The Living Being, Its Bondage and The Immanent Absolute

Sanskrit text with English Translation and Commentary.

Paramātma Sandarbha is the third book in the series of six treatises called Ṣaṭ Sandarbhas or Bhāgavata Sandarbha. It is an elaborate essay on the nature of Paramātmā. The distinction between Absolute Reality’s manifestations as Paramātmā and Bhagavān is relatively unknown, even to specialists in the field of Vedānta. These two specific designations are often used synonymously to refer to a single aspect of the tattva. It was Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī’s genius to clearly define them and enumerate their characteristics and functions in detail. There is no other work in the entire gamut of Indian theological and philosophical literature that throws light on this subject so lucidly.

Paramātmā, also called Puruṣa, is akin to what people usually conceive of as God, the creator and overseer of the cosmos, whereas Bhagavān is God in His supreme transcendence, without reference to the phenomenal world — God in His own intrinsic being. Paramātmā is the regulator of the intermediary potency (taṭasthā-śakti) and the extrinsic potency (bahiraṅgā-śakti), otherwise known as māyā. He is never influenced by this extrinsic potency, even while present in the midst of it.

Among the four Sandarbhas that delineate the knowledge of sambandha, Paramātma Sandarbha is the most important because it analyzes the nature of the self and its conditioning by māyā.

Author: Jiva Goswami

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Translation, commentary, and copyright: Satyanarayana Dasa
Satyanarayana Dasa, born in 1954, was drawn to the spiritual traditions of his home country India since his childhood. After receiving a postgraduate degree in 1978 from IIT Delhi and working in the United States for four years, he returned to India. There he studied the formal systems of Indian philosophy known as Ṣaḍ-darśana under the direct guidance of his guru Śrī Haridāsa Śāstrī Mahārāja and Swami Syama Saraṇa Maharaja.
This education was taken up in the traditional manner for more than 25 years, while he dedicated himself as a practitioner of bhakti yoga. In 1991 he accepted the traditional Vaiṣṇava order of renounced life, bābājī-veṣa. His main focus has been with the works of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, particularly on translating the Ṣaṭ Sandarbhas, into English and commenting on them. He also earned four śāstric degrees, and received both a law degree and a PhD in Sanskrit from Agra University.
Satyanarayana Dasa is the director of the Jiva Institute of Vaishnava Studies in Vrindavan, India. He is a visiting professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. In 2013 he was honored by the president of India, Pranab Mukherjee, for his extraordinary contribution in presenting Vedic culture and philosophy, both nationally and internationally.

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ISBN: 9788187153467
Cover: Hardbound
Language: Sanskrit text with English translation
Page count: 1000
Publication date: 2015
Edition: First, 2000 copies

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Page format: 14 / 21.6 cm
Text area: 10.2 / 16.8 cm
Used software: XeLaTeX, TeXlive2013; Editpad Pro, PowerGREP; Pearl and Ruby scripts for encoding conversion and indexing
Print: Offset, 2/2-coloured black and special color
Book paper: Non-aging, acid-free, FSC-certified wood-free 60 g/m² book paper, extra white, bulk factor 1,2 from Cordier Spezialpapier GmbH, Bad Dürkheim (Germany)
Binding: Kaliko Iris (book cloth), thread sewn, Surbalin glatt (endpapers), round back, head- and tailband, Surbalin Linea (dust jacket)

Printing and binding: Kösel GmbH & Co. KG, Altusried-Krugzell (Germany)
Used fonts: SkolarPE Pro 10 pt (Regular and Semibold) and Skolar Devanagari 10 pt (Regular), Rosetta Type Foundry, linespread 1.1

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