The Bhagavata Commentaries

[Nitaidas]

Oct 14, 2020 21:34:48 GMT -6 kd91 said:

Oct 14, 2020 11:22:58 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

राधे राधे !

No, Chinmayidi's editions are not in English, but she has generally written a longish introduction in which she summarizes the argument of the text. Unfortunately, the text is not critically edited either like the first volume is for the Tattva-sandarbha edited by Sitanatha Goswami. The original plan for the series was to produced critical editions of all the sandarbhas, but for some reason that was not done for the last five sandarbhas. I don't know what happened. They are just reprints of an earlier edition with a little dusting and fixing, although sadly a few misprints have seeped in. Occasionaly, Chinmayidi will add some footnotes. From the point of view of correctness, that is, freedom of misprints, and usability, Haridas Sastri's editions are much better. Those include commentaries where available and a Hindi translation which is pretty easy to follow after you pick up a little Hindi grammar. However, it is hard to beat Nityasvarupa Brahmacari's old edition in Bengali script. Sitanatha Goswami highly praises it in his introduction. And it is available on the archive. I look at it when I am a little puzzled by a passage. It has both Baladeva's and Radhamohan Goswami's commentaries. The latter is really good, the former meh! And, of course, everything is translated into Bengali.

Baladeva's commentary not nice?

Too fanatic and anti-Sankara for me. He really belongs in the Madhva community, not in CV. Madhva is downright mendacious in my view. I translated his commentary on the Isa Upanisad. You should see the calisthenics he goes through to turn a clearly advaita view into a "dvaita" view. Not only that, he cites texts as evidence for his views that no one has ever seen. Whenever he needed a proof text, he just made one up. It is laughable. I think the connection between CV and the Madhva tradition was all Baladeva's invention. We are better off without that fake connection. Either we are an offshoot of Sankara's tradition, or we are an entirely new tradition founded by Sri Caitanya.

[kd91]

Thank you, Nitaiji. Indeed as much as I know Madhva was the most rigid of the Vaishnava Sampradaya leaders. Some of his followers were very clever theologians/thinkers nonetheless, like Vyasa and Jaya Tirthas, as I read in Surendranath Dasgupta's book.

I haven't read the Baladeva either. I'd think that you're familiar with his comm on the Bhagavatam. How do you think that is? Any speciality?

[kd91]

Let us discuss here the various commentaries on the Srimad Bhagavatam. Any specific portions from any of the multitudes that switched on a light bulb in you, in other words gave you a sudden moment of sheer delight. No doubt there are mind-blowing conceptions to be found in the works of the great relishers.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 15, 2020 10:15:43 GMT -6 kd91 said:

Let us discuss here the various commentaries on the Srimad Bhagavatam. Any specific portions from any of the multitudes that switched on a light bulb in you, in other words gave you a sudden moment of sheer delight. No doubt there are mind-blowing conceptions to be found in the works of the great relishers.

Well, I wish I had read them all, but I haven't. Have you seen the multivolume edition of the Bhagavata published by Krishnashankara Shastri (1965-68) in 12 volumes with just 11 commentaries? Each volume is about a 1000 pages long. It is an immense literature, bro. You can see it here. Everyone should start with the commentary of Sridhara, of course. It is the earliest surviving commentary on the text. He wrote in about the middle of the 14th century and refers to a previous commentary by Citsukha (1220-84), another Advaitin. But two commentaries stand out as elucidations of the Sridhara, that of Radharamana Gosvamin and Vamsidhara, both were members of the CV tradition. Those two are supposed to be extremely rich and good. Then of course there are Sri Jiva's Krama-sandarbha and Visvanatha's Sarartha-darsini. Of these, Visvanatha's is the most rasik, of course.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 15, 2020 1:21:18 GMT -6 kd91 said:

Thank you, Nitaiji. Indeed as much as I know Madhva was the most rigid of the Vaishnava Sampradaya leaders. Some of his followers were very clever theologians/thinkers nonetheless, like Vyasa and Jaya Tirthas, as I read in Surendranath Dasgupta's book.

I haven't read the Baladeva either. I'd think that you're familiar with his comm on the Bhagavatam. How do you think that is? Any speciality?

I have not read much of Baladeva's comm. on the Bhagavata. As far as I know, not much of it is available. I have a small piece that Haridas Das Baba published years ago, but it only covers a few of the earliest chapters. I didn't mean to diss him, too much. He was a smart man. He just wasn't entirely Caitanyized. Too much Madhva-ism in him. I am not sure he really accepted the Acintya-bhedAbheda views of Sri Jiva as the defining orientation of our tradition. In place of acintya he wanted to put the idea of vizeSa (distinction) taken from the MAdhva tradition. VizeSa is the appearance of difference, but not real difference. That view has its own problems, but it would eliminate the necessity for acintya.

[Nitaidas]

In terms of commentaries, I am much more interested in Srinatha Cakravartin's than any of the others, excepting perhaps Sridhara's as a starting point for the evolution of Bhagavata commentary. It is called the Sri Caitnya-mata-maJjuSA and thus claims to represent Sri Caitanya's views. It will probably give us a more accurate account of his views before they were "polluted" by the views of the Gosvamins which invaded Bengal toward the end of the 16th century. I think Mahaprabhu's views were really more in line with, but perhaps with more emphasis on bhakti, Sridhara's non-dualist bhakti, but those were overwritten in a kind of palimpsest in which the Goswamins' views were imposed on top of his. It now requires some top notch detective work to recover them.

[kd91]

Oct 16, 2020 15:01:42 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

In terms of commentaries, I am much more interested in Srinatha Cakravartin's than any of the others, excepting perhaps Sridhara's as a starting point for the evolution of Bhagavata commentary. It is called the Sri Caitnya-mata-maJjuSA and thus claims to represent Sri Caitanya's views. It will probably give us a more accurate account of his views before they were "polluted" by the views of the Gosvamins which invaded Bengal toward the end of the 16th century. I think Mahaprabhu's views were really more in line with, but perhaps with more emphasis on bhakti, Sridhara's non-dualist bhakti, but those were overwritten in a kind of palimpsest in which the Goswamins' views were imposed on top of his. It now requires some top notch detective work to recover them.

Have you not read the Chaitanya-mata-manjusa already, Prabhu? Sounds like Your Grace have not.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 16, 2020 23:14:34 GMT -6 kd91 said:

Oct 16, 2020 15:01:42 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

In terms of commentaries, I am much more interested in Srinatha Cakravartin's than any of the others, excepting perhaps Sridhara's as a starting point for the evolution of Bhagavata commentary. It is called the Sri Caitnya-mata-maJjuSA and thus claims to represent Sri Caitanya's views. It will probably give us a more accurate account of his views before they were "polluted" by the views of the Gosvamins which invaded Bengal toward the end of the 16th century. I think Mahaprabhu's views were really more in line with, but perhaps with more emphasis on bhakti, Sridhara's non-dualist bhakti, but those were overwritten in a kind of palimpsest in which the Goswamins' views were imposed on top of his. It now requires some top notch detective work to recover them.

Have you not read the Chaitanya-mata-manjusa already, Prabhu? Sounds like Your Grace have not.

I started some years ago and started a translation of it. But, as is often the case, I got distracted by other projects: Kavi Karnapura's astakaliya-smarana text, the Krsnahnika-kaumudi (beautiful! and written before Krsnadas Kaviraja's Govinda-lilamrta and, of course, Visvanatha's Krsna-bhavanamrta. And then came Sanatana Prabhupada's Sri Krsna-lila-stava, in my view the grand-daddy of all lila-smarana texts. And so on and so forth. I need a half a dozen more lives to finish projects I have already started. Anyway, I think I have posted here somewhere the beginnings of my Srinatha Cakravartin translation.

If I could just focus on one project until it is done, that would be great. The problem is determining which is the most important or most fundamental of them all. At present the Tattva-sandarbha has that place of honor. But discovering what Mahaprabhu really thought and what his philosophical leanings were is a close second. One cannot trust the Cc. It is propaganda, plain and simple. It is a shame that it has become the defining text in the CV tradition over the centuries. It's accounts cannot be trusted. Anyway, enough of that.

[Nitaidas]

Here is the beginning of my translation of Sridhara and Srinatha Cakravartin's comms. on the Bhagavata,

You can see access it here.

[kd91]

Great! Thank you very much.