Intoduction to the Bhagavatham

The Bhagavatham was wwritten By Shri Ved Vyasa who also wrote Mahabharatha, all 18 Purana's and compiled all the 4 Vedas. After finishing all above except Bhagavatham, Ved Vyasa was feeling slightly depressed when Narada Muni came to him and motivated him to write the Bhagavatham. The Bhagavatham has 18 cantos and several chapters in each canto. It has a total of 18,000 verses and ffocuses on Bhakthi . The Bhagavatham contains the very essence of the great Upanishads. Just as for a tree, the roots, stem, branches and leaves are needed to provide the ability to create a fruit, the Upanishads, Bhagwad Gita, the Vedas etc provide the necessary base for the Bhagavatham. Just as in a tree, only the fruit has the final essence of taste and is edible, the Bhagavatham is the ultimate refined knowledge of the Upanishads and the Vedas.

The context of the Bhagavatham as related to Mahabharatha


The Mahabharatha war has ended and the Pandavas are in their camp. Dharmaraja is totally depressed that because of his mistake with gambling, there was so much bloodshed and he is not finding peace. Shri Krishna takes him and all other Pandavas to Bhishma so that he can take Bhishma's advise. Sri Krishna requests Bhishma to advise Yudhishtira. Bhishma puts a condition that Krishna should stand near his feet. Krishna agrees. The reason was that Bhishma wanted to keep seeing Krishna as he spoke. Dharmaraja asks 7 questions, the famous Yudhishtira Uvacha portion of the Vishnu Sahasra Nama. Bhishma answers all the 7 questions and in the process expounds the 1000 names of Vishnu, the Vishnu Sahasra Nama. Once he finishes the talk, Bhishma waits for the Sun to travel in the Northward direction(Uttarayana) and when a auspicious time comes, focusing totally on Sri Krishna leaves his mortal body.

Duryodhana is bleeding to death. Ashwathama, son of Drona Charya(teacher of Pandavas) stealthily comes into Pandavas camp and seeing the 5 Pandavas, cold blooded kills them. He does not realize that he has actually killed the Upa-Pandavas, the 5 sons of Draupadi through her 5 husbands.

Arjuna pursues Aswathama and as he comes near, Ashwathama takes out a blade of grass and invoking Lord Brahma, hurls the Brahmastra at Arjuna. Ashwathama knows how to hurl , but not to withdraw the powerful astra. Seeing this powerful astra come towards him, Arjuna asks Krishna what to do. Krishna urges Arjuna to also send out a Brahmastra and both the Astras are subdued.

Arjuna then catches Aswathama, binds him and drags him to Draupadi and asks her to give whatever punishment she desires. The magnanimous lady asks that Ashwathama, being a Brahman and a teacher's son should be freed. Then the Pandavas decide to take away the pearl that he is born with and having shaven off his head, throw him out of the country.

Seething with anger and wanting to take revenge, Ashwathama sends out 6 Brahmastras, 5 aimed at the Pandavas and 1 aimed at the child in Uttara's womb(Uttara was the widow of Abhimanyu). However Lord Krishna protects the Pandavas and the womb. Uttara gives birth to Parikshit.

Shri Krishna then returns to Dwaraka. Yudhistira along with his brothers expands the kingdom and ensures prosperity. After a long absence, Vidura, the brother of Dritarashtra(uncle of Pandavas) returns to Hastinapura. Before the outbreak of war, eh had gone off on a teerthayatra(holy pilgrimage). He comes back to a city where all elders have been killed. He goes to Dritasastra and asks him why his condition is so bad. He tells the old king that he has passed the Grihastashrama and now has to move on Vradhashrama and Sanyasa. It is then that it strikes Dritarashtra that his obstinacy is the root cause of all the problems and his desire to hold on to the throne caused all the disasters. He decides to leave immediately and his wife Gandhari leaves with him. Vidura leads them to the Himalayas where they lead a ascetic life. Once Dritarashtra lights the ceremonial fire for yajna and as he is performing the yajna, does not notice that the fire is spreading. He is so immersed in thoughts of the Lord that he does not realize that his hut is burning. He and Gandhari are reduced to ashes, but fully immersed in the Lord.

Arjuna feels a longing for Sri Krishna and taking his brother’s permission goes to Dwaraka. He keeps sending messages regularly. However the messages suddenly stop. For almost 6 months, there is absolutely no news. Dharmaraja is worried. He starts seeing bad omens and feels something is wrong. He summons Bhima and asks him to go to Dwaraka to see what is happening. Just as Bhima is getting ready, they spot Arjuna’s chariot(with the Hanuman flag) coming into the city. Dharmaraja rushes out and finds Arjuna crestfallen. He asks Arjuna what happened and Arjuna replies that his best friend Krishna betrayed him. He says that the Yadava clan belonging to Sri Krishna started fighting among themselves and killing one another. Sri Krishna also realizing that his time on this earth was over, withdrew from the world and that’s what Arjuna meant when he said the Lord had betrayed him. Arjuna kept on thinking of the time spent with Krishna, the wonderful message given on the battlefield and suddenly everything started becoming clear to him. He started focusing on the lotus feet of the Lord and as he focused intensely, Arjuna slowly withdrew his body from the world.

Kunthi on hearing about Shri Krishna also withdrew her body. Dharmaraja gave up his kingdom and made Parikshit the king and abandoning all attachments went off to become an ascetic. All other Pandavas and Draupadi accompanied him. It is to be noted that Sri Krishna was 125 years old when he left this world. He was 89 at the time of the war. Arjuna was 3 years younger. So, most of the Pandavas were in their 80’s when they fought the war.

Parikshit was an able king and further expanded the kingdom and was very righteous. One day he was going around and saw a man beating a bull and a cow which were talking to each other. The evil man was none other than Kali, after whom Kaliyuga is named. The cow was mother earth and the Bull was Dharma and the two were lamenting the effect of Sri Krishna departing from this earth and Kali was beating them. Parikshit subdued Kali and would have killed him. But Kali surrendered at Parikshit’s feet. Parikshit asked Kali to go away from his kingdom. But since his kingdom was everywhere, Kali requested some place to stay. So Parikshit strictly told Kali that he would give him 4 places:

1. Place where gambling takes place (Las Vegas!!!)

2. Place where liquor is served (Bars!!!)

3. Place of women of disrepute and where women are not respected

4. Ruins or broken down places


Kali said that was not enough and Parikshit gave him 1 more place: Place where wealth is accumulated.

One day Parikshit went hunting and after a long hunt, was hungry, thirsty and was looking for some shelter. He spotted an ashram and entered it. He saw a saint doing penance. In that anger brought by hunger and thirst, he thought the saint was ignoring him and he took his bow, picked up a dead snake and put it like a garland around the saint and left. The saint did not notice anything. People went and told the saint’s son what had happened. The son became angry and he cursed the king. He said that within 7 days, the king of snakes, would bite Parikshit and he would be dead. The father saint after his penance woke up and heard what all had happened. He berated his son for cursing a king, that too a king who had been protected by Krishna. But there was no way the curse could be undone..

Parikshit learnt of the curse and knowing that he had only 7 days to live, gave up his kingdom to his eldest son Janmejaya. Janmejaya was born to Parikshit through his wife who was Uttara Kumar’s daughter. So, Parikshit was married to his maternal uncle’s daughter, not a common practice and generally frowned everywhere except among some kshatriya clans.(It is illegal in some states in USA). Parikshit assembled a group of the most learned people and requested them to tell him of the best way he could spend his remaining time on this earth.

It was then that Shukacharya entered the meeting and he was welcomed by all with highest respect and over the next 7 days, he tells Parikshit the story of the Lord. At the end of the 7th day, as was cursed, Parikshit is killed by a snake.

The Bhagavtham takes the reader or listener to the peak of Bhakti(devotion) and at the same time imparts the highest knowledge(Jnana) in easy to understand format. It has stories of all the avataars(incarnations) of Lord Vishnu. It covers the phenomenal devotion of people like Dhruva and Prahlada. It also covers the superb Udhava Geeta where the Lord again tells his disciple Udhava, the highest knowledge of spirituality.

I was blessed to have been exposed to the Bhagavtham and am providing the link here(http://chinmayasaaket.org/resources/audio/). I pray that peace be there on this world and the Lord bless everyone.