Procured Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana) book (in English) by Kamala Subramaniam; Srimad Bhagavatam online links
Last updated on 4th Jan. 2023
I recently bought "Srimad Bhagavatam Hardcover – 1 January 1988" by Kamala Subramaniam, https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/8172764979/ , first published in 1979, getting delivery of it today. Note that Srimad Bhagavatam is also known as Bhagavat Purana and is an important Hindu scriptural text. It is different from Bhagavad Gita which is a part of Mahabharata, another important Hindu scriptural text.
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I got delivery of the book today and plan to start reading it in the near future. The book is close to 800 pages and quite thick as can be seen in one of the attached pics. The text size is quite big and so easy to read.
For those readers who do not know much about Srimad Bhagavatam/Bhagavat Purana, here is some info. from its wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavata_Purana :
The Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit: भागवतपुराण; IAST: Bhāgavata Purāṇa), also known as the Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana or simply Bhagavata, is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (Mahapuranas).[1][2] Composed in Sanskrit by Veda Vyasa.[3] It promotes bhakti (devotion) towards Krishna,[4][5][6] integrating themes from the Advaita (monism) philosophy of Adi Shankara, the Vishishtadvaita (qualified monism) of Ramanujacharya and the Dvaita (dualism) of Madhvacharya.[5][7][8][9] It is widely available in almost all Indian languages.
The Bhagavata Purana, like other puranas, discusses a wide range of topics including cosmology, astronomy, genealogy, geography, legend, music, dance, yoga and culture.[5][10] As it begins, the forces of evil have won a war between the benevolent devas (deities) and evil asuras (demons) and now rule the universe. Truth re-emerges as Krishna, (called "Hari" and "Vāsudeva" in the text) – first makes peace with the demons, understands them and then creatively defeats them, bringing back hope, justice, freedom and happiness – a cyclic theme that appears in many legends.[11]
The Bhagavata Purana is a revered text in Vaishnavism, a Hindu tradition that reveres Vishnu.[12] The text presents a form of religion (dharma) that competes with that of the Vedas, wherein bhakti ultimately leads to self-knowledge, salvation (moksha) and bliss.[13] However the Bhagavata Purana asserts that the inner nature and outer form of Krishna is identical to the Vedas and that this is what rescues the world from the forces of evil.[14] An oft-quoted verse (1.3.40) is used by some Krishna sects to assert that the text itself is Krishna in literary form.[15][16]
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The text consists of twelve books (skandhas) totalling 332 chapters (adhyayas) and 18,000 verses.[15][20] The tenth book, with about 4,000 verses, has been the most popular and widely studied.[3] It was the first Purana to be translated into a European language as a French translation of a Tamil version appeared in 1788 and introduced many Europeans to Hinduism and 18th-century Hindu culture during the colonial era.[6][21]
[References:]
1. Thompson, Richard L. (2007). The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana 'Mysteries of the Sacred Universe. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. p. 10. ISBN 978-81-208-1919-1.
2. Dominic Goodall (1996), Hindu Scriptures, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520207783, page xli
3. Bryant 2007, pp. 112
4. (Sheridan 1986, p. 53)
5. Kumar Das 2006, pp. 172–173
6. Bryant 2007, pp. 111–113
7. Brown 1983, pp. 553–557
8. Sheridan 1986, pp. 1–2, 17–25
9. Katz 2000, pp. 184–185.
10. Rocher 1986, pp. 138–151
11. Ravi Gupta and Kenneth Valpey (2013), The Bhagavata Purana, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231149990, pages 3-19
12. Constance Jones and James Ryan (2007), Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Infobase, ISBN 978-0816054589, page 474
13. Kumar Das 2006, p. 174
14. Barbara Holdrege (2015), Bhakti and Embodiment, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415670708, page 114
15. Barbara Holdrege (2015), Bhakti and Embodiment, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415670708, pages 109-110
16. "ŚB 1.3.40". vedabase.io. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
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20. Richard Thompson (2007), The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana 'Mysteries of the Sacred Universe', Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120819191
21. Jean Filliozat (1968), Tamil Studies in French Indology, in Tamil Studies Abroad, Xavier S Thani Nayagam, pages 1-14
--- end wiki extracts ---
If I recall correctly, in my visits to ISKCON, Juhu, Mumbai centre/temple in the 1990s, I saw that its bookshop had large volumes of Bhagavat Purana/Srimad Bhagavatam translation to English and commentary by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada , the founder of ISKCON. So it seems to be a very important spiritual text for ISKCON.
Srimad Bhagavatam Text Links
Srimad Bhagavatam, Sanskrit only: https://sanskritdocuments.org/itrans/shrimadbhagavatam/
1) Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (Bhāgavata Purāṇa) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/ . It seems that these are the online version of the same books I recall having seen in the ISKCON Juhu bookshop mentioned above.
2) Seems to be another ISKCON free online version but I am not sure how these contents are different from above website: https://www.srimadbhagavatam.org/treasury/downloads.html . http://bhagavata.org/ seems to be a related site.
3) Bhagavata Purana Motilal English Parts 1 - 5 (seems to be a non-ISKCON version and may appeal to readers who want to read a different translation from above links), https://archive.org/details/BhagavataPuranaMotilalEnglish/mode/2up
13th to 20th Oct. 2022 Updates:
20th Oct. update: Later I saw that the translation is partial, or perhaps just the initial part. Skanda 1 - Adhyaya 2 translation itself is incomplete as the translation is only till verse 26, https://www.sanskrit-trikashaivism.com/en/srimad-bhagavata-purana-02/639 . I checked the next two Adhyayas - 3 and 4 - and saw that no verse is translated. Perhaps that's the case with other Adhyayas too but I did not check. This was disappointing to note. Let's hope they are able to do translation of other Adhyayas in near future. I moved this section to the bottom of the post. end 20th Oct. update
Interesting Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavat Purana) online version having Sanskrit and English translation by an Argentinian (born in Rosario, Argentina) whose name (now) is Gabriel Pradīpaka, and who is living in Moscow, as per About page of the website. I am fascinated to know about the scholarship of this Argentinian spiritual teacher and the contribution made by him and his collaborators to seekers by providing this Sanskrit and English translation of Srimad Bhagavatam, which is freely accessible on the Internet. I pray to Lord Vaasudeva (Lord Krishna) to shower His Grace on Gabriel Pradipaka and his collaborators for this wonderful contribution.
The first verse: https://www.sanskrit-trikashaivism.com/en/srimad-bhagavata-purana-01/637
Main page of Srimad Bhagavata Purana: https://www.sanskrit-trikashaivism.com/en/srimad-bhagavata-purana-introduction/636
About page: https://www.sanskrit-trikashaivism.com/en/about-us
end 13th to 20th Oct. 2022 Updates
[I thank Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extract(s) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
Given below are my comments (slightly edited) from my associated FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/pfbid02Y94c64KgAmghBRYKmUmZ6QhsVTbLb19KbFYJze1pTEMrRgJR9BpANJ7U18FVcshCl :
This book I bought is an English translation. You can read part of a page in one of the pics I put up.
The author (late) is well known for an easy to read English translation of Hindu epics/scripture.
The original scripture is in Sanskrit.
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Oh! I too cannot follow Sanskrit and so read English translations. I can catch a little bit of the Sanskrit but that's not good enough to properly understand scripture.
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Wow! Somehow I had missed seeing your above comment earlier. Perhaps I did not get the notification or I got it but missed following up on it.
Saw it today. Great to see pics of these books. You have these books with you, --- ?
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Wow again! 🙂. As a spiritual bookworm, I do have great respect for such books.
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