A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s6.72

v1.c8.s6.72

In the Yajurveda we find besides, already a mode of influencing the gods which prevailed very largely at later periods, and which consists of enumerating as many names and epithets as possible pertaining to a certain god and of worshipping him under all these names, in order to obtain something from him.` Thus, in the later literature we find texts which enumerate a thousand names of Viṣṇu or a thousand names of Śiva, the recital of which is regarded as a particularly effective and meritorious work of devotion. The first beginnings of this kind of prayers we find in the Śatarudriya, the enumeration of the hundred names of the god Rudra, in Section XVI of the Vājasaneyi-Saṃhitā and in the Taittirīya-Saṃhitā, IV, 5.