Visnu Kosha

From the Jacket

Prof. S. K. Ramachandra Rao has completed the Devata Panchayatana which consists of Ambika (covered by Durga Kosha), Ganesha (covered by Ganesha Kosha), Surya (covered by Navagraha Kosha in two volumes), Siva (covered by Siva Kosha in two volumes) and Vishnu (the present volume). As in the other volumes, the treatment of the subject matter is also encyclopaedic in character, and fully illustrated with line drawings and photographs. Relevant textual references have also been given.

Vishnu is a popular Devata all over the country and the antiquity of the worship of this god goes back to the vedic corpus. There are several Vishnu Suktas in Rg Veda Samhita. It was a work of love to offer this volume at the sacred feet of this great god who has been Prof. Rao’s Kula Devata as well as Ishta Devata. This volume incorporates not only the general details of this godhead, but also the elebrated forms like the twenty four Murtis and the ten Avataras. Also included in the volume are details of Parivara Devatas of Vishnu like Lakshmi, Garuda, Ananta, Sudarshana, Hanuman and Vishvaksena.

Vidyalankara, Sastra-Chudamini, Sangita-Kalaratna, Professor Saligrama Krishna Ramachandra Rao, was a well-known scholar who had combined traditional learning with modern research. Well versed in Sanskrit, Pali, Ardhmagadhi and several modern Indian languages and acquainted with Tibetan and some European languages, he had written extensively on Vedanta, Buddhism, Janism, Indian Culture, Art and Literature.

He had written more than Sixty Books in Kannada, a Play in Sanskrit, and a Pali Commentary on a Buddhist Classic. One of his books on Iconography in Kannada has won the State Sahitya Academy Award, as also another of his book on the Tirupati Temple.

Some of the books he had authored are-Encyclopaedia of Indian Iconography, Agama Encyclopaedia, Lalita Kosha, Sri Vidya Kosha, Tantric Practices in Sri Vidya, Sri Cakras, Yantra.