[Advaita-l] Books on Bhagawatam

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear friends,

With all respects to the great Shridhara swami for the trouble he had taken to write the commentary on the Bhagavatam but at the same time I feel sad for Vedavyasa as it appears that he failed in his mission. According to the Padma purana Vedavyasa wrote the Mahabharata for the layman and woman and at the end of it he was sad as he found that the Mahabharata did not become as easy as necessary  for the intended readers to understand it fully.

At that stage Narada advised him to write the Bhagavatam so that it should be intelligible to all and he promptly  listened to Narada's advice. It is pity that Sridhara swami found that more elucidation of Bhagavatam is required. Again with without any disregard for Sridhara swami I admit that I found the Bhagavatam (the original text translated toBengali) very enjoyable to read  and in my childhood I used to read that to my grandmother, who found reading somewhat hard in her old age.

Regards,
Sunil KB


________________________________
 From: Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Books on Bhagawatam
 
On Sun, 27 May 2012, durga prasad wrote:

> 
> I am looking for the following books translated in Telugu or English or Hindi :
> 
> 1. SrIdhara swamI - "BhAvArtha-dIpikA" -- commentary on Bhagawatam.
> 

Unfortunately it seems that even the sanskrit editions of this tika are long out of print.  The Tirupati Devasthana is in the process of publishing an edition of the Bhagavata purana with the bhavartha dipika along with other vishistadvaita, dvaita etc. tikas but it will be some time before it is complete and in any case it will be Sanskrit only.

> 2. Dongreeji Maharaj's Bhagawatam.
> 

I was going to reply to you that as far as I knew Dongre Maharaj's bhagavata expositions were only available in Gujarati but then I came across this:

http://jainbookagency.com/newdetails.aspx?id=81185

I have not seen the book so I don't know if it is a translation or an original work (Dongre Maharaj knew English, Marathi, and Hindi as well as Gujarati and Sanskrit.) nor can I vouch for its quality.

On Mon, 28 May 2012, Venkata sriram P wrote:

> As regards the commentary by Shri Dongreji, i am not aware of any of his
> writings. There is another Dongreji by name Shri Vireshwara Krishna
> Dongre Ji who was a pu. mimAmsa scholar and AFAIK he was a mimAmsaka and
> never tried his hands on puranas.

No this Dongre Maharaj (Ramachandra Shastri Dongre) was different.  He was born in Vadodara (Baroda) Gujarat of Chitpavana Brahmana stock. (The Gaekwad Maharajas were Marathas so there is a sizable Marathi population there.)   He became one of the most popular and beloved Bhagavata Kathakars of the 20th century in Gujarat and his writings are widely available wherever Gujarati speakers can be found.  He reached Vaikuntha in 1990.


-- Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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