The writer of this book is named Krishna Dvaipâyana Vyâsadeva, also called Bâdarâyana. He is the Lord, the bhagavân, among the philosophers, who in India assembled all the holy texts. He compiled the Vedas, also known as sruti, containing the basic wisdom, the mantras for the rituals and the hymns. He also wrote the Mahâbhârata, which is the greatest epic poem in the world. It describes the history (itihâsa) of the great fall that the Vedic culture once made. The Bhagavad Gîtâ is the most important part of it. Vyâsa also wrote the rest of the eighteen great Bibles (the purânas) of India as also the Brahma-sûtra, his masterpiece on the Absolute Truth. Vyâsa was a grandfather of the Kuru-dynasty. He lived a very long time. His long duration of life enabled him to write the story of the Fortunate One and all the other books. He had a son called Sukadeva who handed the message of this Bible down to another member of the family, Emperor Parîkchit, who had difficulty respecting the classical wisdom. This emperor is there as a model for us normal people who seek their stability in the wisdom. This knowledge was conveyed by Suka in disciplic succession (paramparâ), to those who teach by example (the âcâryas), the science of devotional service (bhakti). This book, and its culture, was brought to the West by the Vaishnava, the Vishnu-monk, Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupâda. Together with his pupils (known as the Hare Krishnas of ISKCON, see videos 1 and 2) he realized a verse by verse commented series of books covering the entire Bhâgavatam. This site offers not all these texts (see for that purpose vedabase.net) but does offer under the Creative Commons copyright an as-it-is translation of the verses in a concatenated form complete with the previous version. This text is regularly updated and maintained by Anand Aadhar Prabhu (René P. B. A. Meijer), a dutch psychologist converted to the philosophy of yoga who received instruction in the temples of ISKCO among others. His predecessor in this duty was Srî Hayesvar das (Hendrik van Teylingen) who covered most of the translations into Dutch. The present responsibility for the culture of Vaishnavism in Holland lies with the ISKCON Vaishnava-monk Kadamba Kânana Swami.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:38:49 +0000
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