Category:God Is Called
Theme Analysis
The Supreme Personality of Godhead has innumerable names and titles, each uniquely describing His transcendental qualities, pastimes, and absolute position. According to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the Lord is primarily called Bhagavān because He possesses all six opulences—wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge, and renunciation—in absolute fullness. He is specifically called Kṛṣṇa because His beauty and pastimes are supremely attractive to everyone, including both demons and devotees. When referring to His position as the ultimate resting place of all living entities after the cosmic dissolution, He is called Nārāyaṇa.
Many of the Lord's names highlight His relationship with His pure devotees. He is called Acyuta (the infallible one) because He never fails in His prime duty to protect His surrendered servants. Because of His intense, fatherly affection, He is called bhakta-vatsala. When He expertly acts as the internal guide and conductor of the senses, He is called Hṛṣīkeśa, the supreme master of the senses. He is also called Dīna-bandhu, the causelessly merciful friend of the needy, and Mukunda, the giver of liberation.
Philosophically, the Vedic literatures use specific titles to establish the Lord's absolute transcendence over material nature. He is called adhokṣaja because He exists entirely beyond the perception of blunt material senses. He is called nirguṇa, which does not mean He lacks qualities, but that His qualities are strictly spiritual and beyond the estimation of the three modes of material nature. Because He is never subjected to the deterioration of a material body, He is called avyayātmā. He is called the supreme īśvara because He is the ultimate controller of the entire cosmic manifestation.
Finally, the Lord is named according to His wonderful activities and incarnations. He is called avatāra because He mercifully descends from His supreme spiritual abode into the material world. He is called uttama-śloka because He is glorified by the finest transcendental poetry and literature. Because His spiritual body is composed entirely of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, the Vedic scriptures definitively declare that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is called sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha.
- The Supreme Opulence: God is called Bhagavān because He possesses all six opulences in full, and He is called Kṛṣṇa because He is universally all-attractive.
- The Protector of Devotees: He is called Acyuta because He never fails to protect His devotees, and bhakta-vatsala because of His intense affection for them.
- Absolute Transcendence: The Lord is called adhokṣaja (beyond material senses), nirguṇa (free from material qualities), and avyayātmā (possessing an imperishable body).
- The Supreme Controller: As the master of the senses, He is called Hṛṣīkeśa, and as the ultimate manager of the cosmos, He is called the supreme īśvara.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: God Is Called - The Divine Designations of the Supreme Lord.
Subcategories
This category has the following 6 subcategories, out of 6 total.
Pages in category "God Is Called"
The following 105 pages are in this category, out of 105 total.
A
- A brahmana is called dvija-deva, and the Lord is called dvija-deva-deva. He is the Lord of brahmanas
- According to Sadananda Yogindra, because isvara, the Supreme Lord, is the reservoir of all ignorance, He may be called sarva-jna, or omniscient, but one who denies the existence of the omnipotent Supreme Personality of Godhead is more than isvara
- According to the Katha Upanisad, the one Lord is the leader of the innumerable living entities. The living entities are maintained by the Lord (eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman). The Lord is called the supreme Bhuta-bhrt, or maintainer of all living beings
- According to the Vedic version, the Supreme Lord manifests and expands Himself in innumerable expansions, of which the primary expansions are called Visnu-tattva, and the secondary expansions are called the living entities. BG 1972 purports
- All of these (the supreme controller, the controlled living entities, the cosmic manifestation, eternal time, and karma) taken completely form the complete whole, and the complete whole is called the Supreme Absolute Truth. BG 1972 Introduction
- Amongst various holy names of the Lord, He is also called ajita, or one who can never be conquered by anyone else. Yet He can be conquered by the paramahamsa path, as practically realized and shown by the great spiritual master Brahma
- As controller every one of us has got some scope or facility to control. At least we are controlling our cats and dogs. In that controller sense everyone is god. But we are not supreme controller. The supreme controller is called Godhead
- As described in the beginning of the Vedanta-sutra, the Supreme Person is the origin of all qualities. He is generally called nirguna. Nirguna means "whose qualities are beyond estimation." Guna means "quality," and nir means "beyond estimation"
- As stated in the Vedas, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the source of material energy. Consequently He is sometimes called maya-maya, or the Supreme person, who can create His pastimes through His potency known as the material energy
B
- Balarama's own expansion is called Maha-sankarsana, and His fragment, the purusa, is counted as a kala, or a part of a plenary portion
- Bali Maharaja appreciated the Lord's mercy not only upon him but upon many other demons. Because this mercy is liberally distributed, the Supreme Lord is called all-merciful
- Because He (The Supreme Personality of Godhead) is the bestower of the necessities of all others, He is called God
- Because of His eternally transcendental position, when the Supreme Personality of Godhead appears in this material world, the modes of material nature cannot affect Him. Therefore the Supreme Lord is called Transcendence
- Because the Lord is not an object that can be understood by speculation with our material senses, He is also called ajita; He will conquer, but no one can conquer Him. What does it mean, then, that still He can be seen
- Because the Lord's two energies (inferior and superior) manifest the material and antimaterial worlds, He is called the Supreme Absolute Truth. Lord Krsna explains this in the Bhagavad-gita
- Because this forgetfulness (of demoniac living entities) is created by Sankarsana, He is sometimes called tamasi
- Being the Supreme, the Lord is called Rsabha, the best. In terms of the Vedic language, nityo nityanam. We are also spiritual. but we are subordinate
- Bhagavata means . . . God is called Bhagavan. Bhagavat, the original word is bhagavat, and one who has got intimate relation with bhagavat, he is called bhagavata
- Bhagavata means from the word bhagavan. Bhagavan means the person who has got all the six opulences in full. He is called Bhagavan, or God
- Both materialists and spiritualists can enjoy the beauty of the Lord. Because the Supreme Lord attracts everyone, including demons and devotees, materialists and spiritualists, He is called Krsna
G
H
- He (Caitanya Mahaprabhu) explained that mukti-pade refers to the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Visnu, who offers mukti and is therefore called Mukunda
- He (God) can see with His hands and legs. He does not need a particular bodily part to perform a particular action. Angani yasya sakalendriya-vrttimanti (SU): He can do anything He desires with any part of His body, and therefore He is called almighty
- He (God) is called nirvikara, "without activity." He has nothing to do. He is so great that He does not perform action personally, but His energies act. The brahmanas and ksatriyas, and anything that we see, are different energies acting upon one another
- He (God) is called renounced because He is not attached to anything in this material world; He is specifically attached to the spiritual world and the living entities there
- He (God) is transcendentally so full of inconceivable potencies that simply by His willing, everything is done without physical or personal endeavor. He is called, therefore, Yogesvara, or the Lord of all mystic powers
- He (Krsna) is called the well-wisher for the devotees only. He appears to be partial to His devotees, but factually the matter rests on the living being to accept or reject equal treatment by the Lord
- He (the Lord) is called bhaktanam mana-vardhanah, He who increases the honor of His devotees
- He (the Supreme Personality of Godhead) is called sarvadhyaksa because everything in the material world works under His supervision. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gita - BG 9.10
- He is called Narayana, and He is the shelter of living entities after the annihilation of this material world. He is full of all opulences, and He is the resting place of everything material. He is therefore known as Vasudeva, the SPG
- Here He (God) is called the amogha-lilah, which indicates that there is nothing lamentable in His creation
I
- If the Personality of Godhead did not possess both limited and unlimited energies, He could not be called omnipotent
- In a train there are first-class, second-class seats, & the conductors directs, "Here is your reserved seats, sir. Come here. Sit down." Similarly, the conductor is the SPG. He is called Paramatma. He is giving you different types of bodies as you desire
- In actuality God owns everything, and therefore He is called the richest
- In the Vedanta-sutra also the Supreme is called anandamayo 'bhyasat. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is by nature full of joy, and to enjoy His transcendental bliss, He expands into vijnanamaya, pranamaya, jnanamaya, and annamaya. BG 1972 purports
- In the Vedas the Supreme Lord is called the supreme eternal of all eternals (nityo nityanam). Both the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities are eternal. The supreme eternals are the visnu-tattva, or Lord Visnu and His expansions
- In the Vedic literature we find that His whole embodiment is spiritual. He has His eternal form called sac-cid-ananda-vigraha. He is full of all opulence. BG 1972 purports
L
- Later, another Kapiladeva appeared who expounded atheistic Sankhya philosophy, which dealt with the twenty-four elements but gave no information about God. The original Kapila is called the Devahuti-putra Kapila, and the other is called the atheist Kapila
- Lord Visnu is called jagad-vyapi, "the all-pervading Lord." Lord Siva is sometimes called Mahesvara, and so people think that Lord Siva is everything. But here (in SB 8.12.4) Lord Siva addresses Lord Visnu as Jagad-isa, "the master of the universe"
- Lord Visnu is here (in SB 4.19.3) described as harir isvarah. The Lord is so kind that He takes all miserable conditions away from His devotees. Consequently He is called Hari
O
- One can attain freedom from the contamination of material nature by worshiping Visnu, and therefore He is called Sattvatanu
- One of the most important qualities of the Lord is His inclination to His devotees, for which He is called bhakta-vatsala
- One who cannot take to this direct process (of sravanam, kirtanam, etc), however, should take the indirect process of performing yajnas for the satisfaction of Visnu, or Yajna. Visnu is therefore called yajna-pati
- Out of these (5 stages of Brahman realization) the first 3-annamaya, pranamaya, & jnanamaya-involve the fields of activities of the living entities. Transcendental to all these fields is the Supreme Lord, who is called anandamaya. BG 1972 purports
S
- Sankarsana is the first expansion of Vasudeva, and because He appears by His own will, He is called svarat, fully independent. He is therefore infinite and transcendental to all limits of time and space. He Himself appears as the thousand-headed Sesa
- Since Sri Gaurasundara, or Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, is identical with Sri Krsna Himself, the Brahman effulgence consists of the rays of His transcendental body. Similarly, the Supersoul, which is called the Paramatma, is His plenary representation
- Since the Lord gives instructions as sarvatma, the Supersoul, Lord Siva offers Him respect with the words sarvasma atmane namah. The individual soul is called atma, and the Lord is also called atma as well as Paramatma
- So how we can think that there is no control, there is no government, everything has come out of its own course? There is controller, and He is called Isvara. Isvara means God. There is management of God. It is very commonsense understanding
- Such activities (Krsna's) are very attractive, and He is sometimes called Giridhari, Madhusudana, Agha-nisudana and so on. Because He acted as the son of Nanda Maharaja, He is called Nanda-tanuja
T
- The beauty of the goddess of fortune is secondary in the presence of the Lord. In the words of Vaisnava poets, it is said that the Lord's beauty is so enchanting that it defeats hundreds of thousands of Cupids. He is therefore called Madana-mohana
- The body of God and the body of a living being are differently constituted. Because the Lord's body is pure spirit, it never deteriorates, and therefore He is called avyayatma
- The devotees are referred to as acyuta-gotra, or the dynasty of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord is called Acyuta, as indicated in Bhagavad-gita (senayor ubhayor madhye ratham sthapaya me 'cyuta) - BG 1.21
- The fallen living entity is cyuta, whereas the Lord is called acyuta
- The feature of the Lord by which He is present everywhere is called Paramatma. Atma means the individual soul, and Paramatma means the individual Supersoul; both atma and Paramatma are individual persons
- The form of Garbhodakasayi Visnu is called Narayana because He rests Himself on that water. In addition, He is the resting place of all living creatures. Besides that, Narayana is also present in everyone's heart, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita
- The gigantic universal form is called the Visvarupa incarnation of Maha-sankarsana. Thus we do not find anything within this cosmic manifestation except the Lord Himself
- The gigantic universal form of the Lord called adhidaivatam is contemplated by the neophyte who cannot approach the Supreme Lord in His manifestation as Supersoul. BG 1972 purports
- The holy name of the Lord and topics in relation with Him are always worth hearing, and therefore He is called here in this verse nama-dheya, or one whose holy name is worth chanting
- The impersonalists' understanding of God is called nirakara. Nih means "negative" and akara means "form," so nirakara means "negative form." The impersonalists are mistaken when they think that God has no form at all
- The living entities are eternally parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord. The living entity is called the atma, and the Lord is called the Paramatma. The living entity is called Brahman, and the Lord is called the Parabrahman, or the Paramesvara
- The Lord descends from His abode to this world, and therefore He is called avatara, which means "one who descends."
- The Lord is called "Govinda," or the prime cause of all causes and the reservoir of all blessings. & the people in general can attain to perfect peace and tranquillity when they come to know Him by the gradual process of work with transcendental results
- The Lord is called adhoksaja, or the person who is beyond perception by the blunt, limited potency of our senses. One cannot perceive the transcendental name or form of the Lord by mental speculation
- The Lord is called anadi, or having no creator, and adi, or the origin of all. We think in our own imperfect way that the Lord is also created, but the Vedanta informs us that He is not created
- The Lord is called anupalaksya-margah or, in still more technical Vedic terms, avan-manasa gocarah: one who is never to be seen or realized by the limited sense perception of the people in general
- The Lord is called Hrsikesa, for He is actually the proprietor and ultimate master of the senses
- The Lord is called Trivikrama because He showed His strength by delivering the entire universe with merely three steps
- The Lord is glorified as one without a second and as the supreme truth who has no beginning. Therefore He is called Anantadeva (unlimited). Who can understand Him
- The Lord is the personality of religious principles. In three millenniums religious principles are protected by three kinds of spiritual culture, namely austerity, cleanliness and mercy. The Lord is called tri-yuga in that way also
- The Lord was attractive for everyone - not only the King (Prthu) but also the priestly order, who were very much addicted to the performance of Vedic rituals. Because the Lord is all-attractive, He is called Krsna, or "one who attracts everyone"
- The Lord's abode is situated far above this material sky, and He descends from that higher position; thus He is called avatara
- The Lord's name already exists because of His transcendental activities. The Lord is sometimes called guna-karma-nama because He is named according to His transcendental activities. For example, Krsna means "all-attractive
- The Lord, who is behind the motion of the cosmos, is called avyakta-bandhu. Everything is within the limits of time, but time moves under the direction of the Lord, who is therefore not within time's limit
- The mother of Brahma is Narayana. Because the Lord is the resting place of all the living entities after the dissolution of the universe, He is called Narayana. The word nara means the aggregate total of all living entities. Ayana means the resting place
- The name of the Lord is also called bhavausadhi, or the source of curing the disease of material existence
- The name tamasi does not indicate that He has a material body. He is always transcendental, but because He is the Supersoul of Lord Siva, who must perform tamasic activities, Sankarsana is sometimes called tamasi
- The process of offering sacrifices is especially meant to satisfy Visnu, who is called Yajnesa because He is the enjoyer of the fruits of all sacrifice. Bhagavad-gita (BG 5.29) also confirms this fact
- The Sanskrit word isvara (controller) conveys the import of God, but the Supreme Person is called the paramesvara, or the supreme isvara
- The Supersoul is called Hrsikesa, and the individual soul is advised by the direction of the Supersoul to surrender to Him and thus be happy
- The Supreme Lord is called Hrsikesa; He is the only conductor of the senses. Unless empowered by His energy, our senses cannot act. In other words, He is the only seer, the only worker, the only listener, & the only active principle or supreme controller
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is called ajita, meaning that no one can conquer Him, but a devotee, by strong devotional service and sincere attachment to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, can easily conquer Him
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is called sac-cid-ananda-vigraha. BG 1972 Introduction
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is called the supreme will. It is by the supreme will that everything is happening. It is said, therefore, that not a blade of grass moves without the supreme will
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Visnu, is always transcendental to material qualities, and therefore He is called nirguna, or without qualities. Because He is unborn, He does not have a material body to be subjected to attachment and hatred
- There is no question of His (the Supreme Personality of Godhead) being influenced by sattva-guna, rujo-guna or tamo-guna, for these material qualities cannot touch the Supreme Lord. The Lord is therefore called the supreme isvara
- They're all maintained by God. Therefore He's called chief living being. Quality, the same. He's living being; we are living being
- Those who want to see the Lord with their present material eyes or with the material senses are advised to meditate on the gigantic external feature called the virat-rupa
U
- Ultimately the Lord does not need to do anything, and therefore He is nirvikara, changeless. Because everything is done under His direction, He is called srsti-karta, the master of creation. Similarly, He is the master of annihilation
- Uttama-sloka means the Supreme Lord who is described by transcendental literature or very fine, scholarly language. He's called Uttama-sloka. Uttama-slokasya urukramasya. That will save all conditioned souls from being implicated in the clutches of maya
W
- We have material senses, but how can we see the Supreme Lord? He is called adhoksaja, which means that He cannot be seen by the material senses. Aksaja means "knowledge perceived by material senses"
- We should not understand the process of impregnation by the Personality of Godhead in terms of our conception of sex. The omnipotent Lord can impregnate just by His eyes, and therefore He is called all-potent
- We understand from Bhagavad-gita that living entities, all of us, we are part and parcel, minute particle, of the Supreme Spirit. The Supreme Spirit is called param brahma
- What is the value of our form? This form will be changed after a few years, as soon as we give up the body. Our forms are changed just as we change our suits and dresses, but God doesn't have a form like this; therefore He is sometimes called nirakara
- When He (Lord Visnu) descends He is called an avatara because avatara means "one who descends." Neither the Lord Himself nor His specific devotees who come to this earth are ordinary living entities like us
- When He (The Supreme Personality of Godhead) expands Himself in different forms for material creation He is called Ksirodakasayi Visnu, Garbhodakasayi Visnu and Karanodakasayi Visnu
- When He (The Supreme Personality of Godhead) is realized in His impersonal form He is called the Supreme Brahman, when realized as the Paramatma He is called antaryami
- When the Lord called them by their specific names they at once became alert, and as they hastened toward Him their milk bags overflowed and poured milk on the ground because of affection for the Lord
- While carrying out his DS to the Lord, he could see that everything is situated in Him only and that He is situated in all living entities. The Lord is called Acyuta because He never fails in His prime duty, to give protection to His devotees