Sometime last year, on August 18th 2022, to be precise, I started my new series of talks based on the ancient Indian scripture namely the Bhagavata. That day happened to be the birth day of Krishna who was the focus of my talks. That series went on for 33 weeks and finally concluded this year i.e. on March 30th 2023.
Bhagavata is a big scripture, narrating not just the stories of Krishna but also many other stories about various Avatars of God. Krishna happened to be the most popular among these Avatars. When I started, my intention was to convey how faith also has a prominent role in human thought process. Given the diversity of people around us, people have varying needs, and ignoring faith driven aspects completely, meant leaving out a vast majority of people.
So, I was not really emphasizing on intellectual side of human beings, but catering to people who are emotionally oriented. Accordingly, I did not try to mellow down the fantastic narratives of this very interesting scripture, nor attempted to give intellectually stimulating interpretation. At the same time, I skipped many philosophically oriented discussions in the original scripture. I focused mainly on story telling.
Even while narrating the stories, I had younger audience in mind who may take interest in the fantastic narratives and enjoy them irrespective of their religious upbringing. More specifically, I did not want it to be religion specific. In the process, I had to skip some of the stories, and present the stories in a more widely acceptable form. But all the same, I tried to stick to the original scripture to the extent possible.
Bhagavata propounds its own version of philosophy. It gives new interpretation of the monistic or Advaitic philosophy popularized by Sankara in the 8th century. More specifically, it gives a new interpretation to the concept of Maya or illusion that is at the heart of Sankara’s philosophy. In a way, it seems to be an attempt to bridge the two divergent views namely monistic or Advaitic and dualistic or Dwaitic. It is God centric, with devotion to God running as an undercurrent all through.
There are people who believe that Bhagavata in its present form did not exist during Sankara’s time, though parts of it did exist in various other scriptures. So, unlike the traditional belief, Bhagavata may not be a single author composition but a compilation of parts of various ancient scriptures, with some new ideas added and some old ideas refined. According to these people, Bhagavata attained its current form much after Sankara.
That probably explains why the philosophy propounded by Bhagavata appears more of a refinement rather than original. I am aware that many staunch Bhagavata followers may disagree. But that is just my view. I have tried to stay clear from these conflicting views and focused mainly on story telling.
Now that I have come to the end of this series of talks, I thought it is a good idea to compile these into well-organized set of books. I have brought out a set of four books titled “The Man the Most Attractive: Wonderful stories of Krishna Part 1 to Part 4”. On amazon and many other retailing sites, these books are sold as parts of a series titled “Stories of Krishna”.
These books are available as e-books, paper backs, as well as audio books in most online stores. You may find the paperbacks in some offline stores as well. These are small books, quite affordably priced, and may be a good idea as a gift to some young one you love. Since the presentation emphasizes on storytelling, with very little religious overtones, most kids may enjoy them irrespective of their religious upbringing or orientation.
The audio versions of these books also incorporate pieces of wonderful Indian music in various genres to make the narration all the more interesting. If you are a audio person, I am sure you will like this additional feature. Try listening to one of these, especially the initial parts.
These books are available in almost all online stores and some libraries. They are also available in most subscription services such as audible, Scribd, Spotify and so on. Check the links https://books2read.com/TheMan1 https://books2read.com/TheMan2 https://books2read.com/TheMan3 https://books2read.com/TheMan4 to preview and purchase these books from your favorite store. On sites like amazon, it is possible to purchase all of them together in one click as parts of a single series.
Happy reading/listening. Please don’t forget to leave back your reviews on the site where you purchased this book from. That will be greatly appreciated.
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