Srimad Bhagavatam Course. Session 2

Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Bhaktivedanta Institute · 2025

Chapters

Invocation and opening remarks

So okay, so today we will have second lecture in this lecture series, which is still introduction. The introduction will be long and elaborate. Today we will have anyway we will see what we will have today.

Let me chant Mangalacharana.

Namah Om Vishnu-padaya Krishna-presthaya bhu-tale srimate Bhaktivedanta Swami iti namine. Namaste Sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracharine nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine Vanchakalpatarubhyas ca krpasindhubhya eva ca patitanam pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Jan Madhya Syayatun Vayata Taratas Chartyaswarat Deni Brahmahidayadikawemukyantiyatsura, Vejovarim Ridam Yathini Mayoyatri Sargum Risha, Dhamnas Vina, Sadani Rastakuhakam, Satyam Paramimahi,

satyamparamimahi, satyam paramimahi, dharma poja projatakita votra paramonirmataram satam, vedyam vastava matravastu Sivadam Tapotrayam Mulanam, Sri Mad Bhagavatam Mahamunikritekim Bapara Rishwara, Sadhya Khridya Varudya Te

Trakriti Bish, Susrruusušu B vih sta kshanat, yanda pravisya mama vachamimamprasuptam sandjivayatekilishakti darakswadamnanyamschahastacharna, sravanatvagadi pranaminahubhavate purusayatudi So

welcome to the uh second lecture of Srimad Bhagavatam Contextual Studies. And I explained in the first lecture how important it is to keep the context to understand the meaning.

We cannot understand the meaning without context. And any attempts to take something out of the context will definitely repair the ground for failure in understanding the meaning.

So the specialty by Shishty of this particular study is that we will try to keep the context intact.

And as I explained last time, it will not be an overview of Shimad Bhagavatam, it will be underview of Shimad Bhagavatam.

Glorification of Srimad Bhagavatam

We will try to keep ourselves in a humble position because it's not possible for us to look over Shrimad Bhagavatam. At best, we can look under.

So, yeah, for the beginning, one verse from Krishna Lila Stau by Sanatna Gaswami.

I explained in the first lecture how Sanatna Gaswamy glorified Shrimad Bhagavatam and how he was He was praying that let Srimad Bhagavatam always accompany me, be uh with me and never leave me.

Madekabandha Mad Sangin, Madguru, Man Mahadhana, Mannistaraka Madhbhakya, Madanandana Mostute, Osimad Bhagavatam, you are my only friend, Madeka Bandha. I don't have any other Bandhu.

Madsangin, my uh constant companion, Madguru Guru, Madguru, my guru, my spiritual master, Man Mahadhana, my great treasure, Man Nistaraka, my savior, Mad Bhagya, my good fortune, Madananda, and my bliss.

Namaste, I offer my obeisances to you. So, today, what we will do, I will give a very short review of the previous lesson and add a few more points significant points to the discussion which we had last time.

Then I will describe or explain the title of the book according to Srila Jiva Goswami, his Bhagavad Sandharva, very beautiful explanation. And then we will delve into the commentarial

tradition of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, where I will explain the purpose of commentaries. I will also name and tell a little bit about the commentators of this book from different traditions, specifically about Sridhar Swami, who is the main commentator according to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Then I will very briefly explain what is the specialty of Gaudiya commentaries, which are numerous. And then I will also explain six types of the commentaries on Śrīmad- Bhāgavatam.

I don't think I will uh have time to touch the fourth uh point of this discussion, so most probably we will uh only uh do uh mostly commentarial tradition today.

And the purpose of explaining quite elaborately, sometimes it may sound a little too technical for some readers or for some listeners, uh, but actually the purpose of this is to appreciate better what Srila Prabhupada did.

The amazing feat which Srila Prabhupada did.

And uh I will explain at the very end on one example how Srila Sridarswami explained one word from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and how the his commentary works and then I will give the same explanation explanation of the same uh word from Viśvanātha Chakravarthi and then from Sri Prabhupada and we will really have fun appreciating uh how Srila Prabhupada followed the tradition, but expanded on the existing tradition and elaborated on it.

So that's the plan for today. Mostly we will dwell on different commentaries.

Recitation of Bhagavatam for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

And as I said in the beginning, Sri Mahāprabhu was very fond of listening, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Here, in this beautiful picture, we see him together with Lord

Nityānanda listening how Gadādhara Paṇḍit recites Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the Toṭā-gopināth Garden and how Mahārāja Pratāparudra is doing daṇḍavat Pranam to this holy assembly.

And I wanted to tell first little story from Chaitanya Bhagavata with commentary of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura commenting on Caitanya Mahāprabhu visiting Varahagunj,

where Bhagavata Acharya was residing, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is explaining

that Bhagavata Acharya, one of the associates of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, was Śrīrādhikā-sakhī, Śyāma Mañjarī, and she appeared in Gaura Gaurāṅga's pastimes as Bhagavata Acharya.

And he says that in the pastimes of Sri Krishna, Śyāma Mañjarī sings songs about Krishna, songs about the pastimes of Syam. Therefore, she is called Śyāma Mañjarī for Śrī Rādhā and Krishna.

So that's her service: to sing about Krishna to Rādhārāṇī and sometimes to both of them. So, Śrī Bhagavata Acharya in the pastimes of Sri Gaura performed the same service by reciting Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam for Śrī Gaurāṅga.

And Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that Śrī Rādhā personally gave this service to him in Śrī Krishna's pastimes. And in the pastimes of Sri Gaura, Gadādhara Paṇḍita Gosvāmī took him into his line, accepted him as his disciple.

So because Gadādhara Paṇḍita is Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī herself who manifested in Gaurāṅga's pastimes, she accepted Śyāma Mañjarī or Bhagavata Acharya as his disciple.

And what happened when Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu visited Varahanagar and visited the kuñja in Varahanagar where Bhagavata Acharya recited?

Then instead of offering him a seat, instead of washing his feet, instead of giving him some water to drink, which is the general custom of hospitality, Bhagavata Acharya immediately started reciting Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

And Caitanya Mahāprabhu was immensely pleased by this reception.

So, and this little story from Caitanya Bhāgavata again underscores the meaning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in Caitanya Mahāprabhu's life and for all his followers.

Authority of Puranas in revealing truth

He was pleased and he was ready to listen to all the stories of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam all the time, and that's his eternal pastime.

So in the first class I explained the logic of Srila Jiva Gosvami, how he lays the foundation for his exposition of Gaudiya Siddhanta and he says that to realize absolute truth, which is beyond all the things and which is inconceivable, in other words, the truth which cannot be known by pratyakṣa and anumāna, it's only possible through apauruṣeya-śabda, through revelation coming directly from the absolute truth.

You can only understand absolute truth by the mercy of absolute truth himself in the form of śabda or apauruṣeya-śabda, not just śabda, but apauruṣeya śabda. And therefore we should seek to understand the

truths with the help of Vedas, but Vedas have intrinsic problems in studying them and therefore to understand the meaning of the Vedas, we have study Purāṇas and Itihāsas. So that's in brief the logic of Jīva Gosvāmī.

And in Mahābhārata it is said, we explained this verse last time, that itihāsa-purāṇābhyāṁ vedam samupabṛṁhayet, that, uh, itihāsa and purāṇa, they, uh, brimhayed, that uh ittihasa and purana they uh make complete Vedas.

They complete the Vedas, they complement the Vedas, enhance, strengthen, expand the Vedas because they emphasize the personal feature of the Lord.

In the Vedas, the personal feature of the Lord is somewhat eclipsed, or somewhat it's not very clearly pronounced, but Itihāsas and Purāṇas, they emphasize that God is the person first and foremost.

And therefore, you cannot really understand the message of the Vedas without Puranas and Itihāsas. You will be misled by ramblings of the Vedas and by all the verses of Upaniṣads, which have clearly different purpose.

So therefore, that's one of the supports to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī's logic, that they have the same nature. And then he says that Purāṇas out of the two, out of Itihāsas and Purāṇas, Purāṇas are of greater importance.

The one who knows everything knows Vedas, Upaniṣads, Vedāṅgas, he is not considered a scholar if he doesn't know Purāṇas. Again, because Puranas give much more comprehensive understanding of the personal nature of God

Definition and relevance of Purana

even than Itihāsas now, very interesting etymology of the word Purāṇa, which is given by the first Nirukta book written by Yaska. Nirukta is the Vedic etymology and he

gives a very interesting explanation of what the word Purāṇa means. Purāpi navaṁ iti. It literally means that even though it is very old, it is still very new. Pura means old and navam means new. Purā na.

Purā means old and na means navaṁ, new. So basically what it means, there is a very interesting and important implication of this definition, dictionary definition of the word Purana.

It contains the stories which even though the stories of the very

old, ancient stories of the days of yore, they're still new in a sense that they are um they are mm what's the word um completely forget, uh, archetypical. They explain something about you and therefore they are ever fresh.

This is not just the stories which happen sometime, but this are specific stories which explain eternal truths and therefore they are always new, therefore they are always relevant and applicable to our situations.

So they describe certain archetypes using the terminology of Jung, who explained this elaborately that there are certain stories which are always relevant

because they explain something deeper about the psychology and the nature of human being. And that's what this definition of Purana implies Purāpi navam iti purāṇam, it's always new and therefore always relevant.

And also there is another explanation of the word Purana, why Purāṇas are so important according to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī. Pur also means not old, but not past, but it also means future.

And therefore, all the Puranas they convey stories not only about the past but also contain the predictions of the future.

And we know Śrīla Prabhupāda was very fond of explaining these predictions of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from the twelfth canto about Kali-yuga.

Srimad Bhagavatam as scriptural essence

And of course, we know that the prediction of Lord Caitanya's advent is there in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and so many other hidden predictions are there which require, of course, some explanations.

And to emphasize again, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam itself says that all the essence of Vedas and Itihāsas, sarva-vedetihāsānāṁ sāraṁ sāram samud-hṛtam, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the sāraṁ sāram, the cream, as Śrīla Prabhupāda would translate this, the cream of the cream, sāraṁ sāram, the essence of the essence, quintessence, samud-hṛtam, is contained in Śrīmad- Bhāgavatam.

So we will never miss the meaning of the Vedas if we study Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and just

to repeat a little bit that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—this is the famous quote from Garuda Purāṇa which Madhvācārya introduced into the Vedāntic discourse—that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam contains the meaning of Brahma- sūtra, arthāya brahma-sūtrānām,

Bhārata-artha-vinirṇayaḥ, it is describing elaborately the purport of Mahabharata, Gayatri Bhasya Rupa. So it is in the form of Gayatri Bhasya. It explains the Veda Mata, the seed of all the Vedas Gayatri Mantra.

We will touch this while explaining the meaning of the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Vidarthapari Brimhidam. Bhagavatam and Vidarthapari Brimhidam.

It is completing the meaning of the Vedas and it is samaveda among the Puranas. It's the best Purana of all the Puranas. And besides that, Sakshat Bhagavatod, it is directly spoken by Bhagavan himself.

It is his pronouncement, it is his own words, and therefore it's so immensely important. Okay, so let's go to the next point of our today's discussion: the explanation of the title of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī explains this in the context of commenting on the second verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam where it is said Srimad Bhagavatam Ahamun Nikrite Kim Vapara Ishvaraha.

So he says, why does it say Śrīmat- Bhāgavatam? Why not Bhagavatam simply? Why does it say Śrīmad Bhāgavatam?

And he explains that the proper title of this book, not Bhagavatam, not the book about Bhagavan, which would literally mean, if we translate literally, Bhagavatam means something connected with Bhagavan or derived from Bhagavan.

But Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the complete title and he explains that the word Sri Mat, it is derived from the word Sri, which means opulence or beauty or yeah, spiritual energy actually.

And the suffix matup, which the suffix implies possessiveness.

So Śrīmad basically means that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, why it is called Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, it is because intrinsically in the Bhāgavatam, Śrī is invested. The spiritual energy, the opulence, the beauty of the spiritual world is intrinsic to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

It's not extrinsic to it, it's always there, therefore this word Śrīmat-Bhāgavatam it's always exists there, and basically means that there is eternal union with or inclusion of the quality to which it is affects. So basically it means that yeah, this I this point I will explain a little later.

It basically means that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, as much as the holy name has the vastu shakti or intrinsic potency to reveal Bhagavan in all his beauty and opulence.

This potency is invested into the words of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. It doesn't require anything else. Just by reciting the verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, even without understanding the meaning of these verses, we can

understand something about Bhagavan as much as just by chanting the holy name, we can have revelation or connection with Bhagawan even if we don't believe in the Holy Name.

Just reciting the Holy Name has the potency because this potency is invested in it, and that's what Śrīmat means. It's always there. The potency is there. It's Vastu Shakti.

As much as the vastu-śakti of the fire is to burn. And whether you know about this vastu-śakti of the fire, or don't know about this vastu-śakti of the fire, the fire will burn you.

So it doesn't matter whether you know it or not. And he explains also a very interesting, subtle grammatical point of this.

He says that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the karmadhāraya-samāsa. It's a special composite or compound word in Sanskrit where all two parts are equal. They are on the same level of importance.

Śrīmat is not an explanation of. It's not an epithet, it's not an adjective of Bhāgavatam. It's like in blueberry. Blueberry, blue is not the description of berry. It's the same name, it's part of the name. Blueberry.

So it's always there. Blueberry is always blueberry. Blue is always with the berry and it describes accurately this particular berry. So in the same way, Śrīmat is an equal part of Bhāgavatam.

Underscoring this intrinsic potency of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to reveal Bhagavān whoever comes in contact with Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So that's the beautiful story.

And then he says, of course, sometimes Bhāgavatam is called just Bhāgavatam without Śrīmad. But he says whenever this happens in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam itself or in other Puranas, or sometimes we in our language, like for example in this course we call it contextual study of Bhagavatam, not Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

But he says whenever this usage is there it's implied like sometimes Bhīmasena can be called Bhīma. But when we call him Bhīma, everyone understands that he is Bhīmasena, we are talking about Bhīmasena.

In the same way, we are talking about Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, meaning that there is a very important feature of this book and very glorious feature.

Role and purpose of commentary traditions

So let's go to the main part of today's discussion. When I will talk about the commentarial tradition of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Again, I beg you for forgiveness for little technical nature of some parts of this discussion, but I will try to make it relevant.

So, as I said last time, the first Vedantic scholar who introduced Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam into the Vedantic discourse was Madhvacharya.

And somebody asked me the question uh whether this was the reason why Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu uh accepted initiation in Madhva's lines. Very well may be. Bhaktivinoda explains it differently.

He says that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was very grateful to Madhvacharya for his refutation of Mayavad philosophy and being very pleased with his refutation, he accepted the initiation in this line.

But definitely that's a great contribution of Madhvacharya by introducing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. For Ramanuja Charya Puranas were not so important, and therefore, he hardly quotes quotes any of the Puranas but

one verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam he does quote in his voluminous writings. But Madhvacharya and we will talk about him a little later.

He wrote short but very interesting commentary on Śrīmad Bhagavatam, the first and perhaps the most ancient one out of all the existing commentaries.

But since then, many, many different scholars wrote commentaries and independent works on the topics of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And let's dwell on the purpose of commentaries.

Of course, sometimes uneducated readers may think that commentaries are not necessary, but actually, there is a great purpose of writing commentaries, especially on such a complex book as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So basically, if we look at the purpose of the scriptures according to the exegesis of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, how he suggested to look at the shastras. That's actually a unique contribution of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He suggested to understand the meaning of the shastras through the triad of Sambandha Abhidhay and Prayojana.

So the purpose of the scriptures first is to help readers to see the reality as meaningful and coherent of a whole, sambandha.

It basically means that the scripture should become our interpretive... I think there is a mistake here. Lens, oh, it's not sense. It's the stupid program which always edits you without, without any need.

It should become interpretive lens for the events of our life. What happens when we look at the reality? And this is called māyā. When we look at the reality, we see the reality distorted due

to our own experience, due to our mood. You know, if we are depressed, we will see only bad things in this life. Certain things will be salient out of proportion.

And we will not see, sometimes we will not see really important things.

So sambandha gives you the proper context of your life to understand your life properly without these distortions which our wrong consciousness or wrong experience can invest in our understanding of life.

So the first is to see reality as a meaningful and coherent whole.

It's very important because when we look at the reality, the tendency is that to take something out of context and give to this something which we like inordinate importance, and forget about everything else, and in this way we are losing the wholeness of life and a coherent understanding, and in this way we don't understand what is the meaning of my life.

So that's the next point. If we understand the reality as a coherent meaningful whole, we can understand our own meaning.

What we are supposed to do, what is the meaning of our existence, what is the meaning of our life, and what we are supposed to do in this life.

So that's the next point of scripture, abhidheya, to explain the meaning of our life and what we're supposed to do in life, how we're supposed to interact with this reality.

And then by understanding our own meaning and interacting with reality properly, we can achieve prayojana. And the scriptures they help us to develop the desire to achieve this goal.

Because we have so many different goals and we try to chase these goals and then regret at the end after achieving these goals because the goals were not set properly.

So the scripture will help us to focus on a certain goal, to make the proper goal salient and important. So that's prayajana.

So that's the three meanings of the scriptures, how we should understand the scripture, and accordingly there are three meanings or three purposes, shall we say, of a commentary.

So the first purpose is to explain the scripture as a coherent whole with clear structure, not as a fragmented collection of ideas, messages and concepts.

Because we have this distorted vision, when we read the scripture, we will have a tendency to also fragment the understanding.

Like I remember when I first encountered Bhagavad-gītā, I started reading some scholarly commentaries on Bhagavad-gītā and I read some explanations of some German scholars.

And these German scholars, there were quite a few of them trying to explain Bhagavad-gītā, they were competing with each other in a sense of describing

different layers of Bhagavad-gītā which are completely independent on each other and which were written by different people according to them.

You know, this chapter was written by one guy, this chapter was written by somebody else, because for them there was no coherency in the book.

They couldn't understand that this is the coherent whole by looking through their understanding by trying to analyze it with their wrong logic.

So that's the first purpose of commentary to give uh the scripture to explain the scripture as the coherent whole as we know when we understand Bhagavad-gītā as coherent whole it's very easy to find or to understand each particular verse.

We know the flow of Bhagavad-gītā, we know how it progresses, we know that the first six chapters describe karma, the last six chapters jñāna, and the middle six chapters bhakti, and this whole thing is to explain the mm.

So that's the first purpose of commentary to keep the wholeness of the book, to keep it intact

and to give us this coherent understanding of the book and And save us from this wrong understanding that this is just disjointed ideas and concepts and messages.

And it's very easy, you know, we read the seventh chapter, the uh seventh uh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and there is this uh strange description of varṇāśrama, and we don't know how to fit it and where to fit it, and then we read the third

uh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the story of Devahuti and Kardama Muni where some Kama Sutra uh elements are there and we wonder what's going on, you know what what's the message.

So it's very important and that's the purpose of commentary. To explain the book as the whole. And then the second purpose is to make the essential message of the scriptures abundantly clear and relevant to the readers.

That's very important, this part. To make it relevant. And then when the message is relevant then we can apply it in our life.

We can really receive this message and act in according according to this message, in accordance with this message. And then this way help the readers to assimilate the message. So that's the second purpose.

To focus our understanding on the essential message. That's exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda was doing. We will talk about this a little later.

But he was keeping our focus on the essential message of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam through his purports. And especially he was endeavoring to make Śrīmad Bhāgavatam relevant.

The book which is written 5,000 years back in a completely different cultural environment for completely different people,

Śrīla Prabhupāda made it relevant and that's amazing achievement which he did and that's the second very important purpose of the commentary.

And then the last one is to make the goal of the scriptures salient and attractive to the readers. It's very important because it's a very high goal.

This goal may not seem to be achievable, may not seem to be even relevant to our lives, so the scripture has to make

it prominent and well and attractive to us, and that's the scripture itself and of course commentary has to emphasize the goal of the script.

So that's the three purposes. And for that there are things which the commentary does.

Functions of textual commentaries

I think I last I list here seven or eight, seven different functions of the commentary. So any commentary is an expression of human of the human need to understand, reflect upon, and contextualize a sacred text.

So there is a need. We want to understand the truth when we read it. We can be bewildered or overwhelmed by it.

Especially we can be overwhelmed by the volume of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. I think many people don't read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam at all because from the beginning they understand it's hopeless, you know, I've never read this big book in my life.

Especially now when people are used to, you know, when we used to watch clips on YouTube. If it's longer than two minutes it's too much strain on our brain. So but commentary helps us to understand.

So first commentary clarifies the ambiguities, and there are a lot of ambiguities in the scriptures.

It ensures a comprehensive reading, so it basically elucidates the scripture, ensures comprehensive reading of the principal meaning of and identify its implications and significance. So the commentators do it by anvaya.

Anvaya means the logical reading of the verses, not the poetic reading. They make it into logic, they explain the semantics of different words and usage of different Sanskrit words or some grammatical structure.

They explain the hermeneutics the meaning of the text through hermeneutical tools, etc. So basically it clarifies the meaning. That's first which commentary has to do.

Then it has to reveal the structure of the text as a coherent whole. As I said, that it's very important to keep the logical structure

of the whole scripture and for that the commentators of the work they give special stress to Sangati.

Sangati means contextualize basically the particular verse, particular adhyaya, the chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, particular Adhikarana, the topic of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, into the whole book. So there is Shastra Sangati.

How is this particular story connected with the whole Shastra? What is the meaning of this story in the context of the whole Shastra?

There is adhyāya saṅgati, uh how this particular element or point is connected with the topic of this adhyāya and so on so forth.

So there is at least eight or nine different Sangatis which are often mentioned in the commentary to explain the interconnections within the text to keep the text as a coherent whole.

Then it makes the text accessible to the broad range of readers, helping them to comprehend and appreciate nuances of the scriptures.

Removes, in other words, it removes linguistic, cultural, temporal, and disciplinary barriers.

Especially such a difficult scripture as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the commentary has to help us not linguistic, linguistic why it is linguistic anyway sorry for these spelling mistakes so it it helps us to understand the language.

Even those people who know Sanskrit, they definitely need commentaries because language of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is very difficult.

It helps us to understand the culture of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, culture of this time, and to remove the cultural barrier like some some of the ideas of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam may sound quite outdated.

So the Acharya explains why it is why it is written this way or not that way. And then the time-temporal and disciplinary barriers, there are different disciplines which are described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Sometimes Ayurveda, sometimes social science, sometimes poetry.

So, and we may not be familiar with all these different disciplines, and the commentary or commentator has the duty to explain this to unfamiliar readers and in this way to make it accessible to broader audience.

That's the third things which commentators do. Then, very important point why the commentary is so necessary, it preserves the revelations of the texts because it reveals

the depth of this revelation and significance of revelations. Sometimes we may just we may overlook some important things because we don't have the experience of the things.

You know, not many of us had personal darśana of Lord Vishnu and therefore we will not understand the significance of the descriptions of these personal darśanas described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So basically, it explains how the truth is revealing himself or how God is revealing Himself to different kinds of devotees. And it helps us to come in contact with this revelation.

We will actually experience this to a certain extent when we will study the samādhi of Vyāsadeva. Śrīla Vyāsadeva saw the whole Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in his samādhi, that was his revelation.

And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is describing what was revealed to him and helps us to participate in the same revelation in a sense.

At least just by memorizing the verses and be contact with the revelation described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and explained the significance of these revelations, which will be for sure overlooked.

So it also allows very important audience-specific exposition of the text. That's exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda did.

He explained the text for people who are completely new to the Vedic culture, who have nothing to do with Sanskrit, who have nothing to do with culture. Nothing to do. And still he managed to explain this.

So that's the glorious duty of a commentator to to have his audience in mind and to explain it in such a way that it will become comprehensible and understandable to his audience.

Then another function of the commentary it allows to elaborate, substantiate, and build upon existing frameworks and in this way to develop a coherent philosophy on the basis of the scripture.

Again, some spelling mistakes.

So it basically the commentator writes his commentary and then his disciple or disciple of his disciple uh comes to it rev re reads it and explains it further, building upon the concepts developed by the previous commentator.

And in this way, the coherent philosophy, very important, is being developed through the series of commentaries and sub-commentaries. This is how it works, this is why commentaries are so important.

Because the original text, the moola text of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is very brief.

Even though there are 18,000 verses, still, you know, sometimes we have pages and pages and pages of explanation, especially of Catuḥ-śloki of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. It's the longest purports. Why?

And they they're not if we take the original commentaries of Śrīdhara Svāmī they are very brief. Still much more elaborate than the original ślokas, but they are brief.

But then subsequent commentaries build upon his explanation and elaborate further, and in this way, the coherent philosophy is being developed.

So, and then it also gives an opportunity to consider and to counter the opposing views. Commentary is a very good opportunity

to expose the mistakes of our opponents who are mistaken by definition by being our opponents so so, but it explains their views and it it gives the grounds to explain where they can make mistakes.

And then last but not the least, it preserves the sacred text intact.

Because we know that sometimes when the scribes write and rewrite the scriptures, sometimes they don't understand Sanskrit, they just mechanically ascribe it and they make so many mistakes, and then sometimes interpolations are there, or some verses are omitted.

Textual preservation through commentaries

But when there is detailed commentary on each verse, it basically guarantees that the text will be preserved.

We can see that when Madhvācārya wanted to introduce his understanding of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he found uh few recensions of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, five or six, uh which were not entirely identical, and he uh has chosen one uh through his revelation, he found the correct version and commented on this, and that basically the solidified canonical text.

Of course, uh Siddhar Swami commented on uh slightly different version, uh yeah, but that we will touch uh uh later.

So if we look objectively and impartially at Śrīla Prabhupāda's work, we will see that he achieved all these things in his commentary of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. There is no doubt about it.

Uh if you listen to the recording of this, you will be able to again appreciate

why I'm explaining this because Śrīla Prabhupāda did an amazing thing. He translated Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from Sanskrit which he didn't even study so systematically. His knowledge of Sanskrit.

He didn't undergo the systematic study of Sanskrit which takes 12 years with all the branches of Sanskrit. And he translated from one foreign language into another foreign language.

You know, somebody who translates from his own mother tongue to another foreign language knows how difficult it is.

You know how much more difficult it is to translate from one foreign language into another foreign language. It makes it extremely difficult.

But despite all these difficulties, Srila Prabhupada did this amazing thing single-handedly. It's really amazing.

But he himself, in the very beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he stresses the need for us to study the commentaries of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Why? Because they're so important and they have they contain very important points.

Within the past, this is his commentary on the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Within the past 500 years, many erudite scholars and ācāryas like Jīva Gosvāmī, Sanātana Gosvāmī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī, Vallabhācārya, he mentions Vallabhācārya, and many other distinguished scholars, even after the time of Lord Caitanya, made elaborate commentaries on the Bhāgavatam and

the serious student would do well to attempt to go through them to better realize the transcendental message.

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda he says that it's it's important for us to at least to have some understanding or have some ideas what other people wrote about Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, how they explained and there are beautiful points in each and every commentary which he couldn't include.

But he did amazing, definitely amazing work. So the famous subhāṣita says: it's not easy to comment on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is a special work and the subhāṣita and the famous saying in Sanskrit says: ḍhaṇadhya hāṭaka sampārakṣā.

If you want to check the quality of the gold, you have to put it in fire and see how much impurities are there. Maharane Sastrabritam Pariksha.

If you want to see how good you are in using weapons, you have to go to a good battle, Maharane, to a great battle, and then everyone will see how good you are in using your weapons.

Vipattikali Grihini Pariksha, the test of the good wife, Grihini Pariksha is the bad times. When there is some difficulties, then the chastity and loyalty of the wife is tested.

Vidyavatam Bhagavat Pariksha and the test of your knowledge is Bhagavatam. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the real test of your knowledge. If you want to prove your scholarship, you have to explain Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

If you will be able to explain Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, if you are able to write the commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that's the proof of your immense knowledge. So that's uh important for us to understand.

Basically according to this Subhashata, knowledge means knowledge of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. If you know Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, you know everything.

If you don't know Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, well maybe you know chemistry, molecular biology, but there's not much credit.

Structural elements of Sanskrit commentary

Anyway, just uh maybe I should skip this. Well, anyway, this is the definition of commentary, which is given by Patanjali Muni in his Panini Sutra Bashya.

Sutra Dho Varnyatera Padaich Sutra Nusari Bhig. Bhashyam, Bhashya Vidha, Vidhuhu, Vidhu, Vidhu.

So those who know what Basya means they call basya something which describes or yeah describes Varnate sutra artha, the meaning of the sutra, or the meaning of all the verb or of all the words of the verse, particular verse, and then somebody who knows it by the statements compatible with the words of the scripture.

So it basically means that you understand all the words of the particular verse, then you have to also use the other quotes from the same scripture or from other scriptures to substantiate your reading or your understanding.

Sutra Anusari Bih, something which reverberates something which is similar, similar points.

This should be included in the commentary to substantiate your points or your reading of the sutra that your understanding of the semantics of the verse or the words of the sutra are correct

and then svapadani chavarnyate. Then you have to explain it by your own words.

You have to take this mulla, this root understanding of the verse, and then you have to elaborate on this by explaining yourself. And that's exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda did.

He explained the meaning of each and every word of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam of the first ten cantos up to thirteenth chapter of the tenth canto.

And then he used substantiating quotes from different scriptures to to prove his understanding of this verse, and then he elaborated on this by his own words. So that's what it is.

And that what commentators are supposed to do, five things the commentator has to do. I'm sorry, this is a little technical. But that's what we need again to appreciate what Śrīla Prabhupāda did. First Padacheda.

He, because in Sanskrit, sometimes long words are written just in one line without any breaks or without all this little dashes in between.

So and sometimes it's very bewildering, uh you know, to read the word which is this long, you know, the whole line.

And you don't know where the where the word starts, where the word ends, so the commentator first has to show this is this is the separate words in the line.

Then he has to give the padartha ukti he has to give the meaning of each word, then he has to analyze the grammar, the compounds.

Sometimes there are long, long, long compounds consisting of you know dozens and dozens of words.

And then he has to rearrange the grammar or the sentence of the verse according to the logical construction, and then he has to resolve the doubts which are there. So that's again the duty of commentator.

Commentary statistics across Vedic texts

Now, this is a fun. This is the number of commentaries. Let's go first here. And uh of course I wanted to ask you, but unfortunately I don't have this luxury to personally interact with you.

But if I would ask you which scripture is most popular and has the most commentaries on it, uh you would probably say Bhagavad Gita or something like this, and you will never get it right.

So the most popular and most frequently commented scripture in the Vedic tradition is the dictionary Amarkosha. This is the dictionary which explains, it's amazing dictionary which explains the meaning, the synonyms, it gives the synonyms to different words, and it has all together 834 commentaries.

Out of this, 377 is the commentary of the main text, 232 is subcommentaries to the commentaries, and 126 is the subcommentaries to the subcommentaries to the commentaries.

And there is some more levels of tradition, commentarial tradition.

And the second place in this is Brahma Sutra, because Brahma Sutra is so popular and everyone wants to explain Brahmasutra in his own way, so, uh, but still it's significantly less.

575 commentaries, but there is a lot of subcommentaries at sub-subcommentaries, and sub-sub-subcommentaries, and so on and so forth.

I showed you in the last presentation commentaries of Madhvacharya followers on Brahma Sutra 555 sutras. And it this big thousands of pages in Sanskrit of commentaries.

Then the next Tattva Chintamani, which is the work of Ganges Acharya about Navya-nyāya new logic, which Caitanya Mahāprabhu was the master of. And it's such a difficult book, and everyone wants to say something about it

and uh but still it's significantly less uh commentaries then Taittirīya Upanishad at the fourth place then we have Raghuvaṃśa and Meghadūta two kāvyas of Kālidāsa which are beautiful kāvya poems and Kāvyaprakāśa the litter composition and poetic the book on poetics explaining poetry different alaṅkāras and et cetera.

And then Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which has more commentaries all together than even Bhagavad-gītā? 295 commentaries all together, 184, not all of them are available at the moment, but they're mentioned.

Uh and 184 subcommentaries, then 70 subsubcommentaries, 36 subcommentaries and so on so forth. And it's even more popular than Bhagavad-gītā.

And then only Rāmāyaṇa goes and then Tarka Saṅgraha, very popular book on the Navya-nyāya beginners book, which is very popular, but still Bhāgavatam is more popular and Gīta Govinda next. And then there is a long list.

I have the if you're interested, I can send to you the whole Excel table with all these things. It's peculiar.

But anyway, Bhāgavatam is somewhere there in the first ten places. And it's it's an important book for the whole Vedic tradition. And as I said, different scholars compete with each other by showing their scholarship.

So now somebody says 90 plus, somebody says 81 uh commentaries in Sanskrit. Uh uh this is without counting uh commentaries on other languages.

Uh Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is very popular, only Bengali translations of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. There are more than 40 different translations of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in Bengali.

Many different translations and Hindi and of course now it's in English also. And many of these original Sanskrit commentaries didn't really survive, didn't they were lost because

they were before Śrīdhara Svāmī's commentary. Jīva Gosvāmī mentioned some of the titles, but they're not available at the moment. And this is the long list.

Overview of major historical commentators

I will not go through it because it's not so, you know. And Śrīla Prabhupāda, now we will start explaining about the some commentators. It's very interesting to see the place of the commentators of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Śrīla Prabhupāda definitely has his honorable place among them. So Śrīla Prabhupāda says himself that Śrīdhara Svāmī is the main commentator of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

In the letter to Sumati Maharaj in 1976, probably written on the basis of the controversy when Srila Prabhupada's disciples

published in Back to Godhead the story about Vallabhācārya and Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Sumati Mahārāja who was the life member and who was reading Back to Godhead she was totally disgusted and she wrote the letter to Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrīla Prabhupāda being her old friend and in one sense was very indebted to her.

He explained that Śrīdhara Svāmī is accepted as the original commentator of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and he didn't say it on his own authority, he says that Kṛṣṇa Śaṅkara Śāstrī, Vedāntācarya, Sāhitya Tīrtha, he gives all the titles of this Kṛṣṇa Śaṅkara Śāstrī.

I will show his book in this presentation from Madhusūdana Bhaṭṭa, from Vallabhācārya. He is a Vallabha scholar who published an elaborate

edition of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with 10 different commentaries and for the 10th skandha there are at least 20 different commentaries. So it's a huge work. He is the authority on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes him because he's Vallabhācārya's follower. And in his list, the Śrīdhara Svāmī goes first.

And then Gaṅgāsahāya and then Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha and then Viśvanātha Cakravartī and so Śrīla Prabhupāda says that Caitanya Mahāprabhu accepted Śrīdhara Svāmī as the first commentator, and he says Vallabhācārya violated this tradition.

So this is the story in Antya-līlā of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Caitanya Mahāprabhu himself says, Śrīdhara-svāmī-prasāde, bhāgavata-jāni. We can only know Bhagavatam by the mercy of Sridharaswami.

There is no other way to understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Jagad-guru Śrīdhara Svāmī guru śiromaṇi. I therefore accept him as Jagadguru, as the Guru of the whole world. This is my opinion.

Everyone has to accept him as the guru because he explains Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam so beautifully.

Siddharera Anugata Yekare Likana Sabaloka Manyakari Karibi Grahan One who commences on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam following the footsteps of Śrīdhara Svāmī will be honored and accepted by everyone.

Prominence of Sridhara Swami

Sabalok, Sablok, everyone in this world, Manya, will honor Kari Kari Begrahana, somebody who follows the footsteps of Śrīdhara Svāmī. So who is Śrīdhara Svāmī? Actually there's very little known about him.

Māyāvādī says that he was the pontiff of Govardhana Math in Jagannath Puri. And there is in their list of the pontiffs, some Śrīdhara Svāmī of the same time is there. We don't know whether he was there or not.

In Bhaktamālā, the biographical book about different Vaiṣṇavas, the story is there that he was in Kāśī in Vārāṇasī and he came to Kāśī and at that time there were so many different scholars who were writing on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and they didn't understand the purport of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

And then Śrīdhara Svāmī to counteract this this poisonous understanding of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. They were trying to insert their own ideas or their own understanding of

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about karma, jñāna, and the upāsanā sections of the Vedas. So Śrīdhara Svāmī wrote his commentary to counteract their ideas.

And therefore, he wrote Bhāvārtha-dīpikā. This is what is written in Bhaktamālā.

And therefore his commentary is accepted as the most authoritative commentary, where he established the actual conclusion of the six branches of scriptures and six philosophies.

So in this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he explained all the six philosophies in his commentary.

It is absolutely in accord with the Vedas and Upaniṣads by the mercy of Śrīdhara Svāmī's spiritual master, Paramānanda Sarasvatī, Lord Bindu Mādhava personally edited Śrīdhara Svāmī commentary with his own hands. So there is a story in this regard. It's being told differently by different ācāryas, but the story goes something like this. In Varanasi in Kashi, there are two main temples.

One is the temple of Lord Shiva, Kashe Vishvanat, and another one is Bindu Madava Temple.

It used to be even more glorious and more prominent before the Muslim invasion and the Muslims turned Bindu Madhava temple, magnificent, beautiful temple, into a mosque. It's still there. It's an amazing temple.

So Bindumadhava was saved and he was relocated in a very humble modest temple where he is now.

But the story goes like this: then when Sridhar Swami wrote his commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, or sometimes it is said that he wrote his commentary on Bhagavad-gītā, there were many different scholars and they were competing with him, and they were not accepting his authority, and ultimately they were having debates with each other, and nobody can really Really win and they finally decided to have Bindumadava as the judge.

And they put all their writings into the altar of Bindu Madhava, as was the tradition, they locked the altar of Bindu

Madhava for the night, and then in the morning they all came and Bindumadhava was found to have Sridhar Swami's commentary in his hands and all other commentaries were scattered around.

And at that time it was written, aham vetti śuka vetti, I know, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, śuka vetti, śukadeva gosvāmī knows, vyāsa vetti na vetti vā, Vyāsadeva maybe knows, maybe not.

śrīdharaḥ sakalaṁ vetti nṛsiṁha-prasādāt. But Sridhar Swami knows everything by the mercy of Nrisimhadeva.

He was the ardent bhakta devotee of Nrisimhadeva and he writes the verses glorifying Nrisimhadeva and many many cantos of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, including the tenth cantos of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, glorifying him and praying to his iṣṭa-devatā to uh help him to understand the meaning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

And then there are some other stories how once Sridhar Swami was sick and Bindu Madhava himself came to him and started taking care of him in the in the form of his disciple. His disciple was out and Bindu Madhava himself taking the shape of his disciple was taking care of him and then when it was revealed

then Sridhar Swami he pronounced the verse yā na likhi uh yana yeah so yeah yana shuklikam sah sukas cha haritik kritah Mayuras Vichitraya na sate vritim vidhasyati.

It's a very interesting verse it said the one who made the swan white, the one who made the parrot green, and the one who made, uh, peacock, multicolored, the same one will take care of you. Don't worry.

So he's taking care of everyone. He will take care of you and he's he's saying this on his own experience. Don't worry about anything, just serve the Supreme Lord. So that's the first in the list, and the

Commentaries across Vaisnava sampradayas

second in the list is a very peculiar commentary which was written at the end of 19th century, relatively recently, where where when Sanskrit was not in vogue already

after basically after Vivekananda when he started using English people gradually started forgetting Sanskrit, which was the language of the scholarship of the scholars before.

But this Vamsidhara, he wrote Bhāvārtha Dīpikā Prakāśa, the illumination of Bhāvārtha Dīpikā. It's a very peculiar name because Dipika means the lamp.

Bhāvārtha Dīpikā is the name of Śrīdhara Svāmī commentary. It's the lamp which is explaining the bhāva, the inner meaning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But lamp does not need the light because it's self-luminous.

So there is a pun in this in this title of his uh commentary. He says that actually Bhāvārtha Dīpikā doesn't need any prakāśa. It's Dīpikā itself. But still I'm shedding some light into it.

So he is uh he is expressing his humility uh by giving this name. Uh, it's, it's self-luminous, but still I, I elucidate certain things.

So he wrote, uh,, an extensive commentary on Śrīdhara Svāmī commentary by using also Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura's commentary, quoting very again very often Viśvanātha Cakravartī giving different explanations. So nothing much is known about this scholar,

besides the fact that he might have been living in Madhura or maybe in Kurukshetra, some say in Kurukshetra, some in Madhura.

But he wrote this to re-establish the need of studying the original commentaries and explaining this. Now this Madhvacharya commentary, I still have some time. Yeah, we will make it.

So, Bhagavata Tattva Nirnaya, it's a very interesting commentary. It's a very small commentary.

Out of 18,000 verses of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, he comments only on thousand, uh, 1,600 verses. So small portion portion less than 10%.

But what he does, he explains the ideas of pāñcarātra literature which is included into Bhāgavatam.

To those people who are not used to Pāñcarātra, because as I explained in the first lecture, pāñcarātras were not invoked before Rāmānujācārya, before actually Yamunācārya, before Rāmānujācārya and before Madhvācārya. So this and pāñcarātra are very important because it explains how to personally interact with the deity of the Lord and how the Lord is the person and how He comes to this world in the form of the deity.

So this Pāñcarātra literature is extremely important for vaiṣṇavas and Śaṅkarācārya completely neglected Pāñcarātra. For him, Pāñcarātra was non-Vedic. He just discarded the whole pāñcarātra.

Therefore, all vaiṣṇava ācāryas they stressed the need of understanding pāñcarātra and Madhvācārya explains the pāñcarātrika ideas incorporated into Srimad Bhagavatam or included into Srimad Bhagavatam.

So that's mostly where he comments upon and also he explains verses which could be easily misunderstood as preaching some impersonal philosophy.

But even though it's a very small commentary, it's a very short commentary of the 13th century, in this commentary he quotes 224 different sources.

In no other book, including his commentary on Brahma Sutra, which is his main work, he quotes so many other different sources. So indirectly he stresses the importance of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and he just he is very excited.

He stresses many, many different sources on pāñcarātra but also etymology, grammar and so on. Sometim väldigt rare. Sometim.

This is the only book where this sources are quotet and there is no other they are not they are lost basically and we only know about their existence because of Madhvācārya's commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So it's a very special book.

So now there are mod There around 15 commentaries, overall 15 commentaries of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in Madhva line. And out of this out of them, there is only one complete Vijayadva Jatirta.

Srila Prabhupada often quoted, uh quite often, relatively often, quoted Vijayadva Jatirta. It's a very elaborate, beautiful commentary from the 15th century Padarat Navali.

Then Yadupati Ācārya ili Yadavācārya, he quoted, he commented on Bhāgavata-tātparya of Madhvācārya and he wrote his own commentary on the first five cantus and then Satyadharmatirtha the last six kantus row.

So again, not much is known about these commentators, but Vijayad Vajatirtirtha, he was the pontiff of Pejavarmat.

We don't know his date, but he was pontiff in these dates, between these dates and the end of the 14th century, beginning of the 15th century. So before Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

And at the end of his commentary, he praised to Lord Krishna. I have written this commentary of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam out of out of love just to please you.

If you are pleased, as an acknowledgement of the same, please grant me three boons, that I should always remain a poor man in this and in any future lives. That's the first boon, he asks.

Because the wealth, as we know, totally distracts and doesn't give you the proper understanding of the meaning of life. That I may always have the opportunity to study Bhagavadpādācārya Madhava's devotional works.

That's his second boon. He is asking. Let me be always immersed in studying Madhvacharya's works. Devotional conclusions of which are very clear and prominent.

And lastly, may I always rest in you and that I may attain you and always remain with you as the servant of your lotus feet. That's his conclusion.

And there is a peculiar story which may not be accurate, but he was a young man as a sannyāsī, and he was traveling, and he became very hungry and then he saw some spinach growing in the jungle and he decided to cook for himself this spinach and he started cooking

and another sannyāsī of Madhva's lineage happened to come by and he became very disgusted with this Vijayadvaja Tirtha and he said, You are not a sannyāsī, you are viṣayī. You want to enjoy the food.

You better commit suicide because you violated the dharma of a sannyāsī. And the young sincere seeker of truth, Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha, decided to commit suicide. On the spot, he was ready to start starving to death,

and then another sannyāsī was passing by. It seems like the jungle was quite frequently visited by sannyāsīs. And he asked him, What are you doing?

He said, I'm starving to death because there is one sannyāsī who recommended me to do as prāyaścitta for my sin. He said, no, no, don't do this. You write commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that will be your prāyaścitta.

So this is how uh how this commentary uh appeared. So that's the story, whether the story is correct or not, it's still a nice story. So then Ramanuja Acharya Sampradaya, there are at least two prominent commentaries.

There are more, but two prominent. One is written by Sudarshana Suri, the second son of Kuresh. Kuresh was the direct disciple of Ramanuj Acharya.

And the first son of Kuresh became the successor of Ramanuj Acharya, Parashana, Parasharabatar. And the second son, Sudarshana Suri, he wrote Sruta Prakasika and the commentary on the 10th canto.

Some unscrupulous people say that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was not written in the time of Rāmānujācārya. It's a complete bogus statement because they say because Rāmānujācārya never quoted Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

First of all, he quoted one verse in his writings. Second of all, practically his almost direct disciples his grand disciple wrote the commentary on the whole 10 cantos.

And this Sudarsana Suri is a great commentator of this line. He wrote the most elaborate and most authoritative commentary on Śrī-bhāṣya, the Rāmānuja's commentary on Vedānta-sūtra.

So it again shows the importance of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in even in Śrī-sampradāya. There is no doubt about it that in Sri Sampradaya it is accepted.

And then Śrīmad Vīrarāghavācārya, whom Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes, whose commentary was included into Śrīla Prabhupāda's edition of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

He wrote the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Bhagavat-candrikā, 14th century commentary, again before Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Very elaborate, where practically every word is explained.

Then Nimbārka-sampradāya Sukhadevācārya wrote Siddhānta-pradīpa, Keśava Kāśmīrī wrote Tattva-prakāśikā and then Śuddhādvaita school Vallabhācārya wrote Subodhini. He wrote only on the first three cantos.

He wanted to write for the whole Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He wrote on the three cantos, and then the voice came to him and he said that your time you have to go back to me, and your time is over.

And he said, No, no, no, I'm not ready yet, I have to write the commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and complete and the voice said no you have limited time and therefore he stopped commenting on the fourth and fifth and other cantos and started the commentary on the tenth canto.

And he completed the whole 10th canto and also 11th canto. But then the voice came the third time and he said, Come on, don't make me wait too long and he left this world. So that's Subodhini, very elaborate commentary.

And then there was Subhodini Prakasha by Purushotamacharan Gaswani,

direct this direct, uh, descendant of Vallabhacharya, his grandson, as far as I remember, and then uh, Bala Prabhodhini's great-grandson, Giridharalal Goswami. And uh, I, I spoke with Kartik

Chandra Prabhu, who is in uh, Vallabhachari line, who knows Sanskrit very well, and he said that uh, Bala Prabodhini and the subcommentary on Srimad Bhagavatam is written in simple Sanskrit, then it was used as the textbook in the gurukulas to teach Sanskrit.

Unique features of Gaudiya commentaries

So, and the very name Balaprabodhani, the explanation for children, basically, of Srimad Bhagavatam by Giridharalal, he explained in simple Sanskrit the complex ideas of Srimad Bhagavatam, which again emphasizes the importance of Srimad Bhagavatam for this sampradaya.

Now, just a few words about Gaudiya commentaries, which we know. Again, there is some mistake, spelling mistake, audio-wise used. So, what is the difference?

The difference between the commentaries of Gaudiyas and other sampradaya commentaries is that they already had developed their philosophical system primarily by commenting on Brahma Sutra, and then they were using Srimad Bhagavatam to substantiate their philosophy.

So Srimad Bhagavatam was a proof for them, was uh, evidence for them to prove and support their philosophy, which they developed mostly from Upanishads and Brahma Sutra.

But the followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself, they formed and developed their philosophy of Acintya Bhedabheda Tattva on the basis of Srimad Bhagavatam. So that's the difference.

Everything else which supports this philosophy is also quoted in their commentaries, but uh, they derive their philosophy from Srimad Bhagavatam itself.

So that's what Srila Jiva Goswami did when he wrote Sat-sandarbha, which is a unique commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam. And then he wrote Krama Sandarbha and Brihat Krama Sandarbha,

which comment on the verses of Srimad Bhagavatam in the natural sequence, but Sat-sandarbha is topic-wise, he's commenting topic-wise.

So the first one is Caitanya-mata-manjusa, Srila Visvanatha Chakravarti, the famous author of the verse, of the invocatory verse of aradhya bhagavan vrajesa-tanayas tad-dhama vrindavanam. says that we only take this is the m m the opinion of S Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and we don't care about anything else or about anyone uh else's opinion.

So, sometimes this verse is wrongly attributed to Vishwanatha Chakravarti. Then Laghu Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī, Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī’s commentary on Tenth Skandha. The story goes like this.

Sanātana Gosvāmī wrote his commentary on the Tenth Kanto of Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī, and he gave it to Jīva Gosvāmī to edit his commentary because Jīva Gosvāmī was a brilliant editor.

And Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī edited to such an extent that Sanātana Gosvāmī looked at this and said, "This is a separate book, just publish it separately."

So this is how Laghu Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī appeared after derived from Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī. He included many different points and omitted some parts of Brihat Vaishnava Toshani.

Then Kramasaṅdarbha and Bṛhad-krama-saṅdarbha said Śrī Gopāla-campū is his poetic commentary on the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

And then again, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura. This is this program which is over-intelligent. It seems that she knows better.

This is actually a very important illustration of how dangerous it is to think oneself over intelligent. And this way you can get Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura instead of Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura.

So Sārtha-darśinī is of course very famous. And Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, he wrote his Vaiṣṇavānandinī, the commentary on the First Canto and the Tenth Canto.

And then Rādhāramaṇa Gosvāmī wrote Dīpikā-dīpanī and uh this was the input. And then there are two interesting commentaries. Bhakti-rasāyana of Śrī Hari Sauri, Rādhā-govinda Svāmī likes to quote this commentator.

It's a short commentary in the poetry form for for the Vṛndāvana chapters of the Tenth Canto. He was a Vaishnava who lived in Maharashtra and he was so much in love with Krishna, he started writing his poetry, beautiful

where he is explaining subtle poetical points of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

And when he finished the Vṛndāvana chapters of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he felt so much separation with the Lord that he basically died. He left his body feeling separation after completing this.

Hari-pārṣada Prabhu, a disciple of Rādhā-govinda Mahārāja, he translated this commentary, which is very difficult to translate because it's a lot of nuances and poetry into Hindi, and is planning to translate it into English.

And then there is interesting Bhagavata Purana Prathamatika of Jayarama and Madhu Suddhanna Saraswati.

It's the whole book explaining the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in such a way that they are explaining that the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ contains in it all the pastimes of Lord Krishna explained in the tenth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. They explained how all the pastimes are included into this first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is the, in one sense, summary and the essence of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So they're proving that this first verse contains everything because of very special ways of using Sanskrit grammar or everything else. But still it's it's a very interesting idea to prove

that the whole point of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is to explain the pastimes of Krishna and it must be in the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So concluding this, I only have a few one more little point.

Concluding this, I would like to quote Śrīla Prabhupāda in his commentary to the third canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam he says it is necessary therefore for the serious students of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to follow the notes and comments of the great Ācāryas like Jīva Gosvāmī and Viśvanātha Cakravartī.

To others who are not devotees of the Lord, the comments and explanations of such ācārya may appear to be grammatical jugglery, but to the students who are in line of the disciplic succession, the explanations of the great Ācāryas are quite fit.

So Śrīla Prabhupāda says, please take seriously what other ācāryas. This is our worship of ācārya. How we can worship ācārya, how we can meditate on ācāryas by studying their books.

And Śrīla Prabhupāda was doing his whole life, he was meditating on this commentary, on ācāryas, and he was, uh, let me show the I will yeah actually I have two points more. It's quick. It's simple.

So Śrīla Prabhupāda was using sometimes this book. This is uh the book which I mentioned, uh Krishna Shankar Shastri, but he mostly was using the book with Bengali script with eight commentaries. In this edition there are 10 different commentaries.

But it's so voluminous, Śrīla Prabhupāda didn't take it always with him.

Six types of Bhagavata commentaries

But he was sometimes using Krishna Shankar Shastri, which is available now.

And, uh, but, uh, he was using another edition, uh, in Bengali script. Now, uh, the next point is, uh, the six types of commentaries of Shimad Bhagavatam. This is Kartik Chandra Prabhu, that's his explanation.

Very beautiful explanation. It's actually interesting. So the first type is called deepika. Dipika means lamp. So there are many deepas: Bavarta Dipika, Tattva Dipika,

Durgattana, Bhava Dipika, Gudartha Dipika, Hidden Meanings. So it's basically lamp means illumination, it's shedding the further light on certain words.

So Bhavarta Dipika commentary of Siddhar Swami, it basically explains difficult words and we will illustrate this in a very interesting example.

So recently one sannyāsī of ISKCON asked me if I have the translation of Bhāvārtha-dīpikā.

Actually, the practically the whole translation of Bhāvārtha-dīpikā is in Śrīla Prabhupāda's Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam because most of Bhāvārtha- dīpikā is in the word-by-word translation of Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Most of Śrīdhara Svāmī's points is just explanation the meaning of the verses and sometimes some ideas, very short one. We will see it. So it's illumination, shedding different explaining different verses.

Then prakasha or prakashika illumination it basically means I mentioned Bhāvārtha-dīpikā Prakāśa. So it's further illumination. It's subcommentary. All prakashas are subcommentary, like subodhini prakasha.

The explanation of the previous commentary, Śruta-prākāśikā. And anyway, so this is uh some illuminations or expansion. So first is the elucidation, the another one is the expansion, illumination. Prakāśikā.

Then sorry, first one is illumination. First one is the lamp, another one is illumination, the third one is elucidation. And to this sandarbha is Sandarbha belongs in this category. Sandarbha means context of compilation.

So that's elucidation, obvodni awakening. So all this Subodhini, Prabodhini, Mandabodhini, Enlightenment of the Dull people, Balaprabodini and so on and so forth, that's uh that's elucidation and Sandarbhas belong to this category.

Then metaphoric titles of the different commentaries, sometimes it's called jewel ratna, sometimes it's called garland uh or uh sometimes it's called mukta means pearls.

So it basically the commentary which explained the hidden meanings. Manjusha, treasure chest. So Padaratnavali, Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha, Pada Muktāvalī and Chaitanya Manjusha.

So there's some hidden meanings which are not clear. So the Achintya Krishna who was illustrating this, he included as illustration of this the famous picture, which can be viewed differently.

Sometimes it's an old woman with uh with a some uh anyway four uh sometimes it's a young woman, depending on how you look at it, so that's that's the hidden meaning.

And that's elucidation, some darśanas, and then the uh fifth type is the satisfaction for the delight of the readers. Toṣaṇī, Urañjanī. Laghu Vaiṣṇava Toṣaṇī.

The author of the commentary has this in mind that I will write something which will please the hearts of the readers.

I will explain such beautiful points of the verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that they will be delighted by this. And Bhakti Ranjani is devotees of delighting the devotees. So that's the fifth kind and the sixth kind.

The essence of meaning-focused. It has in the name either Tātparya or Sārthaka or Sāra, Bhāgavatārtha Nirṇaya, Madhvācārya Tātparya Vivaraṇa, Śrīnivāsa Tīrtha, or Sāra-darśinī. Essential meaning by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura.

So that's next point. We have only one little point left. So I had I already said, this is how Śrīla Prabhupāda explains what, how he is doing this in uh in the conversation with the scholar.

Oh, here is eight commentaries by different ācāryas. So I read all the commentaries and give my own. In this way we are doing, yes.

So Śrīla Prabhupāda explains he reads all the commentaries for the verse, gets the comprehensive understanding, and then summarizes this in his own, sometimes adding his own points.

Where do you have these eight commentaries? Are they found in this edition? Or yes, Vīrarāghavācārya, Jīva Gosvāmī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. Here is the original text type. It is in Bengali type.

Practical demonstration of commentary analysis

So Śrīla Prabhupāda showed how he works and we should really appreciate it. And the last point I will I will show how it works in reality. This is a short, interesting illustration.

So let's take not the whole commentary on the tenth verse of the first chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Everyone knows prāyair alpāyuṣaḥ सभ्यता कलौ अस्मिन् जनैः मन्दः सुमन्द-मतयो मन्द-भाग्या ह्युपद्रुताः। Matayo Manda Bhagy few padruta. And let's take just one word, Mandhaha. Mandhā which means mm Mandha it's a plural.

Uh uh it's in uh it's uh mm prathamā bhakti it's uh how you call it uh the first case. Nominative case. Nominative case. So it's plural nominative, manda. And the word manda literally means in Sanskrit it's slow.

So it is said prāyair alpāyuṣaḥ, almost all the people, prāyair alpāyuṣaḥ, they all short-lived sabhyāḥ or a noble person, kalau asmin yuge janāḥ, almost all people in this Kali Yuga, in this age of quarrel, they all slow.

So what does it mean slow? And uh Bhāvārtha-dīpikā, Śrīdhara Svāmī he says alpāyuṣo janāstatrāpi manda ālasāḥ. He says Mandaha means Alasaha. So Manda means lazy. Slow means lazy.

He basically described and Śrīla Prabhupāda of course translates manda as lazy using Bhāvārtha-dīpikā. That's why I said that most of Bhāvārtha-dīpikā is there in Śrīla Prabhupāda's word-by-word translations.

So manda means lazy, not just slow literally. Now, Sārārtha-darśinī by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, he elaborates on this manda. He says, what does it mean, mandha? Yadi kathañcid dīrghāyus tastarhi.

Even if somebody is long-lived, even if somebody is not short-lived but he lives long life, he is mandāḥ. This is the next point. He says, What does it mean? Mandhaha? mandam means paramārtha-tārteṣv ālasaḥ. arteṣv ālasaḥ.

He is lazy, lazy in what? Siddhaswami says mandha means lazy.

Vishwanachakravittakur builds upon this and he says he is lazy in understanding the paramartha, paramārtheṣu in understanding the transcendental spiritual topics. He is lazy in this. So this is how it works.

He gets the inspiration and he further explains this what lazy means explaining the word manda and then Śrīla Prabhupāda he explains of course this lazy manda in this paragraph.

The people of this age are also very lazy not only materially but in the matter of self-realization.

The human life is especially meant for self-realization, that is to say man should come to know what he is, what the world is, and what the supreme truth is.

Human life is a means by which the living entity can end all the miseries of the hard struggle for life in the material existence and by which he can return to Godhead, his eternal home.

But due to bad system, due to a bad system of education, men have no desire for self-realization. Even if they come to know about it, they unfortunately become victims of misguided teachings.

So this is how Śrīla Prabhupāda explained this was following by behind Śrīdhara Svāmī and Viśvanātha Cakravartī. How he and this is what he suggests to us. This is what he invites us to do the same. He invites us to meditate deeply on each and every verse, on each and every

word of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, leading us into this by his Bhaktivedanta purports. And that's his contribution, and that's why

I decided to give to elaborate on this topic to to give the understanding and to uh to deepen our uh appreciation of what Śrīla Prabhupāda did. So thank you very much. And on time.

Final remarks and closing thoughts

Thank you very much for wonderful. And we take the time to continue go over your lectures afterwards.

Um there is questions from last class and questions from this class. I don't know if you like to answer them or you want me to send it to you that you answer in a different section.

It's probably better because it's already two hours, so I don't want to to uh yeah to speak too long. Uh so it's better if you send it to me and I will ans answer all these questions uh next Okay.

Thank you very much, Magh, and those one those one questions you can put in the chat. I will copy and paste and send it to Magares. Okay.

Um thank you, thank you for your wonderful giving us you have the encyclopedia, yeah, walking encyclopedia giving us all the resources in one place. So thank you, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Actually, why I started doing this course?

Because I was always dreaming about and I how I would like to be explained the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, how I would like to and because nobody explained it to me in this way I decided to to explain it myself.

And this is how I would love to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to be explained and to be appreciated by these explanations. Again, thank you very much.