Pūrvapīṭhikā
1
śuklāmbaradharaṃ viṣṇuṃ śaśivarṇaṃ caturbhujam
prasannavadanaṃ dhyāyet sarvavighnopaśāntaye
2
yasya dviradavaktrādyāḥ pāriṣadyāḥ paraśśatam
vighnaṃ nighnanti satataṃ viṣvaksenaṃ tamāśraye
3
vyāsaṃ vasiṣṭhanaptāraṃ śakteḥ pautramakalmaṣam
parāśarātmajaṃ vande śukatātaṃ taponidhim
4
vyāsāya viṣṇurūpāya vyāsarūpāya viṣṇave
namo vai brahmanidhaye vāsiṣṭhāya namo namaḥ
5
avikārāya śuddhāya nityāya paramātmane
sadaikarūparūpāya viṣṇave sarvajiṣṇave
Uttarapīṭhikā
170
ārtā viṣaṇṇāśśithilāśca bhītāḥ ghoreṣu ca vyādhiṣu vartamānāḥ
saṅkīrtya nārāyaṇaśabdamātraṃ vimuktaduḥkhāssukhino bhavanti
Reading it in Roman letters
This is the Vishnu Sahasranama in Roman letters with diacritic marks, the system used to write Sanskrit sounds exactly. It is one of the most chanted prayers in the Hindu world: a thousand names of Vishnu, each one a window onto a quality, a form, or a deed of the Lord, from the boundless and formless to the intimate and near. The names come from the Mahabharata, where the dying Bhishma gives them to the young king Yudhishthira as the surest and simplest path to the highest good, and where Vyasa set them down. For centuries they have been recited daily in the great temples at Tirumala, Srirangam, Udupi and Guruvayur, and carried around the world by movements like the Chinmaya Mission, ISKCON, the Ramakrishna Mission, the Divine Life Society and the Sathya Sai fellowship; M.S. Subbulakshmi's recording is loved everywhere. The tradition holds that reciting the names with devotion brings calm and steadiness and clears away fear. The diacritics do simple work: a line above a vowel holds it longer, and a dot beneath a letter marks the retroflex sounds made with the tongue curled back. Read exactly what is printed and the names come out as they would from Devanagari, no Sanskrit training required.