238
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 5]
PURPORT
People in general have a taste for literatures by instinct. They want to hear and read from the authorities something about the unknown, but their taste is exploited by unfortunate literatures which are full of subject matter for satisfaction of the material senses. Such literatures contain different kinds of mundane poems and philosophical speculations, more or less under the influence of  māyā , ending in sense gratification. These literatures, although worthless in the true sense of the term, are variously decorated to attract the attention of the less intelligent men. Thus the attracted living entities are more and more entangled in material bondage without hope of liberation for thousands and thousands of generations. Śrī Nārada Rṣi, being the best amongst the Vaiṣṇavas, is compassionate on such unfortunate victims of worthless literatures, and thus he advises Śrī Vyāsadeva to compose transcendental literature which is not only attractive but can also actually bring liberation from all kinds of bondage. Śrīla Vyāsadeva or his representatives are qualified because they are rightly trained to see things in true perspective. Śrīla Vyāsadeva and his representatives are pure in thought due to their spiritual enlightenment, fixed in their vows due to their devotional service and determined to deliver the fallen souls rotting in the material activities. The fallen souls are very eager to receive novel informations every day, and the transcendentalists like Vyāsadeva or Nārada can supply such eager people in general with unlimited news from the spiritual world. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  it is said that the material world is only a part of the whole creation and that this earth is only a fragment of the whole material world.
There are thousands and thousands of literary men all over the world, and they have created many, many thousands of literary works for the information of the people in general for thousands and thousands of years. Unfortunately none of them have brought peace and tranquility on the earth. This is due to a spiritual vacuum in those literatures; therefore the Vedic literatures, especially the  Bhagavad-gītā  and the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , are specifically recommended to the suffering humanity to bring about the desired effect of liberation from the pangs of material civilization, which is eating the vital part of the human energy. The  Bhagavad-gītā  is the spoken message of the Lord Himself recorded by Vyāsadeva, and the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  is the transcendental narration of the activities of the same Lord Kṛṣṇa which alone can satisfy the hankering desires of the living being for eternal peace and liberation from miseries.  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  is, therefore, meant for all the living beings all over the universe for total liberation from all kinds of material bondage. Such