An Excerpt from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Work-in-Progress

Fifty centuries ago Lord Krsna came, to protect His devotees and rid the world of demonic politicians. Now Krsna comes again in another form-the Tenth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam ("The Beautiful Story of the Personality of Godhead"), translation and commentary by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

For many years His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has been preparing a multivolume English translation of the Srimad-Bhagavatam ("The Beautiful Story of the Personality of Godhead")-a monumental Sanskrit work known as "the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic literature." Recently, Srila Prabhupada reached a milestone as he began translating the Bhagavatam's Tenth Canto, the essence of this five-thousand-year-old classic.

The imminent publication of the Tenth Canto is momentous not only for the Krsna consciousness movement but for the entire world. Scholars, theologians, and librarians throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and India have already placed more than two thousand orders for all sixty volumes of Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavatam-even before many of the books have been translated and printed! Many scholars, aware of the exalted place the Bhagavatam holds in Vedic literature, have personally expressed their appreciation for Srila Prabhupada's unequaled English rendering. For these scholars (and, even more, for Srila Prabhupada's thousands of disciples), the appearance of the Tenth Canto marks a spiritual and literary event of the highest magnitude.

The reason the Tenth Canto has such special significance is that it describes Lord Krsna in His original and most attractive feature-as a cowherd boy in the village of Vrndavana. There He plays on His flute, steals butter from His mother's churning pot, and charms His dear friends with His irresistible personality. With eyes like lotus petals and a complexion like a dark bluish cloud, He possesses an ever-fresh beauty that defies description. Other Vedic literatures give only a small hint of Lord Krsna's own intimate, spiritual abode, but in the Srimad-Bhagavatam-and especially in the Tenth Canto-Krsna personally appears and reveals His supremely attractive and most confidential pastimes.

There is one great advantage that Srila Prabhupada's long-awaited translation of the Tenth Canto holds over previous translations. Because Srila Prabhupada is a pure devotee of the Lord, one who submissively hears Krsna's pastimes from him experiences a change of heart, and the hearer's self-defeating disposition to enjoy the material world slackens. Thus his long-forgotten natural love for Krsna awakens and he develops an attraction for hearing more and more about the Lord.

Unfortunately, those who receive the message of the Bhagavatam from someone other than an expert spiritual master-a pure devotee of Krsna in the disciplic succession coming down from Krsna Himself-generally misinterpret the Lord's pastimes described in the Tenth Canto. Instead of becoming purified by hearing of the Lord's loving affairs with His devotees, such careless interpreters, casual readers, and mental speculators offend the Lord, and their spiritual advancement is checked.

The conclusion, therefore, is that one must learn the book Bhagavata from the person bhagavata, one whose very life embodies the teachings of the Bhagavatam. If one hears about the Lord in this authorized way, his feeling for loving devotional service to Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, awakens within his heart and extinguishes the fire of material suffering. Ultimately, the sincere student of the Srimad-Bhagavatam realizes his original, transcendental relationship with the Lord and, upon giving up his body at death enters into Lord Krsna's eternal pastimes in the spiritual world.

What follows is an excerpt from the completed third chapter of the Tenth Canto, prepared by Srila Prabhupada at ISKCON's Krsna-Balarama temple in Vrndavana, India.