[Advaita-l] Translations of the Bhagavata

jaldhar at braincells.com jaldhar at braincells.com
Fri Jul 22 00:55:17 EDT 2022


Thank you to all who responded.  I learned a lot.


On Mon, 18 Jul 2022, Girish S V wrote:

> Swami Tapasyananda's 4-volume English translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam
> published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai is worth consideration. 

I was not that impressed by his translation of Madhaviya Shankara 
Digvijaya but the excerpt I saw (the whole thing does not appear to be 
available on the net.) seemed to be ok.

On Mon, 18 Jul 2022, Shyam Subramanian via Advaita-l wrote:

> The Gitapress version (mUla saMskRtam+English translation in 2 volumes) of
> the bhAgavatam is also good, IMO.
>

Ah I should of course thought about Gita Press.  I have not seen this but 
there books are usually good.


n Mon, 18 Jul 2022, Dev Babu via Advaita-l wrote:

> Tamil Kadalangudi publications are also good with Sridhara bhashyam
> translations.

I still maintain you will find much better, higher quality translations in 
Indian languages.  For instance, there is no complete English translation 
of Shridharaswami yet his tika is of huge importance for understanding the 
Bhagavata especially for Advaitins.  75 years after independence we should 
not be fixated on English like this.


On Mon, 18 Jul 2022, VTCS Rao wrote:

>
> I found these two. Volumes of Bhagavata in English, authentic. Much 
reliable
> than ISKON ones. You can download them from.archive.org
>
> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.273815
>
>  https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.272624


This is a great find.  The translator is apparently a Madhva however he 
has taken pains to provide interpretations from all three major 
sampradayas which is much appreciated.

There is one more useful translation of the Bhagavata Purana namely that 
in Volumes 7 - 11 of the Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology. It is 
competent but not exactly soul-stirring.  It has lots of footnotes and 
explanations which would be helpful for many.  It can also be found on 
archive.org.


While all of these pointers that readers are given are gratefully 
received,  Kameshwara Raoji also asked for a readily available version. 
If some enterprising person took, say, the Subba Rao edition (which is out 
of copyright) and converted it into HTML and put it on the web for 
everyone to link to and quote as necessary, they would be doing a huge 
service to the dharmic community.

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


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