Bhakti yoga

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002 bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:

> >  praNAm Jaldhar prabhuji, Hare Krishna, just a small clarification, in
> the above para you have mentioned *The Bhagavata doctrine*  is this
> doctrine derived from bhagavata mahapurana or else was there separate work
> relating to bhakti existing by that time. coz. some days back vidyashankar
> prabhuji had expressed his opinion that bhagavata purana was a much later
> work by some vaishna school somewhere in 11-12 century.   Shankaracharya
> has quoted only from vishnupurana in his BG & vishnusahasranama bhashyas.
> pls. clarify what is this bhagavata doctrine.
>

The doctine of Bhagawan succesively manifesting in four vyuhas: Vasudeva
(chitta), Sankarshana (ahamkara), Aniruddha (manasa), and Pradyumna
(buddhi) comes from the Pancharatra Agamas.  However it is also mentioned
in the Bhagavata Purana in 4.26.

Today the Pancharatra Agamas are mainly followed by Shrivaishnavas.  Were
the Bhagavatas the forerunners of Shrivaishnavism?  It is a fact that
Ramanuja was not the founder of the Shri sampradaya but its' rejuvenator.
the names of several prior commentators who belonged to this school are
known and they could be contemperaneous or prior to Shankaracharya time.
However as their works only survive in quotations it is difficult to say.
We do know that the Bhagavata religion is very ancient and miraculously
for Indian history, we have a date.

After Alexandar the Great (who got as far as Punjab) his empire broke up
and some of his generals founded kingdoms. One such was Gandhara which
covered parts of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It's capital was
Takshashila (modern Taxila in Pakistan) In Besnagar, MP there is a
Garudadhvaja (column with a murti of Garuda on it) the Prakrit inscription
of which says it was donated by Heliodorus the Bhagavata, ambassador of
King Antialkidaes of Takshashila to the court of the Sunga dynasty emperor
Kashiputra Bhagabhadra who was in the 14th year of his reign which would
be 113 BC.

As for the date of the Bhagavata Purana, Chitsukhacharya is supposed to
have written a commentary on it and he is said to be about two generations
after Shankaracharya.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/