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VedAnvaya
Deity atlas

Deity

viṣṇuḥ

Visnu

The wide-strider who measures out the spaces in three steps, the third of which passes beyond where mortals can follow.

Supported
solar

Epithetsśipiviṣṭa

Across the four Vedas

Where this deity is named in the text, counted per collection. Certain and probable mentions are included; ambiguous ones are held back and shown separately below.

Named in the text

Passages in which a registered form of this name occurs, counted once per passage.

Measured over Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda.

Named in the text. Passages in which a registered form of this name occurs, counted once per passage.
Rigveda98 passages
Samaveda20 passages
Yajurveda43 passages
Atharvaveda64 passages

These are Sanskrit surface matches and therefore lower bounds. Being named is not the same as the passage being about the deity.

225Certain
0Probable
0AmbiguousHeld back from every figure above. The referent could not be resolved, so counting these would overstate the deity.

Ascribed by the apparatus

The traditional hymn dedication, which is a different kind of record from being named in a verse. The two are never summed.

How the ascription was recorded

Passages carrying this deity as their dedication, split by whether the source states it verse by verse or the hymn heading was projected downward.

The ascription apparatus exists for Rigveda only. A zero elsewhere is a missing apparatus, not an absent deity.

How the ascription was recorded. Passages carrying this deity as their dedication, split by whether the source states it verse by verse or the hymn heading was projected downward.
Stated for the verse13 passages
Inherited from the hymn18 passages
  • Inherited from the hymn the hymn heading projected onto every verse inside it

Ascription is the traditional apparatus dedicating a hymn. For this deity it reaches RV, and the layer as a whole reaches RV, AV. The total spans two routes with two methods and `ascription_routes` separates them: the Rigvedic dedication is the Anukramani naming a deity the registry holds, the Atharvavedic one is that dedication recovered from a Sanskrit adjective under Panini 4.2.24 sasya devata, and 277 of the 324 Atharvavedic descriptors are refused a deity rather than resolved -- each carrying its own recorded reason. The Atharvavedic dedications counted here were derived from 39 of the 47 that resolve, because the derived layer has not been rebuilt from the 8 the R4 matcher gained (R4-RESIDUAL-ATTRIBUTION-002). A zero in a corpus the layer reaches is an absent dedication; a zero in the Samaveda or Yajurveda is a missing apparatus rather than an absent deity. Most ascriptions are a hymn label projected onto each verse inside it rather than a per-verse statement.

What this deity does

Actions where the deity stands as the grammatical agent. Read from the Rigvedic morphological annotation only.

  • Moves to
  • Establishes
  • Binds
  • Blesses
  • Carries
  • Defeats
  • Is or becomes
  • Perceives
  • Praises
  • Protects

What it is asked to do

Actions in the imperative or optative: what the poets request, as distinct from what is asserted.

  • Moves to
  • Grants

Associated ideas

Registered concepts named in the same passages.

  • earth (pṛthivī)
  • birth (janman)
  • cosmic order (ṛta)
  • oblation (havis)
  • ordinance (vrata)
  • praise (stoma)
  • speech (vāc)
  • wellbeing (svasti)
  • bird (vi)
  • body (tanū)

Objects and substances

  • soma juice (soma)
  • wind (vāta)
  • earth (pṛthivī)
  • soma pressing (savana)
  • fire (agni)
  • hero (vīra)
  • heaven (dyaus)
  • ordinance (vrata)
  • sun (sūrya)
  • waters (āpaḥ)

Seers of its hymns

Ranked over the ascription apparatus, most of which is inherited from the hymn heading.

  • aucathyo dīrghatamāḥ
  • maitrāvaruṇirvasiṣṭhaḥ
  • kāṇvo medhātithiḥ

Metres

  • triṣṭup
  • jagatī
  • gāyatrī

Named alongside

Deities that share passages with this one. Co-mention is proximity in a verse, not a relationship the text asserts.

Formula families

Shared wording that recurs in passages naming this deity.

taved viṣṇo bahūdhā15 mantras naming this deity
parame vyoman15 mantras naming this deity
yo smān dveṣṭi12 mantras naming this deity
yo smān dveṣṭi yaṃ12 mantras naming this deity
viṣṇoḥ kramo si11 mantras naming this deity
vayaṃ dviṣmaḥ11 mantras naming this deity
nu vi krame haṃ10 mantras naming this deity
taṃ prāno jahātu10 mantras naming this deity

Passages to read

Verses that name this deity, and verses the apparatus dedicates to it. These are different claims and are listed separately.