Achyuthaanantha Govinda -Learn Sanskrit through Slokas

In the earlier post, we saw the meaning of a sloka through which we learnt some Sanskrit words. We will attempt to learn a few more words today.

Here is the sloka for today:

“achyuthaanantha govinda naamochchaarana beshajaath
nasyanthi sakalaa rogaa: sathyam sathyam vadaamyaham“

Let’s try to understand the word-by-word meaning of the above verse:

achyutha anantha govinda

• ‘Achyutha, Anantha and Govinda’ are names of Lord Vishnu.
• ‘Achyutha‘ means the one who is immovable/imperishable. It also means one who does not let go of his devotees
• ‘Anantha‘ means one without end. ‘Antha‘ is end. Thus Vedanta is that which is at the end of Vedas, which are the Upanishads. The prefix ‘An‘ indicates ‘without’, thus Anantha is the one without an end. Similarly ‘Aadhi‘ is beginning. ‘Anaadhi‘ is without beginning.
• ‘Govinda‘ means ‘protector of cows’ (‘go‘ is cow; goshala is cow shed), thus meaning Lord Krishna

naama uchchaarana

• ‘naama’ is ‘name’. All babies in our tradition undergo ‘naamakarana‘ function which is nothing but a naming ceremony.
• ‘uchchaarana’ is ‘pronouncing or chanting’.

bheshajaath

• ‘bheshajam’ is ‘medicine or cure’. Bhishak is a ‘doctor’. What a ‘bhishak‘ provides is ‘bheshajam‘. ‘Bheshajaath‘ means ‘through the medicine/cure’.

nashyanthi sakalaa rogaa:

• ‘nashyanthi’ – to get destroyed. ‘Naasham’ is destruction (recall ‘sarvanaasham‘)
• ‘sakalaa’ is ‘all’
• ‘rogaa:’ is diseases. ‘Roga’ is ‘disease’ and ‘rogaa:’ is its plural. Combining with the negative prefix ‘aa’ will yield ‘aarogyam’ which is no disease (good health)

sathyam sathyam

• ‘sathyam’ is truth. Mentioning the word twice is done for emphasis and to remove any doubts

vadhaami aham

• ‘vadhaami’ – originates from the verb, ‘vadh‘ – to speak. ‘Vadhaami’ is ‘I am speaking’. Note that the other verb ‘vaddh‘ means ‘to kill’, so need caution while using these two verbs. (Of course, we all know a few who can kill by speaking itself!)
• ‘aham’ is ‘I’. Similarly ‘thvam’ is you and ‘sa:/saa’ is he/she.

Based on the above explanation, the literal meaning for the above verse would be,” The chanting of the names Achyutha, Anantha and Govinda is the medicine which will destroy all diseases; and I speak the truth and nothing but the truth.“

As always, slokas have a deep inner meaning which can be fully understood by reaching out to your Gurus.

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