Narayana

   Who is Narayana? purusho ha narayana | is a Vedic statement. Narayana is mahapurusha. He is said to be avyakta, kaal, mahat-prajnya, purusha. Narayana is also known as Brahmn. Shatapatha Brahmana XIII. 6.1 gives an account of Narayana. It seems a person could attain to Sate of Narayana by performing a certain sacrifice (yajnya) called the pancharatra. But it is also stated that even after performing the yajnya nothing happened! The revered Sage Devarshi Narada is the only one who is said to have seen Narayana, that too from 'Shveta Dvipa'. But, nobody knows where is this Shveta Dvipa and whether it is the snow clad island or a galaxy? Finally, it is said that Narayana is the one who manifests as Vasudeva, Sankarshana and Pradyumna. All the paraphernalia of this objective material world is the manifest forms of these vyuha, vibhava and powers of Narayana. Lakshmi is said to be the manifest power of Narayana,
   The Pancharatra samhitas give us details about the Gods and Goddesses (Devi-Devata) and their functions. Almost every Samhita deals with the principles of creation, sustenance, dissolution of the universe. Some of these deal with the ritual aspects while some deal with the mantra aspect; there are some devoted to asana, pranayama and yogabhyasa. There are many dealing with occult science (tantra shastra). The samhita credited to Narada popular in Bengal is not much appreciated by other schools of thought and they consider a text of spurious nature The Vaishnava school consider the Vedic texts as of  Pancharatra source, and many believe that the Veda have their source in the Pancharatra. This is due to the stress laid on 'Purusha' (nara and narayana) as in Purusha sukta of Rk Veda, Mandala X. The concept of Narayana is found in Mahanarayan upanishad, Narayana Upanishad and many others. The Samhitas dealing with Lakshmi, Vishnu, and Sudarshana Chakra are very interesting. Ahirbudhnya Samhita in 2 volumes deal with many aspects of these.

    The process of evolution is no where given in such details as in the Pancharatra as we can see from the following few texts quoted here. Jayakhys samhita, ahirbudhnya samhita, parama samhita, Sattvata samhita, Lakshmi Tantra are notable among these. Let us see how Gods manifest in different names, forms and functions. One Narayana only manifests as achyuta, vasudeva, samkarshana, pradyumna, aniruddha, mahalakshmi, indra, rudra, shiva, varuna and the like. There were no separate sects or castes devoted to these gods in the beginning. Shivam achyutam was the order of the day at that time, say satya yuga.