Srimad Bhagavatam- With Notes from a Dozen Commentaries (Set of 2 Volumes, An Old and Rare Book) Only 1 Quantity Available

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Srimad Bhagavatam enjoys universal popularity as the Bhakti scripture par excellence. It has inspired the growth of extensive devotional literature not only in Samskrit but also in many other Indian languages; and it is revered by important religious movements like those connected with the names of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Vallabhacharya as one of the corner-stones of their faith. Though it has been translated into practically every Indian language, European scholars, with the notable exception of the French scholar Burnouf, who translated parts of it over a hundred years ago, have not turned their attention to it. Prof. Juan Roger Reviere, Prof. of Indology in the University of Madrid, writes in Purana, The Puranas are forgotten and neglected in European Indology', and complains that there is no adequate translation of the Bhagavatam.

One reason at least for the paucity of good translations, so far at the Bhagavatam is concerned, is Das-Gupta refers in his Indian Philosophy; not less of a deterrent, perhaps, is another quality of the Purana to which he also refers, its sublime if uneven poetry. It is in this respect almost unique among the Puranas (which are usually pedestrian in style), standing out, as Prof. Ingalls says, 'by reason of its literary excellence, the organisation that it brings to its vast material and the effect that it has had on later writers'.

Much of the difficulty in interpreting the Bhagavatam is due to the unsettled state of the text. The Oriental Institute, Baroda, has undertaken the production of a critical edition, but it may take years before the project is completed. The present translation, based on a comparison of the texts relied upon by the principal commentaries, aims at providing an authentic rendering in euphonious, lucid prose. a version which shall be idiomatic, faithful and exact without being too literal (or word for word). The foot-notes, kept to a minimum, give important variant readings; and since the text is often elliptical, they also offer brief elucidations of important passages and suggest connecting links. With the text itself no liberty is taken. The supply within brackets of the more familiar for the less familiar name of a god or hero should be of help to the non-Sanskritist. The Bhagavatam is almost unique in the number of commentaries and dissertations it has inspired down the ages (see. p. 654, infra). No translator can afford to neglect them. Almost every commentary attempts the elucidation of the text in the light of a particular school of philosophy. While this translation has tried to follow the plain meaning of the text uninfluenced by the bias of any particular commentator, it endeavours, where it has to follow one particular interpretation as being the most plausible, to give in summary in the Notes at the end the interpretations of others. But in this respect these Notes do not claim to be either comprehensive or exhaustive. The Notes have also been utilized to give brief summaries of the extensive additions to the text that are found, notably in the Madhva version, and to indicate the rather fewer omissions from what may, for convenience, be termed the Vulgate, that used by Sridharaswamin. The synopsis provided for Vol. I (Vol. II hardly needs one), the select subject index, the glossary of Samskrit words (which are kept at a minimum in the text and printed with a minimum number of diacritical marks) and the brief notes on important characters and events, should help the reader to find his way through the labyrinth of Puranic mythology, and the difficulties caused by the sea-saw technique of narration and the employment of more than one narrator. The translation aims to serve the generalreader, without neglecting the needs of the student. The unique popularity of the Bhagavatam is due to the fact that the mysticism of loving devotion, which goes back to the Veda, finds its consummation in the extraordinarily vivid portrayal of the Divine Personality of Sri Krishna, the Spirit of Delight, the Ananda of the Upanishads. It is hoped that the translation may succeed in communicating to the reader something of its haunting beauty and compelling charm.

According to the Puranic tradition referred to in the work itself, Srimad Bhagavatam is one of the Maha-Puranas. Regarded chronologically as the last, authorship, like that it comes fifth in the list. Its authorship, Dvaipayana (Vyasa) who was a contemporary of Sri of all the other Puranas, is attributed to Krishna modern scholarship, which has favoured dates ranging Krishna. All these claims have been disputed by from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries for the work!

But such positive evidence as is available indicates that the upper limit cannot be later than the 10th century. Abhinava Gupta in his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita (XIV-8), quotes four verses from two different contexts in the Bh. P. (which he mentions by name) to bring out the meaning of pramaada. He also alludes elsewhere to the liberation of Gajendra, which is one of the high lights of this Purana. Al-beruni (early 11th century) records the fact that a list of the Puranas was read out to him from the Vishnu Purana, and in it the Bhagavatam was mentioned in the significant context of Vaasudeva; making it clear that it was not the Devi Bhagavatam that was meant.

On this question of date, it seems to me that sufficient attention has not been paid to what might be called negative evidence. Radha (or Radhika) is not mentioned at all in the Bhagavatam or the Vishnu Puranam or the Harivamsa, the basic sources of the Krishna legend. A certain unnamed Gopi is mentioned in Bh. P. X. 30 as having been favoured by Krishna, when He led her away unknown to the other Gopis, in order to humble their pride, though later He deserted her also for the same reason. This is generally regarded as the tiny seed from which the gigantic banyan of the Krishna-Radha romance of later times grew.

But, curiously enough, reference to Radha is found in works which are much earlier in date than what scholars favour for the Bhagavatam. Thus the sixth-century Gatha-Saptasati (1-89) says 'You, Krishna, while blowing the dust off the face of Radhika, dost also drive the bloom (or brightness) (lit. 'gaurava' or sense of self-importance) off the faces of the other Gopis'. That is a conceit, incidentally, which is strongly reminiscent of that in Bh. P. X: 90 (10) where His queens, playing in the water with Krishna, are described as embracing Him under the pretence of trying to snatch the squirt from His hand. Bhatta Narayana (eighth century), in a verse in the Veni Samhara, invokes the blessings of Krishna 'who seeks to appease Radha when she quits the Raasa dance in a pet'. Anandavardhana (9th century) in his Dhvanyaloka (II-5) quotes a verse in which Krishna, now in Dvaraka, remarks to a Gopa, 'I suppose that the bowers on the banks of the Yamuna, that saw the amours of the Gopis and the secret joys of Radha, have become old and disused and the tender shoots of the creepers, which formed the bed of love, have all faded'. How vividly this seems to anticipate the Gita-Govinda (11th century)! 'Love-bowers' on the banks of rivers are mentioned in the old Tamil poetry of the Sangam age. The Raasa dance itself is at least as old as Bharata. It was known in the extreme south of the country as well as in Gujarat. But whereas in Bengal Vaishnavism the love of the parakiyaa (another man's wife) was exalted, neither in North India, as represented by the poems of Surdas, nor among the followers of Sri Vallabhacharya in the West, nor again in the bhajana tradition of the South (notwithstanding its obvious indebtedness to the Chaitanya movement) is the parakiyaa type of devotion looked upon with favour. Radha is re-presented as the supreme example of married love, and it is the viraha-avasthaa of the svakiyaa, drawing its inspiration from such late works as the Brahma-Vaivarta Purana, that provides the emotional content Therefore, unless the Radha legend is to be regarded as deriving from an ultimate source which differed radically from the Bhagavatam in the exaltation above all others of a favoured Gopi, who was not married to Krishna, and which was unknown to the author of the Bh. P., or was repugnant to him (as it may well have been, if one may judge from X 30.35 and 42)