Skip to content
The ConsciousLibrary

Hinduism · Bhakti · Vedic tradition

Narada

नारद

Legendary figure

Divine sage (devarṣi) of the Hindu tradition, messenger between gods and men and player of the vīṇā. He appears in the Ṛgveda, the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (his dialogue with Sanatkumāra), the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa —where he tells Vālmīki the story of Rāma— and the Purāṇas, which make him the model devotee. Ascribed to him are the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, of uncertain medieval date, the Nārada Smṛti, a legal treatise of the early centuries CE (5th–6th c. according to Olivelle) that scholars ascribe to another author, the Nārada Purāṇa and the Nārada Pañcarātra.

Read the life Ask
works
12works
editions
29editions
quotes
7quotes
videos
13videos
images
8images
Nārada visita a Vālmīki

Nārada visita a Vālmīki · Public domain

In their words

«Sir, I am only a knower of mantras, not a knower of the Self.»

Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII.1.3, palabras de Nārada a Sanatkumāra; sánscrito de Wikisource; traducciones del investigador.

Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (Nārada’s Aphorisms on Devotion) — Narada

Their central idea

Parabhakti (supreme love): The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra defines devotion as “supreme love” (paramaprema) directed to God and immortal in nature.

See in context

Biography

5 min read

The messenger between worlds

Nārada is one of the most ubiquitous and elusive figures of Sanskrit literature. He appears in the Vedic hymns, in the Upaniṣads, in both epics and in almost every Purāṇa, and always on the move: a divine sage (devarṣi) who travels the three worlds with his vīṇā, carries news from the gods to men and from men to the gods, advises kings, instructs poets and often kindles conflicts that end up serving a higher design. He is not a historical person in any verifiable sense; he is a literary and religious type that tradition enriched over more than two millennia, and under whose name works of very different periods and genres were gathered.

From Vedic hymn to Upaniṣad

The traditional lists of authors of the Ṛgveda ascribe hymn 8.13 to a Nārada of the Kāṇva family and, together with Parvata, hymns 9.104 and 9.105, devoted to soma; these are late ascriptions that cannot be read as biographical data. In the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, Nārada and Parvata live in the house of King Hariścandra, who has no son, and it is Nārada who answers him in ten stanzas on the worth of a son and advises him to promise the child to Varuṇa: so begins the famous story of Śunaḥśepa. And in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (VII) he is the protagonist of one of the finest dialogues of the corpus: the sage who masters all the learning of his day comes before Sanatkumāra and confesses that he knows only words —“I am a knower of mantras, not of the Self”— and that he suffers; the teacher leads him, step by step, to the infinite (bhūman), the only thing in which there is happiness.

The counsellor of the epic

In the Mahābhārata, Nārada is the visitor who arrives at the Pāṇḍava court and subjects Yudhiṣṭhira to a long questionnaire on the art of government —the treasury, the army, counsellors, justice, the care of farmers— before describing to him the assembly halls of the gods; in the Śāntiparvan he travels to the White Island (Śvetadvīpa) to behold Nārāyaṇa, the central episode of the Nārāyaṇīya and of Pāñcarātra theology. In the Bhagavad Gītā (10.26), Kṛṣṇa says that among divine sages he is Nārada. In the Rāmāyaṇa it is Nārada who, asked by Vālmīki about the perfect man of his time, summarises for him the story of Rāma: by the poem’s own account, the whole work is born of that conversation.

The devotee of the Purāṇas

The Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas made him the model devotee. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa gives him a previous life as the son of a maidservant who, serving some ascetics, heard their stories about Viṣṇu and had a fleeting vision of the god; reborn as a son of Brahmā, he roams the universe singing the divine names. It is he who finds Vyāsa dejected after composing the Mahābhārata and advises him to sing the glories of Kṛṣṇa, the traditional origin of the Bhāgavata itself; who instructs Prahlāda in his mother’s womb and sets the child Dhruva on his austerities. Yet the same texts preserve a proud Nārada, outwitted by Viṣṇu’s illusion (māyā), and popular imagination has portrayed him as a meddling sage who sows discord among gods and kings. The ambivalence is part of the character.

The aphorisms of divine love

The most widely read work bearing his name is the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, eighty-four aphorisms on devotion. It defines bhakti as supreme love for God, records the definitions of Pārāśarya, Garga and Śāṇḍilya before giving its own —to consecrate every act to God and to feel extreme anguish at forgetting Him—, proposes the cowherd women (gopī) of Vraja as its model, holds that devotion is superior to action, knowledge and yoga because it is its own fruit, and declares it ineffable, like taste for a mute. Its date is uncertain: its dependence on the cult of Kṛṣṇa places it in the medieval period, and Gavin Flood considers it possibly twelfth-century. Ramakrishna recommended the devotion taught by Nārada as the path suited to the present age, and Vivekananda translated the text freely during his years in the United States.

A name for many books

Texts of very different kinds were gathered under his authority. The Nārada Smṛti is the most juridical of the treatises on dharma: it leaves aside rites and penances to deal only with judicial procedure and the eighteen titles of litigation —debts, deposits, contracts, inheritance, insult—. Its date ranges, according to different scholars, from the first centuries CE to the fifth or sixth century proposed by Olivelle, and scholarship ascribes it not to the sage of the epic but to a jurist who took shelter under his name. The Nārada Purāṇa (or Nāradīya) and its lesser version, the Bṛhannāradīya, owe their title to Nārada being the interlocutor in them; the Nāradīya Śikṣā deals with the phonetics and music of Sāmaveda chanting; the Saṅgītamakaranda, with music; and the so-called Nārada Pañcarātra is a late devotional compilation that Otto Schrader did not count among the early Pāñcarātra saṃhitās.

The first musician

In the Indian imagination Nārada is above all the musician of the gods: the white-bearded sage who walks with his vīṇā —called Mahatī in tradition— singing the name of Nārāyaṇa. Tradition credits him with inventing that instrument, and his name heads treatises on musical theory. The iconography —Mughal and Rajput miniatures, Kangra paintings, the puppets of Javanese wayang, where Batara Narada is the gods’ counsellor— shows how far the messenger travelled. His birth (Nārada Jayantī) is celebrated in the month of jyeṣṭha, and the Indian press sometimes invokes him, with humour, as the first journalist.

An authority in transit

Nārada has no biography because his function is to be passing through. Wherever a story needs news, advice or a push, he appears. Tradition has turned that mobility into a figure of the devoted soul, which settles in no world and sings in all; scholarship reads it as the trace of a character composed by many hands over the centuries. Between the two readings lies the feature he shares with the great legendary teachers of India: his authority resides in what is ascribed to him, not in what can be proved that he did.

Sources: Vivekananda, Swami. «Narada-Bhakti-Sutras (a free translation dictated by Swamiji in America)», en The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 6 (Notes of Class Talks and Lectures). Texto en Wikisource. · Sturdy, E. T. (trad.). Nârada Sûtra: An Inquiry into Love (Bhakti-jijnâsâ). Londres: Longmans, Green & Co., 1896. · Sinha, Nandalal (trad.). The Bhakti Sûtras of Nârada. Allahabad: Pāṇini Office (Sacred Books of the Hindus 7, parte 1); ejemplar digitalizado fechado en 1917. · Jolly, Julius (trad.). The Minor Law-Books, parte I: Nârada, Brihaspati. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889 (Sacred Books of the East 33). Introducción sobre la Nāradasmṛti. · Lariviere, Richard W. (ed. y trad.). The Nāradasmṛti. 2 partes. Filadelfia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1989 (University of Pennsylvania Studies on South Asia 4–5); reimpr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003 (ISBN 9788120818040).

Timeline

A life, year by year

Each point is a documented event. Click to read it, with its source and degree of certainty.

  1. X century BCE

    Nārada in the lists of Ṛgvedic poets

    The Anukramaṇī ascribes hymn 8.13 to Nārada Kāṇva and, with Parvata, hymns 9.104 and 9.105. A traditional ascription later than the hymns themselves.

    Tradition

  2. c. 700 BCE

    Counsellor of Hariścandra (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa)

    In the story of Śunaḥśepa (AB VII.13–14), Nārada answers King Hariścandra in ten stanzas on the worth of a son and advises him to ask Varuṇa for one. The text’s date is approximate (late Vedic period).

    Tradition

  3. VI century BCE

    Nārada before Sanatkumāra (Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII)

    A dialogue in which Nārada, master of all learning, confesses that he knows only words and is led to the infinite (bhūman). The Upaniṣad’s date is approximate.

    Tradition

  4. c. 200 BCE – 400

    The sage of the epic

    The Mahābhārata presents him as Yudhiṣṭhira’s counsellor (Sabhāparvan 5) and the seer of Nārāyaṇa in Śvetadvīpa (Nārāyaṇīya); the Rāmāyaṇa, as the one who tells Vālmīki the story of Rāma. The epics took shape between c. 300 BCE and 400 CE.

    Probable

  5. c. 500

    The Nārada Smṛti

    A legal treatise devoted to procedure and the eighteen titles of litigation. Olivelle places it around the 5th–6th centuries; other scholars, in the first centuries CE. Scholars do not ascribe it to the sage of the epic.

    Disputed

  6. c. 850

    The Bṛhannāradīya Purāṇa

    Hazra dates this upapurāṇa centred on devotion to Viṣṇu to around the 9th century; the major Nāradīya would be later, with parts earlier than the 11th century.

    Disputed

  7. c. 900

    Teacher of Vyāsa in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa

    The Bhāgavata (I.4–6) gives him a previous life as the son of a maidservant and shows him advising Vyāsa to sing the glories of Kṛṣṇa. The Purāṇa’s date is debated (c. 9th–10th centuries).

    Disputed

  8. XII century

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra

    Composition of the 84 aphorisms on devotion ascribed to Nārada. Uncertain date; Flood considers it possibly twelfth-century.

    Disputed

  9. 1865

    Edition of the Nārada Pañcarātra

    K. M. Banerjea publishes in Calcutta, in the Bibliotheca Indica, the Sanskrit text of the Jñānāmṛtasāra, known as the Nārada Pañcarātra.

    Documented

  10. 1889

    Jolly translates the Nārada Smṛti

    Julius Jolly publishes the English translation in the Sacred Books of the East (vol. 33).

    Documented

  11. 1896

    First English translation of the Bhakti Sūtra

    E. T. Sturdy publishes in London “Nârada Sûtra: An Inquiry into Love”.

    Documented

  12. 1989

    Critical edition of the Nārada Smṛti

    Richard W. Lariviere publishes the critical edition and annotated translation in Philadelphia.

    Documented

Works

Essential works

The works without which their legacy cannot be understood.

Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (Nārada’s Aphorisms on Devotion) — Narada

Traditional attribution · c. 1150

Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (Nārada’s Aphorisms on Devotion)

नारदभक्तिसूत्र

Eighty-four aphorisms defining devotion (bhakti) as supreme love for God, immortal in nature. After quoting the definitions of Pārāśarya (worship), Garga (sacred stories) and Śāṇḍilya (delight in the Self), it gives Nārada’s own: to consecrate every act to God and to feel extreme anguish at forgetting Him, like the gopīs of Vraja. It holds that bhakti is superior to action, knowledge and yoga because it is its own fruit; teaches its means —renunciation, ceaseless worship, hearing and singing the divine qualities and, above all, the grace of great souls—; declares it ineffable, “like taste for a mute”; distinguishes secondary from supreme devotion and lists eleven forms of attachment to God.

Not available View the book Read the full text

12 editions

Nārada Smṛti (Nārada’s Treatise on Law) — Narada

Traditional attribution · c. 500

Nārada Smṛti (Nārada’s Treatise on Law)

नारदस्मृति

The only treatise on dharma devoted entirely to procedural and substantive law, without rules on rites or penances. After an introduction on procedure (the plaint, the answer, evidence, witnesses, documents and ordeals), it sets out the eighteen titles of litigation: debts, deposits, partnerships, resumption of gifts, service, wages, sale without ownership, non-delivery and rescission of purchase, conventions, boundary disputes, relations between husband and wife, inheritance, violence, verbal and physical assault, gambling and betting, and miscellaneous cases. It survives in two recensions; the shorter was commented on by Asahāya and revised by Kalyāṇabhaṭṭa.

Not available View the book Read the full text

6 editions

Later compilation · c. 1000

Nārada Purāṇa (Nāradīya Purāṇa)

नारदपुराण (नारदीयपुराण)

A Vaiṣṇava Purāṇa in two parts: the first (125 chapters, in four sections) deals with devotion to Viṣṇu, the duties of classes and stages of life, rites and vows and the auxiliary sciences of the Veda, and devotes a chapter to summarising each of the eighteen major Purāṇas, which makes it a valuable document for their history; the second (82 chapters) includes the story of King Rukmāṅgada and long glorifications of pilgrimage places along the Ganges. It is distinguished from the shorter Bṛhannāradīya.

Not available View the book

3 editions

Complete works (12)

Quotations

Quotations located in a specific work. Each carries its provenance and its level of confidence.

Sir, I am only a knower of mantras, not a knower of the Self.

so 'haṃ bhagavo mantravid evāsmi nātmavit

VerifiedChāndogya Upaniṣad VII.1.3, palabras de Nārada a Sanatkumāra; sánscrito de Wikisource; traducciones del investigador.

1 / 7
Apocryphal quotes or disputed attributions (1)

  • «“The best path to union with God is to follow the way of divine love as taught by Narada.”»

    It circulates attributed to Ramakrishna without a specific reference. What is documented in the 1911 English Gospel is the idea —the devotion taught by Nārada is the path suited to this age—, not this literal sentence.

Last words

There are no verifiable records of their last words.

Nārada is a mythical figure to whom tradition ascribes no death: the texts present him as a divine sage who travels the worlds in every age. There are no last words to record.

Ask

What their work answers

Twelve great human questions and what their texts allow us to answer, with references. We never put words in their mouth.

  • What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

    God is the beloved Lord to whom every act is consecrated

    A personal GodStated explicitly

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not discuss God's existence: it takes it for granted and deals with how to love him. It defines devotion as supreme love directed to him (sūtra 2) and its sign as the surrender of all acts to the Lord and extreme anguish at the slightest forgetting (sūtra 19). This God is personal: he has qualities that are heard and sung (sūtra 37), he grants grace (sūtra 40) and he can be loved as master, friend, child or lover (sūtra 82). The model it proposes is the cowherd women of Vraja, in love with Kṛṣṇa (sūtra 21). The text does not deny ultimate unity, for it goes so far as to say that between God and his own there is no difference (sūtra 41), but the Absolute is reached here as a relationship of love, not as an abstract principle.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Who am I? Is there a true self?

    He does not theorise the self: he describes how love of God transforms it

    Did not address it

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not ask what the self is: its subject is devotion. It does describe what happens to one who attains it: he becomes perfect, immortal and satisfied (sūtra 4), ceases to desire, to grieve and to hate, and becomes intoxicated, still and delighting in himself (sūtra 6). The question appears more clearly elsewhere in the tradition, in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, where Nārada is the disciple who confesses to Sanatkumāra that he knows the mantras but not the Self, and learns that the infinite is the ātman, the only source of happiness. But that passage presents him as a pupil, not as a teacher, and cannot be taken as his doctrine.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Why do we suffer?

    Forgetting God hurts, and bad company multiplies the passions

    Separation from GodInferred from their doctrine

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra offers no theory of suffering, but one can be deduced from its doctrine. The sign of true love is to feel extreme anguish at the slightest forgetting of God (sūtra 19), and full devotion is described as a state in which one no longer desires, grieves or hates (sūtra 5): ordinary pain thus comes from living turned towards something else. The text also points to its mechanism: bad company arouses desire, anger, confusion, forgetfulness of the goal, loss of judgement and ruin; the passions, which at first are ripples, become an ocean (sūtras 43–45). In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, Nārada comes to his teacher in sorrow and learns that there is no happiness in the small.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • What happens after death?

    The sūtra promises the immortality of love; it does not describe the beyond

    Did not address it

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra is not concerned with what happens after death. It says that devotion is immortal in nature (sūtra 3) and that one who attains it becomes perfect, immortal and satisfied (sūtra 4), but it does not clarify whether that immortality is a state of the soul after death, a life in God's presence, or the fullness that love already gives in this life, which is what the context suggests. Nor does it discuss rebirth, which the culture of its time took for granted. The Vaiṣṇava traditions that read it place the devotee, after death, in God's world and at his service; the Purāṇic stories about Nārada himself, who remembers a previous life, belong to legend, not to the sūtra.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • How is liberation or salvation attained?

    Devotion surpasses action, knowledge and yoga: it is its own fruit

    Through devotion and surrenderStated explicitly

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra places devotion above the other paths: it is greater than action, knowledge and yoga (sūtra 25), because it is not a means to anything else but its own fruit (sūtras 26 and 30). It reviews the opinions of other teachers —that knowledge is its means, or that the two support each other— and concludes that devotion needs no other foundation. Its means are renunciation of objects and of company, unbroken worship and the hearing and singing of God's qualities (sūtras 35–37), but the principal one is the grace of great souls or a drop of divine grace (sūtra 38). The goal is neither a knowledge nor an absorption but love itself, which leaves the devotee satisfied and immortal.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Is a teacher necessary?

    The principal means is the company of great souls; flee bad company

    Community and traditionStated explicitly

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra speaks not of an individual guru but of the company of saints. It declares that the principal means of attaining devotion is the grace of great souls or a drop of divine grace (sūtra 38); that company is hard to obtain, unattainable by one's own effort and unfailing in its effects (sūtra 39), and is gained only by God's grace, since between him and his own there is no difference (sūtras 40–41). Hence the exhortation: seek that, seek that alone (sūtra 42). The reverse is equally sharp: bad company must always be avoided (sūtra 43). The text closes by invoking a long series of teachers of devotion, from the Kumāras and Vyāsa to Hanumān (sūtra 83), as guarantors of the tradition.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Is the world real?

    The world is not denied: it is offered to God with all it contains

    Manifestation of the divineInferred from their doctrine

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra has no cosmology, but neither does it treat the world as an illusion to escape from. It asks the devotee not to be troubled by worldly losses, since he has surrendered to God his own self, the world and the Veda (sūtra 61), and specifies that, once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced (sūtra 62). The world is thus the field in which love is exercised and consecrated. The Purāṇic literature associated with Nārada and the Vaiṣṇava theology in which the sūtra is read complete the picture: the universe is the Lord's work and manifestation, real and dependent on him, and not an appearance superimposed on an impersonal absolute.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • What is love?

    Intense love for God, inexpressible like taste for a mute

    Longing and unionStated explicitly

    Love is the whole subject of the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra. It defines it as supreme love for God (sūtra 2), immortal in nature, and says it begins when all thoughts, words and deeds are surrendered to the Lord and the slightest forgetting brings extreme anguish (sūtra 19). Its nature is inexpressible: as the mute cannot say what he tastes, but his gestures betray it (sūtras 51–52). The model is the cowherd women of Vraja, who loved Kṛṣṇa without forgetting his greatness (sūtras 21–24). That love, though one, takes eleven forms, from servanthood and friendship to the love of a lover and the supreme pain of separation (sūtra 82). And it knows no human boundaries: among those who love thus there is no distinction of caste, learning, form or wealth (sūtra 72).

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Are we free, or is everything determined?

    Keep acting, renounce the fruit and surrender everything to God

    Karma and choiceInferred from their doctrine

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not pose the problem of determinism, but a position can be deduced from its counsels. The devotee goes on acting: once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced (sūtra 62), and even once conviction is firm the rules of scripture must be respected (sūtras 12–13). What is decisive is a sustained choice: to consecrate all acts to God (sūtra 19) and to direct towards him even desire, anger and pride (sūtra 65). At the same time, the principal means does not depend on one's own effort: it is the grace of great souls or of God (sūtras 38–40). Human freedom is real, but its highest use is to surrender to another.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Why meditate or pray?

    Remembering unceasingly, hearing and singing the Beloved's qualities

    Friendship with GodInferred from their doctrine

    For the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra spiritual practice is a form of loving intercourse with God. Its means are unbroken worship (sūtra 36) and, even amid ordinary life, the hearing and singing of the Lord's qualities (sūtra 37). The mark of true love is constant remembrance: consecrating all acts to him and suffering at the slightest forgetting (sūtra 19). The relationship can take eleven forms, from service to friendship, filial affection, the love of a lover and total absorption (sūtra 82), and the devotee who surrenders thus does not do so to obtain anything: devotion is its own fruit. To pray is neither to ask nor to train, but to keep alive a personal relationship that fills the whole of existence.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Can reason know the ultimate?

    One must not enter into disputes: love is not explained, it is tasted

    The ultimate lies beyond the mindStated explicitly

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra relativises discursive knowledge in two ways. First, it places devotion above knowledge (sūtra 25) and, against those who hold that knowledge is its means, affirms that it is its own fruit (sūtras 28–30), like a king or a banquet, which are enjoyed not by knowing about them but by having them (sūtras 31–32). Second, it advises against dispute: one should not resort to argument, because it leads to excess and has no end (sūtras 74–75). The nature of love is inexpressible, like taste for a mute (sūtras 51–52). Study is not excluded —the texts that nourish devotion are recommended (sūtra 76)— but the ultimate is known by loving.

    Compare this question with other teachers

  • Withdraw from the world or transform it?

    Not abandoning life in the world: renouncing the fruit and offering everything

    Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

    The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra expressly rejects withdrawal as a condition of devotion. Once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced, and the means that sustain it are to be kept up (sūtra 62); the devotee should not be troubled by worldly losses, since he has surrendered to God his self, the world and the Veda (sūtra 61). What it asks is to transform motivation: to direct towards God even desire, anger and pride (sūtra 65). Ordinary life thus becomes the place of love. The renunciation the sūtra does demand is of bad company and of talk about women, wealth, unbelievers and enemies (sūtras 43 and 63).

    Compare this question with other teachers

Affinities & tensions

Affinities and tensions

Calculated question by question from their positions. The reason for each agreement or clash, on click.

Anecdotes and stories

Anecdotes and stories

Oral traditionperiodo upaniṣádico

“I know mantras, not the Self”

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad relates that Nārada came before the sage Sanatkumāra with the pupil’s formula: “Teach me, sir.” The teacher asked him first to say what he already knew, and Nārada recited an astonishing list: the four Vedas, the ancient histories, grammar, ancestor rites, arithmetic, divination, chronology, logic, ethics, the science of the gods and that of spirits, the art of war, astronomy, serpent lore and the fine arts. And he added: “But, sir, I am only a knower of mantras, not a knower of the Self. I have heard from people like you that whoever knows the Self crosses beyond sorrow. I am in sorrow: take me across to the other shore of sorrow.” Sanatkumāra replied that all that was mere name, and led him up a ladder of ever wider realities —speech, mind, will, thought, meditation, breath— to the infinite (bhūman): “The infinite is happiness; there is no happiness in the small.”

Origin of the story: Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII.1–26, checked against the Sanskrit on Wikisource. A didactic dialogue in an early Upaniṣad; not a historical event but a teaching in narrative form. The translations of the sentences quoted are the researcher’s.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «छान्दोग्योपनिषद्/अध्यायः ७» (Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII, diálogo de Nārada y Sanatkumāra).

Oral traditionperiodo védico tardío

The childless king and the promise to Varuṇa

The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa relates that King Hariścandra, of the house of Ikṣvāku, had a hundred wives and no son. Two sages lived in his house, Parvata and Nārada, and one day the king asked Nārada in a stanza what fruit is gained from a son, since all beings desire one. Nārada answered him with ten stanzas celebrating the son as a boat that carries the father to the far shore and as a light in the highest heaven. Then he advised him to ask Varuṇa for a son, promising to sacrifice him to the god. Rohita was born, and the king kept postponing the sacrifice with successive pretexts, until the boy fled to the forest and bought as a substitute Śunaḥśepa, the son of a poor Brahmin, who was saved from the sacrificial post by singing hymns to the gods. Nārada’s advice thus sets off one of the most disquieting stories of Vedic literature.

Origin of the story: Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VII.13–18, checked in Martin Haug’s translation (1863; repr. 1922). The story was recited at the royal consecration (rājasūya). A ritual text, not a chronicle.

Source: Haug, Martin (trad.). The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda. Bombay, 1863; reimpr. Allahabad: Pāṇini Office, 1922. VII.13–14 (Hariścandra y Nārada).

Hagiographic accounttiempo legendario

Vālmīki asks about the perfect man

The Rāmāyaṇa opens with a hermitage scene. The ascetic Vālmīki, devoted to study, asks Nārada, the most eloquent of sages, whether there exists in the world a man who is virtuous, brave, versed in duty, grateful, truthful, firm in his vows, compassionate to all beings, wise, capable and handsome, free from anger yet at whose wrath even the gods tremble. Nārada replies that such qualities are rarely found in one man, but there is one: Rāma, descendant of Ikṣvāku. And he tells him, in about a hundred stanzas, his whole story. Shortly afterwards, on the banks of the Tamasā, Vālmīki sees a hunter kill one of a pair of birds in the act of love; from his grief the first verse (śloka) is born spontaneously, and Brahmā asks him to compose in that metre the story Nārada has told him. Thus, according to the poem, poetry was born.

Origin of the story: Rāmāyaṇa, Bālakāṇḍa, sargas 1–2 (critical ed.; trans. Robert P. Goldman, 1984). The first two sargas belong to the layers of the poem considered later; the story is an aetiology of poetry, not a historical event.

Source: Goldman, Robert P. (trad.). The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India, vol. I: Bālakāṇḍa. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Sarga 1–2 (Nārada narra a Vālmīki la historia de Rāma).

Hagiographic accounttiempo mítico

The son of the maidservant

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa relates that Vyāsa, after dividing the Vedas and composing the Mahābhārata, felt dissatisfied without knowing why. Nārada visited him and gave him the reason: he had narrated duty and history, but had not fully sung the glories of God. To convince him, he told him of his own previous life. In another age he had been the son of a maidservant who served some ascetics spending the rainy season in her village. The boy attended them devotedly, ate the remains of their food and listened to their stories about Viṣṇu. When his mother died from a snakebite, he went to the forest, meditated under a tree and saw the Lord for an instant in his heart; then the vision vanished, and a voice told him he would not see Him again in that life, but that longing would purify him. At death he was reborn from Brahmā as Nārada, and ever since he has roamed the worlds singing. Vyāsa, persuaded, composed the Bhāgavata.

Origin of the story: Bhāgavata Purāṇa I.4–6, a devotional text of debated date (c. 9th–10th centuries), checked in Burnouf’s French translation (1840). The scene works as a foundation story for the Bhāgavata itself.

Source: Burnouf, Eugène (trad.). Le Bhâgavata Purâna, ou Histoire poétique de Krĭchṇa, tome premier. París: Imprimerie royale, 1840. Libro I, caps. 4–6 (Nārada y Vyāsa; la vida anterior de Nārada).

Hagiographic accounttiempo mítico

Kubera’s sons turned into trees

Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva, sons of Kubera, the god of wealth, were bathing drunk and naked with nymphs in a Himalayan river when Nārada passed by. The nymphs covered themselves in shame; the young men, intoxicated by wine and by pride in their wealth, did not even stir. The sage reflected that nothing blinds like opulence and laid on them a curse that was also a remedy: they would become two arjuna trees until, after a hundred divine years, Kṛṣṇa touched them. The Bhāgavata tells the outcome: the child Kṛṣṇa, tied by his mother to a wooden mortar to stop his mischief, crawled between the two trees, which fell uprooted; from them emerged the two young men, freed and grateful. The episode illustrates a constant idea in the tradition about Nārada: his curses are forms of grace.

Origin of the story: Bhāgavata Purāṇa X.10 (Sanskrit on Wikisource), taken up in Kṛṣṇaite iconography as the episode of the yamalārjuna trees. A devotional story with no historical basis.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «श्रीमद्भागवतपुराणम्» (Bhāgavata Purāṇa; libros IV, VII y X para Dhruva, Prahlāda y los hijos de Kubera).

Oral traditiontiempo mítico

The water Viṣṇu asked for

Nārada asked Viṣṇu to show him the secret of his māyā, the power of illusion that sustains the world. The god agreed and first asked him for a little water. Nārada went to a nearby village, knocked at a door and was greeted by a girl of extraordinary beauty. He forgot his errand; he stayed, married her, had children, inherited his father-in-law’s house and fields and lived for twelve years as a prosperous farmer. Then came a flood: the river swept away the house, the cattle, his children and, last of all, his wife, who slipped from his hand. Thrown onto the bank, Nārada was weeping for his lost life when he heard a familiar voice: “Child, where is the water you went to fetch me? I have been waiting almost half an hour.” It was Viṣṇu, and the village had vanished. That, said the god, is my māyā.

Origin of the story: A Purāṇic story with many variants: in the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāṇa (book VI) Nārada is turned into a woman by bathing in a pond; the version with the village and the flood is the one popularised by Heinrich Zimmer (1946), who drew it from Purāṇic sources. Details (twelve years, half an hour) vary between versions; Zimmer’s is followed here.

Source: Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, ed. Joseph Campbell. Nueva York: Pantheon Books, 1946 (Bollingen Series VI). Capítulo I, relato de Nārada y la māyā de Viṣṇu.

Disputedtradición medieval y moderna

The highwayman who became a poet

A widespread legend tells that Vālmīki was in his youth a highwayman named Ratnākara, who robbed travellers to support his family. One day he waylaid Nārada, who asked him whether his family would share the weight of his sins. Ratnākara went to ask, and all refused: they accepted the loot, not the guilt. Disillusioned, he returned to the sage, who taught him to repeat the name of Rāma; since the highwayman could not pronounce it, he had him say “marā”, which repeated endlessly sounds like “Rāma”. Ratnākara meditated so long that an anthill (valmīka) covered him, hence his new name. The story underlies many popular performances, but it does not come from Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa.

Origin of the story: The highwayman legend is later than the Rāmāyaṇa. In the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa it is the seven sages (saptarṣi) who convert the highwayman; the figure of Nārada as initiator belongs to later popular versions. No ancient source supports it.

Source: Wikipedia en inglés, «Valmiki» (versiones de la leyenda del bandolero Ratnākara: los siete sabios en el Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, Nārada en los relatos populares).

Teachings

Teachings

The notions that structure their thought, explained in context.

Parabhakti (supreme love)para-bhakti
The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra defines devotion as “supreme love” (paramaprema) directed to God and immortal in nature. It is not one feeling among others but a total transformation: whoever attains it desires nothing, grieves not, hates not, delights in nothing else, becomes “intoxicated” and at rest in the self. Its mark is twofold: to consecrate every act to God and to feel extreme anguish at the slightest forgetting. The text distinguishes it from “secondary” devotion (gauṇī), which varies according to the three qualities and the devotee’s motives —the afflicted, the one who seeks something, the one who seeks truth— and presents it as the goal in which all of them culminate. For Nārada bhakti is superior to action, knowledge and yoga because it is not a means to anything else: it is its own fruit (svayaṃ phalarūpā).

It is the central notion of the Vaiṣṇava theology of devotion, later developed by the schools of Rāmānuja, Madhva and Caitanya; the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra and the Śāṇḍilya Bhakti Sūtra are its two aphoristic manuals.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदभक्तिसूत्रम्» (Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, 84 aforismos).

Bhūman (the infinite)bhuman
In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, Sanatkumāra leads Nārada from “name” up to bhūman, a word meaning fullness, abundance, what has no limit. The definition is famous: “Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else, that is the infinite; where one sees something else, hears something else, knows something else, that is the small.” The infinite is immortal and rests in its own greatness; the small is mortal. And the practical consequence is the one that answers Nārada’s sorrow: “The infinite is happiness; there is no happiness in the small.” The passage then identifies that infinite with the self (ātman), which is above, below, in front and behind, and concludes that whoever sees, understands and delights in it thus attains freedom in all worlds.

It is one of the Upaniṣadic texts most quoted by Vedānta; the Brahmasūtra (I.3.8–9) discuss whether bhūman denotes breath or Brahman.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «छान्दोग्योपनिषद्/अध्यायः ७» (Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII, diálogo de Nārada y Sanatkumāra).

Mahatsaṅga (the company of great souls)mahat-sanga
Among the means of attaining devotion, the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra lists renunciation, ceaseless worship and the hearing and singing of God’s qualities, but declares that the principal means is the grace of great souls (mahat) or a drop of divine grace. That company is hard to obtain, impossible to reach by one’s own effort and unfailing in its effects, and is gained only by the grace of God, because between Him and His own there is no difference. Hence the repeated exhortation: “seek that, seek that alone.” The text adds the reverse: bad company must always be avoided, because it awakens desire, anger, confusion, forgetfulness of the goal, loss of judgement and total ruin; the passions are at first like ripples and, through company, become an ocean.

The value placed on the company of the saintly (satsaṅga) is a feature common to Hindu devotional movements, from the Bhāgavata to the medieval poet-saints.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदभक्तिसूत्रम्» (Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, 84 aforismos).

The eleven forms of attachment to Godekadasha-asakti
The penultimate aphorism of the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (82) states that devotion, though one, manifests in eleven ways according to the kind of attachment: to God’s qualities and greatness, to His beauty, to His worship, to remembering Him, to serving Him as a servant, to treating Him as a friend, to loving Him as a child, to loving Him as a lover, to complete self-surrender, to total absorption in Him and to the supreme pain of separation. The list gathers the modes of relationship (bhāva) that devotional literature was developing, and in it the beloved’s love and the suffering of absence —that of the gopīs when Kṛṣṇa departs— appear as full forms of devotion, not deviations. The following aphorism invokes the authority of a long series of teachers, from the Kumāras and Vyāsa to Hanumān.

The classification anticipates the theory of devotional sentiments (bhakti-rasa) systematised in the sixteenth century by Rūpa Gosvāmī, a disciple of Caitanya.

Source: Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदभक्तिसूत्रम्» (Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, 84 aforismos).

Vyavahāra (litigation and its eighteen titles)vyavahara
The Nārada Smṛti makes vyavahāra —judicial procedure— its sole subject. It explains that litigation exists because men have lost the righteousness of the first ages and that the king, assisted by learned judges, must resolve it according to four foundations: law, documentary or testimonial evidence, custom and royal edict, of which the last prevails over the earlier ones. It regulates the plaint, the answer, the burden of proof, the assessment of witnesses and documents and recourse to ordeals when human evidence is lacking. And it orders substantive law under eighteen titles, from debts to gambling and betting. Its technical approach, almost free of religious doctrine, made it a reference for later legal commentators.

It is the only dharmaśāstra that entirely excludes ritual and penance; scholars ascribe it to a jurist distinct from the sage of the epic.

Source: Lariviere, Richard W. (ed. y trad.). The Nāradasmṛti. 2 partes. Filadelfia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1989 (University of Pennsylvania Studies on South Asia 4–5); reimpr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003 (ISBN 9788120818040).

Devarṣi (divine sage)devarshi
Tradition distinguishes between human sages (ṛṣi or maharṣi), sages of royal lineage (rājarṣi) and divine sages (devarṣi), who belong to the world of the gods but move freely among all planes. Nārada is the devarṣi par excellence: the Bhagavad Gītā (10.26) has Kṛṣṇa say that among divine sages he is Nārada. His status explains his narrative role: he can carry news from heaven to earth and from earth to the underworld, knows past and future, counsels gods, demons and kings, and is at once witness and mover of events. In Vaiṣṇava theology he is also regarded as a partial manifestation of God, empowered to carry out missions in His name.

The category brings together a small group of figures in the Purāṇas; Nārada is the only one who became a recurring character throughout narrative literature.

Source: Arnold, Edwin (trad.). The Song Celestial, or Bhagavad-Gîtâ. Londres: Trübner, 1885. Capítulo X, versos 13 y 26. Project Gutenberg n.º 2388.

Videos

Videos

Recordings, interviews and documentaries. Videos play from YouTube; they are not hosted here.

  • “Learning from the Sage Narada” | Swami Sarvapriyananda

    Lecture· EN· 51 min

    Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of North TexasOfficial channel

  • Nārada Bhakti Sūtra 1/5 | Pravrajika Divyanandaprana

    Lecture· EN· 82 min

    Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of North TexasOfficial channel

  • Narada Bhakti Sutra by Swami Mitrananda | Day 1 | Narada Jayanthi 2021

    Lecture· EN· 43 min

    Chinmaya Mission ChennaiOfficial channel

  • Narada Bhakti Sutra | Day 1 | Swami Abhedananda

    Lecture· EN· 57 min

    Chinmaya Mission South AfricaOfficial channel

  • The 3 Qualities Of Divine Love | Excerpts From Narad Bhakti Sutra Discourse By Gurudev

    Lecture· EN· 9 min

    Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi ShankarOfficial channel

  • 2. Narada Bhakti Sutras || Swami Ishadhyanananda

    Watch on YouTube

    This video cannot be embedded; it opens on YouTube.

    2. Narada Bhakti Sutras || Swami Ishadhyanananda

    Lecture· EN· 71 min

    Vedanta Society of SacramentoOfficial channel

  • भक्त को संसार में कैसे जीना चाहिए? नारद भक्ति दर्शन - 21/37 (1990)

    Lecture· HI· 20 min

    Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj - OfficialOfficial channel

  • Narada Bhakti Sutram - 84 Sutrams - Recited by Smt. Vidhya Ramesh

    Third-party recording· SA· 12 min

    Nivedita R

  • Swami Brahmarupananda - True Happiness, Sanatkumara’s instruction to Narada in the Chandogya Upanishad

    Lecture· EN· 80 min

    Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of North Carolina (Vedanta NC)Official channel

  • Dialogue between Narada and Sanatkumar. Chandogya Upanishad Chapter 7. - Prof. Rambachan

    Lecture· EN· 75 min

    Discourse on Hinduism

  • Sarga 1.1 - HOW did Narada DESCRIBE Shri Rama to Sage Valmiki! - #ValmikiRamayanam

    Analysis· EN· 28 min

    The Sanskrit Channel

  • Understanding the Dharma Shastras: A Conversation with Dr. Patrick Olivelle and Dr. Donald Davis

    Interview· EN· 113 min

    Meru Media

  • EPISODIO 5: EL PASADO DE UN SABIO - La historia de Narada Muni

    Third-party recording· ES· 11 min

    Historias del Srimad Bhagavatam

Gallery

Gallery

Images with verified licences. Each keeps its authorship and attribution.

Connections

Connections

Influences, discipleships and affinities. Documented relations are distinguished from similarities identified by analysis.

  • Teacher of

    Vyasa

    According to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (I.4–6), Nārada advises Vyāsa, dissatisfied after composing the Mahābhārata, to sing the glories of Kṛṣṇa; the Bhagavad Gītā (10.13) names them together among those who proclaimed God. A narrative relation within the tradition.

    Documented relation

  • Influenced

    Valmiki

    In the first sarga of the Rāmāyaṇa, Nārada tells Vālmīki the story of Rāma, the kernel from which the poem arises. The later legend making Nārada the initiator of the highwayman Ratnākara does not come from the Rāmāyaṇa.

    Documented relation

  • Influenced

    Swami Vivekananda

    Vivekananda dictated in the United States a free translation of the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, included in volume 6 of his complete works.

    Documented relation

  • Influenced

    Ramakrishna

    Ramakrishna recommended the devotion “of the Rishi Narada” as the path suited to the present age, according to the 1911 English edition of the Gospel.

    Documented relation

  • Ideas akin to

    Kapila

    The Bhagavad Gītā (10.26) names in the same verse Nārada, foremost of divine sages, and Kapila, foremost of the perfected; the Mahābhārata presents Nārada as versed in Sāṃkhya.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Uddalaka Aruni

    The Chāndogya Upaniṣad brings together, in consecutive chapters, Uddālaka’s teaching to Śvetaketu (VI) and Sanatkumāra’s to Nārada (VII): two paths to knowledge of the Self.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Yajnavalkya

    The Nārada Smṛti and the Yājñavalkya Smṛti are the two great dharmaśāstras after Manu; Olivelle places Nārada’s after Yājñavalkya’s and regards it as the most specialised in law.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

    Caitanya’s Gauḍīya school inherits the theology of devotion of the Bhāgavata, where Nārada is Vyāsa’s teacher, and its authors quote definitions of bhakti under the name Nārada Pañcarātra.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Mirabai

    Mīrābāī’s love for Kṛṣṇa, with its pain of separation, corresponds to the forms of attachment that the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (82) recognises as full devotion, following the model of the gopīs.

    Similarity identified by analysis

Linked from other profiles

Sources

Sources

Bibliography and catalogues consulted for this profile.

  1. Wikidata, «Narada» (santo de la clase celestial), QID Q844066; GND 118818422; VIAF 193295452.
  2. Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदभक्तिसूत्रम्» (Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, 84 aforismos).
  3. Vivekananda, Swami. «Narada-Bhakti-Sutras (a free translation dictated by Swamiji in America)», en The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 6 (Notes of Class Talks and Lectures). Texto en Wikisource.
  4. Sturdy, E. T. (trad.). Nârada Sûtra: An Inquiry into Love (Bhakti-jijnâsâ). Londres: Longmans, Green & Co., 1896.
  5. Sinha, Nandalal (trad.). The Bhakti Sûtras of Nârada. Allahabad: Pāṇini Office (Sacred Books of the Hindus 7, parte 1); ejemplar digitalizado fechado en 1917.
  6. Jolly, Julius (trad.). The Minor Law-Books, parte I: Nârada, Brihaspati. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889 (Sacred Books of the East 33). Introducción sobre la Nāradasmṛti.
  7. Lariviere, Richard W. (ed. y trad.). The Nāradasmṛti. 2 partes. Filadelfia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1989 (University of Pennsylvania Studies on South Asia 4–5); reimpr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003 (ISBN 9788120818040).
  8. Olivelle, Patrick. «Dharmaśāstra: A Textual History». En Timothy Lubin, Donald R. Davis Jr. y Jayanth K. Krishnan (eds.), Hinduism and Law: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 28–57.
  9. Wikisource en sánscrito: «छान्दोग्योपनिषद्/अध्यायः ७» (Chāndogya Upaniṣad VII, diálogo de Nārada y Sanatkumāra).
  10. Goldman, Robert P. (trad.). The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India, vol. I: Bālakāṇḍa. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Sarga 1–2 (Nārada narra a Vālmīki la historia de Rāma).
  11. Burnouf, Eugène (trad.). Le Bhâgavata Purâna, ou Histoire poétique de Krĭchṇa, tome premier. París: Imprimerie royale, 1840. Libro I, caps. 4–6 (Nārada y Vyāsa; la vida anterior de Nārada).
  12. Arnold, Edwin (trad.). The Song Celestial, or Bhagavad-Gîtâ. Londres: Trübner, 1885. Capítulo X, versos 13 y 26. Project Gutenberg n.º 2388.
  13. M. [Mahendranath Gupta]. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (According to M., a Son of the Lord and Disciple). Edición inglesa condensada del autor. Madrás: Ramakrishna Math, 1911.
  14. Rocher, Ludo. The Purāṇas. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986 (A History of Indian Literature II.3). Entradas sobre el Nāradīya y el Bṛhannāradīya.
  15. Tagare, Ganesh Vasudeo (trad.). The Nārada-Purāṇa. 5 vols. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980–1982 (Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology 15–19).
  16. Haug, Martin (trad.). The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda. Bombay, 1863; reimpr. Allahabad: Pāṇini Office, 1922. VII.13–14 (Hariścandra y Nārada).
  17. Schrader, F. Otto. Introduction to the Pāñcarātra and the Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā. Madrás: Adyar Library, 1916.
  18. Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (capítulo sobre la devoción vaiṣṇava).
  19. Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदीयशिक्षा» (Nāradīya Śikṣā).
  20. Telang, M. R. (ed.). Saṅgīta-makaranda of Nārada. Baroda: Central Library, 1920 (Gaekwad's Oriental Series 16).
  21. Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, ed. Joseph Campbell. Nueva York: Pantheon Books, 1946 (Bollingen Series VI). Capítulo I, relato de Nārada y la māyā de Viṣṇu.
  22. Jamison, Stephanie W. y Joel P. Brereton (trads.). The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. 3 vols. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Introducciones a RV 8.13 y 9.104–105.
  23. van Buitenen, J. A. B. (trad.). The Mahābhārata, vol. 2: The Book of the Assembly Hall; The Book of the Forest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975 (Sabhāparvan 5–11); y The Mahābhārata, edición crítica, Śāntiparvan (Nārāyaṇīya), Poona: BORI, 1949–1966.
  24. Banerjea, K. M. (ed.). Śrī Nārada Pañcarātram: the Jñānāmṛtasāra Saṃhitā. Calcuta: Asiatic Society, 1865 (Bibliotheca Indica); trad. inglesa de Swami Vijnanananda, Allahabad, 1921 (Sacred Books of the Hindus 23).
  25. Wikisource en sánscrito: «नारदस्मृतिः» y «नारदपुराणम्» (textos sánscritos con subpáginas).
  26. Hazra, Rajendra Chandra. Studies in the Upapurāṇas, vol. I. Calcuta: Sanskrit College, 1958 (sobre el Bṛhannāradīya).
  27. Wikipedia en inglés, «Narada» (consultada para la iconografía, el culto, Nārada Jayantī y la imagen popular; contrastada con las fuentes primarias).
  28. Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (antiguo Tropenmuseum), marioneta de wayang golek «Batara Narada», inv. TM-4283-48; descripción en Wikimedia Commons.
  29. Wikisource en sánscrito: «श्रीमद्भागवतपुराणम्» (Bhāgavata Purāṇa; libros IV, VII y X para Dhruva, Prahlāda y los hijos de Kubera).
  30. Wikipedia en inglés, «Valmiki» (versiones de la leyenda del bandolero Ratnākara: los siete sabios en el Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, Nārada en los relatos populares).
Rights holder
Textos sánscritos en dominio público. Las traducciones de Vivekananda (m. 1902), Jolly (m. 1932), Haug (m. 1876) y Burnouf (m. 1852) son de dominio público; la de E. T. Sturdy (1896; m. 1957) solo lo es en EE. UU. Las ediciones modernas (Sri Ramakrishna Math, Vedanta Press, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Art of Living, Advaita Ashrama, Inner Traditions, Motilal Banarsidass, University of Pennsylvania) tienen derechos propios.

Pending confirmation

What this profile has not yet been able to settle. We would rather say so than fill it in.

  • Ediciones en español con ISBN del Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, de la Nārada Smṛti y del Nārada Purāṇa: no localizadas (Open Library sin resultados; Google Books devolvió error 429). Revisar BNE e Iberlibro.
  • Comprobar en Flood (1996) la página exacta de la datación «posiblemente del siglo XII» del Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, tomada de una referencia secundaria.
  • Comprobar la fecha de muerte de Nandalal Sinha y la fecha original (1911 o 1917) de su traducción en la serie Sacred Books of the Hindus.
  • Verificar la referencia exacta de la versión de Zimmer del relato de la māyā (capítulo y fuente purāṇica que él cita).
  • Localizar una edición con ISBN de la Nāradaparivrājaka Upaniṣad (p. ej., en las Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads de Olivelle) y del Saṅgītamakaranda.
  • Los vídeos no traen año de publicación en oEmbed; se dejó year en null. El vídeo de la Vedanta Society of Sacramento devuelve 401 (no insertable).

Researched on 2026-10-26