{"id":15048,"date":"2020-09-06T19:05:38","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T23:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/?p=15048"},"modified":"2020-09-06T23:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T03:02:04","slug":"shrivatsa-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/shrivatsa-what-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Shrivatsa: what is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pakkapatriot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Sage-Durvasa-kicking-Vishnu-on-heart.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"394\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\"><br \/>\nShrivatsa (Sanskrit \u0936\u094d\u0930\u0940\u0935\u0924\u094d\u0938 \u015br\u012bvatsa) is an ancient symbol considered auspicious in Indian religious traditions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">Srivatsa means &#8220;beloved of Sri&#8221;, the goddess Lakshmi. It is a mark on the chest of Vishnu where his consort Lakshmi resides. It is said that the tenth avatar of Vishnu, Kalki, will bear the Shrivatsa mark on his chest. It is one of the names of Vishnu in the Vishnu Sahasranamam. Srivatsa is a popular name in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">In South India, the bronzes made after circa 10th century, the #Shrivatsa symbol is shown as an inverted triangle on the right chest of Vishnu and his various incarnations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">*****<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">\u015ar\u012bvatsa is a curl of white hair on the chest of the Lord which is a special sign of His being the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dhaloka or in Goloka V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana, the inhabitants are exactly of the same form as the Personality of Godhead, but by this \u015ar\u012bvatsa mark on the chest of the Lord He is distinguished from all others.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-3:19:15&#8212;-purport).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">O Lord, You are exceedingly attached to the activities of Your pure devotees, yet You are never attached to the goddesses of fortune who constantly engage in Your transcendental loving service. How can You be purified, therefore, by the dust of the path traversed by the br\u0101hma\u1e47as, and how can You be glorified or made fortunate by the marks of \u015ar\u012bvatsa on Your chest?<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-3:16:21&#8212;-translation).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">The Lord has shoulders just like a lion&#8217;s. Upon these shoulders are garlands, necklaces and epaulets, and all of these are always glittering. Besides these, there is the beauty of the Kaustubha-ma\u1e47i pearl, and on the dark chest of the Lord there are streaks named \u015ar\u012bvatsa, which are signs of the goddess of fortune. The glittering of these streaks excels the beauty of the golden streaks on a gold-testing stone. Indeed, such beauty defeats a gold-testing stone.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-4:24:49&#8212;-translation).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">The curling hair on the shoulders of a lion always appears very, very beautiful. Similarly, the shoulders of the Lord were just like a lion&#8217;s, and the necklace and garlands, along with the Kaustubha pearl necklace, combined to excel the beauty of a lion. The chest of the Lord is streaked with \u015ar\u012bvatsa lines, the sign of the goddess of fortune. Consequently the Lord&#8217;s chest excels the beauty of a testing stone for gold. The black siliceous stone on which gold is rubbed to test its value always looks very beautiful, being streaked with gold lines. Yet the chest of the Lord excels even such a stone in its beauty.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-4:24:49&#8212;-purport).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">In Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dhaloka the Supreme Personality of Godhead has four hands and decorations like the \u015ar\u012bvatsa mark on His chest and the gem known as Kaustubha. These are special indications of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord&#8217;s personal attendants and other devotees in Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha have the same features, except for the \u015ar\u012bvatsa mark and the Kaustubha gem.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-6:9:29-30&#8212;-purport).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">One devotee praised the bodily features of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a when he saw the Lord in His manifested personal feature. He exclaimed, &#8220;How wonderful is the personal feature of Lord K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a! How His neck is just like a conchshell! His eyes are so beautiful, as though they themselves were encountering the beauty of a lotus flower. His body is just like the tam\u0101la tree, very blackish. His head is protected with a canopy of hair. There are the marks of \u015ar\u012bvatsa on His chest, and He is holding His conchshell. By such beautiful bodily features, the enemy of the demon Madhu has appeared so pleasing that He can bestow upon me transcendental bliss simply by my seeing His transcendental qualities.&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Nectar of Devotion).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">Vasudeva saw that wonderful child born as a baby with four hands, holding conchshell, club, disc and lotus flower, decorated with the mark of \u015ar\u012bvatsa, wearing the jeweled necklace of kaustubha stone, dressed in yellow silk, appearing dazzling like a bright blackish cloud, wearing a helmet bedecked with the vaid\u016brya stone, valuable bracelets, earrings and similar other ornaments all over His body, and beautified by an abundance of hair on His head. Due to the extraordinary features of the child, Vasudeva was struck with wonder.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Krsna Book).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">Arjuna then saw the omnipresent and omnipotent Supreme Personality of Godhead, Mah\u0101-Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, sitting at ease on the serpent bed. His bluish complexion was the color of a dense raincloud, He wore a beautiful yellow garment, His face looked charming, His broad eyes were most attractive, and He had eight long, handsome arms. His profuse locks of hair were bathed on all sides in the brilliance reflected from the clusters of precious jewels decorating His crown and earrings. He wore the Kaustubha gem, the mark of \u015ar\u012bvatsa and a garland of forest flowers. Serving that topmost of all Lords were His personal attendants, headed by Sunanda and Nanda; His cakra and other weapons in their personified forms; His consort potencies Pu\u1e63\u1e6di, \u015ar\u012b, K\u012brti and Aj\u0101; and all His various mystic powers.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">(Srimad Bhagavatam&#8212;-10:89:54-56&#8212;-translation).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">****************<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bhrigu kicked Visnu. <br \/>\nLong ago all the Maharsis joined together to perform a yaga on the bank of the river Sarasvati. A dispute arose among them as to who was the most mighty among the Trimurtis. Some of them voted for Brahma, others declared that Visnu was more mighty than the other two, while a third group stood for diva\u2019s superiority. They unanimously elected Bhrgu to ascertain and find out the truth of kite matter.<\/p>\n<p>Bhrgu set out to Devaloka. First he went to Brahma\u2019s assembly. There, in the presence of Brahma who was seated, in the midst of many Munis, Bhrgu took his seat on a stool. Brahma was provoked by thus act of disrespect. Bhrgu left the place without a word and went to Siva\u2019s place. Siva rose from his seat and approached him to embrace and welcome him. Bhrgu shrank back saying, \u201cDo not touch me ?\u201d Siva became angry and was about to hit him with his trident when Parvati stopped him.<\/p>\n<p>There he saw Mahavisnu in a deep slumber. Seeing Mahavisnu whose task is the preservation of the world, sleeping like an irresponsible person, Bhrgu gave him a kick on his breast. Visnu who sprang up suddenly, saw Bhrgu standing before him. He begged pardon of the sage. He declared that he would carry Bhrgu\u2019s footprint permanently on his chest as a sign of his repentance for having shown disrespect to the Maharsi. This foot-print still remains on Visnu\u2019s chest and is known by the name #Srivatsa. In this way, the Munis came to the conclusion that Mahavisnu is the noblest of the Trimurtis. <br \/>\n(Bhagavata, Dasama Skandha).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; Shrivatsa (Sanskrit \u0936\u094d\u0930\u0940\u0935\u0924\u094d\u0938 \u015br\u012bvatsa) is an ancient symbol considered auspicious in Indian religious traditions. Srivatsa means &#8220;beloved of Sri&#8221;, the goddess Lakshmi. It is a mark on the chest of Vishnu where his consort &hellip; <a class=\"kt-excerpt-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/shrivatsa-what-is-it\/\" aria-label=\"Shrivatsa: what is it?\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":15059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:42:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}