5. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa

5. Śrī Bhāgavata. “That in which ample details of duty are described, and which opens with (an extract from) the Gāyatri; that in which the death of the Asura Vritra is told, and in which the mortals and immortals of the Sāraswata Kalpa, with the events that then happened to them in the world, are related; that, is celebrated as the Bhāgavata, and consists of eighteen thousand verses^[1].” The Bhāgavata is a work of great celebrity in India, and exercises a more direct and powerful influence upon the opinions and feelings of the people than perhaps any other of the Purāṇas. It is placed the fifth in all the lists; but the Padma Purāṇa ranks it as the eighteenth, as the extracted substance of all the rest. According to the usual specification, it consists of eighteen thousand ślokas, distributed amongst three hundred and thirty-two chapters, divided into twelve Skandhas or books. It is named Bhāgavata from its being dedicated to the glorification of Bhagavat or Viṣṇu.

The Bhāgavata is communicated to the Ṛṣis at Naimiṣāraṇya by Sūta, as usual; but he only repeats what was narrated by Śuka, the son of Vyāsa, to Parīkṣit, the king of Hastināpura, the grandson of Arjuna. Having iñcurred the imprecation of a hermit, by which he was sentenced to die of the bite of a venomous snake, at the expiration of seven days; the king, in preparation for . this event, repairs to the banks of the Ganges; whither also come the gods and sages, to witness his death. Amongst the latter is Śuka; and it is in reply to Parīkṣit's question, what a man should do who is about to die, that he narrates the Bhāgavata, as he had heard it from Vyāsa; for nothing secures final happiness so certainly, as to die whilst the thoughts are wholly engrossed by Viṣṇu.

The course of the narration opens with a cosmogony, which, although in most respects similar to that of other Purāṇas, is more largely intermixed with allegory and mysticism, and derives its tone more from the Vedanta than the Sāṅkhya philosophy. The doctrine of active creation by the Supreme, as one with Vāsudeva, is more distinctly asserted, with a more decided enunciation of the effects being resolvable into Māyā, or illusion. There are also doctrinal peculiarities, highly characteristic of this Purāṇa; amongst which is the assertion that it was originally communicated by Brahmā to Nārada, that all men whatsoever, Hindus of every caste, and even Mlecchas, outcastes or barbarians, might learn to have faith in Vāsudeva.

In the third book the interlocutors are changed to Maitreya and Vidura; the former of whom is the disciple in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the latter was the half-brother of the Kuru princes. Maitreya, again, gives an account of the Sṛṣṭi-līlā, or sport of creation, in a strain partly common to the Purāṇas, partly peculiar; although he declares he learned it from his teacher Parāśara, at the desire of Pulastya^[2]; referring thus to the fabulous origin of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and furnishing evidence of its priority. Again, however, the authority is changed, and the narrative is said to have been that which was communicated by Śeṣa to the Nāgas. The creation of Brahmā is then described, and the divisions of time are explained. A very long and peculiar account is given of the Varāha incarnation of Viṣṇu, which is followed by the creation of the Prajāpatis and Svāyambhuva, whose daughter Devahutī is married to Karddama Ṛṣi; an incident peculiar to this work, as is that which follows of the Avatāra of Viṣṇu as Kapila the son of Karddama and Devahutī, the author of the Sāṅkhya philosophy, which he expounds, after a Vaiṣṇava fashion, to his mother, in the last nine chapters of this section.

The Manvantara of Svāyambhuva, and the multiplication of the patriarchal families, are next described with some peculiarities of nomenclature, which are pointed out in the notes to the parallel passages of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. The traditions of Dhruva, Veṇa, Prithu, and other princes of this period, are the other subjects of the fourth Skandha, and are continued in the fifth to that of the Bharata who obtained emancipation. The details generally conform to those of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and the same words are often employed, so that it would he difficult to determine which work had the best right to them, had not the Bhāgavata itself indicated its obligations to the Viṣṇu. The remainder of the fifth book is occupied with the description of the universe, and the same conformity with the Viṣṇu continues.

This is only partially the case with the sixth book, which contains a variety of legends of a miscellaneous description, intended to illustrate the merit of worshipping Viṣṇu: some of them belong to the early stock, but some are apparently novel. The seventh book is mostly occupied with the legend of Prahlāda. In the eighth we have an account of the remaining Manvantaras; in which, as happening in the course of them, a variety of ancient legends are repeated, as the battle between the king of the elephants and an alligator, the churning of the ocean, and the dwarf and fish Avatāras. The ninth book narrates the dynasties of the Vaivaswata Manvantara, or the princes of the solar and lunar races to the time of Kṛṣṇa^[3]. The particulars conform generally with those recorded in the Viṣṇu.

The tenth book is the characteristic part of this Purāṇa, and the portion upon which its popularity is founded. It is appropriated entirely to the history of Kṛṣṇa, which it narrates much in the same manner as the Viṣṇu, but in more detail; holding a middle place, however, between it and the extravagant prolixity with which the Hari Vaṃśa repeats the story. It is not necessary to particularize it farther. It has been translated into perhaps all the languages of India, and is a favourite work with all descriptions of people.

The eleventh book describes the destruction of the Yādavas, and death of Kṛṣṇa. Previous to the latter event, Kṛṣṇa instructs Uddhava in the performance of the Yoga; a subject consigned by the Viṣṇu to the concluding passages. The narrative is much the same, but something more summary than that of the Viṣṇu. The twelfth book continues the lines of the kings of the Kālī age prophetically to a similar period as the Viṣṇu, and gives a like account of the deterioration of all things, and their final dissolution. Consistently with the subject of the Purāṇa, the serpent Takṣaka bites Parīkṣit, and he expires, and the work should terminate; or the close might be extended to the subsequent sacrifice of Janamejaya for the destruction of the whole serpent race. There is a rather awkwardly introduced description, however, of the arrangement of the Vedas and Purāṇas by Vyāsa, and the legend of Mārkaṇḍeya's interview with the infant Kṛṣṇa, during a period of worldly dissolution. We then come to the end of the Bhāgavata, in a series of encomiastic commendations of its own sanctity, and efficacy to salvation.

Mr. Colebrooke observes of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, “I am inclined to adopt an opinion supported by many learned Hindus, who consider the celebrated Śrī Bhāgavata as the work of a grammarian (Vopadeva), supposed to have lived six hundred years ago^[4].” Col. Vans Kennedy considers this an incautious admission, because “it is unquestionable that the number of the Purāṇas has been always held to be eighteen; but in most of the Purāṇas the names of the eighteen are enumerated, amongst which the Bhāgavata is invariably included; and consequently if it were composed only six hundred years ago, the others must be of an equally modern date^[5].” Some of them are no doubt more recent; but, as already remarked, no weight can be attached to the specification of the eighteen names, for they are always complete; each Purāṇa enumerates all. Which is the last? which had the opportunity of naming its seventeen predecessors, and adding itself? The argument proves too much. There can be little doubt that the list has been inserted upon the authority of tradition, either by some improving transcriber, or by the compiler of a work more recent than the eighteen genuine Purāṇas. The objection is also rebutted by the assertion, that there was another Purāṇa to which the name applies, and which is still to be met with, the Devī Bhāgavata.

For, the authenticity of the Bhāgavata is one of the few questions affecting their sacred literature which Hindu writers have ventured to discuss. The occasion is furnished by the text itself. In the fourth chapter of the first book it is said that Vyāsa arranged the Vedas, and divided them into four; and that he then compiled the Itihāsa and Purāṇas, as a fifth Veda. The Vedas he gave to Paila and the rest; the Itihāsa and Purāṇas to Lomaharṣaṇa, the father of Sūta^[6]. Then reflecting that these works may not be accessible to women, Śūdras, and mixed castes, he composed the Bhārata, for the purpose of placing religious knowledge within their reach. Still he felt dissatisfied, and wandered in much perplexity along the banks of the Sarasvatī, where his hermitage was situated, when Nārada paid him a visit. Having confided to him his secret and seemingly causeless dissatisfaction, Nārada suggested that it arose from his not having sufficiently dwelt, in the works he had finished, upon the merit of worshipping Vāsudeva. Vyāsa at once admitted its truth, and found a remedy for his uneasiness in the composition of the Bhāgavata, which he taught to Śuka his son^[7]. Here therefore is the most positive assertion that the Bhāgavata was composed subsequently to the Purāṇas, and given to a different pupil, and was not therefore one of the eighteen of which Romaharṣaṇa the Seta was, according to all coñcurrent testimonies, the depositary. Still the Bhāgavata is named amongst the eighteen Purāṇas by the inspired authorities; and how can these incongruities be reconciled?

The principal point in dispute seems to have been started by an expression of Śrīdhara Svāmin, a commentator on the Bhāgavata, who somewhat incautiously made the remark that there was no reason to suspect that by the term Bhāgavata any other work than the subject of his labours was intended. This was therefore an admission that some suspicions had been entertained of the correctness of the nomenclature, and that an opinion had been expressed that the term belonged, not to the Śrī Bhāgavata, but to the Devī Bhāgavata; to a Śaiva, not a Vaiṣṇava, composition. With whom doubts prevailed prior to Śrīdhara Svāmin, or by whom they were urged, does not appear; for, as far as we are aware, no works, anterior to his date, in which they are advanced have been met with. Subsequently, various tracts have been written on the subject. There are three in the library of the East India Company; the Durjana Mukha Capeṭikā, ‘A slap of the face for the vile,’ by Rāmāśrama; the Durjana Mukha Mahā Capeṭikā, ‘A great slap of the face for the wicked,’ by Kāśināth Bhaṭṭa; and the Durjana Mukha Padma Paḍukā, ‘A slipper’ for the same part of the same persons, by a nameless disputant. The first maintains the authenticity of the Bhāgavata; the second asserts that the Devī Bhāgavata is the genuine Purāṇa; and the third replies to the arguments of the first. There is also a work by Puruṣottama, entitled ‘Thirteen arguments for dispelling all doubts of the character of the Bhāgavata’ (Bhāgavata svarūpa vihsaya śaṅkā nirāsa trayodasa); whilst Bālambhaṭṭa, a commentator on the Mitākṣara, indulging in a dissertation on the meaning of the word Purāṇa, adduces reasons for questioning the inspired origin of this Purāṇa.

The chief arguments in favour of the authenticity of this Purāṇa are the absence of any reason why Vopadeva, to whom it is attributed, should not have put his own name to it; its being included in all lists of the Purāṇas, sometimes with circumstances that belong to no other Purāṇa; and its being admitted to be a Purāṇa, and cited as authority, or made the subject of comment, by writers of established reputation, of whom Śaṅkara Ācārya is one, and he lived long before Vopadeva. The reply to the first argument is rather feeble, the controversialists being unwilling perhaps to admit the real object, the promotion of new doctrines. It is therefore said that Vyāsa was an incarnation of Nārāyaṇa, and the purpose was to propitiate his favour. The insertion of a Bhāgavata amongst the eighteen Purāṇas is acknowledged; but this, it is said, can be the Devī Bhāgavata alone, for the circumstances apply more correctly to it than to the Vaiṣṇava Bhāgavata. Thus a text is quoted by Kāśināth from a Purāṇa—he does not state which—that says of the Bhāgavata that it contains eighteen thousand verses, twelve books, and three hundred and thirty-two chapters. Kāśināth asserts that the chapters of the Śrī Bhāgavata are three hundred and thirty-five, and that the numbers apply throughout only to the Devī Bhāgavata. It is also said that the Bhāgavata contains an account of the acquirement of holy knowledge by Hayagrīva; the particulars of the Sāraswata Kalpa; a dialogue between Ambarīṣa and Śuka; and that it commences with the Gayatrī, or at least a citation of it. These all apply to the Devī Bhāgavata alone, except the last; but it also is more true of the Śaiva than of the Vaiṣṇava work, for the latter has only one word of the Gayatrī, dhīmahi, ‘we meditate;’ whilst the former to dhīmahi adds, Yā nah pracodayāt, ‘who may enlighten us.’ To the third argument it is in the first place objected, that the citation of the Bhāgavata by modern writers is no test of its authenticity; and with regard to the more ancient commentary of Śaṅkara Ācārya, it is asked, “Where is it?” Those who advocate the sanctity of the Bhāgavata reply, “It was written in a difficult style, and became obsolete, and is lost.” “A very unsatisfactory plea,” retort their opponents, “for we still have the works of Śaṅkara, several of which are quite as difficult as any in the Sanscrit language.” The existence of this comment, too, rests upon the authority of Mādhwa or Mādhava, who in a commentary of his own asserts that he has consulted eight others. Now amongst these is one by the monkey Hanumān; and although a Hindu disputant may believe in the reality of such a composition, yet we may receive its citation as a proof that Mādhwa was not very scrupulous in the verification of his authorities.

There are other topics urged in this controversy on both sides, some of which are simple enough, some are ingenious: but the statement of the text is of itself sufficient to shew that according to the received opinion of all the authorities of the priority of the eighteen Purāṇas to the Bhārata, it is impossible that the Śrī Bhāgavata, which is subsequent to the Bhārata, should be of the number; and the evidence of style, the superiority of which to that of the Purāṇas in general is admitted by the disputants, is also proof that it is the work of a different hand. Whether the Devī Bhāgavata have a better title to be considered as an original composition of Vyāsa, is equally questionable; but it cannot be doubted that the Śrī Bhāgavata is the product of uninspired erudition. There does not seem to be any other ground than tradition for ascribing it to Vopadeva the grammarian; but there is no reason to call the tradition in question. Vopadeva flourished at the court of Hemādri, Rājā of Devagiri, Deogur or Dowlutabad, and must consequently have lived prior to the conquest of that principality by the Mohammedans in the fourteenth century. The date of the twelfth century, commonly assigned to him, is probably correct, and is that of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Click to view

[2]:

See p. 5.

[3]:

A translation of the ninth, by Capt. Fell, was published in Calcutta in different numbers of the Monthly and Quarterly Magazine, in 1823 and 1824. The second volume of Maurice's Ancient History of Hindustan contains a translation, by Mr. Halhed, of the tenth book, made through the medium of a Persian version.

[4]:

As. Res. vol. VII. p.467.

[5]:

Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p.155, note.

[6]:

Book I. chap. iv. 20-22.

[7]:

Book I. 7,8.