BHAKTI RATNAVALI AN ANTHOLOGY FROM SRIMAD BHAGAVATA

Bhakti Ratnavali is an anthology of four hundred and odd verses from Srimad Bhagavata, selected by a medievel ascetic named Vishnu Puri. In these verses we get a clear outline of the doctrine of Bhakti, both in its theory and practice, as conceived by the great devotional text, the Bhagavata.

Preface:

An Anthology is certainly no original work, but the four hundred and odd verses comprising the Bhakti Ratnavali is something more than a mere selection based on the Bhagavata. The methodical way adopted in selection and the systematic treatment of the theme make the work as significant as an original writing itself. As the author has pointed out, its object is to give a person who cannot go through the whole of the Bhagavata Text, an ideal of the central theme treated therein in a nutshell. The luxuriant foliage of the Bhagavata narrative is necessarily omitted, but the main principles of the theme of Bhakti are delineated in it in terms of the original Text of the Bhagavata.

According to a prevailing tradition, Vishnu Puri had cultivated the acquintance of Sri Chaitanya during the latter's visit to Banares. Sometime later, a group of Vishnu Puri's devotees went to Jagannath Puri to pay homage to Sri Chaitanya. On the eve of their return, these devotees asked Sri Chaitanya for some message to their teacher, Vishnu Puri. To their utter surprise he asked them to report to Vishnu Puri that he wants from him a necklace of jems. When this message was carried to him, Vishnu Puri understood its real meaning. Subsequently he selected from the Bhagavata this devotional necklace of thirteen strands and sent the same to Sri Chaitanya, who offered it to Jagannath and through Him, to mankind. The verse 7 of the first strand and verse 11 of the 13th strand may be taken as references to this tradition.

In the Introduction and the comments an attempt has been made to present the outlines of the philosophy of Bhakti in a systematic way, besides expounding the significance of the verses selected. The English translation is free, without being unfaithful to the original.

It is hoped that the study of it will interest the readers in the Bhagavata Text as a whole.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA MATH

MADRAS

SNANA PURNIMA

JUNE 10, 1979.

PUBLISHER