.jpg)
The Bhagavata Podcast
The Bhagavata Podcast invites listeners on an engaging journey through the Bhagavata Purana, more commonly known as the Srimad Bhagavatam. Each episode features conversations between scholars, many of whom are also practitioners, as they reflect on and analyze a chapter of this text together. The podcast offers a unique blend of academic rigor and personal insight, providing fresh perspectives that illuminate the beauty and uniqueness of the Bhagavatam.
In each episode, host Dr. Måns Broo, an esteemed scholar and Gaudiya Vaishnava practitioner, invites expert guests to reflect on a chapter of the Bhagavata Purana. Following a linear progression through the text, the discussions explore the philosophical, theological, and literary dimensions of the Bhagavatam, offering both traditional insights and modern academic interpretations. This thoughtful approach enables listeners to journey through the Bhagavata Purana chapter by chapter, uncovering the intricate teachings of this work.
The Bhagavata Podcast is an initiative supported by the Gaudiya Studies Research Programme of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, furthering the mission of connecting living traditions with academic exploration.
The Bhagavata Podcast
1.3 Is Krishna Just Another Avatar — or the Source of All of Them? | Bhagavata Podcast with Radhika Raman Das
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The Bhagavatam lists 22 divine descents and then, almost in passing, singles one of them out as different in kind from the rest. That half-verse, "Krishna is Bhagavan himself," became the theological foundation on which the entire Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition was built. Was that a legitimate reading of the text, or a creative imposition on it?
In this episode, host Bhrigupada Dasa reads Canto 1, Chapter 3 with Radhika Raman Das (Dr. Ravi Gupta), Professor of Religious Studies at Utah State University. The chapter catalogues the Lord's incarnations and poses a question that runs through the whole Bhagavatam: how can a God who is utterly transcendent also be genuinely accessible to human beings? Radhika Raman Das works through this carefully, distinguishing the Vaishnava understanding of avatara from the Christian concept of incarnation, and explaining why the two traditions resolve the problem of divine transcendence and immanence in such different ways.
The conversation moves across several distinct questions. What is the difference between avatara and "incarnation," and why does it matter theologically? How does the Bhagavatam respond to the charge that a God with a body is a limited God? Where do the shaktyavesha avataras fit in the larger picture, and what do they tell us about the relationship between the divine and the human? The episode closes with two verses from the chapter's end: the Bhagavatam's description of itself as a sun rising in the age of Kali, and Suta Goswami's statement that he will teach the text both "as I have learned it" and "as I have realized it."
This episode covers Canto 1, Chapter 3 of the Srimad Bhagavatam.
The Bhagavata Podcast is produced by the Gaudiya Studies Research Programme at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Each episode brings together scholar-practitioners, trained in both Indology and lived Vaishnava devotion, to read this text closely and seriously.