भार्गवतन्त्रम्- Bhargava Tantram (An Old and Rare Book)

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The analysis of available literary and the scanty epigraphically evidences seems to point towards the fact that the concept of Bhagavata in its earliest stage was in no way associated with Vishnu with whom it was identified later. The identification with Vishnu seems to have proceeded through Krsna-Vasudeva who had established himself as 'the most perfect Incarnation' of Vishnu (Krsnas to bhavan svayam).

After the identification of Bhagavata with Vishnu, the religious ideology of the Bhagavata-system developed assimilating and imbibing elements of the Vedic and the post-Vedic concept of visnu on the one hand, as well as the popular mode of worship (Pula) on the other. The followers of Bhagavatism, which must have enjoyed universal appeal by now, slowly ramified themselves into two groups. The first group was formed by the Srotriyas and Brahmins, i e. those who leaned heavily on the Vedic tradition. The second group must have been formed by the simple Aryan folk, not deeply embedded in the Vedic tradition, who had been using its age-old mode of worship conducted with various Upacaras as an expression of their religious feelings. The texts of these two groups, when codified later, gave rise to two schools of Bhagavatism, namely Vaikhanasas and the Pancaratra respectively It was the Pancaratra, however, which was to become the more popular and the more widely accepted school since it had a broader base among the masses, having incorporated in itself much of the popular religious practices-the so called Agamic or Tantric rites. Indeed, the very history of Hinduism is a story of the victory of popular religious beliefs over the Vedic, sacerdotal tradition.

The oldest of the extant Pancaratra samhitas go back to the Gupta period though there are irrefutable evidences to show that the religious texts of the Bhagavata-Pancaratra school started coming up even before the commencement of the composition of the Mahabharata. The 'Narayana' portion of Santiparvan and the 'Bhagavadgita' in the Bhismapa'va are two such texts incorporated later into the Mahabharata.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages