Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.138

c8.138

We have little authentic information regarding Vāsudeva, round whom the *Bhāgavata* movement centred. The name Vāsudeva occurs once in the Vedic literature, *viz.*, in a passage of the tenth Prapāṭhaka of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka—Nārāyaṇāya vidmahe Vāsudevāya dhīmahi tanno Viṣṇuḥ prachodayāt. Here Vāsudeva is a name of Viṣṇu. But the last book of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka is a comparatively late work.¹ It is described as *khilarūpa* or supplementary. Viṣṇu does not receive the name ‘Vāsudeva’ in any of the *Saṃhitās*, *Brāhmaṇas* or classical *Upanishads*.