By Prishni Sutton
The Bhaktivedanta Institute for Higher Studies (BIHS) hosted its second international conference, “Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana: Current Research on History, Philosophy, and Science,” on November 17–19 at the BIHS Headquarters in Gainesville, FL. Use of this lovely facility, the former home of the president of the University of Florida, was secured with the generous support of Hridayananda Das Goswami.
This conference was a natural outgrowth of three prior BIHS cosmology workshops (see BIHS events page), which examined traditional and contemporary studies of cosmological issues in relation to Sanskrit texts such as the Puranas (notably Srimad-Bhagavatam), the Jyotiṣa Sastras, and the Mahabharata. Earlier in November, the BIHS also facilitated workshops chaired by Akhandadhi Das relating to exhibits to be housed in the west wing of the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Mayapur, West Bengal. Such workshops have inspired publications that feature the recent work of scholars associated with these projects, including the journal Purva-paksa: Fine-Tuning Opposing Views, Volumes I and II (forthcoming) and Vedic Cosmography in a Modern Context: Virodha-parihāra Revisited
Scholars from around the world joined together in person and on Zoom to discuss academic analyses in discourse with internal cultural appreciations and to network with established scholars familiar with Puranic and other ancient and modern cosmological constructs. The event opened on a Friday evening with a premiere viewing of the documentary video: “Exploring the Puranic Vision of the Universe: The Work of the BIHS,” by Richard Cole (Radha Mohan Das). This film summarized cosmology research that has been presented at BIHS seminars, thus bringing the participants up to date on the conference topic.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/scholars-gather-for-2023-bihs-cosmology-conference/
Comments
Why is Bhagavad Purana so important? I know right, it is ISKCON and only Bhagadad is ruling for the next ten thousands of years, other Purana's are less important right?! But that does not mean you have to ignore or make them myths...or say forbidden to study.
Please for complete discussion read ALL the Purana's and study the cosmology.
In each and every Purana is more about the cosmos. At first there was only 1 Purana and lateron divided in many Purana's.
This result in over and over telling the same core of the stores, but in each and every Purana an other POV or more/less detailed.
I assure you, if you lay ALL texts of ALL the Purana's(not only Bhagavad Purana) together you learn a lot of the cosmos in such a detail you cannot imagine!
Hare Krishna!