Srimad Bhagavatam Course. Session 2

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 Mangula Charana. Nama Om Vishnu Padaya, Krishna Preshtaaya Bhutali, Shri Matai Bhaktivedanta, Swami Niti Namini, Namaste Sarasvati Devi. Go ra vāni prācārināe, nirvīśeśa sunyavādi, pascet dēsotārināe. Vāncha kaupātaro vēścā kripa sindhu bhevacā patita nāmpavane bhyo vāishna vibhyo namāna maha. Jai Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhūnita nanda, syadvaita gadādhāra, Sri Vāstadi Gauru Bhaktavrinda. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Janmadhyasyāyata unvayat tarataścartyaśvabhīgyaśvarat Tēni brahmachidāyādika vayamuhyantiyāt surayah Pejavari mridāmyat hādini mayoyatratrīsārgumrīṣa Dhamnasvina sadāni rastakuhakam Satyamparam dhimahi, Satyamparam dhimahi, Satyamparam dhimahi Dharma-pojit-projitakaitavotra paramonirmaatsaranam satam Vediyam vastava matravastu shivadam tapotrayonmulanam Shrimad-Bhagavatam mahaamunikvitekimvapara-riśvara Saddyohridya-varudyate trakriti vishushru-shubhistat kshanat Yon takh pravišyamam lovacim imam prasuptam sanjivayate kilishakti darah svadham nanyam shchahasta-charana So welcome to the second lecture of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 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 prepare the ground for failure in understanding the meaning. meaning. So the specialty, vayshishtya, 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 Simad Bhagavatam, it will be an under view of Simad Bhagavatam. We will try to keep ourselves in humble position because it's not possible for us to look over Srimad Bhagavatam. At best we can look under. So, yeah, for the beginning one verse from Krishna Lila Stavo by Sanatana Goswami. I explained in the first lecture how Sanatana Goswami glorified Srimad Bhagavatam and how he was praying that let Sīmad Bhagavatam always accompany me, be with me and never leave me. Madhaka bandha mad sangin mad guru mad mahadhana mannistaraka mad bhagya mad ananda namostu teo Sīmad Bhagavatam you are my only friend, Madhaka bandha I don't have any other bandhu. Matsangin, my constant companion. Madguru, my guru, my spiritual master. Man Mahadhana, my great treasure. Man Nistaraka, my savior. Madhagya, my good fortune. Madhananda, my bliss. Namastate, offer my obeisances to you. So today what we will do, I will give a very short review of a 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 Sīla Jīva Goswami, his Bhagavata Sandarbha. 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 Sri Chaitanya Mahabrabhu. 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 Srimad Bhagavatam. I don't think I will have time to touch the fourth point of this discussion, so most probably we will only do 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, but actually the purpose of this is to appreciate better what Srila Prabhupada did. the amazing feat which Śrīla Prabhupāda did. And I will explain at the very end, in one example, how Śrīla Śrīdhārāsvam explained one word from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and how his commentary works. And then I will give the same explanation, explanation of the same word from Vishwanā Chakravartī and then from Śrīla Prabhupāda. And we will really have fun appreciating 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. And as I said in the beginning, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was very fond of listening to Srimad Bhagavatam. Here in this beautiful picture we see him together with Lord Nityananda listening how Gadadhar Pandit recites Srimad Bhagavatam in the Tata Gapinath garden. and how Maharaja Prataparudra is doing Tandavat Pranam to this holy assembly. And I wanted to tell first a little story from Chaitanya Bhagavata, with commentary of Bhaktivinoda Thakur. Bhaktivinoda Thakur commending on Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu visiting Varaha Kunj, where Bhagavatacharya was residing. Bhaktivinoda Thakur is explaining that Bhagavatacharya, one of the associates of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was Sriradhika Saki, Siamamandjari, and she appeared in Gauranga's pastimes as Bhagavatacharya. And he says that in the pastimes of Sri Krishna, Sri Sri Siamamandjari sings songs about Krishna, songs about the pastimes of Sri Yam, therefore she is called Sri Ramamandjari, for Sri Radha and Krishna. So that's her service to sing about Krishna to Radharani and sometimes to both of them. So Sri Bhagavad-Achari in the pastimes of Shigaurā performed the same service by reciting Srimad Bhagavatam for Shigauranga. Bhaktivinoda Kuru says that Shirada personally gave this service to him in Shri Krishna's past times and in the past times of Shri Gauras Shri Gadadharpandini Goswami took him into his line accepted him as his disciple because Gadadharpandini is Shri Matiratharani herself who manifested in Gauranga's pastime. So she accepted Siamamandjari or Bhagavatacharya as his disciple. And what happened when Gauranga Mahaprabhu visited Varahanagar and visited Kunj in Varahanagar where Bhagavad-Achari recited, then instead of offering him seed, instead of washing his feet, instead of giving him some water to drink, which is the general custom of hospitality, Bhagavad-Achari immediately started reciting Srimad Bhagavatam. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was immensely pleased by this reception. So, this little story from Chaitanya Bhagavatam again underscores the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's life and for all his followers. He was pleased and he was ready to listen to all the stories of Srimad Bhagavatam all the time and that's his eternal pastime. So, in the first class I explained the logic of Śrīla Jīva Goswami, how he lays the foundation for his systematic exposition of Gaudiya Siddhanta. and he says that to realize absolute truth, Vastu, which is beyond all the things and which is inconceivable, in other words, the truth which cannot be known by Pratyaksha and Anumana, it's only possible through Aporu Sheyashabda, 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 Shabda or Apoorushaei Shabda. Not just Shabda, but Apoorushaei Shabda. And therefore, we should seek to understand the Truth with the help of Vedas. But Vedas have intrinsic problems in studying them. And therefore, to understand the meaning of the Vedas, we have to study Puranas and Itihasas. So that's in brief the logic of Śrīla Jīva Goswāni. And in Mahābhārata it is said, we explained this verse last time, that Itihasa Puranabhyam Vedam Samupam Brimhaed. that Itihasa and Purana, they 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 Itihas and Puranas, they emphasize that God is the person, first and foremost. foremost and therefore you cannot really understand the message of the Vedas without Puranas and Vintihasas. You will be misled by ramblings of the Vedas and by all the verses of Upanishads which have clearly different purpose. So So therefore that's one of the supports to Śrīla Jīva Goswami's logic, that they have the same nature. And then he says that Puranas out of the two, out of Itihāsa's and Puranas, Puranas are of greater importance. The one who knows everything, knows Vedas, Upanishadas, Vedangas, is not considered a scholar if he doesn't know Puranas. Again, because Puranas give a much more comprehensive understanding of the personal nature of God, even then Itihasas. Now, very interesting etymology of the word Purana, which is given by the first Nirukta book, written by Yasaka. Nirukta is the Vedic etymology, and he gives a very interesting explanation what the word Purana means. Pura api navam iti puranam. It literally means that even though it is very old, it is still very new. Pura means old and navam means new. Pura na. Pura means old and na means navam, new. Iti puranam. 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 the sense that they are... They are, what's the word, let me forget, archetypical. They explain something about you and therefore they are ever fresh. This is not just the stories which happen sometime, but this is a specific stories which explain eternal truths. And therefore they're always new, therefore they're always relevant and applicable to our situation. So they describe the certain archetypes, using the terminology of Jung, who explain this elaborately, that there are certain stories which are always relevant because they explain something deep about the psychology and the nature of human being. And that's what this definition of Purana implies. Pura pi navam iti Puranam. It's always new and therefore always relevant. And also there is another explanation of the word Puran, why Puranas are so important according to Shilajiva Goswami. Pura also means not old but not past, 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 Srila Prabhupada was very fond of explaining these predictions of Srimad Bhagavatam from the 12th Canto about Kali Yuga. And, of course, we know that the prediction of Lord Chaitanya's advent is there in Srimad Bhagavatam. And so many other hidden predictions are there, which require, of course, some explanations. And to emphasize again, Simad Bhagavatam himself or itself says that all the essence of Vedas and Itihasas, Sarva Vediti Hasanam Saram Saram Samudritam The Simad Bhagavatam is the Saram Saram, the cream, as Srila Prabhupada would translate this, the cream of the cream, Saram Saram, the essence of the essence, quintessence, Samudritam, is contained in Simad Bhagavatam. 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 Purana, which Madhavacari introduced into the Vedantic discourse, that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam contains the meaning of Brahma-sūtra, Arthoyam Brahma-sūtra-nam. Bharata-Arta-Vinirnaya, it is describing elaborately the purport of Mahābhārata, Gāyatri-bhāśya-rūpa. So it is in the form of Gāyatri-bhāśya, it explains the Vedā-māta, the seed of all the Vedas, Gāyatri-māntra. We will touch this while explaining the meaning of the first verse of Srimad Bhagavatam. And Vedarta Paribrimhitam, it is completing the meaning of the Vedas. And it is Samaveda among the Puranas. It's the best Puranas of all the Puranas. And besides that Sakshat Bhagavatawad-Di-Taha, it is directly spoken by Bhagavan himself. It is his pronouncement, it is his own words and therefore it is so immensely important. Ok, so let's go to the next point of our today's discussion. The explanation of the title of Srimad Bhagavatam. Srinath Jeeva Goswami explains this in the context of commending on the second verse of Srimad Bhagavatam, where it is said, Srimad Bhagavatam ahamu nikrite kimvaparair isvara ha. So he says, why does it say Srimad Bhagavatam? Why not Bhagavatam simply? Why does it say Srimad Bhagavatam? 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 Srimad Bhagavatam is the complete title and he explains that the word Srimad, it is derived from the word Sri, which means opulence or beauty or spiritual energy actually. And the suffix matub, which the suffix implies possessiveness. So Shri Mat basically means that Shri Mat Bhagavatam, why it is called Shri Mat Bhagavatam, it is because intrinsically in the Bhagavatam, Shri is invested. The spiritual energy, the opulence, the beauty of the spiritual world is intrinsic to Srimad Bhagavatam. It's not extrinsic to it. It's always there. Therefore, this word Srimad Bhagavatam, it always exists there and basically means that there is eternal union with or inclusion of the quality to which it is affects. This is the suffix matup. So basically it means that, yeah, this point I will explain a little later. It basically means that Simad Bhagavatam, 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 Simad Bhagavatam. It doesn't require anything else just by reciting the verses of Simad Bhagavatam, 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 Bhagavan, 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 Shri Mat means. It's always there, this potency is there, it's Vastu Shakti. as much as the vastu shakti of the fire is to burn, and whether you know about this vastu shakti of the fire, or don't know about this vastu shakti of the fire, the fire will burn you. So, it doesn't matter whether you know it or not. And he explains also very interesting subtle grammatical point of this, he says that Srimad Bhagavatam is the Karnadharaya Samasa, it's a special composite or compound word in Sanskrit, where all two parts are equal, they are on the same level of importance. Srimad is not an explanation, it's not an adjective of Bhagavatam. It's like in blueberry. Blueberry, blue, is not the description of berry. It's the same name, it's a 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, Srimad is the equal part of Bhagavatam. underscoring this intrinsic potency of Srimad Bhagavatam to reveal Bhagavan, whoever comes in contact with Srimad Bhagavatam. So that's the beautiful story. And then he says, of course, sometimes Bhagavatam is called just Bhagavatam, without Srimad. But he says, whenever this happens in Srimad Bhagavatam 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 Simad Bhagavatam. But he says whenever this usage is there, it's implied, like sometimes Bhimasena can be called Bhima, But when we call him Bhima, everyone understands that he is Bhimasen. We are talking about Bhimasen. In the same way we are talking about Simat Bhagavatam, meaning that there is a very important feature of this book, and very glorious feature. So let's go to the main part of today's discussion. when I will talk about the commentarial tradition of Srimad Bhagavatam. Again, I beg you for forgiveness for a 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 Srimad Bhagavatam into the Vedantic discourse was Madhavachari. And somebody asked me the question whether this was the reason why Sri Chaitanya Mahabharata accepted initiation in Madhavas lines. very well may be. Bhaktivinoda Thakur explains it differently. He says that Sichaitanya Mahaprabhu was very grateful to Madhavacharya for his refutation of Mayavat philosophy and being very pleased with his refutation he accepted the initiation in this line. But definitely that's a great contribution of Madhavacharya by introducing Srimad Bhagavatam. For Ramanujya Acharya, Puranas were not so important and therefore he hardly quotes any of the Puranas. But one verse of Srimad Bhagavatam he does quote in his voluminous writings. But Madhavacharya, and we will talk about him a little later, He wrote short but very interesting commentary on Srimad 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 Srimad Bhagavatam. 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 Srimad Bhagavatam. So basically if we look at the purpose of the scriptures according to the ex-Jesus 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 Sambanda, Abhidai and Prayojana. So the purpose of the scriptures first is to help readers to see the reality as meaningful and coherent whole, sambanda. It basically means that the scripture should become our interpretive, I think there is a mistake here, lens. Oh, yes, not sense. So it's the stupid program which always edits you without any need. It should become interpretative lens for the events of our life. What happens when we look at the reality? And this is called Maya. 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, Sambanda 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 into our understanding of life. So, the first is to see the reality as meaningful and coherent whole. It's very important because when we look at the reality, the tendency is 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 the 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, Sabideya, to explain the meaning of our life and what we are supposed to do in life. How we are 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 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 Praeojanam. 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 Gita, I started reading some scholarly commentaries on Bhagavad Gita. And I read some explanations of some German scholars. And these German scholars, there were quite a few of them trying to explain Bhagavad Gita, they were competing with each other in a sense of describing different layers of Bhagavad Gita, 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 the scripture, to explain the scripture as the coherent whole. As we know, when we understand Bhagavad-gita is coherent whole, it's very easy to find or to understand each particular verse. We know the flow of Bhagavad-gita, we know how it progresses, we know that the first six chapters describe karma, the last six chapters jnana, and the middle six chapters bhakti, and this whole thing is to explain the meaning of bhakti, and so on and so forth. 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 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 seventh canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, and there is this strange description of our Nashrama, and we don't know how to fit it and where to fit it. and then we read the third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, the story of Devahuti and Kardamamuni, where some Kama Sutra elements are there, and we wonder what's going on, 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 according to this message, in accordance with this message. And in 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 Srila Prabhupada was doing. We will talk about this a little later. but he was keeping our focus on the essential message of Srimad Bhagavatam through his purports. And especially he was endeavoring to make Srimad Bhagavatam relevant. The book which is written 5,000 years back in a completely different cultural environment for completely different people, Srila Prabhupada 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 scripture 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 very attractive to us, and that's the scripture itself. And of course, commentary has to emphasize the goal of the scripture. So that's the three purposes. And for that, there are things which the commentary does. I think I list here seven or eight different functions of the commentary. So, any commentary is an expression 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 Srimad Bhagavatam. I think many people don't read Srimad Bhagavatam at all because from the beginning they understand it's hopeless. I've never read this big book in my life, especially now when people are 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 principle, meaning of the text, 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 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, 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 Srimad Bhagavatam particular Adhikarana the topic of Srimad Bhagavatam into the whole book So there is Shastra Sangati, how this particular story connected with the whole Shastra. What is the meaning of this story in the context of the whole Shastra? There is Adhyaya Sangati, how this particular element or point is connected with the topic of this Adhyaya and so on and 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. In other words, it removes linguistic, cultural, temporal and disciplinary barriers. Especially such a difficult scripture as Srimad Bhagavatam. The commentary has to help us not linguistic, linguistic. Why is it linguistic? Anyway, sorry for these spelling mistakes. So it helps us to understand the language. Even those people who know Sanskrit, they definitely need commentaries because language of Srimad Bhagavatam is very difficult. It helped us to understand the culture of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the culture of this time, and to remove the cultural barrier. Some of the ideas of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam may sound quite outdated. So the ācārya explains 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 Srimad Bhagavatam. Sometimes Ayurveda, sometimes social science, sometimes poetry. And we may not be familiar with all these different disciplines. And the 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 thing which commentators do. Then a very important point, why the commentary is so necessary. It preserves the revelations of the texts, because it reveals the depths of these revelations and significance of revelations. Sometimes we may overlook some important things, because we don't have the experience of these things. You know, not many of us had personal darshan of Lord Vishnu, and therefore we may not understand the significance of the descriptions of these personal darshan described in Srimad Bhagavatam. 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 Samadhi of Vyasadev. Shilavyasadev saw the whole Shimad Bhagavatam in his Samadhi, that was his revelation, and Shimad Bhagavatam 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 being in contact with the revelation described in Srimad Bhagavatam and explain 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 Srila Prabhupada 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 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, basically, the commentator writes his commentary, and then his disciple, or disciple of his disciple, comes to it, 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 this series of commentaries and sub-commentaries. This is how it works, this is why commentaries are so important. Because the original text, the Mullah text of Srimad Bhagavatam is very brief. even though there are 18,000 verses still sometimes we have pages and pages and pages of explanation especially of chatu shloki of Srimad Bhagavatam it's the longest purports why and they're not if we take the original commentary of Siddharth Swami they're very brief still much more elaborate than the original shlokas but they're brief But then subsequent commentaries built 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 but it explains their views and 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 scribe it. And they make so many mistakes, and then sometimes interpolations are there or some verses are omitted. But when there is a detailed commentary on each verse, it's basically a guarantee that the text will be preserved. We can see that when Madhavacharya wanted to introduce his understanding of Srimad Bhagavatam, he found a few recensions of Srimad Bhagavatam, five or six, which were not entirely identical. And he has chosen one through his revelation, he found the correct version and commented on this. And that basically solidified the canonical text. Of course, Siddharth Swami commented on a slightly different version, but that we will touch later. So, if we look objectively and impartially at Srila Prabhupada's work, we will see that he achieved all these things in his commentary of Srimad Papatam. There is no doubt about it. If you listen to the recording of this, you will be able to again appreciate why I am explaining this, because Srila Prabhupada did amazing things. He translated Srimad Bhagavatam 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 twelve 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, Śrīla Prabhupāda 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 are so important, and they contain very important points. Within the past 500 years many erudite scholars and acaryas like Jiva Goswami, Sanatna Goswami, Vishwanatha Chakravati, Valabacarya, he mentions Valabacarya, and many other distinguished scholars, even after the time of Lord Chaitanya, elaborate commentaries on the Bhagavatam and the serious student would do well to attempt to go through them to better relish the transcendental message. So Srila Prabhupada, he says that it's important for us to at least to have some understanding or have some ideas what other people wrote about Srimad Bhagavatam, 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 Subhashata says, it's not easy to comment on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Shimat Bhagavatam is a special work and Subhasita, the famous saying in Sanskrit says, Danadjaye Hataka Sampariksha. 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 Sastrabritampariksha. 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. The test of the good wife, is the bad times. When there is some difficulties, then the chastity and loyalty of the wife is tested. And the test of your knowledge is Bhagavatam. Simad Bhagavatam is the real test of your knowledge. If you want to prove your scholarship, you have to explain Simad Bhagavatam. If you will be able to explain Simad Bhagavatam, if you are able to write a commentary on Simad Bhagavatam, that's the proof of your immense knowledge. So that's important for us to understand. Basically according to this Subhasata, knowledge means knowledge of Simad Bhagavatam. If you know Simad Bhagavatam you know everything. If you don't know Simad Bhagavatam, well, maybe you know chemistry, molecular biology, but there's not much credit. Anyway, just maybe I should skip this. Well, anyway, this is the definition of commentary, which is given by Patanjali Muni in his Panini Sutra Bhashya. Sutra Ardho Varnyate Yatra Padai Sutra Nusari Bhih Sva Padani Chavarnyate Bhashyam Bhashya Vidaha Viduhu. So those who know what Bhashya means, they call Bhashya something which describes or yeah describes Varnyate Sutra Ardha the meaning of the Sutra or the meaning of all the words of the particular words 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 Anusaribh something which reverberates something which is 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 words of the Sutra are correct. And then svapadani cavarnyate. Then you have to explain it by your own words. You have to take this mula, this root understanding of the verse, and then you have to elaborate on this by explaining yourself. And that's exactly what Srila Prabhupada did. He explained the meaning of each and every word of Srimad Bhagavatam of the first ten cantos up to certain chapters of the tenth canto. And then he used substantiating quotes from different scriptures 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's 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, again, to appreciate what Śrīla Prabhupāda did. First, Padaceda, because in Sanskrit sometimes long words are written just in one line without any breaks or without all these little dashes in between. And sometimes it's very bewildering to read the word which is this long, the whole line, and you don't know where the word starts, where the word ends. So the commentator first has to show 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 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. Now this is the number of commentaries. Let's go first here. And 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, 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 Amar Kosha. This is the dictionary which explains, it's an amazing dictionary which explains the meaning, the synonyms, it gives the synonyms to different words. And it has altogether 834 commentaries. Out of this, 377 is the commentary of the main text, 232 is sub-commentaries to the commentaries, and 126 is the sub-commentaries to the sub-commentaries 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 Brahma Sutra in his own way. But still, it's significantly less. There are 575 commentaries, but there is a lot of sub-commentaries, sub-sub-commentaries, sub-sub-commentaries and so on and so forth. I showed you in the last presentation the commentaries of Madhuvacharya followers on Brahma Sutra, 555 sutras and this big thousands of pages in Sanskrit of commentaries. Then the next Tatva Chintamani, which is the work of Gangesh Aachari about Navya Nyaya, the new logic, which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the master of. And it's such a difficult book and everyone wants to say something about it. But still it's significantly less commentaries. Then Taitiriya Upanishad, the fourth place. Then we have Raghuvamsa and Meghaduta, two caveats of Kalidasa, which are beautiful caveats, poems. And Kavya Prakasa, the literary composition and the poetics, actually the book on poetics, explaining the poetry, different talankaras and everything else. And then only Simad Bhagavatam, which has more commentaries altogether than even Bhagavad Gita. 295 commentaries altogether, 184, not all of them are available at the moment, but they are mentioned. 184 sub-commentaries, then 70 sub-sub-commentaries, 36 sub-sub-commentaries, and so on and so forth. And it's even more popular than Bhagavad Gita. And then only Ramayana goes, and then Tarkasangraha, very popular book on the Navianyaya, beginner's book, which is very popular, but still Bhagavatam is more popular, and Gita Gavinda next, and then there is a long list I have there. If you're interested, I can send to you the whole Excel table with all these things. It's peculiar. But anyway, Bhagavatam is somewhere there in the first ten places, and 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 commentaries in Sanskrit. This is without counting commentaries on other languages. 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 in Hindi and of course now it's in English also. And many of these original Sanskrit commentaries didn't really survive, they were lost, because they were before Shiddhar Swami commentary. Jivaga Swami mentioned some of the titles, but they are not available at the moment. And this is the long list, I will not go through it because it's not so, you know. And Śrīla Prabhupāda, now we will start explaining about some commentators. It's very interesting to see the place of the commentators of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And Śrīla Prabhupāda definitely has his honorable place among them. So Srila Prabhupada says himself that Siddhar Swami is the main commentator of Srimad Bhagavatam. In the letter to Sumatya Maharaj in 76, probably written on the basis of the controversy when Srila Prabhupada's disciples published in Beg to Godhead the story about Valabhacharya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Sumati Maharajay, who was the life member and he was reading back to God, she was totally disgusted. And she wrote the letter to Srila Prabhupada, and Srila Prabhupada being her old friend, and in one sense was very indebted to her. He explained that Siddharth Swami is accepted as the original commentator of Srimad Bhagavatam, And he didn't say it on his own authority. He says that Krishna Shankar Shastri, Vedanta Acarya, Sahitya Tirtha, he gives all the titles of this Krishna Shankar Shastri. I will show his book in this presentation from Ahmedabad, from Valabacharya. He is a Valabha scholar who published elaborate edition of Simad Bhagavatam with 10 different commentaries. And for the 10th kanto, there are at least 20 different commentaries. So it's a huge work. And he's the authority on Simad Bhagavatam. So Sri Prabhupada quotes him because he's Valabha Chari's followers. And in his list, the Sridharaswami goes first. And then Vamsidharaswami is the next, and then Ganga Sahaya, and then Vijayatirtha, and then Vishwanath Chakravarti. So, Srila Prabhupada says that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted Sridharaswami as the first commentator. and he says, Valabhachari violated this tradition. So this is the story in Antalila of Chaitanya Charitamrita, where Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself says, Shri Dharaswami Prasadai Bhagavata Jani. We can only know Bhagavatam by the mercy of Shri Dharaswami. There is no other way to understand Shri Dharaswami. Jagad Guru Sridharaswami, Guru Karimani. I therefore accept him as Jagad Guru, as the Guru of the whole world. This is my opinion. Everyone has to accept him as the Guru because he explains Simad Bhagavatam so beautifully. Siddharera Anugata Yekarelikana Sabaloka Mannyakari Karibye Grahana. One who commends on Srimad Bhagavatam following the footsteps of Sridharaswami will be honored and accepted by everyone. Sub-log, everyone in this world, manya, will honor Kari Kari Begrahana, somebody who follows the footsteps of Sridharaswami. So who is Sridharaswami? Actually, there is very little known about him. Mayavadi says that he was the pontiff of Govardhan Math in Jagannath Puri. And there is in their list of the pontiffs, some Sridharaswami of the same time is there. We don't know where he was there or not. In Bhaktamala, the biographical book about different Vaishnavas, The story is there that he was in Kashi in Binaris. And he came to Kashi. And at that time there were so many different scholars who were writing on Simad Bhagavatam. And they didn't understand the purport of Simad Bhagavatam. And then Siddharaswamy, to counteract this poisonous understanding of Simad Bhagavatam, They were trying to insert their own ideas or their own understanding of Srimad Bhagavatam about karma, jnana and the upasana sections of the Veda. So Siddharth Swami wrote his commentary to counteract their ideas. And therefore he wrote Bhavarta Dipika. This is what is written in Bhaktamala. 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 Srimad Bhagavatam he explained all the six philosophies in his commentary. It is absolutely in accord with the Vedas and Upanishads by the mercy of Siddhar Swami's spiritual master, Paramananda Saraswati. Lord Bindumadova personally edited Siddhar Swami's commentary with his own hands. So there is a story in this regard. It's being told differently by different acaryas, but the story goes something like this. In Varanasi, in Kashi, there are two main temples. One is the temple of Lord Shiva, Kashyavishvanat, and another one is Bindumadova temple. It used to be even more glorious and more prominent before the Muslim invasion, and the Muslims turned Bindumadova temple, magnificent, beautiful temple, into a mosque. It's still there. It's an amazing temple. so Bindumadava was saved and he was relocated in a very humble, modest temple where he is now but the story goes like this when Siddharth Swami wrote his commentary on Srimad Bhagavata most sometimes it is said that he wrote his commentary on Bhagavata Gita 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 win and they finally decided to have Bindumadova as the judge and they put all their writings into the altar of Bindumadova as was the tradition, they locked the altar of Bindumadawa for the night, and then in the morning they all came, and Bindumadawa was found to have Sidhar Swami commentary in his hands, and all other commentaries were scattered around. And at that time it was written, I know, Srimad Bhagavatam, Srikadev Goswami knows, Vyasaveti Naveti Va, Vyasadev maybe knows, maybe not, Sridharasakalam Veti, Srin Drisimha Prasadataha. But Sridharasvami knows everything by the mercy of Drisimha Dev. He was the ardent bhaktar and devotee of Trisimhadev and he writes the verses glorifying Trisimhadev in many many cantas of Srimad Bhagavatam including the 10th canta of Srimad Bhagavatam, glorifying his and praying to his sister Devata to help him to understand the meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam. And then there are some other stories how once Sridhar Swami was sick and Biddu Madhava himself came to him and started taking care of him in the form of his disciple. His disciple was out and Bindumaduva himself, taking the shape of his disciple, was taking care of him. And then when it was revealed, then Sidharaswami, he pronounced the verse. It's a very interesting verse. He said, the one who made the swan white, the one who made the parrot green, and the one who made the 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 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 second in the list is a very peculiar commentary which was written at the end of 19th century, relatively recently, where Sanskrit was not in vogue already. 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 Swam Siddhara, he wrote Bhavarta Dipika Prakasha, the illumination of Bhavarta Dipika. It's a very peculiar name because Dipika means the lamp. Bhavarta Dipika is the name of Siddhar Swami commentary. It's the lamp which is explaining the Bhavarta, the inner meaning of Sriman Bhagavatam. But lamp does not need the light because it's self-luminous. So there is a pun in this title of his commentary. He says that actually Bhavarta Deepika doesn't need any Prakasha. It's Deepika itself. But still I'm shedding some light into it. So he is expressing his humility by giving this name. It's self-luminous, but still I elucidate certain things. So he wrote extensive commentary on Sridhar Swami commentary by using also Vishwanath Chakravartita Kur commentary, quoting very again very often Vishwanath Chakravarti 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 Samad Madhura, but he wrote this to re-establish the need of studying the original commentaries and explaining this. Now this Madhavacharya commentary, I still have some time. Yeah, we'll make it. So Bhagavatatparya Nirnaya, it's a very interesting commentary, it's a very small commentary. Out of 18,000 verses of Srimad Bhagavatam, he commends only 1,600 verses. So small portion, less than 10%. But what he does, he explains the ideas of Pancharatra literature which is included in Bhagavatam. To those people who are not used to Pancharatra, because as I explained in the first lecture, Pancharatras were not in vogue before Ramanujya Acharya, before actually Yamunacharya, before Ramanujya Acharya, and before Madhavacharya. So this is, and Pancharatra 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 Pancharatra literature is extremely important for Vaishnavas. And Shankaracharya completely neglected Pancharatra. For him, Pancharatra was non-Vedic. He just discarded the whole Pancharatra. Therefore, all Vaishnava acaryas, they stress the need of understanding Pancharatra. And Madhavacharya explains the Pancharatric 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 Srimad Bhagavatam and he is very excited he stresses many many different sources on Pancharatra but also etymology, grammar and so on and so forth sometimes very rare sometimes this is the only book where these sources are quoted and there is no other they are lost basically and we only know about their existence because of Madhavacharya's commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam. So it's a very special book. So now there are more than, there is around 15 commentaries, overall 15 commentaries of Srimad Bhagavatam in Madhava line. And out of this, out of them, there is only one complete, Vijayadvaja Tirtha. Silla Prabhupada often quoted, quite often, relatively often, quoted Vijayadvaja Tirtha. It's a very elaborate, beautiful commentary from the 15th century Padaratnavali. Then Yadupati Açarya, he commented on Bhagavatatparya of Madhavacharya, and he wrote his own commentary on the first five cantors. And then Satyadharma Tirtha, the last six cantors wrote. So again, not much is known about these commentators, but Vijayadvajitirti, he was the pontiff of Pejavarmat. We don't know his date, but he was pontiff in these dates, between these dates, in the end of the 14th century, beginning of the 15th century, so before Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. and at the end of his commentary he prays to Lord Krishna. I have written this commentary of Srimad Bhagavatam out of love just to please you. If you are pleased, as an acknowledgement of the saying, 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 asked 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 Bhagavad Padacharya Madhava's devotional works that's his second boon he is asking let me be always immersed in studying Madhavacharya'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 sannyasi, 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 sannyasi of Madhava line happened to come by and he became very disgusted with this Vijayadvaja Tirtha and he said you are not a sannyasi, you are Vishayi. You want to enjoy the food. You better commit suicide because you violated the Dharma of sannyasi. And the young, sincere, seeker of truth, Vijayadvaja Tirtha, decided to commit suicide. On the spot he was ready to start starving to death. and then another sannyasi was passing by, it seems like the jungle was quite frequently visited by sannyasis. And he asked him, what are you doing? He said, I'm starving to death because there is one sannyasi who recommended me to do as prayashita of my sin. He said, no, no, don't do this. You write a commentary on Simad Bhagavatam, that will be your prayashita. So this is how this commentary appeared. So that's the story, whether the story is correct or not. It's still a nice story. So, then Ramanujya Acharya Sampradaya. There are at least two prominent commentaries. There are more, but two prominent. One is written by Sudarshan Asuri, the second son of Kureish. Kureish was the direct disciple of Ramanuj-Achari. And the first son of Kureish became the successor of Ramanuj-Achari, Parashara Bhattar. And the second son, Sudarshan Asuri, he wrote Shukha Priyam, the Commentary on the 10th Candle. Some inscrupulous people say that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was not written in the time of Ramanujacārya. It's a complete bogus statement because they say Ramanujacārya never quoted Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. First of all, he quoted one verse in his writings. Second of all, practically his almost direct disciple, his grand disciple wrote the commentary on the whole tense kanto. And this Sudarshan Asuri is a great commentator of this line. He wrote the most elaborate and most authoritative commentary on Sri Bhashya, Ramanujya's commentary on Brahma Sutra. So it again shows the importance of Srimad Bhagavatam even in Sri Sampradaya. There is no doubt about it, that in Sri Sampradaya it is accepted. And then Srimadvira Raghavacharya, whom Srila Prabhupada quotes, whose commentary was included into Srila Prabhupada's edition of Srimad Bhagavatam. He wrote the Srimad Bhagavata Chandra Chandraka, 14th century commentary, again before Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Very elaborate, where practically every word is disclaimed. Then Nimbarkasampradaya, Sukadevacharya wrote Siddhanta Pradipa, Keshavakasmeri wrote Tattva Prakashika. And then Sudhadvaita school, Vallabhacharya wrote Subodini. He wrote only on the first three cantos. He wanted to write for the whole Srimad Bhagavatam. 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, I'm not ready yet, I have to write the commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam and complete and the voice said no, you have limited time and therefore he stopped commanding on the fourth and fifth and other cantors and started the commentary on the 10th 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, you're too long. And he left this world. So that's Subodhini, very elaborate commentary. And then there was Subodhani Prakasha by Purushottama Charangaswani, direct descendant of Vallabhacharya, his grandson, as far as I remember. And then Vallaprabhodya, grandson Giridharalala. And I spoke with Kartik Chandra Prabhu who is in the Valabhachari line who knows Sanskrit very well. He said that Bala Prabodhini, the sub-commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam is written in such simple Sanskrit. and then it was used as the textbook in the guru kuls to teach boys Sanskrit. So, and the very name, Bala Prabodhani, the explanation for children, basically, of Srimad Bhagavatam by Giridari Lavo. 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 spelling mistake, Gaudiya. wise so what is the difference the difference between the commentaries of Godiyas and other sampradaya commentaries is that they already had developed their philosophical system primarily by commenting on Brahma Sutra and then they were using Simad Bhagavatam to substantiate their philosophy. So, Simad Bhagavatam was a proof for them, was 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 Vachinti Beda Abedha 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 they derive their philosophy from Srimad Bhagavatam itself. So that's what Sīla Jīva Goswami did when he wrote Satsandarba, which is a unique commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And then he wrote Krama-sandarba and Brihata-Krama-sandarba, which comment on the verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the natural sequence. But Satsandarba is topic-wise, he is commenting topic-wise. So the first one is Chaitanya Mata Manjusha, Srila Srinathya Chakravarti, the famous author of the verse of the invocatory verse of Aradhyabhagavan Vrajayashtana, Ashtadham, Vrindavan, Mramyaka, Chitubhasana, Vrajavada, Vargenaya, Kalpitaam, Sri Madhagavatam Pramanam, Amalam Kremakumarta Mahan, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhavar Matamidam, Tatra Paranatara. He says that we only take... This is the opinion of Shichaitanya Mahakrabhu. And we don't care about anything else. Or about anyone else's opinion. So sometimes this verse is wrongly attributed to Vishwanathya Chakravagy. Then Lago Vaisna Vatošini Ishri Vujivu Gosvami. Commentary on Tenth Kento. the story goes like this Sanatana Goswami wrote his commentary on the 10th Kento of Brihadva Išnavatoshini and he gave it to Jiva Goswami to edit his commentary because Jiva Goswami was a brilliant editor and Jiva Goswami edited to such extent that Sanatana Goswami looked at this and said this is a separate book just publish it separately so this is how Lago Vaisnava Toshani appeared after derived from Brihad Vaisnava Toshani he included many different points and and omitted some parts of Brihad Vaisnava Toshani then Kramasandharva and Brihad Kramasandharva said SIGOPAL CHAMPU is his poetic commentary on the 10th kent of Srimad Bhagavatam And then, again, serial Vishwanath Chakravartyita Kuru. This is this program which is over-intelligent. It thinks that she knows better. This is actually a very important illustration of how dangerous it is to think oneself over-intelligent. In this way you can get serial Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur instead of Sri Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur. So Saratha Darshani is of course very famous. And Baladev Vidyabhushan, he wrote his Vaishnava Nandini, the commentary on the first canto and the tenth canto. And then Radharamandasa Goswami wrote Deepaka Deepani. and this is the input. And then there are two interesting commentaries. Bhakti Rasayan of Sri Hari Sauri, Radha Govindeswani likes to quote this commentator. It's a short commentary in poetry form for the Vrindavan chapters of the Tenth Kento. He was a Vaishnava who lived in Maharashtra and he was so much in love with Krishna, he started writing his poetry, beautiful poetry where he explained subtle poetical points of the 10th canta of Simad Bhagavatam. And when he finished the Vrindavan chapters of Simad Bhagavatam, he felt so much separation with the Lord that he basically died. He left his body feeling separation after completing this. Hariparshat Prabhu, a disciple of Radha Govinda Maharaj, he translated this commentary, which is very difficult to translate because it's a lot of nuances and poetry into Hindi and he's planning to translate it into English. And then there is interesting Bhagavata Purana Prathamatika of Jayarama Madhusudhan Nasrathwati. It's the whole book explaining the first verse of Srimad Bhagavatam in such a way that they are explaining that the first verse of Srimad Bhagavatam, Janma, Dhyasya, Ayat, On, Vaya, Tarataścātyaśa bhīgi svarād, contains in it all the pastimes of Lord Krishna explained in the 10th kanto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. They explain how all the pastimes are included into this first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is in one sense summary and the essence of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So they are proving that this first verse contains everything by, of course, very special ways of using Sanskrit grammar and everything else. But still 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 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 Vishwanāta Chakravartī. To others who are not devotees of the Lord, the comments and explanations of such acaryas may appear to be grammatical jugglery. But to the students who are in line of disciplic succession, the explanations of the great acaryas are quite fit. So, Srila Prabhupada says, please take seriously what other acaryas. This is our worship of acaryas. how we can worship acary, how we can meditate on acaryas, by studying their books. And Śrīla Prabhupāda was doing his whole life, he was meditating on these commentaries of acaryas. And he was... let me show... I will... yeah, actually I have two points more. It's quick, it's simple. So, Srila Prabhupada was using sometimes this book, this is the book which I mentioned, Krishna Shankar Shastri, but he mostly was using the book with Bengali script, with eight commentaries. In this edition there are ten different commentaries, but it's so voluminous, Srila Prabhupada didn't take it always with him, But he was sometimes using Krishna Shankar Shastri, which is available now. But he was using another edition of Bindali's script. Now, the next point is the six types of commentaries of Simad Bhagavatam. This is Kartik Chandra Prabhu, that's his explanation, very beautiful explanation. It's actually interesting. So the first type is called Dipika. Dipika means lamp. So there are many Dipikas. Bhavarta Dipika, Tatva Dipika, Durgatana Bhava Dipika, Gudardha Dipika, hidden meanings. So it's basically lamp means illumination. It's shedding the further light on certain words. So Bhavarta Dipika, a commentary of Siddharth Swami, it basically explains difficult words and we will illustrate this in a very interesting example. So recently one Sannyasya of Eskona asked me if I have the translation of Bhavarta Dipika. Actually, practically the whole translation of Bhavarta Dipika is in Siddhartha Prabhupada's Srimad Bhagavatam, because most of Bhavarta Dipika is in the word-by-word translation of Siddhartha Prabhupada. Most of Siddhartha Swami's points is just explanation of the meaning of the verses, and sometimes some ideas, very short ones. We will see it. So it's illumination, sharing different, explaining different verses. Then Prakasha or Prakashika, illumination, it basically means, I mentioned Bhavarta Dipika, Prakasha. So it's further illumination, it's sub-commentary. All prakashas are sub-commentary, like subodini prakasha, the explanation of the previous commentary, shrutta prakashika. And anyway, so this is some illuminations or expansion. So first is the elucidation, another one is the expansion, illumination, prakashaka. Then, sorry, first one is illumination, first one is the lamp, another one is illumination, the third one is elucidation. And to this, Sandarbha belongs in this category. Sandarbha means context or compilation, so that's elucidation, Obodini awakening. So all this Subodini, Prabodini, Mandabodini, enlightenment of the Dhal people, Bala Prabodini and so on and so forth, that's elucidation. Sandarbhas belongs to this category. Then metaphoric titles of the different commentaries. Sometimes it's called Jewel Ratna, sometimes it's called Garland, or sometimes it's called Mukta, that means Pearls. So it basically the commentary which explains the hidden meanings. Manjusha, treasure chest, so Padra Ratnavali Vijayadvaja Kirtra, Padra Muktavali and Chaitanya Manjusha. So there are some hidden meanings which are not clear. So, Achinti 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 some... sometimes it's a young woman depending on how you look at it so that's the hidden meaning and that's elucidation and then the fifth type is the satisfaction for the delight of the readers Toshini Oranjani Lago Vaisnava Toshini 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 Srimad Bhagavatam that they will be delighted by this. And Bhaktaranjani is delighting of the devotees. So that's the fifth kind. And the sixth kind, the essence of meaning focused, it has in the name either tatpariya or sara-artha, or sara. Bhagavat tatpariya Nirnaya Udhmadvacarya, tatpariya Vivarana, Srinivasatirka, or sara-artha darshani. essential meaning by Vishwanathya Pravata Takura. So that's the next point. We have only one little point left. So I already said this is how Srila Prabhupada explains how he is doing this. In the conversation with the scholar. Oh, here is eight commentaries by different acaryas. 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 commentary 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. Viraragavacarya, Jivaga Svami, Vishwana Chakravarti Takura. Here is the original text type. It is in Bengali type. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda showed how he works. And we should really appreciate it. And the last point, I will show how it works in reality. This is a short, interesting illustration. So let's take not the whole commentary on the tense verse of the first chapter of Srimad Bhagavatam. Everyone knows. And let's take just one word, Mandaha. mandaha which means mandaha it's a plural it's in it's prathamade bhakti it's how you call it the first case nominative case nominative case so it's plural nominative manda and the word But manda literally means in Sanskrit slow. So it is said, almost all the people, they are all short-lived, Sabya or a noble person, Kalavasmin Yuge Janaha, almost all people in this Kali Yuga, in this age of quarrel, they are all slow. So what does it mean slow? And Bhavarta Dipika, Siddhar Swami, he says, Alpayusho janastatrapi manda alasas. He says, manda means alasaha, so manda means lazy, slow means lazy. He basically described, and Srila Prabhupada of course translates manda as lazy using Bhavarta Dipika. said that most of Bhavarta Dipika is there in Srila Prabhupada's word-by-word translations. So, manda means lazy, not just slow, literally. Now, Saratadarshini, Bhavishvanath Chakravarti Takur, he elaborates on this manda. He says, what does it mean, manda? Yadi kathanchit dirgayushas tarhi. Even if somebody is long-lived, even if somebody is not short-lived but he lives long life, he is Mandaha. This is the next point he says. What does it mean Mandaha? Mandaha means Paramartha Artheshwa Alasaha. He is lazy, lazy in what? Siddharth Swami says, manda means lazy. Vishwanachakra Vrttakura builds upon this, and he says, he is lazy in understanding the paramarthashu, 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 Srila Prabhupada, 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 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 Srila Prabhupada explained this verse following behind Sridharaswani and Vishwanath Chakravarti. 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 Srimad Bhagavatam, leading us into this by his Bhaktivedanta purports. And that's his contribution, and that's why I decided to elaborate on this topic, to give the understanding and to deepen our appreciation of what Srila Prabhupada did. So thank you very much. I am on time. Thank you very much, Dr. Asenskyok. It was wonderful. We take the time to continue to go over your lectures afterwards. There are questions from last class and questions from this class. I don't know if you'd like to answer them or you want me to send it to you. You answer in a different section. It's probably better because it's already two hours. I don't want to speak too long. So it's better if you send it to me and I will answer all these questions next time. Thank you very much, Magrash. Thank you. Thank you so much. Actually, why I started doing this course, because I was always dreaming about how I would like to be explained to the Sriman Bhagavatam. And because nobody explained it to me in this way, I decided to explain it myself. And this is how I would love to be explained and to be appreciated by these explanations. Again, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Hare Krishna.