabhūteśa, Acyuta. Him I worship.”
Brahmā tells Yājñavalkya: “When I asked, Sūrya Bhagavān taught me this paratattva. Worship that mahātmā who burns with vast tapas.”
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 67
Sources
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 67