Selected Verses from The Vedic Scriptures

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About the Book

This reference book is a compilation of selected verses from the timeless jewels of Vedic wisdom-the Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Caitanya Caritamrta and other scriptural writings. This book contains the original Sanskrit text, Roman transliterations, English synonyms and translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

These verses provide the torchlight for illuminating the spiritual pathway through this dark jungle of the age of Kali Anyone who chants these powerful verses will be able to achieve a steady and peaceful mind full of devotion.

Introduction

We offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of our eternal spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who has mercifully bestowed upon us an ocean of transcendental sound vibration. The Vedic knowledge translated by His Divine Grace provides the torchlight for illuminating the spiritual path- way through this dark jungle of the age of Kali, and his books will provide this guiding light to conditioned souls for the next ten thousand years.

The Vedic scriptures translated by Srila Prabhupada contain many thousands of verses and although any verse in his books is perfect, still there are those verses that have been specifically chosen by the previous acaryas for the purpose of preaching Krsna consciousness. The special verses that Srila Prabhupada quoted most often in his preaching are present in this book.

Srila Prabhupada would often mention a verse and then ask the devotees present if they knew it, or ask them to find it in one of his books, especially verses from his Bhagavad-gita As It Is. He expected his disciples to know the key verses and be able to quote them in their preaching.

When we began the publication of this book, we were aware of previous publications of verse books, in particular the verse book by Sriman Rohininandana Prabhu who painstakingly studied the books of Srila Prabhupada in order to gather the quotes most often used by His Divine Grace. Because his book went out of print, we decided to produce this book and on the advice of many devotees presented the quotes according to their source, with Srila Prabhupada’s books given priority. Most devotees who are given to memorizing slokas are recommended to begin with Bhagavad-gita and then go on to Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sri Caitanya-car-itamrta and so on.

Of special note in this publication are the prayers of Queen Kunti from Srimad-Bhagavatam, the prayers from Sri Brahma-samhits, all eighteen mantras and the invocation from Sri lsopanisad and all eleven verses from Sri Upadesamrta. We have also included verses from non-Vaisnava sources like Rama Krsna and Carvaka Muni because His Divine Grace quoted them often in his preaching to defeat them philosophically. We have tried to be thorough in this compilation, however, with such a wealth to choose from, there may be omissions. We encourage devotees to give us their suggestions and will try to include them in future editions.

For ease of use we have included an index of the first and third lines of each verse. We have also published this book in computer form in the Bhaktivedanta Veda Base, the computer compilation of the books of Srila Prabhupada, in the supplementary section. This will enable researchers to look up and find individual words within verses.

For many verses from such works as the Padma Purana we were unable to locate the verse numbers and for some verses we were unable to find an original source at all. In these instances we request devotees and scholars who know to send us the relevant information. For Srila Prabhupada’s explanations of these sayings and verses we refer readers to the Bhaktivedanta Veda Base computer program.

We pray that the followers of His Divine Grace will find this publication a useful guide in their preaching work.

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