Feature

Srimad Bhagavatam

The Bhagavata Purana as households read it at a Saptah: twelve skandhas, the stories of the avatars and the devotees, and the life of Krishna at its heart — every story retold from the text, with questions to take to Acharya Ji.

12 skandhas

335 adhyayas

7 days of a Saptah

What you can do

Walk all twelve skandhas, from Naimisharanya to Parikshit's last day.
Read 43 episodes retold from the Sanskrit text, each cited by skandha and adhyaya.
Follow a seven-day Saptah plan, the way a Bhagavata katha is read.
Carry the verses homes recite, in Devanagari, with what they mean.

Sukh Sagar is the name North Indian homes give to the Hindi Bhagavatam read at a week-long katha. It follows the same twelve skandhas and 335 adhyayas as the Sanskrit Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. Every reference here uses the numbering of the Gita Press Sanskrit text, and where a well-loved detail comes from later tradition rather than the text — the names Radha and Sudama, for instance — the page says so.

How it works

1. Pick a skandha
Open any of the twelve books to see what happens in it and read its stories.
2. Read it as a Saptah
Follow the seven-day plan, from the sages' question to Parikshit's liberation.
3. Ask Acharya Ji
Take any question a story raises to Acharya Ji, and ask what the text itself says.

A story told under a deadline

The Bhagavatam is told to King Parikshit, cursed to die in seven days, by the young sage Shuka on the bank of the Ganga. That is why a Bhagavata Saptah reads it in seven days, and why its question is the one a dying man would ask: what should a person hear, and remember, when time is short?

What the text says, and what tradition adds

Some of the best-loved details of these stories come from later tradition: the Bhagavatam never names Radha or Krishna's poor friend Sudama, and Holika is not in its Prahlada story. Pages here tell the stories as the text tells them, and mark the rest.

Browse everything here

Skandhas

Episodes

Characters

Themes

Common questions

What is Sukh Sagar?

Sukh Sagar (सुखसागर, 'the ocean of joy') is the name North Indian homes give to the Hindi Bhagavatam read at a Bhagavata katha. It follows the same twelve skandhas as the Sanskrit Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana.

How many skandhas and chapters are in the Srimad Bhagavatam?

Twelve skandhas and 335 adhyayas in the Gita Press text. The tenth skandha alone, the life of Krishna, has ninety. The text counts itself as 18,000 shlokas.

What is a Bhagavata Saptah?

A seven-day reading of the whole Bhagavatam, because Parikshit heard it in the seven days before his death. Households commonly celebrate Krishna's birth on the fourth day, Govardhan on the fifth, Rukmini's wedding on the sixth, and Sudama and Parikshit's liberation on the seventh, though the custom varies.