Venkatesh or Vyankatesh ? and Why?

[Ravi]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 16:40:47 -0500, Jaldhar H. Vyas
<jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM> wrote:

>On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Vijay Naik wrote:
>
>> What is the meaning of Venkat?
>>
>
>It refers to His curly hair.
>
>--

I am not sure if the above is correct. The two standard explanations I
have heard are:

1. vEm + kaTa + iishvara

This is a part Tamil and part Sanskrit word. vEm in Tamil means dry or hot
and kaTam means forest. The hills are called vEnkaTam because of the type
of dry forest that dominates the mountains. Hence, Lord situated on the
hills is known as vEnkaTEshvara. The hill itself is called as
thiruvEnkaTam, vEnkaTaachala, vEnkaTaadri, etc. And he is referred to as
vEnkaTaachala nilayaa, shrii vEnkaTaa nivaasaa ( see suprabhaatam shrii
vEnkaTa nivaasaaya shriinivaasaaya mangaLam).  In this explanation the
Lord gets the name after the location. It should be noted that thiruppathi
is a traditional Tamil Land, even though it is in Andhra Pradesh in the
modern independent India; and vEnkaTa is a *tamil* word.


2. vem + kaTa + iishvara

This is a pure sanskrit form. Sanskrit has only one "e" (which is same as
Tamil "E"). vem means sin, kaTa is to destroy. And shrii venkaTeshvara is
one who destroys the sins of his devotees. If you search bhakti-list, you
will find a sanskrit definition of this meaning. In this case, the hill
gets its name after the lord.

He also shows his hand at knee level denoting that he will destroy the
sins of the devotees and make the  deep samsara saagara as a shallow as
knee deep water to cross over.


My 2c.

ravi at ambaa.org