Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.7.12

parīkshito 'tha rājarsher

janma-karma-vilāpanam

samsthām ca pāndu-putrānām

vakshye krishna-kathodayam

SYNONYMS

parīkshitah — of King Parīkshit; atha — thus; rājarsheh — of the King who was the rishi among the kings; janma — birth; karma — activities; vilāpanam — deliverance; samsthām — renunciation of the world; ca — and; pāndu-putrānām — of the sons of Pāndu; vakshye — I shall speak; krishna-kathā-udayam — that which gives rise to the transcendental narration of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

TRANSLATION

Sūta Gosvāmī thus addressed the rishis headed by Śaunaka: Now I shall begin the transcendental narration of the Lord Śrī Krishna and topics of the birth, activities and deliverance of King Parīkshit, the sage amongst kings, as well as topics of the renunciation of the worldly order by the sons of Pāndu.

PURPORT

Lord Krishna is so kind to the fallen souls that He personally incarnates Himself amongst the different kinds of living entities and takes part with them in daily activities. Any historical fact old or new which has a connection with the activities of the Lord is to be understood as a transcendental narration of the Lord. Without Krishna, all the supplementary literatures like the Purānas and Mahābhārata are simply stories or historical facts. But with Krishna they become transcendental, and when we hear of them we at once become transcendentally related with the Lord. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is also a Purāna, but the special significance of this Purāna is that the activities of the Lord are central and not just supplementary historical facts. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is thus recommended by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the spotless Purāna. There is a class of less intelligent devotees of the Bhāgavata Purāna who desire to relish at once the activities of the Lord narrated in the Tenth Canto without first understanding the primary cantos. They are under the false impression that the other cantos are not concerned with Krishna, and thus more foolishly than intelligently they take to the reading of the Tenth Canto. These readers are specifically told herein that the other cantos of the Bhāgavatam are as important as the Tenth Canto. No one should try to go into the matters of the Tenth Canto without having thoroughly understood the purport of the other nine cantos. Krishna and His pure devotees like the Pāndavas are on the same plane. Krishna is not without His devotees of all the rasas, and the pure devotees like the Pāndavas are not without Krishna. The devotees and the Lord are interlinked, and they cannot be separated. Therefore talks about them are all krishna-kathā, or topics of the Lord.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness