The Narada Purana

Translated and annotated by Dr.Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare
Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi - 1952'

Volume 5

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The Narada Purana (also Naradiya Purana) follows the style of the Brihannaradiya Purana in the first 41 chapters of Purvabhaga, but the rest of the first part and second part are encyclopedic covering a diverse range of topics. The encyclopedic sections discuss subjects such as the six Vedangas, Moksha, Dharma, Adhyatma-jnana (monastic life), Pashupata philosophy, a secular guide with methods of worship of Ganesha, various avatars of Vishnu (Mahavisnu, Nrisimha, Hayagriva, Rama, Krishna), Lakshmana, Hanuman, goddesses such as Devi and Mahalakshmi, as well as Shiva.[5] The text glorifies Radha as the one whose soul and love manifests as all Hindu goddesses.

The text's secular description and verse of praises are not limited to different traditions of Hinduism, but also other traditions. For example, chapter 1.2 extols Buddha. This contrasts with Kurma Purana which is disdainful of Buddhism without mentioning Buddha, but similar to the praise of Buddha in other major Puranas such as chapter 49 of the Agni Purana, chapter 2.5.16 of the Shiva Purana, chapter 54 of the Matsya Purana and various minor Puranas.

Chapters 92 through 109 of Purvabhaga are notable for summarizing the 18 major Puranas, one entire chapter dedicated to each. This has been an important benchmark in comparison studies, and as evidence that the Puranas were revised after the composition of Narada Purana, since the summary in these 18 chapters is significantly different than the extant manuscripts of the major Puranas. Other topics covered in the verses of Uttarabhaga include flora and fauna, food, music, dance, dress, jewelry, weapons and theories on war.

The Narada Purana also contains Rukmangadacarita, a legend of king named Rukmangada, whose belief in Vishnu is repeatedly tested by a temptress Mohini (a female avatar of Vishnu), one that became subject of plays and dance arts in Indian culture. After Rukmangadacarita, the text predominantly is a compilation of geographic Mahatmyas or travel guides for pilgrimage along river Ganges starting with Haridwar, through Banaras (Kashi) towards Bengal, and nearby regions such as Gaya in Bihar and Nepal.

Thanks to Rare Book Society

- Wikipedia
Image:

Narada found Vishnu in Vishwarupa darshana.
Credit:
​
Mahabharata by Ramanarayanadatta Astri
Published by Geeta Press, Gorakhpur.

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Volume 1

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Volume 2

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Volume 3

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Volume 4

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​http://ramakrishnavivekananda.info/?fbclid=IwAR3VWf6dyIjPYAHnhaMesrWj897y9JLkath3VwhvZQnztmyDwMCWsXdbVIg

Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda "Can you weep for Him with intense longing of heart? Men shed a jugful of tears for the sake of their children, for their wives, or for money. But who weeps for God? So long as the child remains engrossed with its toys, the mother looks after her cooking and other household duties. But when the child no longer relishes the toys, it throws them aside and yells for its mother. Then the mother takes the rice-pot down from the hearth, runs in haste, and takes the child in her arms." 
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa 
(Dakshineshwar 1884)
"I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal."
Swami Vivekananda 
Representative of Hindus 
Parliament of Religions 
Columbian Exposition, Chicago World Fair
11 September 1893.
Literary Works 

• Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami Saradananda (Translated from Bengali by Swami Jagadananda)
• The Gospel Of Sri Ramakrishna (Kathamrita) Slightly edited translation by Swami Nikhilananda published 1944 
• The Gospel Of Sri Ramakrishna (Kathamrita) Word to word translation by Sri Dharm Pal Gupta
• Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
• The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda    (Also available as a Kindle book.  — All proceeds donated to Advaita Ashrama.)
• The Gospel Of the Holy Mother
• Vivekananda A Biography by Swami Nikhilananda (Published 1953)
• Swami Vivekananda by Eastern and Western Disciples (1960 edition)
• Reminiscences Of Swami Vivekananda (Third Edition, Published 1983) and other sources.
• Anecdotes from the life of Swami Vivekananda
• The Master as I saw Him by Sister Nivedita (Published 1910) স্বামী মাধবানন্দকৃত বঙ্গানুবাদ
•   Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita in Bengali.
  

The Vamana Purana

Translated into English by Anand Swarup Gupta
Published by All India Kashiraj Trust, Varanasi - 1968
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The Vamana Purana, (Sanskrit: वामन पुराण, Vāmana Purāṇa), is a medieval era Sanskrit text and one of the 18 major Puranas. The text is named after one of the incarnations of Vishnu and probably was a Vaishnavism text in its origin. However, the modern surviving manuscripts of Vamana Purana are more strongly centered on Shiva, while containing Chapters that revere VIshnu and other Gods and Goddesses. It is considered a Shaivism text. Further, the text hardly has the character of a Purana, and is predominantly a collection of Tirtha Mahatmyas (glories of pilgrimages) to many Shiva-related places in India with legends and mythology woven in.

The extant manuscripts of Vamana Purana exist in various versions, likely very different from the original, and show signs of revision over time and regions. It has been published by All India Kashiraj Trust in two rounds. The first round had 95 Chapters, while the critical edition published in the second round has 69 Chapters plus an attached Saro-Mahatmya with 28 Chapters dedicated to temples and sacred sites in and around modern Haryana. Both these versions lack the Brihad-Vamana with four Samhitas, which is mentioned in the text, but is believed to have been lost to history. The text is non-sectarian, and its first version was likely created by the 9th to 11th century CE.

The earliest core of the text has been dated variously between 450 CE - 900 CE, but most scholars favor the 9th to 11th century. The early printed editions of this work had 96 Chapters, the new versions have 69 Chapters with a supplement. The supplement were not found in some versions of manuscripts discovered in Bengal.

At the beginning (Chapter 1), Narada asks Pulastya about the assumption of the Vamana Avatar by Vishnu, which is his dwarf avatar. The text includes Chapters glorifying Vishnu, but includes many more chapters glorifying Shiva. The text also glorifies various goddesses. The text barely contains, even as few Chapters, of cosmology, genealogy, mythology and Manavantaras expected in a Purana. The text includes Saro-Mahatmya, which is a 28 Chapter guide to the Tirthas, rivers and forests of region around Thanesar and Kurukshetra in modern Haryana, as well as sites in modern eastern Punjab (India). The text also mentions geography and sites in South India.

The Padma Purana categorizes Vamana Purana as a Rajas Purana. Scholars consider the Sattva-Rajas-Tamas classification as "entirely fanciful" and there is nothing in this text that actually justifies this classification.

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Image:

Watercolour painting on paper of Vāmana, one of the incarnations of Viṣṇu. The painting shows Vāmana as a dwarf,having water poured over his hands by the King Bali.

Company School
19thC(early)
Painted in Patna
​
Credit: © Trustees of the British Museum

Vishnu as Vāmana

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
Mughal Style
Mughal dynasty
1610 (circa)
India
​
Credit: © Trustees of the British Museum

Vamana, the Dwarf Avatar of Vishnu

Madhya Pradesh
Late 9th-10th century
Sandstone sculpture
​
Credit:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Seven Years in Tibet
By Heinrich Harrer

Translated by German by Richard Graves
Published by Rupert Hart-Davis, London - 1953

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Introduction
For the British and indeed I think for most Europeans, Tibet has during the last fifty years held a growing and a particular fascination. In 1904 Younghusband, in a campaign scarcely matched in the annals of war either for its administrative difficulties or for the combination of audacity and humanity with which it was conducted, marched to Lhasa and subdued Tibet.

The Tibetans, whose persistent intransigence upon an Imperial frontier had at length provoked our incursion, were granted the most chivalrous of terms; and on the remote, mysterious plateau — silhouetted for a time in sharp, painstaking relief by the dispatches which trickled back over the passes from the handful of correspondents with Younghusband’s expedition—a veil oncemore descended.

It was a thick veil, and it did not get much thinner as the years went by. The end of the nineteenth century found Europe’s eyes turning towards Asia. The geographical chall enge of Africa had been, in its essentials, met, and on that continent the political problems, save in South Africa, appeared in those days to be soluble only in the chanceries of European capitals. In Asia, by contrast, imponderable and exotic forces were on the move. Russia’s conquests in Central Asia had fulfilled what was believed to be only the first phase of her territorial ambitions; in the minds of Lord Curzon and of Kipling her attempts to probe with reconnaissance parties the mountain barrier which separated her armies from India produced apprehensions which the event proved to be disproportionate.

But here again Asia came into the picture; for while Younghusband—bringing artillery into action, for the first and so far the last time in history, at 17,000 feet above sea-level—was defeating the Tibetans, the Japanese, with much less of apology in their manner, were defeating the Russians in Manchuria. And only three years earlier, in the Boxer Rebellion, an international expedition bad raised the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.

Tibet did no more then than she had before, or has since, to gratify Europe’s curiosities about Asia.

She continued, increasingly, to stimulate them; the extent to which she reciprocated them was minimal.

Once four Tibetan boys (in the pages which follow you will meet briefly the only survivor of a sensibleexperiment which the Tibetans never got around to repeating) were sent to be educated at Rugby; and until the Chinese Communist forces took the country over in 1950 the sons of noblemen quite often went to school in India, learning (among other things) the English language.

Europe would gladly have welcomed Tibetans, as she has welcomed travellers and students from every other Asiatic country ; but whereas—broadly speaking—Europe

wants like anything to go to Tibet, Tibet has never evinced the slightest desire to go to Europe.

She has moreover made it as difficult as possible for Europeans, or indeed for any non-Tibetans, to set foot on Tibetan territory, however impeccable their credentials. The veil of secrecy, or perhaps rather of exclusiveness, which was lifted by Younghusband and then so tantalisingly dropped again, has in the last fifty years been effectively penetrated by very few, and of these it is safe to say that not one attained to the remarkable position which the author of this book, towards the end of his five years' residence in Lhasa, found himself occupying in the entourage of the young Dalai Lama.

The European traveller is accustomed to seeing Asia or anyhow the backwoods of Asia, from above. By that I mean that, although at times his situation may be precarious and his resources slender the European is generally a good deal better off than the primitive people through whose territory he is passing. He possesses things whidi they do not—money and
firearms, soap and medicines, tents and tin-openers; he has, moreover, in another part of the planet a Government which, should he get into trouble, will try to get him out of it. So the foreigner tends to ride upon the high though not very reliable horse of privilege, and to view the backwoods and their denizens from above.

It was otherwise with Herr Harrer. When in 1943 made a third and successful attempt to escape from an internment camp at Dehra-Dun and headed for Tibet, he was seeing Asia from below. He travelled on foot, carried his few possessions on his back and slept on the ground in the open. He was a fugitive, with no status, no papers and very limited funds.

For a well-foundexpedition to follow his circuitous winter route across the Changthang plateau and down to Lhasa would have been a creditable feat; as performed by Harrer and his companion Aufschnaiter the journey was an astonishing tour de force. When they reached Lhasa they were penniless and in rags.

Though there was no shred of justification for their presence in the Tibetan capital, they met with great kindness there, and the various subterfuges which they had practised upon officials along the route aroused merriment rather than indignation. They had nevertheless every reason to expect to be expelled from the country, and although the war was now over Harrer assumed, on rather slender grounds, that expulsion would mean their reinternment in India. He spoke by now fairly fluent Tibetan, though with a country accent which amused the sophisticates of Lhasa, and he never ceased to entreat permission to stay where he was and to do useful work for the Government.

I have not met Herr Harrer, but from the pages which follow he emerges as a sensible, unassuming and very brave man, with simple tastes and solid standards. It is dear that from the first the Tibetans liked him, and it must, I think, have been his integrity of character which led the authorities to connive at, if never formally to authorise, his five years' sojourn in Lhasa. During this period he rose—always, it would seem, because of the confidence

he inspired rather than because he angled for preferment—from being a destitute and alien vagabond to a well-rewarded post as tutor and confidant of die young Dalai Lama. Of this fourteen- year-old potentate Harrer, who was certainly closer to him than any foreigner (with the possible exception of Sir Charles Bell) has been to any of his predecessors, gives a fascinating and sympathetic account. When the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet in 1950 Harrer's parting from this lonely, able and affectionate youth was dearly a wrench to both of them.

It is unlikely that their conquerors will be able to alter the Tibetan character, so curiously compounded of mysticism and jollity, of shrewdness and superstition, of tolerance and strict convention; but the ancient, ramshackle structure of Tibetan society, over which the Dalai Lama in his successive incarnations presides, is full of flaws and anachronisms and will scarcely survive in its traditional form the ideological stresses to which it is now being subjected.

It is the luckiest of chances that Herr Harrer should have had, and should have made such admirable use of, the opportunity to study on intimate terms a people with whom the West is now denied even the vestigial contacts which it had before. The story of what he did and what he saw equals in strangeness Mr. Heyerdahl’s account of his voyage on the Kon-Tiki and it is told, I am happy to say, in the same sort of simple, unpretentious style.
​
PETER FLEMING

​Rare Book Society

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
ADI PARVA

By Kisari Mohan Ganguli
​
Published by Protap Chandra Roy (1842-1895)
Printed at Bharata Press, Calcutta - 1884
Volume 1
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The Adi Parva or The Book of the Beginning is the first of eighteen books of the Mahabharata. "Adi" (आदि, Ādi) is a Sanskrit word that means "first".
Adi Parva traditionally has 19 sub-books and 236 adhyayas (chapters). The critical edition of Adi Parva has 19 sub-books and 225 chapters.
Adi Parva describes how the epic came to be recited by Ugrasrava Sauti to the assembled rishis at the Naimisha Forest after first having been narrated at the sarpasatra of Janamejaya by Vaishampayana at Taxila. It includes an outline of contents from the eighteen books, along with the book's significance. The history of the Bhāratas and the Bhrigus are described. The main part of the work covers the birth and early life of the princes of the Kuru Kingdom and the persecution of the Pandavas by Dhritarashtra.
About the Author:
Kisari Mohan Ganguli (also K. M. Ganguli) was an Indian translator known for being the first to provide a complete translation of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata in English. His translation was published as The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose between 1883 and 1896, by Pratap Chandra Roy (1842–1895), a Calcutta bookseller who owned a printing press and raised funds for the project.
The "Translator's Preface" in Book 1: Adi Parva, Ganguli mentions the sequence of events that led to the publication. Sometime in the early 1870s, Pratapa Chandra Roy, with Babu Durga Charan Banerjee, visited Ganguli at his home in Shibpur in Howrah, Bengal, requesting him to take up the translation project, which he took up after initial reluctance and a second meeting, when extensive plans were drawn, and the copy of a translation by Max Müller was left behind, made some thirty years ago, which on study Ganguli found to be literal and lacking in flow. Thus he started tweaking the text line by line, though "without at all impairing faithfulness to the original". Soon a dozen sheets of his first 'copy' were typed and sent to noted writers, both European and Indian, and only receiving a favorable response from them that the project was initiated.
Ganguli wanted to publish the translation anonymously, while Roy was against it. Ganguli believed that the project was too mammoth to be the work of a single person, and he might not live to complete the project and adding names of successive translators to appear on the title page was undesirable. Eventually, a compromise was reached, though the name of the translator was withheld on the cover, the first book of Adi Parva, that came out in 1883, was published with two prefaces, one over the signature of the publisher and the other headed--'Translator's Preface', to avoid any future confusions, when a reader might confuse the publisher for the author.
However, by the time Book 4 was released, the withholding of authorship did create controversy, as "an influential Indian journal" accused Pratap Chandra Roy of "posing before the world as the translator of Vyasa's work when, in fact, he was only the publisher". Roy immediately wrote a letter to clarify, citing the preface, but the confusion persisted for many years amongst readers who overlooked the preface. Once the complete eighteen books were successfully translated, the name was no longer withheld from the publication. More recently, the scholars to correct this discrepancy were Ronald Inden and Maureen Patterson, compilers of the University of Chicago's Bibliography to South Asian Studies, K. M. Knott in the Janus Press Edition of the first two books of the Mahabharata and A.C. Macdonnell.
The Ganguli English translation of the Mahabharata is the only complete edition in public domain - to date. His translation was reprinted by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
- Wikipedia
Image:
Depiction of Saravadamana as a child.
Painting by Raja Ravi Varma
Sarvadamana was the son of Dushyanta and Sakuntala. He later become Emperor Bharata (Sanskrit: भरतः). He was also the first to conquer all of Greater India, uniting it into a single entity which was named after him as Bhāratavarṣa.
- Wiki