Form of Visnu as guru

[Jenni Cover]

Thanks Martin. The connection with Valmiki's Ramayana will be an interesting
one to follow up as BodhasAra reminds me a little of the Yoga Vasishta. 

The verse is from BodhasAra, written by Narahari in 1789. It is the first
verse in the first section: gurustavaH (Praise of Guru).

madamohAbhidhakrUramadhukaiTabhajiSNave
mokSalakSmInivAsAya namaH zrIguruviSNave

Actually I have just followed up Dean's information about Dattatreya and
have been delighted to discover that BodhasAra shows many similarities to
the path of Dattatreya. There are lots of web-sites. Can anyone suggests
particularly good ones, or other papers/books of note on Dattatreya. Thanks
for the information and email contact Dean - I will follow it up.
I will be visiting Mumbai and Pune soon and it seems there may be sites of
Dattatreya that I can visit. Any suggestions?
Jenni

-----Original Message-----
From: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Martin Gansten
Sent: Thursday, 25 May 2006 4:53 PM
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Form of Visnu as guru

>Thankyou all for your helpful information. Hayagriva sounds like the 
>form referred to. The verse offers salutations to Sriguruvisnu, the 
>abode of moksalaksmi, the conqueror of the cruel Madhu and Kaitabha, 
>personifications of pride and delusion.

Yes, Hayagriva is the slayer of these two demons. Would you mind sharing the
Sanskrit verse? I have never seen the connection with Mokshalakshmi before;
Vidyalakshmi is more typical.

>Hayagriva sounds an interesting deity in that it is also worshipped by 
>Buddhists. Thankyou Martin for the excellent web-site.

Glad to have been of help. The Vajrayana Hayagriva is not very similar to
the Hindu deity either in appearance or attributes. Interestingly, though,
in some Hindu accounts, Vishnu becomes Hayagriva in order to defeat a demon
also known as Hayagriva. (I'm afraid I don't have a ready source for this;
Mani's Puranic Encyclopaedia attributes it to the Valmiki Ramayana, but I
can't find it there.)

>I would be very happy to receive any further information on Hayagriva.

There are a few snippets in Mani (above), and also in S.K. Ramachandra Rao's
Vishnu-Kosha. Perhaps others are aware of better sources?

Regards,
Martin