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3/26/2019 Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill
Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online
Bhāgavatapurāṇa
(11,570 words)
When Vopadeva, a respected Sanskrit grammarian,

re ected on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in the late 13th century, Article Table of Contents
he famously remarked as follows in his Harilīlāmṛta (1.9):
Date and Authorship
The Vedas instruct like a lord, the purāṇa like a friend, Brief Summary of the 12
and the kāvya [the corpus of poetic theory] like a Books
lover. Central Concepts and
The Bhāgavatapurāṇa, it is said, instructs like all Exemplifying Verses
three. Reception: Poems,
Anthologies, Commentaries,
Books, and Fine Arts
For Vopadeva, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa subsumes and
Bibliography
synthesizes three major categories of Indian literature. He
did not mention Vedānta, another important tradition, as
one might have suspected, even though he and his teacher,
Hemādri, had made considerable progress in interpreting the Bhāgavatapurāṇa through
nondualistic Vedānta theology, just as much as they had made progress in interpreting it through
Bharata’s rasa theory. However, one of the 20th century’s leading philosophers from India, D.
Krishna, did note the following: “The inclusion of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata by post-Śaṃkarite
[nondualistic] masters completely destroys the myth of the exclusive and ultimate authority of
the upaniṣads for Vedāntic thought (Krishna, 1991, 168).”
These quotations, from two masters approximately 750 years apart, demonstrate the scope of the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s impact across disciplines and over time, a text widely recognized for its
distinction above other Purāṇas by its sophisticated language, style, and argumentation.. Over
the centuries, many Indologists, scholars of religion, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists,
and architects have given the best of their attention and talent to the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, and it
continues to inspire new theologies, arts, and ritual practices today.
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-hinduism/*-COM_1010068427 1/27
Date and Authorship
3/26/2019 Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill
Like other purāṇas, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s origin is mysterious; H.T. Colebrooke, founder of the
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, stated that he accepted the opinion of “many
learned Hindus” that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was authored by “a grammarian,” whom he would
later identify as Vopadeva (Colebrooke, 1808, 487). This attribution echoed throughout
Indological literature for some time, for example in the writings of G. Grierson, J.N. Farquhar,
and H.H. Wilson. H.T. Colebrooke was referring to a controversy from two centuries his prior,
one that Rāmāśrama (c. 1600–1677), a son of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, another noteworthy Sanskrit
grammarian, had written about in his polemical essay, Durjanamukhacapeṭikā (A Slap on the
Face of the Wicked), a translation of which is published in E. Burnouf’s 1840 French
Bhāgavatapurāṇa translation, the rst in any European language. Speaking to other learned
Brahmans in the city of Benares, Rāmāśrama asserted Vyāsa as the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s real
author against that of Vopadeva and other competitors (Minkowski, 2010). Despite Rāmāśrama’s
argument, the notion that Vopadeva authored the Bhāgavatapurāṇa remained in place; in his
detailed study of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, S. Bhattacharya (1960, xii) still felt inclined to dismiss it
by citing the work of Al-Bīrūnī, a Muslim from Khwarezm who in 1030 visited India. His point is
that Al-Bīrūnī listed the “Bhāgavata” as a text devoted to Vāsudeva (or Kṛṣṇa) a century before
Vopadeva is thought to have lived (Sachau, 1971, 131), similar to Rāmāśrama's arguments that
Citsukha's commentary on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (discussed below) predates Vopadeva. While
this would seem to put this controversy to rest, it points to another going back further in time.
The Matsyapurāṇa (chapter 53) brie y describes 18 purāṇas composed by Vyāsa at the end of the
third age (yuga) out of a four-age cycle (kalpa); the “Bhāgavata” is listed fth (Joshi, 2007, 209;
for other locations of the list, see Rocher, 1986, 1.3.3). But what was in the content and text of the
book called “Bhāgavata” by the Matsyapurāṇa, Al-Bīrūnī, and others? This question may have
been in the mind of Śrīdharasvāmin, author of the Bhāvārthadīpikā (Illumination of Essential
Meaning) from the early 14th or late 15th century, most likely written in the Govardhana Pīṭha, a
monastery founded by Śaṅkara in Puri, Odisha. Through citations from Matsyapurāṇa,
Padmapurāṇa, and an unnamed purāṇa, each of which attempt to characterize the size, speaker,
and content of a purāṇa called “Bhāgavata,” Śrīdharasvāmin hoped to demonstrate that the text
upon which he commented was the Bhāgavata mentioned in the Matsyapurāṇa. We do not
know what text(s) Śrīdharasvāmin was opposing as the real Bhāgavata, but by the 17th century,
the primary competitor for this position had become the Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, dedicated to
Devī (“The Goddess”). While the controversy as to which Bhāgavata is the real Bhāgavata
appears to go back as far as Narasiṃha Vājapeyin’s Nityācārapradīpa (c. 1400), it escalates in
the Śaivasiddhānta scholar Kāśīnātha Bhaṭṭa’s 17th-century Durjanamukhamahācapeṭikā (A
Hard Slap in the Face of the Wicked), a direct response to Rāmāśrama mentioned above. N.C.
Sanyal (1969) passionately defended the Devībhāgavatapurāṇa as the real Bhāgavata mentioned
in the Matysapurāṇa, so the controversy lives.
One way of dating a text is by the language used.
3/26/2019 Many have
Bhāgavatapurāṇa noted that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s
— Brill
language and style appear older than the other purāṇas – this too raises questions (van
Buitenen, 1966). The Sanskrit language is often divided into “Vedic Sanskrit,” considered an older
language of the vedic saṃhitās and brāhmaṇas, and “Classical Sanskrit,” considered a newer
language of most purāṇas, the Mahābhārata, and the Rāmayaṇa. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa often
uses Vedic Sanskrit (Biswas, 1968), which suggests to some that its age and authority equal the
Vedas, but to others, it suggests a scheme to render ancient authority to a medieval text and to
retroactively locate a newfangled Kṛṣṇa-centered theology in the vedic religion. Others have
suggested that there is an ancient core of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa written in Vedic Sanskrit and
that the newer parts were written in Vedic to present a uni ed style (Hudson, 2010, 139).
It is widely believed that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was composed in the 9th to 10th century CE
under the in uence of the revelatory Āḻvār Tamil tradition, speci cally Caṭakōpaṉ’s (he is also
called Nammāḻvār) 9th-century Tiruvāymoḻi, a section of the Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam.
Presuming themes in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s book 10, Nammāḻvār puts himself in the voice of a
cowherd girl (gopī or pinnai) who longs for union with Kṛṣṇa or Kaṇṇan, frequently referring to
sites like Mathurā (Madurai) and Gokula (Āyarpāṭi; Narayanan, 1994, 2).
Some of the literary and erotic motifs in the Prakrit Sattasaī (Skt. Gāthāsaptaśatī; 400 BCE) of
Hāla and the Tamil Cilappatikāram (c. 200 CE) are thought to be re ected in Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s
book 10 (Hardy, 1983). It is argued that the late 8th-century Vaikuṇṭha Perumāḷ Temple in
Kanchipuram demonstrates in uence from the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s narrative (Hudson, 2008),
although sculptures of stories exclusive to the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (e.g. Kṛṣṇa killing the giant
snake, Aghāsura) are found in the Hoysaleśvara Temple (c. 1121), southern Karnataka, and there
is nothing exclusive to the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in the Vaikuṇṭha Perumāl Temple (Hawley, 2002, 6).
Even if the Bhāgavatapurāṇa did arise along with the Āḻvārs, some have argued the Āḻvārs might
have been in uenced by the Bhāgavatapurāṇa rather than it by them (Bryant, 2002), yet as
discussed below, there is no material evidence that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa existed before the 12th
century. There is, however, an indigenous narrative for the South Indian origin of bhakti
(Sharma, 1987, 296). Bhāgavatapurāṇa 11.5.38–40 points to the special devotion of the Draviḍas
(Southerners), and the Bhāgavatamāhātmya, the earliest manuscripts of which are from 1714
(Hawley, 2009, 92), says bhakti traveled from the South (Draviḍa) to Karnataka, to Gujarat, and to
Vrindavan; the text, however, does not trace the Bhāgavatapurāṇa along the same path.
Discussion of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s origin will surely continue, as will its length.
Śrīdharasvāmin, Madhva, and Vallabha accepted 332 chapters; they do not accept chapters 13–15
in book 10. Jīva Gosvāmin accepted 335, and that is the number of chapters in K.S. Shastri’s (1965-
1975) authoritative edition (this is the numbering used in this article). The Bhāgavatapurāṇa
claims to be 18,000 verses long (12.13.3), but it is really 14,264; V.K. Chaturvedi said that one
should count the syllables in the text and divide by 32, that is the number of syllables in a
standard anuṣṭubh verse, giving the result of 17,998 verses (Shastree, 2002, 11).
According to H.G. Shastri’s (1996) critical edition
3/26/2019 of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa,
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill the oldest extant
manuscript is in the Devanagari script, held by Varanasi’s Sampurnananda Sanskrit
Vishvavidyalaya; it is probably from 1124–1125 and has marginalia notes by a Bengali paṇḍit from
1381.
Brief Summary of the 12 Books
T. Aufrecht (1891, iii) complained about “the lack of interest in historical truth” in India after his
extensive cataloguing of Sanskrit manuscripts, but the Bhāgavatapurāṇa does locate itself in a
historical and cosmological narrative. The mode of analysis and the purpose behind the
narrative are di ferent than the Western approach discussed above – the two approaches, found
in these two sections, represent di ferent ways of understanding history in the Indological and
the puranic traditions.
The purāṇas, like the upaniṣads, Mahābhārata, tantras, and others, are received as
interconnected frames of question–answer conversations, with the more recent referring to the
older. In the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Vyāsa is considered the consummate narrator of all the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s conversations, even his own with Nārada and others. The rst ve verses of
the text sit outside all narrative frames (they are from an unnamed voice), but Vyāsa is
considered the one who presented (praṇīta) the Bhāgavatapurāṇa as a whole.
The outermost conversation – the most recent – is between Sūta or Ugraśravas, a son of
Romaharṣaṇa, who learned the itihāsas and purāṇas directly from Vyāsa (1.4.22), and a group of
ṛṣis led by Śaunaka who had gathered in the Naimiṣa Forest to perform a sacri ce (satra; 1.1.4).
The ṛṣis begin by exalting Sūta, noting his vast learning in purāṇas, itihāsas, and dharmaśāstras,
which enabled him, in their view, to discern the highest good for the people (1.1.6–9). They also
locate us in kaliyuga, an age in which people are too dull-minded to understand the vast corpus
of scripture. Therefore, they ask Sūta to extract the essence (sāra) of the scriptures so they can
become self-satis ed (1.1.11). The Bhāgavatapurāṇa, thus, explains itself as teaching something
inclusive of but superior to all that had come before – it is an axiological claim, creating a
hierarchical order of value, meaning, and authority (see also 1.2.3; 12.13.12).
This axiological approach is seen in Vallabha’s theology. Scripture, he said, is a self-validating

authority (svataḥ pramāṇa) that generates knowledge of god. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa is the nal
authority that corrects and resolve doubts found in previous scriptures, that is the Vedas,
Bhagavadgīta, and Brahmasūtra (see Vallabha’s Tattvārthadīpanibandha; Onkarji, 1943, 39).
Other scriptures (e.g. the dharmaśāstras and Pāñcarātra saṃhitās) are accepted insofar as they
do not contradict the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (Timm, 1992, 133).
To answer the ṛṣi’s question about the essence of
3/26/2019 all scriptures,
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill Sūta invoked older conversations,
for he had heard and understood the Bhāgavatapurāṇa when it was told by Śuka to Parīkṣit
(1.3.43–44), that is the next older narrative structure. Śuka was the son of Vyāsa; Parīkṣit was the
son of Abhimanyu and grandson of Arjuna. Parīkṣit had sat on the riverbank of the Gaṅgā to fast
to death because of a curse. While Parīkṣit was seated on the Gaṅgā, Śuka suddenly appeared
before him, after which Parīkṣit asked, “[w]hat is the most important topic about which to hear,
recite, remember” (1.19.38), a reiteration of the ṛṣi’s question (1.1.11). To answer Parīkṣit, Śuka
recited the Bhāgavatapurāṇa as he had heard it from his father, Vyāsa (1.7.8), at the end of the
dvāpara age (2.1.8). Śuka made it all the sweeter through his iteration (1.1.3).
There are many narrators of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, but Viṣṇu is the origin. Vyāsa had divided the
Veda and composed the itihāsa, yet he still felt inclined to ask Nārada, his guru, about his
dissatisfaction (1.5.5), to which Nārada replied: “You failed to describe the lord” (1.5.8). Vyāsa,
inspired by his guru, concentrated his mind through the practice of bhakti, from which he saw
the lord and māyā (1.7.4), and after which he composed the “Sātvatasaṃhitā” (1.7.6), identi ed as
the Bhāgavatapurāṇa by many commentators. It is for this reason that Vallabha referred to
portions of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa as samādhibhāṣa, speech arising from meditative
contemplation (Bhatt, 1953, 348). It would be easy to see Vyāsa as the origin of the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa, but there is more. Why did Nārada respond to Vyāsa’s dissatisfaction by saying
that he failed to describe the lord? It is because Nārada had learned the Bhāgavatapurāṇa from
Brahmā (2.4.25), a god entrusted to fashion the worlds (2.5.11), but Brahmā had learned it from
Viṣṇu (2.9.30), the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s true origin. While there are numerous subnarratives
through the 12 books, these are the major voices throughout: Viṣṇu to Brahmā, Brahmā to
Nārada, Nārada to Vyāsa (who also “sees” the Bhāgavatapurāṇa), Vyāsa to Śuka, Śuka to Parīkṣit,
and Sūta to the ṛṣis (for a summary see 12.13.19, referred to as the “Bhāgavata Sampradāya,” the
“teaching tradition of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa,” by Śrīdharasvāmin).
In addition to providing the narrative context, book 1 establishes central themes. Chapter 2, for
example, begins a discourse on the role of bhaktiyoga within the normative vedic religion
(dharma) of varṇa and āśrama that had so dominated discourses on social order, ethics, and
ritual purity. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa promises a higher religion (paradharma) – this is bhaktiyoga
(see discussion of 1.2.6 below). Chapter 3 begins making a case that the supreme lord, known as
Bhagavat, Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, or Kṛṣṇa, is the source of the pantheon of being (1.3.1).
In book 2, the shortest at 10 chapters, Śuka’s teachings to Parīkṣit begin. The main topic is yoga
meditation on Viṣṇu’s cosmic and four-armed forms. Parīkṣit immediately notes the temporal
nature of embodied life, instilling a sense of urgency and necessity, telling Parīkṣit to “hear,
recite, and remember” Lord Hari or Kṛṣṇa (2.1.5). But how to concentrate the distractible mind
on god (e.g. 2.1.22)? The Bhāgavatapurāṇa is part of a much larger discourse on yoga
concentration techniques, thus Śuka describes a meditational bhakti process using terms
familiar to the yoga tradition (2.1.21). Dhāraṇā, or concentration, the sixth level of Patañjali’s
eightfold system, is for Viṣṇu’s “cosmic form” (sthūla;
3/26/2019 2.1.24),
Bhāgavatapurāṇa whereas dhyāna, a more sustained
— Brill
form of concentration, the seventh level in Patañjali’s system, is for Viṣṇu’s four-armed form
(2.1.19; Edelmann, 2012, 131).
In book 3, which is primarily a conversation between Vidura (third son of Vyāsa with a
handmaid, dāsī) and Maitreya (a sage in the Mahābhārata), we hear of the lord’s story as a boar
(Varāha); his image is depicted beautifully in the ancient temple of Ellora in Maharashtra.
Brahmā had to lift the earth since it had fallen into the ocean; while meditating deeply
(abhidhyāyata) on this, a tiny version of Varāha emerged from his nostril – a play on the notion
that the Vedas are the lord’s breath according to the Sanskrit commentary called
Sārārthadarśanī by Viśvanātha Cakravartin (early 18th cent.) – but he steadily grew in size. With
his tusk, he grubbed around, looking for the earth. He then raised it from the ocean’s bottom to
which it had sunk. During this, he met Hiraṇyākṣa, an angry aggressor, but Varāha playfully
disposed of him. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa goes on to map elements of the vedic sacri ce on to
Varāha’s body: the hymnal meters his skin, the soma contains his ears, and so on.
Another episode in book 3 is Kapila’s teachings on Sāṃkhyayoga. The name Kapila is associated
with ancient but lost Sāṃkhya teachings. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa claims him as a descent
(avatāra) of Viṣṇu and appropriates Sāṃkhya teachings for devotional goals, providing a
narrative around them that demonstrates renunciation, detachment, the inherent su fering in
life, and ultimately teaches devotion. Viṣṇu promised to take birth from the sage Kardama and
his wife Devahūti to compose the “Tattvasamhitā,” teachings on what exists (3.21.32). When
Kapila, known also as Śukla, was born, Kardama left his wife, as they had, oddly enough, agreed;
she was nevertheless distraught and sought Kapila’s “knot-cutting” philosophy to console herself.
She asked about the di ferences between spirit (puruṣa) and matter (prakṛti), and Kapila taught
a yoga of self-contemplation, through which there is the destruction of happiness and distress.
However, directly connected to these more classical issues in Sāṃkhyayoga is a discussion of the
way in which bhakti manifests in relation to the three guṇas.
Book 4 features Dakṣa’s feud with his daughter, Satī, and her future husband, Śiva, as well as
Pṛthu’s subjugation of the earth goddess and subsequent renunciation – both deal with vedic
sacri cial themes – and the life of Dhruva. Dhruva’s story begins in psychological torment, a boy
deprived of his father’s love, forcing the boy to recoil like a snake into his mother’s arms,
breathing out harshly with quivering lips; she instructs him in the karman doctrine, the fatalism
of life, but encourages him to worship (ārādhaya) the lord if he really wants his father’s love.
Dhruva, which means rm or xed, leaves home, and this attracts the attention of Nārada, who
dismisses the e cacy of yogic practices. Dhruva had sought a seat (adhyāsana) that is superior
(uttama; 4.8.19), which literally refers to his desire to sit on the throne, but perhaps
metaphorically to yoga postures. Nārada retorts that yoga alone rarely helps one attain the lord.
Nārada thus requests him to worship (bhaja) Lord Vāsudeva (i.e. Viṣṇu) on the banks of the
Yamunā near Mathurā, which Dhruva does in yogic fashion tempered by Nārada’s bhakti
teachings. Dhruva’s austerities force the lord toBhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 intervene.—The Brill meeting of Dhruva and Viṣṇu is
described in great detail. Dhruva then makes a hero’s return, after which he rules the kingdom
guided by his forefathers.
Almost half of book 5 describes the cosmos, depicted here as an egg-shaped shell, separated in
the middle by a at disk called the bhūmaṇḍala, or “earth-disc,” with planets and stars above,
underworlds below, and Meru centered on the at disk. As Śuka moves us through this vast
space, he tells not only of cosmography and geography but also of the bustling life of the
inhabitants in the many regions, especially of their prayers and temperaments – the subtext is
that devotion for Viṣṇu is universal. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa reiterates its own variations of a
cosmology found in other purāṇas and the Mahābhārata, as well as Jain and Buddhist texts, one
that is generally thought to have emerged by the 2nd century CE. It is contrastable with the
siddhānta model (see astrology), a more mathematically and observationally based cosmology
of a xed, round earth around which oat the planets (Pingree, 1990). There was a great debate
starting with Āryabhaṭa’s Āryabhaṭīya (c. 500 CE) between followers of the purāṇas and the
siddhānta that generated a variety of epistemological and mathematical revisions to the
interpretation of puranic texts (Minkowski, 2004a). Bhāgavatapurāṇa 2.10.1–2 (discussed below)
says that cosmology is included to illuminate god’s being, and in book 5 argues that meditation
on god's cosmological form leads to meditation on his subtle form (Viṣṇu in the heart):
An ascetic who has controlled himself and who has heard about the gross and subtle
forms of God can be gradually led from the gross to the subtle by means of a steady
intellect. (Edelmann, 2012, 147)
The theological purpose of cosmology, then, centers on generating a greater awareness of

noncosmological forms of god by stabilizing the mind, a theme that connects back to book 2
(2.1.22).
The stories in book 6 can be uni ed around the theme of a mantra’s e cacious yet binary power.
Parīkṣit asked how one might avoid the lower realms and the general su fering that it creates
(9.1.6), to which Śuka replies that pure devotion (kevalabhakti) eclipses all other practices (e.g.
asceticism, dharma, and nonviolence). To illustrate, he tells of Ajāmila. Although married to a
well-suited wife, Ajāmila sets o f with a servant woman (dāsī) to raise a family. Fortunately, he
names his tenth son Nārāyaṇa; by calling his name at death, he avoided the pains of hell to
which he would have been otherwise forsaken. The argument is a fortiori (kaimutyanyāya): if
reciting the names of Nārāyaṇa by that person in this way could have such power, then what to
speak of its power when recited by those with a pure heart, full knowledge, and proper
intention. Wanting to know more about the origin of gods, antigods, animals, and so forth, Śuka
tells of Dakṣa, a class of being called prajāpati, charged with generating the living forms. When
unable to create new creatures Dakṣa headed to the Vindhya Hills for austerities dedicated to
god and therein recited the Haṃsaguhya (The Goose’s
3/26/2019 Secret;
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill 6.4.23–24), an inspired didactic
poem of 12 theologically sophisticated verses that emphasize the hidden and ine fable nature of
a god who self-acquires a visible form. Viṣṇu appears to Dakṣa, giving him the power to create.
In the Ṛgveda (I.32.1), Indra kills Vṛtra, a serpent or perhaps a cobra who had obstructed the life-
giving water ow (and the equally nourishing cows and sun). Reinterpreted in many texts, the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa, too, provides a unique rendition of the story. It says that Indra o fended
Bṛhaspati (the god’s teacher), making the higher worlds susceptible to antigod invasions. To
parry, the gods are advised by Viśvarūpa, son of Tvaṣṭṛ, to recite Nārāyaṇakavaca, a prayer
containing well-known mantras like oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya, and to use tantra processes for nyāsa,
anointing the body. These are e fective, but a gruesome battle ensues, one echoed from the
Ṛgveda. But as mantra has liberated Ajāmila, mantra can also destroy, revealing its binary nature
– Tvaṣṭṛ intentionally creates a demon named Vṛtra by mantra to kill Indra (because Indra had
killed his son, Viśvarūpa, for secretly o fering sacri cial shares to the gods and antigods; 6.9.11).
The power of Vṛtra overwhelms the gods. Upon consulting Viṣṇu for help, the gods seek the
bones of Dadhyañ, by which they defeat Vṛtra (6.9.51). In the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, unlike the
Ṛgveda, Vṛtra speaks and in a devotee’s voice, for he had placed his mind on the feet of
Saṃkarṣaṇa (i.e. Viṣṇu; 6.11.21, 24) – even the Ṛgveda’s paradigmatically dark gure might also
become a devotee.
Book 7’s primary themes appear disparate: the lord’s descent as Nṛsimha (half-man, half-lion) to
kill the wicked Hiraṇyakaśipu (2.7.14) and a detailed discussion of sanātanadharma (7.11.2) with
the particulars of each individual’s duty (varṇāśramadharma). Śrīdharasvāmin, Vopadeva, and
others identify this book as treating ūti; in his Harilīlāmṛta Vopadeva de nes this as an agent’s
habit toward ownership and enjoyment produced from previous action (Upadhyaya, 1933, 22)
and Śrīdhara says the same. Perhaps the connection between the two topics is that
Hiraṇyakaśipu embodies a sel shness that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s devotional rendering of
dharma seeks to abate. The story of Nṛsimha’s descent is precipitated by this question: when the
gods and antigods ght, Viṣṇu generally sides with the gods, but how can god, who is supposedly
equally disposed to all beings, show partiality (viṣama)? The Vedāntasūtra (2.1.32) argues that
god is not partial to a particular created being – despite the observed di ferences among
creatures – because he merely distributes each soul’s previous karman; each individual’s
situation is the result of its own past action within the unlimited scope of beginningless time.
The Bhāgavatapurāṇa spends little time discussing the mechanics of karman, but immediately
reframes Parīkṣit’s question by referring to the context of a conversation between Yudhiṣṭhira
and Nārada, as a question about why god liberated Śiśupāla (who hated god) and punished Vena
(who was angry at god). They were both bad, but why were they treated di ferently? In response,
the Bhāgavatapurāṇa presents an eschatology in which liberation can be attained even by
relating to the lord in the mood of sexual desire, hate, fear, a fection, and bhakti (7.1.29-32; comp.
10.29.13–15). Being dominated by anger, Vena did
3/26/2019 not t into
Bhāgavatapurāṇa any of these categories, so he was
— Brill
under the in uence of karman’s laws, whereas Śiśupāla’s hate for the lord was rewarded with
liberation.
The larger narrative is that Śiśupāla had lived in Viṣṇu’s eternal abode called Vaikuṇṭha, but he
had been thrown out of it as a result of a curse from the ascetic, childlike sages, the four
kumāras, to traverse three lives with an evil nature. Thus, he became Śiśupāla (as well as
Hiraṇyakaśipu, Prahlāda’s father). Book 7 showcases Hiraṇyakaśipu’s rise to power through
ascetic practices (tapas) and his son’s blossoming devotion to Viṣṇu, which angers
Hiraṇyakaśipu to no end; he would rather his son died than not join him in darkness, so he sets
upon killing him. Hiraṇyakaśipu obtains the superpower that he could not be killed in any of the
dualities that de ne our world, for example at night or day, on land or in the sky, or by man or
animal. Yet Viṣṇu does kill him, appearing in spaces between dualities, in twilight, on a patio,
and as man-lion. He was thus Nṛsimha, whose stories are described in many purāṇas, whose
claws Ānandavardhana, an important mid-9th century poetician, invoked in his opening verse of
Dhvanyāloka (Illumination of Suggestion) for protection in the study of poetics, and who
Śrīdharasvāmin invoked as the seat of re ective insight at the start of his Bhāgavatapurāṇa
commentary. Hiraṇyakaśipu is gruesomely disemboweled by the furious Nṛsimha, but Prahlāda
calms him, declaring that the stu f of his father like money, culture, and austerity cannot satisfy
– bhakti alone can. The remainder of book 7 discusses dharma (of which the lord is considered
the source), with Kṛṣṇa bhakti reorientations.
Book 8’s primary topics are teachings and histories of some manus or the founding fathers of
new epochs (see cosmic cycles), the salvation of Gajendra (an elephant in existential crisis who
is granted body like the lord’s in Vaikuṇṭha, a story discussed by the Āḻvārs), the churning of the
milk ocean, and the descent of Vāmana, Viṣṇu as young student. According to chapter 4 of
Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, the churning of the milk ocean was the rst drama that Brahmā
commanded to be performed according to the principles of dramaturgy (Narayanan, 2003). The
story’s iconography is spread throughout South and East Asia (Narayanan, 2014), and it is used as
a metaphor for scriptural study (Edelmann, 2013). For the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, the story begins
with the weakened gods appealing to Brahmā to ask Viṣṇu for help. The lord appears before
Brahmā, wishing him well, asking him to make a treaty between gods and antigods. The
agreement involves them churning the milk ocean together, with Mount Mandara as the
churning rod; with the snake Vāsuki as the churning cord; and with Kūrma (Viṣṇu as tortoise) as
the foundation on which Mandara is turned. Ultimately this results in the production of amṛta,
“ambrosia,” a drink that causes immortality. These best-laid plans of gods and antigods do not
manifest without some interruption: the antigods steal the amṛta, the produce of everyone’s
e fort, which was presented to all of them by the lord as Dhanvantari. The despondent gods
again appeal to the lord, who rea rms that they shall together attain their goal. Immediately, a
ght arises among the antigods as to who shall drink rst. But in the form of Mohinī, a
voluptuous and bejeweled woman, the lord appears to provide a solution that in the end turns 9/27
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-hinduism/*-COM_1010068427
the antigods against themselves, to the bene t Bhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 of the gods. Mohinī thinks that the antigods have
— Brill
conducted themselves poorly, like snakes, so she withholds their portion of amṛta, hence
reducing their power and restoring good. Book 8’s nal part is the stories of god as Vāmana, who
was born from Aditi, the mother of the gods, and Kaśyapa. Upon birth, immediately he
transforms, like an actor, into a young student, after which he goes begging. When Vāmana asks
Bali, a powerful king, for a donation, Bali o fers “three steps of land,” thinking his short legs won’t
get him far, but Vāmana steps across the entirety of the worlds in two steps, requiring Bali to
o fer his head as the third, thus pleasing the lord. This may play on meanings from the Ṛgveda:
the gods always look to the “highest footstep of Viṣṇu” (ṚV. 1.22.21) and in his “three wide strides
dwell all living beings” (ṚV. 1.154.2; Jamison & Brereton, 2014).
Book 9’s primary topic is the linages, teachings, and stories of the manus. We learn of the devotee
Ambarīṣa, who was cursed by Durvāsa, but who superseded his curse because he was protected
by Viṣṇu’s unstoppable Sudarśana disk (9.4.52). The lord is completely dependent on and
subservient to his devotee (parādhīna), and not obliged to respect the will even of a great sage
like Durvāsa (9.4.63). We hear of Gaṅgā’s arrival on the earth (bhūtala) under the persuasion of
Bhagīratha, a mini-Rāmāyaṇa, and the supererogatory charity of Rantideva who sel essly gave
away all his food after a lengthy fast. While book 9 begins with Parīkṣit’s request to hear more
about the solar dynasty of Vivasvat, especially the lines of Ikṣvāku and Satyavrata, it is not hard
to conclude that its primary purpose is to establish the lunar (soma) dynasty that includes
Purūravas, son of Ilā, and Yadu (from which one gets the word Yādava, an epithet of Kṛṣṇa),
leading to the birth of Devakī and Vasudeva, who are mother and father of Saṃkaraṣaṇa (or
Balarāma) and Kṛṣṇa (or Vāsudeva), their seventh and eighth sons, along with their sister
Subhadrā (9.24.54–55; these verses are not included in all manuscripts). As a prelude to book 10,
book 9 concludes in reminding us that Viṣṇu descends by his own power (ātmamāyā) for the
purpose of quelling the earth’s burden of the wicked.
Book 10 is a primary reason for the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s transnational popularity. It features

Kṛṣṇa’s life story in 90 chapters, making it by far the longest book, extended still by the length of
commentators in, for example, K.S. Shastri's printed edition, as well as the many books, plays,
and theological and poetic elaborations of it. Celebrated in art, poetry, music, and dance, it is
also a source for new theologies and new rituals across the globe.
Book 10 can be divided into seven sections, although there are three primary locations depicting
actions of Kṛṣṇa, that is Vraja, Mathurā, and Dvārakā. There are noteworthy chapter di ferences
among editions of book 10; I have followed E. Bryant’s translation (2003), which includes the
three extra chapters from K.S. Shastri (1965–1975).
The rst section (chs. 1–5) establishes the dramatic situation for Kṛṣṇa’s appearance on earth.
Parīkṣit wants to hear Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma’s life story, which puri es like the Gaṅgā, and we
immediately learn that the earth (in the form of a cow) feels overwhelmed by people who
disingenuously pretend to be kings, the worst ofBhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 which was Kaṃsa. As Kaṃsa is taking his sister,
— Brill
Devakī, and her new husband, Vasudeva, the mother and father of Kṛṣṇa, to their new home in
the custom of the day, he hears a voice from the sky: “You’ll die by their eighth son.” Vasudeva
attempts to appease Kaṃsa, but the newlyweds end up in jail, with each new child killed by the
merciless king. Balarāma is born as the seventh child, but Viṣṇu asks his personi ed power called
Yogamāyā to move him from Devakī and Vasudeva in Mathurā to the family of Rohiṇī and Nanda
in Vraja, away from Kaṃsa, where he would be safer. Shortly thereafter, Kṛṣṇa is impregnated
into the womb of Devakī by a mental transfer, nonsexual reproduction, and upon his birth
appears in an adult form, is glori ed by his parents and the onlooking gods, and then assumes a
baby’s form. At the very same time, Nanda and Yaśodā (she is a co-wife with Rohiṇī) give birth to
a girl, the personi ed Yogamāyā. Vasudeva miraculously crosses the rain-swollen river Yamunā
with Kṛṣṇa, reaches Vraja, and switches the infant Kṛṣṇa with Yogamāyā without anyone
noticing, then swiftly returns to jail with the girl, placing her in the bed of Devakī. The trick does
not deter Kaṃsa; he smashes the baby girl on a rock (10.4.8), but she rises up, revealing her
goddess body, telling Kaṃsa that Kṛṣṇa had been born elsewhere; Kaṃsa replies with a demand
to kill all babies in the area (10.4.31). Meanwhile in Vraja, a celebration ensues for Kṛṣṇa’s birth,
and the co-parents nd time to meet up.
The second section (chs. 6–28) delightfully depicts Kṛṣṇa’s childhood in Vraja or Vṛndāvana
(present-day Vrindavan, about 200 km south of New Delhi). Two types of activities dominate his
time: playfully and sometimes violently killing demons sent by Kaṃsa to kill him, and charming
his friends and family with his protective care and mischievous play. He drains the life out of
Pūtanā, a witch with poison on her breasts; he smashes Tṛṇāvarta, a demon with a tornado’s
body; he is swallowed by Baka, a crane, but he tears him in pieces; he and his friends walk into a
giant snake, Agha, but Kṛṣṇa grows massive, exploding Agha’s body; and to scare away Kāliya, a
snake whose venom had contaminated the river, he dances on his head. When the young
cowherd girls (gopīs) are bathing in the river, he steals their clothes. When accused by his
brother, Balarāma, of eating dirt, he opens his mouth for his mother to reveal the entirety of
being throughout time and space. Indra is angered because Kṛṣṇa had denied him sacri cial
rites and sends massive clouds to drown Vraja; Kṛṣṇa lifts Mount Govardhana to protect the
citizens.
The third section (chs. 29–33) is the rāsalīlā, a circle dance of love between the youthful Kṛṣṇa
(who at this point in the text is established as the supreme god) and the youthful gopīs as well
one special but unnamed gopī (considered to be Rādhā by a diverse range of interpreters;
Kinsley, 1988, ch.6). Other characters – the gopīs’ families, wildlife, plant life, the seasons, the
moon, and the onlooking gods – play supporting roles. Poets like Vidyāpati ( l. late 14th cent.)
elevated the bittersweet richness of blossoming erotic love to a poetic work of art (Bhattacharya
& Archer, 1963, 97). In addition to the 25 Sanskrit commentaries published in K.S. Shastri's
edition of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, authors in English argue that the rāsalīlā is a story about god
calling “souls back to his own self” (Bhattacharya, vol. I, 1960, 116), others that it exalts the divine
feminine (Schweig, 2005, 137), and still others that
3/26/2019 in the —rāsalīlā,
Bhāgavatapurāṇa Brill the gopīs are set outside the
rules of social duty and censure (varṇāśramadharama) to demonstrate women as more quali ed
for bhaktiyoga (Bryant, 2003, liv-lv). Others argue that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s version of the
rāsalīlā makes orthodox and tame the more spontaneous love play between the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa
in the Harivaṃśa (Coleman, 2010).
The rāsalīlā has ve acts in the ve chapters (Schweig, 2005):
1. Kṛṣṇa’s sweet song (10.29.40 identi es it as a ute song) and his disappearance.
After hearing his song, the gopīs leave their happy homes to nd him in the night
forest; when they arrive, Kṛṣṇa tries to turn them back with lectures on morality and
bhakti within the scope of conventional dharma. They appeal to his sense of
sympathy after revealing their burning sensual love for him. Kṛṣṇa acquiesces. After a
brief episode of sexual irtation, he detects pride in them – he disappears.
2. The gopīs search for Kṛṣṇa while despondent to the point of madness: they imitate
Kṛṣṇa, look for him in unlikely places, and ask unlikely people for help nding him. A
special gopī does meet him; after riding on his back, she gets proud – he disappears
again. The gopīs go into the wood’s darkest part but then return to the riverbank
without him.
3. The gopīs sing a passionate song, praying artfully and intensely for his love and
sensual favor.
4. They reunite. Upon Kṛṣṇa’s return, they not only lavish a fection on him but also
express their anger for leaving them. Kṛṣṇa gives a short discourse on love’s true
meaning, explaining that it was for them that he had left.
5. Having resolved disputes, they dance while the gods look on, providing a
soundtrack and ower showers. Kṛṣṇa assumes many forms, giving each gopī
individual attention. The section concludes with a theological discourse, reminding
us of Kṛṣṇa’s cosmological and moral stature.
The fourth section (chs. 34–41) is the conclusion of play in Vraja. We learn of Kaṃsa’s plans to
bring Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma to the more urban setting of Mathurā for a lethal wrestling match.
Akrūra, a great devotee of Kṛṣṇa, is instructed to pick up the boys, which he does after leaking
Kaṃsa’s diabolical plan to the boys. After much glori cation and fanfare, they leave Vraja and
arrive in Mathurā to start their next life phase.
The fth section (chs. 42–51) depicts Kṛṣṇa’s life in Mathurā. Upon entering Mathurā, Kṛṣṇa
immediately heals a hunchback woman (Trivakrā), with whom he later makes love, and then
kills an aggressive elephant (Kuvalayāpīḍa). Kaṃsa had set up an arena in which Kṛṣṇa was to
ght. Upon arriving there, Kṛṣṇa swiftly kills Kaṃsa and the other wrestlers and immediately
takes care of family business: he frees his imprisoned parents, sends word of his safety to his
family in Vraja through Uddhava, and sends Akrūra
3/26/2019 to Hastināpura
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill (old Delhi) to nd out how
the Pāṇḍavas are doing. Kaṃsa’s wives, meanwhile, go home to Magadha to tell their father,
Jarāsandha, that Kṛṣṇa killed their husband. Enraged, Jarāsandha surrounds the city of Mathurā
with a massive standing army to which Kṛṣṇa responds by building and resorting to a fort called
Dvārakā o f the western coast of India.
The sixth section (chs. 52–69) describes Kṛṣṇa’s family life in Dvārakā. Kṛṣṇa learns about,
abducts, and marries the beautiful and royal Rukmiṇī, and we hear about the birth of their son,
Pradyumna, as well as the marriage of Pradyumna’s son, Aniruddha. Chapter 69 paints a picture
of an ideal urban life with Kṛṣṇa, his citizens and friends, and over 16,000 wives, each getting his
individual and loving attention.
The seventh and nal section of book 10 (chs. 70–90) features the killing of Jarāsandha and
Kṛṣṇa’s life in Dvārakā. Kṛṣṇa hears that 20,000 kings who had opposed Jarāsandha are
imprisoned, so he goes to Indraprastha to meet up with the Pāṇḍavas, after which they go to the
nearby Mathurā; he kills Jarāsandha and frees the kings. They return to Indraprastha and while
being honored there, Śiśupāla o fends Kṛṣṇa; he beheads him and then helps his son with
Rukmiṇī, Pradyumna, kill Śalva. We learn also of Balarāma’s travels throughout India and a brief
meeting between Kṛṣṇa and his old girlfriends from Vraja in Kurukṣetra. A philosophical
crescendo of this book is in chapter 87, wherein Parīkṣit asks how śruti, which is within the
domain of matter, can describe brahman, which is beyond matter ; this portion of the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa drew the attention even of Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara ( l. 17th cent.; Minkowski,
2004b). This book concludes with a description of the remaining years of his life in Dvārakā,
with his beautiful queens – all 16,108 of them, who crave his attention and body – and men who
admire him.
Book 11’s themes are the destruction of the Yadu dynasty (of which Kṛṣṇa was part) through
internal feuding (chs. 1, 30–31) and philosophical teachings on brahman and the yogas, especially
meditative practices and their supernatural results, karman and dharma or ritual and social
duties and jñāna or spiritual knowledge, concluding in systematic discussions of bhakti and a
devotee’s qualities. Regarding the latter, one of the most well-known conversations here is
between Kṛṣṇa and Uddhava. Kṛṣṇa had planned to retreat from Dvārakā to Prabhāsa (a holy site
on India’s northwest coast) along with his family to wrap up his and his family’s life on earth, but
Uddhava, who is framed as a devout servant, begged for more teachings, especially for those who
mix karman and bhakti (11.6.49). At Prabhāsa, the Yadus get drunk and kill each other with sharp
reeds that they use as weapons (there was a curse that motivated the violence), while Balarāma
absorbs himself in meditation and disappears. Kṛṣṇa sits himself under an auspicious asvatha
tree but is shot in the foot by a bowman – this is, in some sense, the cause of his departure from
the earth. After asking his driver to relay the news of his immanent “death” to those still in
Dvārakā, Kṛṣṇa disappears from earthly life, leaving for Vaikuṇṭha in a most dramatic fashion.
Book 12 provides a variety of concluding topics.Bhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 Chapter 12 summarizes each book. There is a
— Brill
brief discussion of the other purāṇas and what makes the Bhāgavatapurāṇa distinctive and
special. There is a description of kaliyuga, the last in a four-part declensional cycle; it is our age –
one of strife, stupidity, and weakness. We also learn about the reabsorption of the universe into
god. After a rming the purity of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa itself and reiterating the directive to
meditate on the supreme being (see discussion of 1.1.1. below), the last verse reads as follows:
I bow down to the supreme, known as Hari [i.e. Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa].

By the communal recitation his names, all negativity is destroyed.
By o fering respect to him, su fering is removed. (BhāgP. 12.13.23)
Central Concepts and Exemplifying Verses
Bhāgavata and Bhagavat
The rst word in the title of the book under examination here, “bhāgavata,” means “related to
god” or “of god.” It is an abstract noun from the Sanskrit words bhagavat or bhagavant, meaning
“one who has bhaga,” and “bhaga” means “fortune,” “virtue,” “beauty,” and so forth. From
bhagavat, there is the nominative singular, bhagavān, the form often seen in the scriptures.
“Bhāgavata” can also mean “devotee of god”; epigraphic information suggests that the earliest
use is in the 1st to 2nd centuries BCE in north Central India, approximately 300–400 years before
the term “Vaiṣṇava” was used. Bhāgavatapurāṇa, thus, means a purāṇa that is related to god (see
below for meaning of purāṇa).
While the entire Bhāgavatapurāṇa is aimed at illuminating the meaning of bhāgavata, two
verses stand out. Bhāgavatapurāṇa 1.2.11 served as the exegetical foundation for Jīva Gosvāmin’s
Tattvasandarbha and Bhagavatsandarbha, and 10.90.48 served as the invocation to Viṣṇupurī’s (a
nondualist renouncer from Mithila or Bihar, c. 15th or 16th cent.) Bhaktiratnāvalī:
Those who know the truth say the truth is nondual consciousness.
It is referred to as brahman, paramātman, [and] bhagavat. (BhāgP. 1.2.11)
He is victorious, the refuge of the people, said to be born from Devakī.

Surrounded by eminent people, he destroys irreligion with his arms.
He extinguishes the deceitfulness of all beings. By his beautifully smiling face,
he increases the god of love in the ladies of the city [i.e. Mathurā and Dvārakā]
and in the pastoral land [i.e. Vṛndāvana or Vraja]. (BhāgP. 10.90.48)
The rst exemplifying verse is interpreted by Jīva
3/26/2019 Gosvāmin
Bhāgavatapurāṇa (Dasa, 2015, 346) as indicating a
— Brill
conscious being (whose consciousness is not borrowed from anything else) that is in possession
of a triune nature, that is an impersonal or unquali ed feature (brahman), a cosmological or
immanent feature (paramātman), and a personal and quali ed feature (bhagavat); these
features are revealed in the practitioner in correspondence to their quali cation (Dasa, 2014, 3–
5). Śrīdharasvāmin interprets “nondual consciousness” as discarding the idea that this truth is a
momentary consciousness, as a Buddhist might argue.
The second exemplifying verse aligns this being with the person of Kṛṣṇa, who, although unborn,
was born at a particular point in time and engaged in divine play (līlā) on earth. The
Bhāgavatapurāṇa also says that this same god had expanded himself as well-known divinities
such as Rāma, the ten avatāras, and the vyūhas described in the Pāñcarātra and Vaiṣṇava
saṃhitās.
Purāṇa
It is generally held that the purāṇas have ve topics (Rocher 1.3.2); the Bhāgavatapurāṇa,
however, distinguished itself with ten:
Discussed here are [1] primary emanation of the world’s elements (sarga), [2]
secondary emanation of biological life (visarga), [3] victory of the lord (sthāna), [4]
nourishment or compassion of the lord (poṣaṇa), [5] underlying tendencies from
karman that form the basis for rebirth (ūtaya), [6] stories of Manus, who follow
dharma (manvantara), [7] stories of the lord (iśānukathā), [8] reabsorption of the
world (nirodha), [9] the liberated state when the self abides in its own nature (mukti),
and [10] the lord, the ultimate refuge, the one from whom the world emerges
(āśraya). The characteristics of the [ rst] nine topics are for the purpose of
illuminating the tenth topic; the great souls describe them by providing statements
from vedic texts and direct and indirect (or intended) meanings. (BhāgP. 2.10.1-2; see
also 12.7.9)
This translation re ects the interpretation of Vijayadhvaja’s 15th-century Padaratnāvalī in the

Mādhva tradition and the expanded explanation in verses 2.10.3–7. For the Bhāgavatapurāṇa,
the rst nine topics clarify or isolate (viśuddhi) the meaning of the tenth. Thus, the early 18th-
century commentary of Viśvanātha Cakravartin, the Sārārthadarśanī, argues that these are
essential verses because they demonstrate that among sundry topics, Lord Kṛṣṇa is the true goal
of the other topics (Edelmann, 2013, 444). It is a matter of some controversy as to whether these
ten topics are distributed among the 12 books of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa. Vopadeva and Vallabha
both argue that the rst two books are introductory, and each of the ten topics is dealt with,
respectively, in books 3–12 (Shastri, 1996, xliii). Bhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 Jīva Gosvāmin — Brill is aware of these views but says
that the topics are mixed throughout the books, claiming this was Śrīdharasvāmin’s view too
(Dasa, 2015, 415).
Dhīmahi, Meditation on the Supreme Truth
The rst verse of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa inspired copious commentary, each partaking in the
richness and density of the language, sometimes providing multiple and divergent
interpretations. One might read this verse as an invitation to meditate on a God whose qualities
are succulently described here and expanded through the 12 books:
From whom this world is generated [and by whom it is sustained and destroyed],
who is known through a rmative and negative statements,
who is aware, who exists by his own inherent power,
who gave knowledge of Brahman or the Veda into the heart of the rst poet,
about whom the gods are mysti ed,
in whom the threefold emanation – consisting in the interplay of earth, water, and
re – is not false,
and by whose own inherent power illusion is forever cast away.
Let us meditate on that supreme truth! (BhāgP. 1.1.1)
This verse in the śārdūlavikrīḍita (“tiger’s play”) meter (19 syllables per quarter, 76 in total) is
often taken as speaking to themes in vedic and vedantic thought. The word dhīmahi, “meditate,”
a vedic formulation, is seen as a commentary on the famous Gāyatrī hymn for Savitar from the
Ṛgveda (3.62.10; Müller, 1965, 257). In his Padaratnāvalī, Vijayadhvaja draws a parallel between
the phrase “the one who gave knowledge of Brahman or the Veda into the heart of the rst sage”
in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa and the phrase “who will rouse forth our insights” in the Gāyatrī
(Tagare, 1976, 3). The words “from whom this world is generated” are the same in Vedāntasūtra
1.1.2, leading many to draw parallels between the Bhāgavatapurāṇa and the upaniṣads. The word
“(not) false” (amṛṣā) is signi cant. The orality of the text allows for amṛṣā to mean not only “not
false” but also “false” (mṛṣā), as noted by Śrīdharasvāmin; the ambiguity speaks to fundamental
issues in nondualistic verses dualistic understandings of god and the world in the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa.
Bhakti and Dharma
The relationship between bhakti (devotion) and dharma (social, familial, civic, religious, etc.
duty) is a central and complex theme running throughout the Bhāgavatapurāṇa; the following
verse argues that the highest dharma is one that generates bhakti:
3/26/2019 That indeed is the highest dharma for people from which
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill there is bhakti to Adhokṣaja
[i.e. Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa].

The self is completely satis ed by this bhakti that is uninterrupted and without
motive for a material result. (BhāgP. 1.2.6)
This verse establishes a contrast between the highest dharma, which is the cause of or perhaps
coterminous with bhakti, and it implies a lower dharma. Verse 1.1.2 says that the highest dharma
rejects “cheating” dharmas, and verse 6.3.22 says that the highest dharma is bhakti through
accepting Viṣṇu's name. What are cheating dharmas? For Śrīdharasvāmin, they are those that
are set on a result (phala), like those discussed in the vedic ritual traditions (karmakāṇḍa, which
teaches how to attain svarga, heaven) and in the knowledge traditions (jñānakāṇḍa, which
teaches how to attain mokṣa, liberation). He says the highest dharma, by contrast, is simply
adoring (ārādhana) the lord. The contrast can be seen in the rāsalīlā (discussed above): the gopīs
rejected their lower vedic dharmas (e.g. serving their families) in order to dance with Kṛṣṇa, a
higher dharma. Verse 1.2.8 states that if the enactment of (vedic) dharma does not produce
bhakti, it is a waste of time, thus the usefulness of vedic dharma is to facilitate and create bhakti,
but vedic dharma should never stand in the way of bhakti. Does the verse mean, then, that the
practices of bhakti are in opposition to the rituals and duties of vedic tradition, or that they
should work together to generate bhakti? Kṛṣṇadeva (a Vaiṣṇava theologian, late 18th-cent.
Jaipur) attempted to demonstrate the necessity of bhakti and dharma to “hold the world
together” (lokasaṃgraha), but this was in opposition to earlier Vaiṣṇavas who seemed to
separate them (Horstmann, 2009; Okita, 2014, 34).
Fellowship of the Good (Saṅga), Story (Kathā), and Divine Play (Līlā)
Viṣṇupurī says in his Kāntimālā that this verse describes the cause of bhakti:
[Kapila or Viṣṇu said:] From the fellowship of saints or devotees, stories about me
(kathā), which are an alchemical elixir for heart and ear, give an experience of the
greatness of me.
By attending to them while on the path to liberation, one will quickly and in sequence
attain conviction, attachment, and bhakti. (KM. 3.25.25)
Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theologians also argue that fellowship with devotees, not ritual action (karma)
or nondual knowledge (jñāna), is the cause of bhakti
(Edelmann, 2015). Throughout the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, many stories illustrate the transformative
e fect of meeting a devotee; Nārada, for example, met devotees in a previous life, to which he
attributed his own devotion (1.5.23–40). The stories (kathās) referred to in this verse are of
Kṛṣṇa’s divine play (līlā). For the Bhāgavatapurāṇa,
3/26/2019 Kṛṣṇa’s
Bhāgavatapurāṇa divine play is beyond the
— Brill
comprehension of people; it is god’s divine play in his spiritual illusive power (yogamāyā; 10.14.21
and below). Viṣṇupurī, then, sees hearing these stories among devotees as the cause of bhakti.
The Nine Practices of Bhakti
The cornerstones of bhakti practices are:
Hearing, reciting, remembering, serving the feet,

worshiping, praising, attending, befriending, and o fering one’s self to Viṣṇu.
These are the nine types of bhakti for Viṣṇu that one can o fer. (BhāgP. 7.5.23-24)
These modes of relating to Viṣṇu are demonstrated by stories of exemplar devotees throughout
the Bhāgavatapurāṇa; an explanation of them occupies most of Viṣṇupurī’s Bhaktiratnāvalī. The
structure and terminology resemble a tradition of bhakti for Śiva found in the 8th-century
Śivadharmottara (Schwartz, 2012), although both may re ect older practices of focused attention
on the ātman discussed in the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad (4.5.6), “it is the ātman that one should
see, hear, re ect on, and concentrate on.”
Māyā and Yogamāyā
“Māyā” is widely known as a metaphysical power that creates the world. It is also associated with
an ability to cause psychological illusion or ignorance. In the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, māyā is said to
depend on god (1.7.4). It can make false appearances, and it is not present in the true self
(2.9.33). Although māyā is generally seen as negative and to be avoided, yogamāyā (often implied
by the word māyā) is something that even the greatest sages seek to experience (10.69.19).
Yogamāyā is an essential power (śakti) in god himself, one in which even he takes refuge:
Having seen those autumnal nights lled with full-blown jasmine owers,
even god [i.e. Kṛṣṇa] turned his mind to enjoying love, taking full refuge in yogamāyā.
(BhāgP. 10.29.1)
God takes “full refuge” (upāśrita, although this word is not in some editions) in yogamāyā for
divine play; he is nevertheless, paradoxically, completely independent, and māyā depends on
him (3.7.9). Yogamāyā indicates a power with the agency to create eternal paradisiacal worlds
(10.28.6) for the divine enjoyment and play of god and his devotees. It reveals or conceals aspects
of god’s personality and being to the souls to facilitate divine play when he is on earth or in his
spiritual world (10.45.10).
Spiritual World and Spiritual Bodies

There are but a few descriptions of an eternal world,
3/26/2019 called
Bhāgavatapurāṇa Vaikuṇṭha, wherein the devotee and
— Brill
Viṣṇu dwell (Bryant, 2003, xxxviif.), but one of the most vivid is the following:
Those persons who live therein all have Vaikuṇṭha bodies.

They, with a motive that is without a cause, [act] according to dharma adoring Hari.
Therein the residents, in airplanes with their wives, sing about the activities
– which can destroy impurities – of the lord. (BhāgP. 3.15.15)
This and other descriptions of a spiritual world bring questions of how it might be obtained; the
orthodox (Haberman, 1988, 86) and tantric (Hayes, 2014, 689) followers of Caitanya developed
di ferent meditative techniques for making a pure, spiritual body mentioned in verse 1.6.29
(Holdrege, 2015).
Reception: Poems, Anthologies, Commentaries, Books, and Fine Arts
The authors discussed below often go beyond the original text. Poetic and dramatic renditions
nd new meanings and create new characters, anthologies prescribe a tacit theology by verse
selection, commentaries and books use exegetical techniques to network the Bhāgavatapurāṇa
into theologies generated from a larger corpus of authoritative text, and arts imaginatively
relocate the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in new aesthetic contexts. Below is a periodization of the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa's reception in intellectual and art history.
Nascent Exegesis: 1260–1500
The earliest extant documents about the Bhāgavatapurāṇa are from the mid-13th century.
Hemādri, known for his Caturvargacintāmaṇi, was a minister (1260–1309) in Maharashtra, and
Vopadeva is considered his protégée and junior contemporary, known for his Sanskrit grammar
Mugdhabodha. Both scholars seem to have been involved in the composition of the
Bhāgavatamuktāphala (c. 1294) and its commentary called Kaivalyadīpikā (A Lamp for
Liberation; Bhattacharyya, 1944). They refer to an older commentary called Paramahaṃsapriyā,
but I am not aware of its location. A commentary called the Bhāgavatavyākhyā by the respected
nondualist Citsukha (c. 1220) would predate Hemādri; it is referred to as late as the late 19th
century by Vaṃśīdhara Śarma (Shastri, 1965, 7-8), but I have not been able to nd it. In the
Bhāgavatamuktāphala and Kaivalyadīpikā they accomplish at least two tasks. They interpret the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa with Bharata’s (c. 300) rasa theory in the Nāṭyaśāstra, arguing that there are
nine types of devotees corresponding to the nine types of rasa: comic, erotic, tragic, violent,
fearful, macabre, fantastic, heroic, and peaceful (the latter is their addition to Bharata’s eight;
Mishra, 1967, 75; Pollock, 2016, 285). They also carefully interpret the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s
language using key terms in the state-of-the-art nondualistic discourse. For Vopadeva, Kṛṣṇa is a
re ection of pure materiality: an unformed and pure consciousness that is divided by pure
materiality, and he reads Bhāgavatapurāṇa 2.9.32
3/26/2019 as saying
Bhāgavatapurāṇa that the world of māyā is the result of
— Brill
superimposition over pure being (Bhattacharyya, 1944, 6). Vopadeva also composed the
Harilīlāmṛta (Nectar of the Play of God), in which he summarized the essential points of each
book in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa and upon which Madhusūdhana Saravasvatī commented
(Upadhyaya, 1933).
Madhva (1238–1317), the South Indian Vaiṣṇava dualist theologian, composed a commentary
called the Bhāgavatatātparyanirṇaya (Analysis of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s Intent) on
approximately 1,600 verses to undermine nondualistic understanding of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa.
Many say that the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was responsible for his conversion from nondualistic to
dualistic metaphysics. His commentary is primarily quotations from about 195 other purāṇas,
Pāñcarātra saṃhitās, and other scriptures (Sharma, 2000, 129–131), although many of them are
untraceable (Mesquita, 2008). He also quoted the Bhāgavatapurāṇa throughout his other
theological writings. However, the Padaratnāvalī of Vijayadhvaja (c. 1410–1450) is “the earliest,
complete and standard commentary of the Dvaita school on the Bhāgavata” (Sharma, 2000, 457).
Śrīdharasvāmin’s Bhāvārthadīpikā (c. 1400) is the rst complete commentary (he does refer to a
commentary by Viṣṇusvāmin on 1.7.6, but it is lost) and it is one of the most widely studied and
reprinted. It includes glosses, quotations from other sources, and his own interpretations, but it
does not stray far into exegetical excursions. While generally writing from a nondualistic
perspective, in many places he does not o fer a nondualistic interpretations, even when this
would have been possible (Sharma, 2000, 128–129; Okita, 2014, 66). His commentary inspired
Viṣṇupurī’s Bhaktiratnāvalī (The Necklace of Devotional Gems) in 13 chapters about the lord and
devotion and includes in addition his own commentary called the Kāntimālā (A Beautiful String
of Meditation Beads; Basu, 1912), it was a stimulus for Jīva Gosvāmin’s writings, and Vaṃśīdhara
wrote an extended elaboration on it in the late 19th century, one that is rich with theological
analysis.
In this period, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was translated, even “remade,” into various vernacular
contexts. In Andhra, Bammera Pōtana’s (15th cent.) Mahābhāgavatamu in the Telugu language
reenvisioned the original Bhāgavatapurāṇa in a more stylistically sensual manner, and he elided
what might be seen as the nondualistic features of the original (Shulman, 1993). In Assam,
Saṅkaradeva (c. 1449–1568) composed works based on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (e.g. Kīrtanaghoṣa
and Pārijātaharaṇanāṭa), as did his student Mādhavadeva (1489–1596); their e forts pushed the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa and bhakti into prominence, and Saṅkaradeva’s translations of it into
Assamese made it known on a popular level (Neog, 1965).
Mature Exegesis: 1500–1800
In this period, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa received full-length
3/26/2019 Bhāgavatapurāṇa commentaries
— Brill and book-length
treatments demonstrating a heightened degree of exegetical complexity from a wider range of
theological and philosophical perspectives. In and through his extensive writings on the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Vallabha (1478–1530), who lived most of his life in Benares and outside
Allahabad, developed a devotional doctrine called śuddhādvaita, pure nondualism, in which
Kṛṣṇa is considered nondi ferent from the world and the souls. To know his own being, Kṛṣṇa
uses his powers (śaktis) to di ferentiate himself into individual ego centers, who in turn forget
their identity as Kṛṣṇa, but some can and will rediscover their divine nature. His learned
commentary called Subodhinī, as well as subcommentaries like Puruṣottama’s Subodhinīprakāśa,
form the basis for a global tradition, one that is especially prominent in Gujarat but has many
prominent members in the United States and Europe.
While Caitanya wrote little, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa and other texts inspired him; he inspired
orthodox Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas as well as tantric-leaning Sahajiyās to write many learned exegetical
works on it. Orthodox theologians like Sanātana Gosvāmin, Rūpa Gosvāmin, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, and
Jīva Gosvāmin made the Bhāgavatapurāṇa the foundational authority for constructing their
ritual worship, contemplative and meditative practices, theopoetics, metaphysics, and
epistemology. Rūpa Gosvāmin’s (d. 1568) Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (Ocean of the Ambrosia of
Devotional Rasa), completed in 1541, and detailed with the commentaries of his successors, like
Jīva Gosvāmin and Viśvanātha Cakravartin, examines the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in light of poetic
categories from earlier theoreticians like Abhinavagupta and Bhoja to explicate the nature of
bhakti for Kṛṣṇa. Jīva Gosvāmin (c. 1517–1608) is most well known for his Sandarbhas, six essays
or arrangements that systematically examine the nature of god, the soul, and bhakti in relation
to other yogas in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, and therein he developed the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school’s
central doctrine, acintyabhedābheda, the “paradoxical nondi ference and di ference” of Kṛṣṇa
with his powers (the world and the souls). In the early 18th century Viśvanātha Cakravartin
wrote a complete commentary called the Sārārthadarśinī from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava perspective
(Edelmann, 2013). Today, Caitanya’s heritage is known throughout the world as the highly visible,
even amboyant, International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) or Hare Krishna
Movement.
Madhusādana Sarasvatī ( l. 1570) is famous for his Advaitasiddhi, an articulation of nondualism,

yet he also argued that bhakti is a viable path, one with its own integrity; bhakti is the goal itself
and not a means to a nondual state. It was this view that he defended in his Bhaktirasāyana
(Medicine of Devotion or Path of the Rasa That Is Devotion) through a sophisticated analysis of
the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (Nelson, 1986; Upadhyaya, 1933).
In addition to learned Sanskrit texts, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was also fundamental to vernacular
poetic and song traditions. Narasiṃha Mehtā of Gujarat (c. 1414–1480) engaged it as a powerful
transregional source for his poetry and song (Shukla-Bhatt, 2015, 12). It was instrumental in the
work of Sūrdās ( l. 1540–1560), considered blind and claimed by Vallabha’s tradition by the mid-
17th century. While there is a sense that SūrdāsBhāgavatapurāṇa
3/26/2019 is a translator— Brill of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s Sanskrit
into the more accessible vernacular of Brajbhasha (a language that he helped to make an
instrument of great poetry), one can also see him as innovating new meanings, inviting the
reader into the a fective realm of an intimate devotion (Bryant, 1978, 3–10).
Harirām Vyās (c. 1510–1618) translated the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s ve chapters on the rāsalīlā
(Rāspañcādhyāyī 10.29–33) into Brajbhasha, but in doing so constructed a new theology. By
removing references to the separation between Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs and by making Rādhā
prominent (who is not explicitly mentioned in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa itself), he downplayed the
majesty of Kṛṣṇa in favor of his sweetness, all without the pretensions of the Sanskrit kāvya
traditions (Pauwels, 1996). Paramānanda (16th cent.), a member of the aṣṭachāp, “the eight
seals,” who are considered successors of Vallabha, but whose poetry is recited throughout the
Mathura region, composed poetry inspired by the Bhāgavatapurāṇa to invite the hearer into the
mythological world of Kṛṣṇa by constructing poetic verses that chart the days and seasons of
Kṛṣṇa’s life with his devotees (Sanford, 2008).
Yet it was not just Brajbhasha and Hindi into which the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was translated. Eknāth
(c. 1548–1599), a powerful restorative voice in his time, translated and commented on book 11 in
the Marathi language with his Eknāthībhāgavat. Sometime in the 1650s, Tāṇḍava Śāstrin in South
India composed the Bhāgavatasāra, a summary of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, in the Tamil language
(Raghavan, 1990).
In the early 17th to early 18th centuries, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa served as a theological and
mythological backdrop for Nābhādāsa’s Bhaktamāla (c. 1600) with Priyādāsa’s Bhaktirasabodhinī
commentary, both composed in learned Hindi enriched by the Sanskrit poetic and religious
literature. The authors attempted to demonstrate the central doctrines of bhakti and described
the lives and teachings of great Vaiṣṇava predecessors from Rāmānuja to their own
contemporaries. For them, the Bhāgavatapurāṇa was the best of purāṇas and provided a
metanarrative, a bigger story in which their story was told (Hare, 2011, 52).
Proliferating and Globalizing: 1800–present
There were important contributions to scholarship on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in Sanskrit, Indian

vernaculars, and European languages. Between 1840 and 1898, the Indologist E. Burnouf,
mentioned above, published a French translation of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in ve volumes. While
there were many other translations in the 20th century, three are noteworthy. The most widely
used in scholarly contexts is C.L. Goswami’s (1971), which includes the original Sanskrit and
popular Indian poster artwork. The most scholarly and complete translation is G.V. Tagare’s
(1976), which includes occasional footnotes from a wide range of the Sanskrit commentators.
Bhaktivedanta Swami’s (1972) edition helpfully includes the Sanskrit, word-for-word English
translation, English translation, and his own English commentary; it forms the basis of ISKCON’s
religious views and is integral to its liturgical practices;
3/26/2019 it —isBrill
Bhāgavatapurāṇa translated into over 20 languages by
followers of Bhaktivedanta Svami, and it inspired many of the leading scholars of the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa in academia today. For example, students of Bhaktivedanta Swami, R. Gupta
and K. Valpey, produced an abridged translation and explanation (2016) with an accompanying
volume of scholarly essays on select Bhāgavatapurāṇa themes (2013), and S. Schweig (2005)
produced a poetic rending of the rāsalīlā. Bhaktivedanta Svami’s teacher, Bhaktisiddhānta (1877–
1937), had composed the Gauḍīyabhāṣya, a Sanskrit commentary and word gloss on the
Bhāgavatapurāṇa in 1923 (Sardella, 2013, 98), one that was informed by Viśvanātha Cakravartin’s
and Madhva’s commentaries. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa continues to be used in novel ways. In the
late 20th century, Haridas Shastri composed the Vedāntadarśana; it matches Bhāgavatapurāṇa
verses to the aphorisms of the Vedāntasūtra and includes a Hindi commentary that re ects his
decades of study of the early Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theologians. Haridas Shastri’s disciple
Satyanarayana Dasa continues his school of deep learning with scholarly translations of Jīva
Gosvāmin’s theology of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa with his own English commentaries (Dasa, 2005;
2014; 2015). Vallabha’s learned commentary on book 10, the Subodhinī, has been translated by T.
Ramanan (2003) under the inspiration of S.S. Mahohara, a great scholar of Vallabha’s theology.
The Vaiṣṇava and Advaita traditions have more broadly become sources for the emerging
discipline of comparative Hindu-Christian theology (Clooney 2013, 1993). Today, it is not
uncommon to see advertisements on social media and large posters throughout North India for
Bhāgavatasaptāha, weeklong dramatic oral and musical performances that often bring
audiences to tears of joy to the speakers and listeners; this kind of spiritual tourism is also
starting to nd a foothold in Europe (McComas, 2016).
Jonathan Edelmann
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Edelmann, Jonathan, “Bhāgavatapurāṇa”, in: Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online, Edited by: Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar,
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3/26/2019 Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Brill

Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online

When Vopadeva, a respected Sanskrit grammarian,

Brief Summary of the 12 Books

This axiological approach is seen in Vallabha’s theology. Scripture, he said, is a self-validating

The theological purpose of cosmology, then, centers on generating a greater awareness of

Book 10 is a primary reason for the Bhāgavatapurāṇa’s transnational popularity. It features

The rāsalīlā has ve acts in the ve chapters (Schweig, 2005):

I bow down to the supreme, known as Hari [i.e. Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa].

Central Concepts and Exemplifying Verses

Bhāgavata and Bhagavat

He is victorious, the refuge of the people, said to be born from Devakī.

This translation re ects the interpretation of Vijayadhvaja’s 15th-century Padaratnāvalī in the

Dhīmahi, Meditation on the Supreme Truth

Bhakti and Dharma

[i.e. Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa].

The Nine Practices of Bhakti

The cornerstones of bhakti practices are:

Hearing, reciting, remembering, serving the feet,

Māyā and Yogamāyā

Spiritual World and Spiritual Bodies

Those persons who live therein all have Vaikuṇṭha bodies.

Reception: Poems, Anthologies, Commentaries, Books, and Fine Arts

Nascent Exegesis: 1260–1500

Mature Exegesis: 1500–1800

Madhusādana Sarasvatī ( l. 1570) is famous for his Advaitasiddhi, an articulation of nondualism,

Proliferating and Globalizing: 1800–present

There were important contributions to scholarship on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in Sanskrit, Indian

Bhattacharya, D., & W. Archer, Love Songs of Vidyāpati, London, 1963.

Bhattacharya, S., The Philosophy of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata, vol. I, Santiniketan, 1960.

JVS 11/1, 2002, 51–80.

Hawley, J., “Introduction,” JVS 11/1, 2002, 1–14.

Bhakti, London, 2015.

Joshi, K, Matsya Mahāpurāṇa: An Exhaustive Introduction, Sanskrit Text, English Translation,

Krishna, D., Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective, Delhi, 1991.

Rocher, L., The Purāṇas, Wiesbaden, 1986.

Sachau, E., Alberuni’s India, New York, 1971.

Sardella, F., Modern Hindu Personalism, Oxford, 2012.

Shastree, K., The Bhāgavata, vol. IV/3: Epilogue, Ahmedabad, 2002.

Schweig, G., Dance of Divine Love, Princeton, 2005.

Shulman, D., “Remaking a Purāṇa: The Rescue of Gajendra in Potana’s Telugu

Cite this page

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