Foreword

This is the final Srimad-Bhagavatam volume translated by His Divine
Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder-dcarya of
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. It is smaller than
the earlier volumes because it ends where the renowned author stopped
translating just before his departure from this mortal world on Novem-
ber 14, 1977, at the Krsna-Balardma Mandira in Vrndavana, India.

The first part of this volume was produced in the usual fashion. Srila
Prabhupada would sit and read silently from the Sanskrit text and then
speak the translation and commentary into his dictaphone. Later, due to
illness, it became necessary for his disciples to assist him personally.

In these last days Srila Prabhupada was gravely ill. Unable to eat for
weeks, his health had deteriorated, making even the slightest movement
excruciatingly painful.

As he lay still, a devotee would softly read the Sanskrit to him.
Another disciple, sitting on his bed, held the microphone to him, nearly
touching his mouth. And then Srila Prabhupada would speak, voice
sometimes barely audible.

These recordings, made in his quarters at the temple, constitute the
balance of this book.

In these final moments, the physician attending His Divine Grace
confided that an ordinary man in such critical condition would have
been crying out from the intense pain. Srila Prabhupada’s disciples
were awestruck as they watched their spiritual master work quietly,
undisturbed.

In the last part of the book we find Srila Prabhupada’s usual clarity of
thought, constant scriptural references, scrupulous attention to detail,
and rigorous philosophical exposition fully intact, just as they were in the
preceding twenty-nine volumes of the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Srila Prabhupada’s last days and this translation will stand as an in-
spiring reminder that even the severest material circumstances cannot
impede the activities of a pure devotee of the Supreme Personality of

Godhead.

—The Publishers

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