śrī dhanvantari kṛpāṣṭakam

Eight verses to Dhanvantari, and they keep returning to the moment he is first seen. He appeared at the beginning of the churning of the ocean with the pot of nectar in his hand, and that image governs the rest: the hands hold the conch and the discus and the auspicious rod, and one lotus hand carries the divine herb. What the verses add to the picture is where he is honoured rather than what he does — praised by the companies of Indra and the gods and by the gandharvas, described in Veda and Agama alike, sung by the ranks of those who bow and meditated on by the best of the wise. He is called a centre of knowledge and of applied knowledge in one compound, which is as close as the hymn comes to naming him the physician he is.