# Scripture research course handbooks

Publisher: Dharma Open School by Aniruddha Dāsa
Edition: school research edition
Content last modified: 2026-08-26
Scope: 4 courses and 32 units; modern source-site text is linked, not reproduced.
Reuse: Free to download for personal study and teaching preparation. No separate open licence is asserted for editorial research-edition text; retain provenance and check permissions before redistribution or adaptation.

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## Srimad Bhagavatam

A twelve-canto research course organised around narrators, questions, genre, argument and devotional response. It does not reproduce a modern copyrighted translation; each unit sends the learner to an identified edition and asks for a source record.

Source shelf: [Vedabase · Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam library and canto index](https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/)

### Canto 1 · Questions, departure and the hearing frame

**Inquiry:** Why is the Bhāgavatam spoken, to whom, and under what pressure?

**Study:** Map the sages and Sūta frame, Parīkṣit’s crisis, the appearance and departure narratives, and the turn toward sustained hearing.

**Make:** A two-level narrator–audience map with chapter references.

### Canto 2 · Hearing, remembrance and cosmic orientation

**Inquiry:** How does the answer move from urgent practice to accounts of creation?

**Study:** Track Śuka’s response to Parīkṣit, the universal-form orientation, concise Bhāgavatam, questions about creation and the four seed verses.

**Make:** A question–answer chain ending in one carefully sourced cosmology diagram.

### Canto 3 · Vidura, Maitreya, creation and Kapila

**Inquiry:** How do narrative journey, cosmology and philosophical instruction interact?

**Study:** Separate the Vidura–Maitreya frame, creation sequences, Varāha narrative, Kardama and Devahūti, and Kapila’s instruction.

**Make:** A genre map marking narrative, genealogy, cosmology and teaching.

### Canto 4 · Dakṣa, Dhruva, Pṛthu and the Pracetās

**Inquiry:** How do offence, ambition, governance and transformation unfold through distinct lives?

**Study:** Follow the Dakṣa conflict, Dhruva’s motive and change, Pṛthu’s kingship and the allegorical and devotional instruction surrounding the Pracetās.

**Make:** A four-character motive–turning point–instruction comparison.

### Canto 5 · Priyavrata, Ṛṣabhadeva, Bharata and cosmography

**Inquiry:** How should ethical instruction, biography and cosmographic description be read without flattening genre?

**Study:** Keep royal duty, Ṛṣabhadeva’s instruction, Bharata’s three lives, geographic-cosmographic description and hell narratives in separate interpretive frames.

**Make:** A reading protocol naming genre, claim type and questions for expert review.

### Canto 6 · Ajāmila, Citraketu and contested duty

**Inquiry:** What happens when judgement, the divine name, grief and offence meet?

**Study:** Map the Ajāmila debate, Dakṣa’s descendants, Indra and Vṛtrāsura, and Citraketu’s grief, instruction and later conflict.

**Make:** A debate table listing speakers, claims, evidence and outcome.

### Canto 7 · Hiraṇyakaśipu, Prahlāda and social instruction

**Inquiry:** How does devotion operate under hostility and within ordinary social life?

**Study:** Sequence the conflict and protection narrative, Prahlāda’s teachings, Nṛsiṁha’s appearance and the later discussions of conduct and social orders.

**Make:** A narrative-pressure map plus one teaching case with source boundaries.

### Canto 8 · Gajendra, churning, Vāmana and cycles of rule

**Inquiry:** How do helpless prayer, cooperation, divine intervention and cosmic cycles relate?

**Study:** Distinguish the manvantara frame, Gajendra narrative, ocean-churning sequence, Bali and Vāmana, and later avatāra accounts.

**Make:** A cause–request–intervention–response storyboard for one narrative.

### Canto 9 · Dynasties and the Rāma narrative

**Inquiry:** What does genealogy accomplish between cosmology and the Kṛṣṇa narrative?

**Study:** Follow selected solar and lunar lines, identify compressed narratives and study the Rāma section without treating the canto as a substitute for the Rāmāyaṇa.

**Make:** A limited lineage diagram with every omitted branch explicitly marked.

### Canto 10 · Kṛṣṇa narrative in ninety chapters

**Inquiry:** How do Vraja, Mathurā and Dvārakā movements form one sustained theological narrative?

**Study:** Divide the canto into defensible narrative arcs, track location and speaker changes, and distinguish event sequence from later illustrative retelling.

**Make:** A twelve-scene macro-storyboard with chapter ranges and provenance labels.

### Canto 11 · Departure, instruction and the Uddhava dialogue

**Inquiry:** How does teaching intensify as the Yadu narrative approaches its close?

**Study:** Track the Yadu frame, Nimi and the Yogendras, Uddhava’s questions, the avadhūta’s teachers, practice, knowledge and the final departure sequence.

**Make:** A thematic index connecting five questions to exact chapter ranges.

### Canto 12 · Decline, succession and the work’s conclusion

**Inquiry:** How does the final canto connect historical decline, mortality, hearing and textual praise?

**Study:** Separate future dynasties, symptoms of Kali, Parīkṣit’s final event, Mārkaṇḍeya’s vision and the concluding summary and glorification.

**Make:** A final whole-work map showing frame closure and unresolved study questions.

### Performance assessment

- Name the primary narrator frames without notes.
- Classify five sampled passages by genre before interpreting them.
- Trace one question through at least three cantos with exact references.
- Teach one bounded passage while naming source, edition and synthesis.

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## Sri Isopanisad

An eighteen-mantra close-reading course. The unit groupings are study aids, not claims that the text itself announces these sections. Learners compare identified editions and keep paired Sanskrit terms visible.

Source shelf: [Vedabase · Śrī Īśopaniṣad source pages](https://vedabase.io/en/library/iso/)

### Invocation and mantra 1 · Whole, dwelling and use

**Inquiry:** What relationships among completeness, indwelling, acceptance and non-coveting are established?

**Study:** Record the invocation separately from mantra 1. Mark pronouns, imperatives and the interpretive choices carried by āvāsyam, tyaktena and bhuñjīthā.

**Make:** A three-translation comparison with no anonymous merged rendering.

### Mantras 2–3 · Action, life and destructive trajectories

**Inquiry:** How is action placed inside a full human life, and what warning follows?

**Study:** Trace verbs, agent and result. Compare how editions connect mantra 2 to mantra 1 and resist treating “action” as one undifferentiated category.

**Make:** A claim–condition–result diagram.

### Mantras 4–8 · Movement, distance and the seer’s vision

**Inquiry:** How can apparently opposed descriptions function together?

**Study:** List every paired or paradoxical expression before resolving it. Track the movement from description of the One to the vision and conduct of the seer.

**Make:** A paradox table with grammatical observations and two interpretive options.

### Mantras 9–11 · Vidyā and avidyā

**Inquiry:** What different results are heard, and what does knowing both together mean?

**Study:** Do not translate the pair once and reuse it automatically. Compare each occurrence, its instrumental form and the result attached to it.

**Make:** A term–verse–result matrix.

### Mantras 12–14 · Sambhūti and asambhūti

**Inquiry:** How does the second paired warning resemble and differ from the first?

**Study:** Track textual variants and edition choices explicitly. Compare structure before importing a doctrinal equation for either term.

**Make:** A parallel-layout chart for 9–11 and 12–14 with differences highlighted.

### Mantras 15–18 · Four closing prayers

**Inquiry:** How do covering, vision, remembrance, fire and guidance shape the ending?

**Study:** Identify addressee, request and self-description in each prayer. Notice the sequence without claiming a single psychological stage unless the evidence supports it.

**Make:** A four-prayer liturgical map and a spoken teach-back.

### Performance assessment

- Recite the eighteen-mantra structural map.
- Explain one paired term without hiding translation differences.
- Compare two identified commentarial readings of one mantra.
- Teach the four closing prayers as a sequence with exact source labels.

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## Nectar Of Instruction

An eleven-verse practice course following the text from regulation of urges through association and practice to Vraja and Rādhā-kuṇḍa. Modern translations and purports remain on their identified source site.

Source shelf: [Vedabase · Nectar of Instruction](https://vedabase.io/en/library/noi/)

### Verse 1 · Governing six urges

**Inquiry:** What is restrained, and what qualification is connected to that restraint?

**Study:** List the six urges and observe how speech, mind, anger and bodily appetite form a practical field rather than a hierarchy of shame.

**Make:** A private trigger–pause–alternative practice sheet.

### Verses 2–3 · Six obstacles and six supports

**Inquiry:** How do paired lists diagnose practice without becoming slogans?

**Study:** Compare each obstacle with plausible supporting alternatives. Preserve the Sanskrit list terms and avoid inventing one-to-one pairs the verses do not state.

**Make:** A twelve-cell weekly audit with one chosen experiment.

### Verse 4 · Six exchanges of affection

**Inquiry:** What makes spiritual relationship reciprocal and embodied?

**Study:** Classify giving, receiving, revealing, hearing and shared food. Ask what consent, trust and boundary look like in each exchange.

**Make:** A relationship map that includes safe limits and reciprocity.

### Verses 5–6 · Honour, association and vision

**Inquiry:** How are levels of relationship described, and how is material vision corrected?

**Study:** Separate recognition, respect, service, intimate association and the instruction not to reduce a devotee to bodily defect.

**Make:** Three realistic cases with proportionate responses and no public ranking.

### Verses 7–8 · Taste, practice and residence

**Inquiry:** How do repeated practice, gradual taste and absorbed remembrance connect?

**Study:** Track the medical comparison in verse 7 and the concentrated practical instruction in verse 8. Label metaphor, prescription and later application.

**Make:** A seven-day attention practice with evidence and revision.

### Verses 9–11 · Sacred-place progression

**Inquiry:** What evaluative sequence culminates in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, and on what stated grounds?

**Study:** Map each place and comparison exactly as the verses present it. Keep geographic orientation separate from the text’s devotional valuation.

**Make:** A sourced place ladder plus a responsible-visit reflection.

### Performance assessment

- Retrieve all six urges, obstacles, supports and exchanges.
- Apply one list to a case without judging another person.
- Explain the movement from regulation to relationship to place.
- Teach one verse with Sanskrit term, source link, practice and boundary.

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## Nectar Of Devotion

A structural introduction to Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and the English study work commonly titled Nectar of Devotion. This course teaches navigation, terminology and classification without reproducing copyrighted prose.

Source shelf: [Vedabase · Nectar of Devotion](https://vedabase.io/en/library/nod/)

### Unit 1 · Identify the work and editions

**Inquiry:** Which text, translation, summary or commentary are you actually reading?

**Study:** Record Sanskrit work title, division and wave when available. Distinguish Rūpa Gosvāmī’s verses, cited authorities, a translator’s rendering and explanatory prose.

**Make:** An edition and provenance card.

### Unit 2 · The ocean structure

**Inquiry:** How do eastern, southern, western and northern divisions organise the inquiry?

**Study:** Build a four-division map and attach wave names from the edition being used. Treat the map as navigation rather than a substitute for reading.

**Make:** A four-quadrant structure diagram with source locations.

### Unit 3 · Definition and characteristics of pure bhakti

**Inquiry:** Which words carry the definition, and what exclusions or positive orientation do they establish?

**Study:** Study the Sanskrit definition in context, compare identified renderings and keep each grammatical relation visible before paraphrasing.

**Make:** A definition map with direct text, translation choices and synthesis.

### Unit 4 · Sādhana-bhakti and its practices

**Inquiry:** How are practice, eligibility and limbs of devotion organised?

**Study:** Distinguish general definition, vaidhī and rāgānugā discussions, lists of practices and especially emphasised practices.

**Make:** A taxonomy plus one modest, reviewable practice plan.

### Unit 5 · Bhāva and prema

**Inquiry:** How are advanced states defined and evidenced without casual self-diagnosis?

**Study:** Record definitions, characteristics, causes and transitions as the source presents them. Do not turn descriptions into status claims about living people.

**Make:** A comparison table with a prominent “not a self-certification tool” boundary.

### Unit 6 · Rasa vocabulary

**Inquiry:** What is gained and lost when rasa is translated simply as emotion?

**Study:** Build a glossary for sthāyi-bhāva, vibhāva, anubhāva, sāttvika-bhāva and vyabhicāri-bhāva using one identified scholarly or traditional edition.

**Make:** A relational diagram that shows combination rather than a list.

### Unit 7 · Primary relationships

**Inquiry:** How are śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya and mādhurya discussed as devotional relationships?

**Study:** Study definitions, supports and examples without extracting intimate material from its theological and ethical frame.

**Make:** A five-column source index, not a personality quiz.

### Unit 8 · From taxonomy to responsible teaching

**Inquiry:** When does a diagram clarify, and when does it flatten lived devotional theology?

**Study:** Choose one bounded category, show the source structure, invite classification of examples and finish by naming the diagram’s limits.

**Make:** A 15-minute micro-lesson with provenance, case and teach-back.

### Performance assessment

- Navigate from a claim to division, wave and source verse.
- Define five technical terms without relying on loose English alone.
- Classify a worked example and name uncertainty.
- Teach one taxonomy while showing where the diagram stops.

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