Sources & Recensions
Where this text comes from, how it was transmitted, and the works cited for each story.
The source text
This edition presents the Parāśara recension of the Kṛṣṇa Sahasranāma, preserved in the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa. It is the recension attributed to the sage Parāśara, and it is distinguished from other thousand-name litanies of Kṛṣṇa by the episodes of Kṛṣṇa's life that it folds into the names themselves.
Line of transmission
The hymn is transmitted through six teachers, in order:
Bhagavān first expounds it to Brahmā; it passes to Vasiṣṭha, then to Parāśara — whose recension this is — and on through Vyāsa to Śuka, the narrator of the Bhāgavata.
The cited works
Of the 965 names across 201 verses, 420 carry a story annotation, and a further 20 appear in the uttarāṅga — 440 in all. Each annotation cites the text it draws on, abbreviated as follows:
On recensions
More than one “thousand names of Kṛṣṇa” has been transmitted within the wider tradition. What sets this one apart is twofold: its source in the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa by way of the Parāśara line, and its character as a narrative sahasranāma — a garland in which the names are not bare epithets but doorways onto the līlā. Where a name recalls a specific episode, the edition restores that episode and points to where it is told.
| Feature | This edition |
|---|---|
| Recension | Parāśara |
| Source text | Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa |
| Verses | 201 |
| Names | 965 (1000 liturgical) |
| Story annotations | 440, each source-cited |
| Cited texts | 4 |
A note on fidelity
Every Sanskrit string, transliteration, gloss, translation, and citation in this edition is reproduced exactly as transmitted in the source data. Nothing is paraphrased, abridged, reordered, or invented; where a name carries no story, none is supplied. Diacritics and Devanāgarī are preserved throughout.