Purāṇa / The eighteen / Bhāgavata Purāṇa

Bhāgavata Purāṇa (भागवतपुराण)

About 18,000 verses in the traditional lists. Sattva in the Padma Purāṇa's sorting. Neither figure is this shelf's own measurement.

About eighteen thousand verses in the lists, sattva in the Padma sorting, and the purāṇa this shelf has actually opened. Twelve skandhas. The map is the Bhāgavata hub. Two summits inside it are sat in full. The Catuḥślokī, the four seed verses Brahmā hears, recited here as evāgre and not as the variant eko 'gre. The Uddhava Gītā, and inside it the twenty-four teachers, sat as Bhāgavata 11.7.33–35. This profile does not sit them again.

The stories a reader means by the Bhāgavata are a life and the lives around it. Dhruva. Prahlāda. The churning, told at length in the eighth skandha, with the poison, the tortoise, Lakṣmī, and the nectar. Gajendra, the elephant seized by a crocodile in a lake on Mount Trikūṭa, who has nothing left to offer but a cry and a lotus. Kṛṣṇa's childhood, the butter, the cart, the flute, Mathurā, and the leaving. The rāsa is the dance with the gopīs. The commentaries argue what the dance is. This page does not retell it as a romance and does not linger on bodies. It records that the book places a dance at the center of a theology of bhakti, and that the theology is the point. The tenth skandha is the life. The eleventh is the leaving, spoken to Uddhava. The twelfth is the future ages and the close.

The teaching is that the knowledge of the seed verses becomes a life, and the life is devotion. Jñāna that cannot become bhakti is, for this book, unfinished. Bhakti that cannot say the four verses is, for this book, unrooted. Śuka tells it to Parīkṣit, who has been cursed to die of Takṣaka's bite in seven days. The Mahābhārata's last heir is this purāṇa's listener. The two pillars meet in one condemned king.

What it tells

Dhruva; Prahlāda; the churning; Gajendra; Kṛṣṇa's childhood and the rāsa; Uddhava on the last day.

The teaching

The four seeds are the knowledge. A life of devotion is what the knowledge is for. The listener has seven days, which is the book's way of saying the teaching is not for later.

What a reader keeps

• About eighteen thousand, as a list-number.
• Sattva in the Padma list.
• The sat lines live on the Catuḥślokī page and the Uddhava page, not here.

A line

A line people recite from this book is not sat here. The shelf does not print a verse it has not checked.

नेपालीमा

सूचीले करिब अठार हजार श्लोक र सात्त्विक गुण भन्छ। बाह्र स्कन्धको नक्सा भागवतको मूल पृष्ठ हो। चतुःश्लोकी र चौबीस गुरुका श्लोक त्यहीँ प्रस्तुत गरिएका छन्। यो पृष्ठले दोहोर्‍याउँदैन। कथाहरूमा ध्रुव, प्रह्लाद, मन्थन, गजेन्द्र, बालकृष्ण र रास छन्। त्रिकूट पर्वतको तालमा गोहीले गजेन्द्रलाई समात्छ। रास गोपिनीसँगको नृत्य हो। टीकाले के हो भनी विवाद गर्छन्। यो पृष्ठले प्रेम-कथा बनाउँदैन, शरीरमा अल्झँदैन। शुकले परीक्षितलाई सुनाउँछन्। परीक्षितलाई सात दिनमा तक्षकको डसाइले मर्ने श्राप लागेको छ। महाभारतको अन्तिम उत्तराधिकारी यो पुराणको श्रोता हो।

Where it sits

Start at the hub, then the four seeds and Uddhava.