Reading
S'rîmad Bhâgavatam one may wonder how
Vyâsadeva came to the order of this book. The sanskrit
text itself offers us no titles for the cantos, but the
tradition does. So how did one arrive at these titles? The
book itself gives us some clues to this. First of all
describes Vyâsa in 1.2:
11 how the unity
of undivided knowledge is known by a threefold discipline,
or trisâdhana, specified as the science of God
concerning the aspects of the Absolute, the brahman,
the Greater Soul, the paramâtmâ, and the
person of all bhâga, viz. excellence, fortune
and majesty, or Bhagavân. Another way to
describe these three different disciplines in one breath is
to say that in freedom from illusion with the Spirit of the
Absolute, one, as a soul relating to the Supersoul in
analysis connecting with the regulative principles, has to
arrive at the Fortunate One to be there with Him of service
as a person of God. So the basic logic, of step by step
attaining to love of Godhead, that is followed in this text
is known as the art and science of arriving at the personal
of God departing from the impersonal of the Absolute Truth.
Though the Absolute truth is nondual of nature and, relating
to the Supreme Soul, a matter of local culture shipping with
duality, is the conflict of the dual versus the nondual of
realization solved in the personal of considering the object
of worship religiously, and the explanations of the teaching
in the politics of spreading the message.
So
despite of the nondual nature of the Absolute is it the
mission to face the duality of the material world with the
help of the person of God who is there as the teacher and
the friend. This duality is traditionally in India defended
with the different darshanas, or the different
perspectives of indian philosophy. The threefold of the
discipline combined with the duality that has to be faced,
results in these darshanas. Thus is the discipline
with the Absolute Truth known by method, nyâya,
and non-illusion, vais'eshika, by setting up the
argument concerning the time and the person properly in
cantos one and two and then facing the facts of the
manifestation of the form and norm of God in cantos three
and four. Next has one to face the duality of matter and
soul facing the reality of the material diversity at the one
hand and the need to stay connected in rising above it in
transcendence. Thus we see the sâmkhya and the
yoga appear in the line of the argument of this
purâna, of these classical stories that help us
to realize the vedic wisdom. Though Lord Kapila, the
avatâra for the analytical approach, was
introduced already in the third canto as part of the science
of arriving at non-illusion about the Absolute, do we get to
see the full scope of it's effect in the fifth and sixth
canto. Therein is presented the diversity of the person and
the universe in relation to the Supersoul. Connecting in
yoga therewith one faces the form and the norm of it
in the cantos seven and eight where we learn to know
avatâra Nrisimha and the culture of
bhakti together with the founding fathers of the
traditions defending that culture of the enlightened souls
the way they take responsibility in the different eras of
creation. For the realization of the personal we finally
enter the discipline of considering the object of worship,
called mîmâmsâ, the great example
known as the Time or kâla at the one hand and the
substance of the person or the purusha at the other
hand. This is seen in the ninth and the tenth canto
presenting us the persons found of the dynasties of the
vedic culture in relation to the sun and the moon at the one
hand and the person as the object of worship in the form of
Lord Râma and Lord Krishna at the other hand. With
Krishna we find the culmination of the discipline of oneness
in diversity in one person, the Person of All Qualities and
Fortune. In the last part, is the vedanta, or the
final commentary presented. In canto eleven this is done in
the form of the teachings to remember after Krishna left
this world and is the norm of celibacy in facing the Age of
Quarrel set by sage Mârkandeya in canto twelve, in
which the people have difficulty keeping track with the
classical wisdom arguing endlessly about their personal
weaknesses in politics and a societal confusion of identity.
So do we at this second level, accepting duality with the
threefold respected nondual reality of the Absolute Truth,
have the sixfold division of the darshanas covering
all the different aspects of indian philosophy.
The
next realization at an even deeper level of order is most
confounding: there seem to different types of logic woven
into the story. This logic presents us with an almost
chaotic array of stories relating to the time of the
material universe, the person who is of or against God, the
manifestation of the Lord in different forms and the reality
of the religion that by tradition is needed to remember God.
A doubter failing in the method may be in confusion about
the purpose of the vedic discipline presented by
Vyâsadeva. Is it all about becoming religious? Or is
it to figure out who the Fortunate One actually is? Is it to
sober up with the difficulties of mâyâ,
the bewildering potency of the material universe with its
operating modes or gunas to the eternal of Time, or
is it all about defeating demons, the asuras and
râkshasas, to be a pious person? To what
purpose is the bhâgavata purâna there?
Vyâsa is not so explicit in this at a meta-level. He
simply presents us the consequence of his logic. He reasons
about avatâra, purusha, kâla as well as
about dharma in a pleasant intuitive mix surprising
us at every page. The general outline of his logic seems to
be that departing from a certain historical respect of time,
the person manifest in the universe as also the person of
God in the form of the universe must be realized, after
which the need for the hero of God, the manifestation of the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, comes in view, for He is the
One to lead the bewildered living beings back to His
purpose: the dharma which then is delivered as the
conclusion of the mission for all the three disciplines. So,
in one breath said, places the time realized as a person us
for the need of the hero, of the incarnation of the Great
Example, to be certain on the path of our religiosity of
finding liberation with our enlightenment in spiritual
self-realization. So do we with this line of argument have a
fourfold cause to reason from we in the West more or less
already knew from Aristotele; this causal network is the
kâranata, the causality of the
Bhâgavatam. From this kâranata we see the
sixfold of the different visions further divided in twelve,
do we see the argument further diversified to the basic
logic about self-realization. This twelvefold effect of the
logic followed thus is laid down in the twelve books, or the
divisions of the three hundred thirty-five chapters in this
bible or collection of stories, or samhitâ,
about the wisdom of God. Thus we get the contents, the
anukrama of this book arranged chapter by chapter.
The final result of realizing this structure, this
vyûha of the bhâgavata, is in the
table below presented as a permutation on the concepts of
the pratyaya or the proof thus delivered. Time as the
doer results in the proof of history. The substance of the
universe and the logic followed is proven to be the person.
The hero of the Lord incarnate in a certain form is the
manifestation of that proof of the person of God and the
religiousness of the norm set by Him is the proven duty we
have to conclude to. Thus reasoning from the causal modes of
history, person, manifestation and the duty we arrive at the
result, the bhâvita, of the structural
awareness of the Bhâgavatam as laid down in the before
last row of the table below.
The
final step in this in depth analysis of the structure of
this book is the translation of this result, this
bhâvita, into the actual titles the
paramparâ came up with. In this respect is
another element added to the story: the element of the
different subjects discussed in the book. In
2.10:
1 explains
S'ukadeva Gosvâmî as the first philosopher-king
after Krishna, the first
mahârâja-âcârya that: 'In
this [Bhâgavatam] there are [ten types
of] statements about the following: the creation of the
universe, the secondary creation, the different worlds,
support [by the Lord], the creative drive, the
changes of Manus, following divine instruction, returning to
God, finding liberation and the Summum Bonum
[description of the actions of Lord Krishna]. In
12.7:
9-11 he further
dilates on this saying: 'The creation [of this
universe, sarga],
the subsequent creation [of different worlds and beings,
visarga],
the maintenance [the sustenance, the
vritti
or sthâna] and protection [the rakshâ or
poshana of the living beings], the reigns [of the
various Manus], the dynasties [vams'as],
the narrations about them [vams'a-anucaritam], the
annihilation [of different kinds, pralaya
or samsthâ], the motivation [of individuality
or hetu] and the supreme shelter [of the Fortunate
One or apâs'raya], o brahmin, are the ten
characteristic topics of a purâna as understood by the
authorities on the matter; some state that relative to the
greater ones, the lesser purânas deal with five'.
These verses inspired the paramparâ, the
disciplic succession in the person of Swami Prabhupâda
to present the book with the titles given in the last row of
the table below. In fact is in his argument that what is
laid out above more or less intuitively combined with these
ten topics. The titles must not be seen as direct
translations of these ten topics though, since they are
diffusely discussed throughout the book. S'rîla
Jîva Gosvâmî explicitly reminds us of the
fact that 'one should not try to assign each of the ten
topics to a particular canto. Nor should the
S'rîmad-Bhâgavatam be artificially interpreted
to show that it deals with the topics successively.' The
titles assigned by the paramparâ just remind
one of the ten subjects as far as a certain emphasis is made
by a certain canto or kânda. The actual in
depth structure is realized by the full scope of the table
below summarizing this discussion.
