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The Bhagavata Purana (Clothbound)

Ramesh Menon

4.29 · Rating details · 126 ratings · 7 reviews

Philosophy \Religion

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Published (first published December 31st 1899)

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May 10, 2016 Vrinda Pendred rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy

This review requires background. I was raised Vaishnav and, by age 17, twice initiated through the Gaudiya Math. I was always taught the ultimate aim in life was to emulate Radharani in her love for Krishna - who is the supreme God - and that 500 years ago Krishna wanted to understand this love, so he incarnate as a brahmachari named Chaitanya, who was Radha-Krishna in one body. You take these things for granted when you're raised with them from birth and they're all you've ever known to be This review requires background. I was raised Vaishnav and, by age 17, twice initiated through the Gaudiya Math. I was always taught the ultimate aim in life was to emulate Radharani in her love for Krishna - who is the supreme God - and that 500 years ago Krishna wanted to understand this love, so he incarnate as a brahmachari named Chaitanya, who was Radha-Krishna in one body. You take these things for granted when you're raised with them from birth and they're all you've ever known to be 'true'.

Just as many Christians I've met have never fully read the Bible, few Vaishnavs have read their own holy books. If they HAVE, they will be the Bhaktivedanta translations, rife with endless purports telling us how to interpret things. The key texts are the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bhagavatam. Other stories, such as the Ramayana, I believe most people know through the summaries found in the Bhagavatam, or through hearsay - largely the latter, as most people also know the stories found in the Bhagavatam through hearsay.

I have now read the Mahabharata in full, so I know how distorted the message of the Bhagavad-Gita has become by being extracted and read in isolation with those misleading purports. Now I've read the Bhagavatam, also known as the Bhahavat Purana. With all that in mind, here's my review.

This is an excellent translation, taking the original verse and converting it into easily readable prose. I've compared the meanings of select passages to another older translation and they're the same - and my goodness, was this not abridged! It went on and on and on. By the time I hit the twelfth canto, it was like the last Lord of the Rings film; it must have ended and then restarted and ended again at least ten times. When I finally reached the last page, I was expecting more. I was in disbelief that it was over - but thank God it was.

A little rudimentary research will tell you the original Sanskrit text was composed long after things like the Siva Purana or the Mahabharata. There are also astronomical references all over that flat out prove it was written less than 2,000 years ago, rather than the 5,000 years I was always told it was. So, no, this book is NOT older than the Jews and it is NOT the origin of everything. Those kinds of statements smack of ignorance and bigotry.

In the opening canto, the authors tell us they believe older stories, including the Mahabharata, basically got it wrong, and the purpose of this book is to retell all the old stories 'the right way'. So they even admit it's newer. And my summary of this book is that it's a rewrite of a lot of the Siva and Brahma Puranas, but with all the older messages about Siva being the original God and Vishnu his counterpart flipped around so that Vishnu is ultimate. Also new is the addition of Krishna, who never featured in any older Indian beliefs or legends. Suddenly he's God. Suddenly analytical philosophy comes into the stories, rather than letting the (rather obvious) metaphors speak for themselves. And it's all so convoluted. It very much feels like Plato, Gnosticism and Buddhism came along and the people, under all these influences, were trying very hard to fit these new ideas into their old belief systems. Suddenly these genuinely old and possibly 5,000-year-old stories about Siva's sex life have additional commentary describing it all as 'spiritual sex' that only the ignorant would mistake as lustful. They were also clearly trying to unite various factions of belief in the region by saying all the gods of old are ultimately one - Vishnu. So it was fascinating from an historical perspective, seeing how people's ideologies evolved...but I don't buy it as ultimate truth.

The key point that stood out for me was that RADHA ISN'T IN THIS BOOK. Every story I was ever told was attributed to Radha is, in fact, just the gopis. And none of them is named, so Lalita and Vishakha and all of them aren't real. There is one line during the Rasa dance section when Krishna disappears and the gopis see a woman's footprints beside his, heading off through the trees. They say she must have worshipped him best. There's a footnote to say this is the only possible reference to Radha in the text.

I was shocked. I didn't believe it. Surely it was a fault of the translation! So I researched it and, no, the translation is fine. Turns out the first mention of Radha and other gopis is in a poem called the Gita Govinda, written in the 12th century, which wildly reimagines those stories. It comes from the word for 'best worshipper' containing the word 'radha'. You know what that means? The entire foundation of everything I was ever taught to believe is not even real. Turns out Radha is only recognised by Vaishnavism and one other tiny Indian cult I've never heard of. The rest of the world thinks it's crazy. I read a quote from 'Prabupadha' saying Radha's identity was deliberately 'hidden' from the 'ignorant'. Suuuure.

I guess the poet really got off on the erotica in that story, because honestly, the whole of the tenth canto - all the Krishna stories - is sex and violence. I lost count of how many people's heads he kicked off people's shoulders; and far from preaching vegetarianism (in fact, in either the 11th or 12th canto Krishna even says it's okay to kill animals, as long as you don't use excessive violence), Krishna frequently yanks the tusks right out of elephants' heads and gores them with them. But it's okay because they're 'evil' elephants. And when Krishna walks by, women's clothing literally falls right off their bodies. There were endless wet t-shirt scenes - Krishna splashing the women with water so their nipples would stand out, and all the other men getting off on watching. The women frequently had lesbian orgies. And when they couldn't get their hands on Krishna, Balarama would do. All these women were married to other men, by the way, but that's okay too, because Krishna is God. That's how God would act, right? It's also worth noting I was always told only a 'pure devotee' is allowed to read the Krishna stories, because the ignorant will mistake all of this for real sex and not understand that it's all spiritual play. Riiight. More like if we read it, we'll realise everything we've been told is bull. And I want to know how they even found all these women to sleep with, when all the tiresome genealogy lists only seemed to feature men.

What particularly got me was not the sex but the fact that it kept saying while Krishna did all these things, he was detached and unaffected. How is it admirable to have sex with 16,108 women and not even CARE? And how does it make sense when it's alternated with endless messages that sex is bad, we're not the body, and 'a woman's body is a filthy and vile thing' that is just 'worm food'??? Honestly, when I started reading things like that, I was just sickened. This is not religion; it's rampant sexism. Seriously, what happened 2,000 years ago to make so many men so misogynistic? The world didn't start out that way. And notably, this book was written entirely for men. Women are described as faithless and only interested in sex, dragging men down with them, and heaven is then paradoxically populated with naked gorgeous women ready to fulfill your every desire. It's nuts.

I want to state that the Siva Purana and the Mahabharata were NOT LIKE THAT. Siva is paired with a goddess of equal worth, for a start, who actually has a personality and isn't just a whore. In the Mahabharata, Balarama was a completely different character. He was a pacifist and an ascetic. I really, really liked him. Also, the Bhagavat Purana distorted the battle of Kuruksetra and claimed Dritharashta and Duryodhana were evil and horrible, when in the original story they really weren't, and Balarama even favoured them and was devastated at the war. At the end of the war, he was furious with Krishna for supporting it.

I don't know if Krishna was real or not. If he was, he was wildly mythologised, I'm sure - especially since so much of his birth story is right out of the Jesus story, and they're both often symbolised by fish (Pisces) - and the Greeks occupied both India and the Middle East at that time - and statues of Krishna with his flute are IDENTICAL to statues of Bacchus. All I know is he's not part of the original Indian belief system. The stories of the wars between the devas and the asuras are so clearly much, much, much older and from a time of what we now call paganism. Siva, Vishnu and Brahma are from an era of sabianism. These heroes who came along later...it's an evolution, and I find the cold loveless philosophy that was built into it all in this book really offputting and occasionally angering.

So, in summary, this book is very interesting from an historical perspective, but I highly recommend reading it AFTER reading the older texts - and I'm so relieved I've finished it. The Mahabharata will forever remain one of my favourite books, but any doubts I might have had about leaving Vaishnavism are officially dead. ...more

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Sep 27, 2017 Bhakta Jim rated it it was ok

I was active in ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) from 1977-79. I haven’t practiced the religion since I left, but I still find myself to be interested in its philosophy and scriptures, for what that’s worth.

I first encountered ISKCON writings in my college library, starting with Krishna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead and continuing with the Bhagavad Gita and other books. Their most impressive book, at least in size, was Srila Prabhupada’s translation of Srimad I was active in ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) from 1977-79. I haven’t practiced the religion since I left, but I still find myself to be interested in its philosophy and scriptures, for what that’s worth.

I first encountered ISKCON writings in my college library, starting with Krishna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead and continuing with the Bhagavad Gita and other books. Their most impressive book, at least in size, was Srila Prabhupada’s translation of Srimad Bhagavatam. It took up several shelves and each volume contained both translated verses and elaborate (and to my young mind, repetitive) commentary. I found myself reading the verses and skipping most of the commentary, and found myself wishing for a translation that lacked that commentary and included the R rated details that I felt certain Srila Prabhupada was leaving out.

If Ramesh Menon’s translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam (AKA Bhagavata Purana) had been available back then it would have seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I would have read it and probably never would have visited the Evanston Hare Krishna temple or done any of the foolish things described in my own memoir of those days. It may seem strange to say it, since those days did not end happily for me, but that would have been a shame.

The problem with this book is that it is not a simple, literal translation, but it is marketed as such. It bears the same relationship to the actual Bhagavata Purana as a Cecil B DeMille movie does to the Bible. DeMille’s movies are a sexed up version of their source material, and the more intelligent members of the movie going public understand that. If a sincere spiritual seeker took them as anything else, there are plenty of Bibles around where he can read the original story.

Menon’s book, on the other hand, pretends to be a literal translation, to the point where important passages are shown as untranslated Sanskrit passages before the translation. If he had just done that, I wouldn’t complain. The problem is, he adds stories he made up himself to the text, embellishes passages having anything to do with sex, and adds sex where it doesn’t exist in the original. He also does what I must conclude are mistranslations. For example, he refers to the BP as “the secret Purana”. Srila Prabhupada told us it was “the spotless Purana”, in other words without flaw. That translation makes a great deal more sense than Menon’s.

Another thing Menon does is refer to the cowherds Krishna grew up with as Gypsies. This is not accurate, even based on Menon's own translation. Krishna’s father Nanda is described as constantly giving away thousands of cows to the Brahmans, and not just cows but decorated cows, with horns plated with gold or silver. He must have had more money than Joel Osteen. He was no gypsy.

Where Menon adds sexual incidents is of course in the stories of the love of the gopis. In the original text (from Prabhupada’s translations and others) there is no mention of Krishna and the gopis actually having sexual intercourse. The BP is not shy about people having sex. There are many incidents in the BP as well as in the Mahabharata where something happens specifically because someone was having sex, and the text tells you as much. It isn’t described in any detail, but you are told without doubt that it happened. For example, in an early section of the book two great demons are born because a woman couldn’t wait a half hour to have sex.

My point is, Krishna’s loving exploits with the gopis are not described as including actual shagging. You’d never know that from reading Menon’s “translation”.

While I was not impressed with Srila Prabhupada’s extensive commentary back in 1977, I have since come around. The commentary is important and necessary. Someone might disagree with it, but at least it represents an actual tradition in Hinduism and isn’t something made up on the spot.

The BP expounds a philosophy with all of its stories, and Menon’s translation is so vague in places that you don’t get a clear idea of what that philosophy is. You can’t determine whether the BP says that the ultimate truth is personal or impersonal, or whether Krishna is the original form of God or merely an avatar of Vishnu.

I will not judge whether the philosophy of the BP is true or not. Having said that, books in general and scriptures especially deserve to be translated without distorting the intent of the original author, and this book in my opinion does not do that.
...more

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Dec 22, 2014 Varun Goel rated it it was amazing

a fascinating read. really a very long book but the stories are out of this world and state some amazing philosophical knowledge. loved it.

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Nov 08, 2017 Jaanaki rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religous, vaishnavism

he Sreemad Bhagavatham is one of the oldest puranas that talks about the greatness of Lord Vishnu .Although it discusses all his avatars the major portions of the text discuss his birth ,mischief and exploits as Lord Krishna. Divided into 12 skandas with over 30,000 verses it is massive .I have always wanted to read this because although I am a great believer and lover of Vishnu ,I always had a lot of questions in my mind on who is Vishnu,what is the origin of Vaishnavism ,why do we say that he ...more

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Aug 09, 2018 Aseem Kumar rated it liked it

Without reading either the original Sanskrit verses, or other translations, it is hard to say if there are any mistakes/wrong interpretations.
I was already familiar with some of the mythology, and hence this was an easy read for me. This covers a big part of Hindu mythology, and it is better to approach it as a fictional novel rather than philosophical as that gets pretty confusing.

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Mar 08, 2019 Justin rated it really liked it

Very enjoyable/well written stories

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Oct 08, 2013 Masen Production rated it it was amazing

“A read that I thought was going to be too Philosophical or too strenous... strangely I find this as a vry fascinating read and just feeling proud that thankgod I made the effort to pick this heavy book... It's FANTASTIC.”

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About Ramesh Menon

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The Mahabharata : A Modern Rendering (2 Volumes)

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“One's longing is not so much there for sense-gratification, profit and self-preservation, instead one's karma is there for no other purpose than inquiring after the Absolute Truth.” — 2 likes

“Parikshita asked, “I have heard there are a great many regions that souls of the earth attain after they die. Is this true, my lord?’ Suka said, “There are, O Kshatriya, as many hells as there heavens, and those that sin surely do find these narakas for themselves, until they are purified and rise to the higher realms again. The hells, like all conditions are states of mind, too, resulting from ignorance, avidya, and from violence.” Parikshita wanted to know, “Where are these hells situated?” “They are deep inside the three worlds, in the southern direction, below the earth and above the waters. Here, the manes called the Agnisvattas dwell. They worship the great Gods with deep bhakti and ask them to bless their descendants. Here, too, Surya Deva’s son, Yama, the Lord Death, dwells with his retinue. And those souls that his dutas bring to him, he punishes according to their crimes,” — 1 likes

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