Bhagavata Purana

illustration of a Bhagavata Purana manuscript of ca. 1500, Yashoda bathing the child Krishna.

The Bhagavata Purana (also known as Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or simply Bhāgavatam) is one of the Puranic texts of Hindu literature, and is Sanskrit for "The Book of God". Its primary focus is the process of bhakti yoga (loving devotion to the Supreme Lord) in which Vishnu and/or Krishna is understood as the Supreme all-embracing God of all gods (Bhagavan).

The Bhagavatam takes the form of a story being told by a great rishi known as Suta Goswami, to a host of assembled sages, who ask him questions in regard to the various avatars, or descents of Vishnu within the mortal world. Suta Goswami then relates the Bhagavatam as he has heard it from another sage, called Sukadeva. The language of the Purana closely resembles Vedic which may indicate an early dating or a variety of other possible possible reasons to resemble the archaic texts.

Each section or canto describes specific avatars of Vishnu, beginning with a summary of all avatars in the first canto concluding with description of Krishna as Svayam bhagavan. The tenth and eleventh cantos give detailed accounts of the story of Krishna's appearance and pastimes in Vrindavan, and his instructions to various devotees (such as the Uddhava Gita). The final twelfth canto foretells the coming of the age of Kali yuga (the current age according to the Hindu cycle of ages), and the eventual destruction of the earthly universe.

Significance

The Bhagavatam contains the following verse in reference to its significance as a Vedantic text:

sarva-vedānta-sāraṁ hi

śrī-bhāgavatam īṣyate

tad-rasāmṛta-tṛptasya

nānyatra syād ratiḥ kvacit

"Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is accepted as the essence of all Vedic literature and Vedantic philosophy. Whoever tastes the transcendental mellow of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is never attracted to any other literature."(12.13.15)

Bhagavata Purana is considered a natural commentary on the Vedanta-sutra and is used as a textual source for all Vaishnava Theology. It is the most celebrated of the Puranas.

Origin and dating

Historical scholarship suggests that the text was written in the 9th or 10th century CE as part of the development of the bhakti movement. However, Hindu religious tradition holds it to be one of the works of Vyasa written at the beginning of Kali Yuga (about c.3100 BCE).

Some argue that the Purana's mention of the Vedic Sarasvati River as a great river (maha-nadi) is evidence of the Purana's traditional date, since the river dried up about 2000 BCE.

The Purana describes Airavata and his descendants as four-tusked. Such elephants, possibly Gomphothere, lived in Miocene-Pliocene, and are mentioned also in Sundara Kanda of Ramayana.

Interdisciplinary and intertextual studies are appearing which try to confirm the ancient status of this Purana.

Some scholars place the author of the Bhagavata Purana to be roughly contemporaneous with Nathamuni, who is believed as well to be concerned with sanskritization of the bhakti tradition. Thus the first verse of the epic contains reference to both the Brahma Sutras and the Gayatri of the Rig Veda. The language of the Purana is accepted to closely resemble Vedic texts rather than Puranas. Thus it is believed to have originated in early or Vedic times origins or been written to resemble Vedic texts.

Contents

Introduction

The Bhagavata Purana is a narration of a conversation. King Parikshit (Grandson of Arjuna-Pandavas and son of Abhimanyu), who has been cursed by a Brahmin to die in seven days, decides to give up his kingly duties to learn about the goal of life. As he prepares for his impending death, the saint Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who has been searching for a suitable disciple to whom he might impart his great knowledge, approaches the king and agrees to teach him. Their conversation goes on uninterrupted for seven days, during which the king does not eat, drink or sleep. During this time the saint explains that one's goal in life is understanding the supreme absolute truth defined as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna.

Table of Contents

01: Creation

02: The Cosmic Manifestation

03: The Status Quo

04: Creation of the Fourth Order

05: The Creative Impetus

06: Prescribed Duties for Mankind

07: The Science of God

08: Withdrawal of the Cosmic Creations

09: Liberation

10: The Summum Bonum

11: General History

12: The Age of Deterioration

Scientific content

The Srimad Bhagavatam speaks to several topics that have in modern times been topics of scientific speculation and research.

The Third Canto (Chapter 11) offers calculations of time, pegging the briefest unit to the interval needed for atomic combinations, the longest to the entire duration of the universe.

An example of Time Dilation (a topic in modern physics) appears in the Ninth Canto, wherein King Kakudmi and his daughter Revati travel to Brahmaloka to meet the god Brahma. After spending a short time in Brahmaloka, King Kakudmi and Revati discover that during their short stay there, many thousands of years have passed on earth and all the people he once knew have died long ago, and even their names had been forgotten in the mist of time.

The Third Canto describes in some detail the development of the embryo in the womb, starting from the time of conception.

Incarnations of Vishnu

Main article: Avatar

A page from the Bhagavatapurana decipting Varaha avatar

The Bhagavata Puran first addresses the Supreme Personality of Godhead in all of His glory:

His eyes are the generating centers of all kinds of forms, and they glitter and illuminate. His eyeballs are like the sun and the heavenly planets. His ears hear from all sides and are receptacles for all the Vedas, and His sense of hearing is the generating center of the sky and of all kinds of sound.

The Bhāgavatam describes the various līlās of twenty-five avatāras (incarnations) of Vishnu. It should be however noted that although its is usual to speak of Vishnu as the source of the avataras, this is only one of the names of god of Vaishnavism who is also known as Narayana, Vasudeva and Krishna and behind each of those names is a divine figure with attributed supremacy in Vaishnavism.

Krishna

In the tenth canto of The Bhagavata Purana describes Krishna's childhood pastimes as that of a much-loved child raised by cowherds in Vrindavan, near to the Yamuna River. The young Krishna enjoys numerous pleasures, such as thieving balls of butter or playing in the forest with his cowherd friends. He also endures episodes of carefree bravery protecting the town from demons. More importantly, however, he steals the hearts of the cowherd girls (Gopis). Through his magical ways, he multiplies himself to give each the attention needed to allow her to be so much in love with Krishna that she feels at one with him and only desires to serve him. This love, represented by the grief they feel when Krishna is called away on a heroic mission and their intense longing for him, is presented as models of the way of extreme devotion (bhakti) to the Supreme Lord.

Translations

• Gita Press has a two-volume English and Hindi translation (contains Sanskrit text and English translation).
• Kamala Subramanian has written a concise version of this book in English.
• A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, has written a multi-volume edition that includes the Devanagari, its Roman transliteration, word-for-word meanings, a translation and commentary. It is available through ISKCON centers across the globe and major bookstores. The tenth canto was completed (from chapter 14), and the eleventh and twelfth done, by his disciples.
• A Telugu version of this Purana was rendered by the poet Pothana in the fifteenth century.
• A transcreated work, known as the Bhagavat of Sankardeva, is the primary theological source for Mahapuruxiya Dharma in the Assam region.
• A condensed Srimad Bhagavatam in Sanskrit, the Narayaneeyam, was composed by Melpathur Bhattathiri of Kerala in 1586.
• Edwin Bryant published an English translation of Book X in 2003, through Penguin Books.
• Swami Tapasyananda has written an English translation in four volumes, available from the Ramakrishna Math.
• Swami Prabhavananda produced an English version that is part translation, part summary and paraphrase, titled The Wisdom of God: Srimat Bhagavatam.

See also

• Puranas
• Category:Characters in Bhagavatam
• The Mysterious Pastimes of Mohini-murti
• Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

Further reading

• Mani, Vettam. Puranic Encyclopedia. 1st English ed. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975.

External links

• Complete Srimad Bhagavatam Online with original Sanskrit and purports translated by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and disciples.
• GRETIL etext: The transliterated Sanskrit text for the entire work
• Srimad Bhagavatam - glories, subjects, dating, concordance to Vedanta-sutra
• Bhagavata Purana - As an online readable story
• Some Srimad Bhagavatam commentaries
• Pothana Andhra Maha Bhagavatam (Telugu) select verses- Audio
• Tales From The Bhagavatham Retold For Children by P.S. Krishna Iyer
• Proshtapadi Bhagavata discourse in Kannada by Dr. V. Prabhanjanacharya