Bhagavata Purana

The Bhagavata is the purana that made Krishna devotion what it is. Its tenth book tells his childhood and youth at Gokul and Vrindavan in detail no earlier text gives, and almost everything popularly known about the butter thief, the gopis and the raas is from here. It is the most read and most commented purana, the foundation of the Gaudiya, Pushtimarg and Haridasa traditions, and the source of the Bhagavata Mela and most of the Krishna repertoire in dance and song.

Twelve skandhas, books, of about eighteen thousand verses. The tenth skandha, the longest, is the Krishna book, and is often published and read alone. The eleventh contains the Uddhava Gita and the twenty four teachers of Dattatreya. The first nine set up the cosmology, the dynasties and the earlier avatarams, and the twelfth closes with the Kali age. The frame is Suka reciting it to King Parikshit in the seven days he has left to live.

Its argument is that devotion is sufficient and that nothing else is: not caste, not ritual, not learning, not renunciation. It says this through its examples rather than as doctrine, which is why it has been so hard to contain: the gopis who leave their husbands at the sound of a flute are the ideal devotees, and the text is unembarrassed. Later traditions spent centuries explaining that the raas is not what it appears to be, and the explanations are themselves a literature. The other live question is whether its devotion is compatible with the social order, since a text in which a hunter and a cowherd girl outrank a brahmin by devotion alone has been read both as a radical levelling and as a safety valve.

Sridhara Swami

The commentary most widely accepted across traditions, from about the fourteenth century.

Potana, Telugu

The fifteenth century Andhra Mahabhagavatamu, which Telugu treats as a literary classic in its own right.

Ezhuthachan, Malayalam

The Bhagavata in Malayalam, which with his Ramayana founded the modern language’s literature.

Eknath, Marathi

The Eknathi Bhagavata, a commentary on the eleventh skandha in Marathi verse, central to the Varkari tradition.

Gaudiya commentaries

Jiva Goswami and the Vrindavan school built an entire theology on the tenth skandha, which the Hare Krishna movement carries.

Andhra and Telangana

Potana’s Mahabhagavatamu is a pillar of Telugu literature and is recited and sung.

Kerala

Ezhuthachan’s Malayalam version, and the Bhagavata Saptaham, a seven day recitation, held in temples and houses.

Maharashtra

The Eknathi Bhagavata and the kirtan tradition that carries it in the Varkari movement.

Bengal

Chaitanya’s movement is built on the tenth skandha, and the Vrindavan Goswamis’ commentaries are its theology.

Assam

Sankardev’s Kirtan Ghosha and the sattra tradition draw directly on it, and the Bhaona plays dramatise it.

Tamil Nadu

Read alongside the Divya Prabandham, and the Bhagavata Mela of Melattur performs it as dance drama.

Deities

• Krishna
• Vishnu
• Narasimha
• Dattatreya

Arts

• Kuchipudi
• Odissi
• Manipuri
• Sattriya
• Carnatic music

Festivals

• Krishna Jayanthi · Gokulashtami
• Krishna Janmashtami
• Govardhan Puja · Annakut
• Dol Jatra · Dol Purnima
• Holi · Kamadahana · Dhulandi

Temples

• Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple
• Sri Krishna Matha, Udupi
• Shrinathji Temple, Nathdwara
• Banke Bihari Temple, Vrindavan

Related works

• Mahabharata
• Bhagavad Gita