Shrimad
Bhagavatam & Advaita Bhakti
Shrimad Bhagavatam is one of the eighteen purANas composed by the great Vyasa, the
author of the magnum opus of Hinduism,
the Mahabharata. Before we venture more into the Bhagavatam a short
informative note about Vyasa is legitimate, particularly for the
newcomer into the Bhakti world.
Valmiki (the author of the Ramayana) and
Vyasa are the two persons who have influenced the largest number of people for
the longest period of time in the whole history of mankind. If any single person in the entire long history of the
Hindu religion has to be credited (or blamed!) for its multifarious facets that
extend over a wide spectrum from extreme superstition on the one side to a
ruthless intellectual dialectics on the other, it is the
‘faultless sage
Vyasa, son of Sage Parasara,
grandson of Sage Shakti,
great grandson of Sage Vasishta
and father of the boy-sage Shuka’.
Vyasa has six achievements to his credit, each one of
which alone could have conferred on him the stature of a Vyasa to such an
extent that on one day in the year, called Vyasa Purnima day (this year 2005,
on July 21), all religious and vedantic organisations and individuals in India,
irrespective of the school of thought to which they belong, pay reverential tribute to him in all
possible ways. The six achievements of Vyasa are:
·
At the beginning of the
Kali-yuga Vyasa codified the Vedas and Upanishads into 1180 branches (shAkhas)
and thus preserved for the weak and satanic Kali age the age-old tradition.
·
He codified the philosophical
excursions of the Upanishads into a single treatise called Brahma-sutra of 555
terse statements or aphorisms – for the comprehension of which several high-level
commentaries have been written till today.
·
He produced the greatest book
on Earth, the Mahabharata, an epic one hundred thousand
verses long, the dimensions of which for the cultural panorama of the country
are still being explored.
·
He wrote the seventeen purANas (together equivalent to more
than a Mahabharata) which constitute an encyclopaedia of all the mythological
stories, legends and history of Hinduism.
·
The eighteenth purANa, the Shrimad Bhagavatam, is his
fifth achievement – because it is the monumental work of Bhakti without which,
inspite of the other Puranas, it is doubtful, whether the Bhakti tradition
would have attained to such a supreme status in Hinduism.
·
Last but not least, he must
be given special credit for the 700-verse-long discourse of Bhagavadgita, –
even assuming he just heard it straight from the Lord’s mouth -- a single compendium covering the entire
spectrum of Hindu religion and philosophy, almost replacing the Vedas; even though
it is a part of the Mahabharata, it has a separate status for itself and Vyasa
has to be given extra credit for recognising
its strategical place and context in the great epic; the two fit each other so
perfectly that it is not clear whether the Mahabharata was made for the
Bhagavad-Gita or the Bhagavad-Gita for the Mahabharata.
Shrimad
Bhagavatam is, out and out, a work of the Devotion of the
Enlightened as well as of the Enlightenment
of the Devotee. The glories of the Lord are sung all through, exquisitely and
symbiotically blended with expositions of great metaphysical and philosophical
significance. It covers everything from the nature of the Self to the origin of
the universe. There are several stotras
strewn over all of Bhagavatam, each of which is a Vedantic treatise by itself. And almost every conversation or event there
is pregnant with vedantic import of not only conceptual value but of practical value
for every day life.
Bhagavatam
has 12 Cantos. Each canto (called ‘skanda’
in Sanskrit) has several chapters (‘adhyaya’)
contributing to 335
chapters in all . The largest canto is the tenth (having 90 chapters). It deals
with
Some Contents of each skanda in brief
1. (19 chapters). Prologue. End of the Mahabharata
War. Kunti-stuti and Bhishma-stuti. The Departure of the Pandavas. Birth of
King Parikshit. Curse on him. His PrAyopavesha on the Banks of the
2. (10 Chapters). Parikshit’s eagerness to listen
to stories of the Lord. Shukacharya’s assurance. Brief account of Creation.
Bhagavatam in four shlokas, as given by the Absolute to Brahma the first-born.
3. (33 Chapters). Details of Brahma’s Creation. Maitreya explains to Vidura. Cosmic Time. The
first Rishis. Varaha Avatar. The first
Manu. The first ritualised marriage. Kardama and Devahuti. Avatar of Kapila.
Kapila-Gita. Devahuti Stuti of Kapila.
4. (31 Chapters). Dynasty of Uttanapada. Daksha
yajnam. Shiva and Sati. Dhruva charitram. Dhruva Stuti. Story of Prithu.
Rudra-gItaM. Puranjana UpAkhyAnam.
5. (26 Chapters). Dynasty of Priyavrata.
Jada-bharata UpAkhyAnam. Geography of the Universe.
6. (19 Chapters). Story of Ajamila. Dynasty of
Daksha. Indra-VRRitrasura War.
7. (15 Chapters). Story of Prahlad. Narasimha
avatar. Narasimha stuti.
Tripura-samharam. Account by Narada of various dharmas.
8. (24 Chapters).Gajendra moksham.
Amrita-mathanam.
9.
(24
Chapters). Vamana Avatar. Ambarisha story. Ramachandra. Yayati.
10.
(90
Chapters). Story of
11. (31 Chapters). Uddhava Gita
12. (13 Chapters). Kaliyuga. Markandeya stuti.
Epilogue.
There is much more in
each skanda than what the above contents appear to show. A himalyan work of
translating (into English) the entire
Bhagavatam, word by word, has been done by Shrila
Prabhupada who created a whole new
international community of devotees, young and old, male and female, scholars and
laymen, all of them fully versed in the teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita and the
Bhagavatam and all of them fully convinced that no man-made system can cure the
ills of the world, it is only the eternal reality of Krishna that will do it.
The logical conclusion is the unceasing chanting by this ocean of devotees,
singly and collectively, of the classic ‘hare krishna’ mantra. It is now one
of the most popular mantras known the world over. The complete
translation and commentary by Prabhupada can be accessed through
http://www.prabhupadavani.org/Bhagavatam/SB_book/SB_index.html
or at
But it should be noted that Shri Prabhupada’s commentary not only
does not agree with advaita but strongly criticizes it. The monumental work of
his is, however, a
remarkable achievement from a towering giant of spirituality and is an
eloquent tribute to the great Vyasa
himself!
An alternative,
would be:
Srimad
Bhagavata, Translated by Swami Tapasyananda, in 4 Volumes, published by Sri
Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore Chennai (ISBN 81-7823-043-7, ISBN 81-7823-046-1).
This is what I use mostly.
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