The Epics · Purana

The Bhagavata Purana

The Story of the Fortunate One, Retold in Full

Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam — but Krishna is the Lord himself

The Bhagavata Purana is a story told to a man who has seven days to live. A king is cursed to die; a sage arrives; and what passes between them — creation and dissolution, the great devotees, the descents of the Lord, and above all the whole life of Krishna — is offered as the one thing worth hearing when there is no time left for anything else. Here it is retold in flowing English in full: all twelve cantos, broken into fifty-seven short chapters across seven movements, as a single continuous narrative — so that a first-time reader can move through the whole of it and feel why the tradition holds that to hear this story well is itself the thing the story is about.

57 of 57 chapters available

Part One — The Frame and the Question

Cantos 1–2 — The Dying King and the Speaker

  1. The Curse on the King A great king, a careless insult to a sage, and seven days to live.
  2. The Speaker Arrives On the bank of the Ganga, the one question worth asking at the end.
  3. Vyasa's Sorrow and Narada's Counsel The man who had written everything, and still felt something missing.
  4. What the Dying Should Hear Not how to escape death — what to fill the time before it with.

Part Two — The Worlds Made

Cantos 3–5 — Creation and the Early Souls

  1. Vidura's Long Question An exile on pilgrimage, and a sage who answers him with the beginning of everything.
  2. The Making of the Worlds How the one becomes the many, and why it is told as a story and not a diagram.
  3. Kapila and the Way of Return A son born to teach his own mother the road back.
  4. The Boy Who Would Not Come Down A slighted child goes to the forest for a kingdom and finds something larger.
  5. The King the Earth Obeyed When the earth withholds her milk, a king learns what rule is for.
  6. Sati and the Broken Sacrifice A father's contempt, a daughter's fire, and a rite undone.
  7. The City of Nine Gates An allegory of a soul that mistook the body for a home.
  8. The King Who Became a Deer One attachment at the end of a holy life, and the long way back from it.
  9. The Shape of the Worlds The map of the heavens and the hells, told as warning and as wonder.

Part Three — The Devotees and the Descents

Cantos 6–9 — Those Who Were Saved and the Forms That Saved Them

  1. The Redemption of Ajamila A fallen man calls his son's name at the end, and the name was also another's.
  2. The Bones of the Sage A demon more righteous than the gods, and the saint who gave his skeleton for a weapon.
  3. The Boy in the Fire A tyrant who conquered the worlds, and the son who would not stop loving his enemy.
  4. Neither Man Nor Beast Every loophole in a boon closed at once, at twilight, on a threshold.
  5. The Churning of the Ocean Gods and demons pull the same rope for a nectar neither will share.
  6. The Poison and the Enchantress One drinks the poison so the world can live; one shape keeps the nectar honest.
  7. The Elephant's Cry Caught in a lake by something it cannot fight, a great beast finally calls out.
  8. The Dwarf and the Three Steps A generous king, a small beggar, and a stride that measures the universe.
  9. The Fish That Saved the Scriptures A flood, a boat, and the knowledge carried across the night of the world.
  10. The King Who Fasted for a Sage Devotion that will not defend itself, and a weapon that turns on the one who sent it.
  11. The Line of Kings The long descent of the sun and moon, and the Rama story told once more, swiftly.

Part Four — The Coming of Krishna

Canto 10 — Birth and the First Years

  1. The Eighth Child A voice from the sky, a tyrant's fear, and a prison made for a prophecy.
  2. The Night of the Crossing Chains that fell open, a river that parted, a child carried into another house.
  3. The Demoness at the Breast The first to come to kill the child, and what it means that she was saved.
  4. The Child Who Held the Universe A cart kicked over, a whirlwind defeated, and a mother shown the cosmos in a mouth.
  5. Bound by a Mother's Love The unbindable, bound by one rope and one exhausted woman's love.

Part Five — Vrindavan

Canto 10 — The Cowherd Years

  1. To Vrindavan A village moves, and a forest fills with demons that look like the ordinary world.
  2. The Stolen Boys The creator tests the child by hiding the world, and is answered with the world.
  3. The Serpent in the River A poisoned pool, a many-headed snake, and a dance on its hoods.
  4. The Swallowed Fire Twice the forest burns and the boy simply closes it inside himself.
  5. The Lifting of the Hill A god's rain answered not with a counter-storm but with an umbrella of mountain.
  6. The Night of the Dance The flute, the women who came, the one who vanished, and what the leaving taught.
  7. The Flute and the Longing Love that is not asked to be useful, and the song sung into his absence.
  8. Akrura's Chariot A summons to the city, and the road out of the only world that was ever pure joy.

Part Six — Mathura and Dwarka

Canto 10 — The King's Work

  1. The Road to Mathura A washerman, a garland-maker, a bent woman made straight, and a bow broken.
  2. The Elephant and the Wrestlers An ambush at the gate, a rigged arena, and the crowd that changed its mind.
  3. The Death of Kamsa The prophecy kept, the throne returned to the man it was taken from.
  4. The School of Sandipani A god goes to school, and pays a teacher's fee no one else could pay.
  5. The Messenger to Vrindavan A wise envoy sent to comfort the cowherds, and schooled instead by their grief.
  6. Jarasandha and the Flight Seventeen wars survived, an eighteenth declined, and a city left for the sea.
  7. The Building of Dwarka A fortress raised from the ocean overnight, and a kingship begun again.
  8. The Winning of Rukmini A letter carried in secret, a bride taken from her own wedding, by her own request.
  9. The Jewel of Syamantaka A slander, a search into the dark of the earth, and a name cleared.
  10. The Demon Kings Naraka and the freed thousands, Bana and the bound grandson, the false Krishna.
  11. The Householder of Dwarka One being in every house at once, and a poor friend with a fistful of rice.
  12. The Burden Lifted Where this story touches the other one — the eclipse, the war, the grandsire's bed.

Part Seven — The Departure and the End

Cantos 11–12 — The Leaving and the Frame Closing

  1. The Curse on the Yadavas Mocking sages, an iron bolt ground to powder, and a doom accepted as just.
  2. The Song of Uddhava A last teaching before the leaving, and the hermit who had twenty-four teachers.
  3. The Iron and the Sea A festival, the wine, the reeds on the shore, and a race ending itself.
  4. The Hunter's Arrow A foot mistaken for a deer, a small ordinary death chosen on purpose.
  5. The King and the Sage Back to the riverbank: the seven days nearly spent, the listening complete.
  6. The Death That Was Not One The serpent comes on the seventh day to a man who is no longer afraid of it.
  7. The Age of Iron The world the story leaves us in, and the one thing it says still works in it.
  8. The Story Returns to Its Source The poem folded shut, the blessing of the hearing, and why it was told at all.