Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1

Reflections on the Bhāgavata

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

The Bhagavat Purana or Śrīmad Bhāgavatam subsumes all other Vedic literature: It absorbs and includes their meaning.

Again, the Garuḍa-purāṇa:

अर्थो ऽयं ब्रह्म-सूत्राणां भारतार्थ-विनिर्णयः गायत्री-भाष्य-रूपो ऽसौ वेदार्थ-परिबृंहितः पुराणानां साम-रूपः साक्षाद्-भगवतोदितः द्वादश-स्कन्ध-युक्तो ऽयं शत-विच्छेद-संयुतः ग्रन्थो ऽष्टादश-साहस्रः श्रीमद्-भागवताभिधः

artho 'yaṁ brahma-sūtrāṇāṁ bhāratārtha-vinirṇayaḥ gāyatrī-bhāṣya-rūpo 'sau vedārtha-paribṛṁhitaḥ purāṇānāṁ sāma-rūpaḥ sākṣād-bhagavatoditaḥ dvādaśa-skandha-yukto 'yaṁ śata-viccheda-saṁyutaḥ grantho 'ṣṭādaśa-sāhasraḥ śrīmad-bhāgavatābhidhaḥ

“The meaning of the Vedānta-sūtra is present in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The full purport of the Mahābhārata is also found there. The commentary of the Brahma-gāyatrī is also there and fully expanded with all Vedic knowledge. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is the supreme Purāṇa, and it was compiled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His incarnation as Vyāsadeva. There are twelve cantos, 335 chapters and eighteen thousand verses. The Bhāgavata is composed of 18,000 ślokas. It contains the best parts of the Vedas and the Vedānta. Whoever has tasted its sweet nectar, will never like to read any other religious book.” [Garuda Purana, Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura's translation from his The Bhāgavat Lecture]

H.H. Wilson, creator of the 1st Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1819) confirms this: "The Bhāgavata is a work of great celebrity in India and exercises a more direct and powerful influence upon the opinions and feelings of the people than perhaps any other of the Purānas. The Padma Purana ranks it as the extracted substance of all the rest of the Purānas."

The Bhagavat recapitulates and subsumes all other Vedic literature. As a consequence there is no need for any other book. The message of the Vedas has to do with sacrifice; the yearning for and recognition of a Deity. The Upanishads give the ontological basis for our understanding of the nature of Brahman, divinity, atma-soul, paramatma or Supersoul, and Bhagavan or the Personality of Godhead. In the Bhagavata, Suta summarizes this position in his explanation to Śaunaka, the leader of the sages:

वदन्ति तत् तत्त्व-विदस् तत्त्वम् यज् ज्ञानम् अद्वयम् ब्रह्मेति परमात्मेति भगवान् इति शब्द्यते

vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvam yaj jñānam advayam

brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth refer to the nondual nature of divine substance as Brahman, Paramātma or Bhagavān.” (SB 1.2.1)

If the Vedic prayers invoke the Deity and the Upanishads explain the ontological nature of deity as Brahman, Paramātma, and Bhagavān, the Bhagavat Purāna focuses its laserlike vision on the nature of Bhagavān or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who becomes known over its 12 Cantos and 18,000 verses as Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful. No other spiritual literature has elaborated so fully on the nature of divinity as Deity or Bhagavān.

While the Upanishads sketch the outlines of divinity, the conception given there is hazy and incompletely defined. The Upanishads have been explained in the Brahma-Sutras or Vedanta-Sutras. But the philosophical terms given in the Sutras are terse. Sutras are aphorisms. Their meaning is concentrated.

For example अथातो ब्रह्म जिज्ञास athāto brahma jijñāsa means “Now ask about Brahman.” But what does “now” mean? It’s often taken to mean “Now that you have come upon the human form of life.” Brahman, of course, means Divinity. But what exactly is Divinity? Well, that’s the point of the sutra: “Now that you have come upon the human form of life it is time to inquire into the what exactly is Divinity.”

The sutras are concise. And yet they are full of connotations and interpretations. And so, the terse words of the Vedānta-sutras have spawned thousands of pages of commentary. In the absence of connotation, denotation increases. But while thousands of pages of commentary have emerged, parsing every word of the sutras, commentary is arcane and hard to follow.

Sometimes the best commentary on an aphorism is a story, as Aesop showed with his fables. The Bhagavat not only illuminates the Sutras with the device of story; it goes beyond mere moral fables to give us an intimate glimpse into the nature of divinity, following the inner meaning of the Sutras.

The Sutras ask us to look into the nature of Divinity. The Bhagavat points out that Divinity may be seen from three different angles of vision; God as the infinite force of both material and spiritual universes (Brahman); God as the inner guide or Supersoul (Paramātma); and God as Supreme Person (Bhagavān). These threefold divisions of Divinity are ultimately one truth (advaya-jñāna), but the Personality of Godhead subsumes the other aspects of divinity and is Supreme.

This means that the thesis of the Bhagavat is theism. God exists. He is a Person. Perfection for individual souls consists in re-establishing a proper relationship with the personal aspect of divinity. This may be achieved through surrender. The re-integration of spiritual souls into the Kingdom of God that takes place through the process of surrender is called bhakti, or divine love. Among all forms of yoga: karma, jñāna, aṣṭāṇga, among all forms of religion bhakti is the best since it brings one closest to the personal Divinity, Reality the Beautiful, Kṛṣṇa.

This, in essence, is the thesis of the Bhāgavat. If the Bhagavat were a symphony, bhakti is its defining motif. In recapitulating the histories found in Mahābhārata or the cosmogony found in the other Pūranas and Itihāsas, the Bhāgavat may appear to deviate from this theme momentarily. But the motif reappears again and again throughout the preliminary Nine Cantos, reminding us that all the different incarnations of God who have appeared throughout Vedic history are mere avatars of Kṛṣṇa. And if the motif may appear diminished in parts of the first nine Cantos, it rises to a sustained crescendo throughout the Tenth Canto, the summum bonum of the work, where the only subject matter is Kṛṣṇa.

The thesis of the Bhagavata, that the Search for Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the true goal of all those interested in spiritual inquiry, was identified and defended by Śrī Caitanya and his followers, the Six Goswāmīs of Vrindāvan. Jīva Goswāmī’s Tattva-Sandarbha and Bhagavat-Sandarbha would be eloquent enough defenses of the Bhagavat. But these have been joined by the analysis of Rupa Goswāmi in his Bhakti-Rasāmṛta Sindhu and by Kṛṣṇa Dās Kavirāja Goswāmi in his masterpiece, Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta. While these scholars have relied on the commentaries of Śrīdhar Swāmi, subsequent commentaries such as those of Viśvanātha Cakravarti Ṭhākura, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati Prabhupāda have carried their revealed truths into the 20th Century and beyond.

The monotheistic ideal of Krishna-bhakti is outlined at the beginning of the Bhagavat and confirmed in every one of its 18,000 verses.

No one can tell how many centuries ago the Bhāgavata was written. Over the centuries, such historical records have been lost. But while no one knows the exact dates of composition of the Bhagavata, the knowledge and wisdom recorded there is eternal.

According to the evidence of the Bhāgavata this greatest series of conversations and dialogues between yogis and sages took place in the ancient place of pilgrimage called Naimisharanya. There in the sacred forest these advanced seers of the truth had gathered with the purpose of sacrifice. As their spokesman, they had elected Śaunaka, who was the oldest and wisest, to represent them. Having heard the entire narration of Mahābharata, they had some specific questions for Suta. 

While the Mahābhārata dealt with the rules and regulations of a proper human society, it had not penetrated profoundly into the nature of transcendental reality. These saints were anxious to hear the true secrets of the soul, especially with regard to divine love, the highest state of consciousness. They were desirous to know about the Supreme Godhead, the Person known as Krishna. What were the reasons for the avataras? Why does God appear and what is the highest teaching?