Before the verses
The Preface and Introduction
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
The First Canto opens with a Preface and then an Introduction, before verse 1.1.1.
Two pages before the verses begin. The Preface says why this book is the need of the age; the Introduction says what the book is about — the Absolute Truth, and how to know Him.
What it says
Six things to hold before verse one
The need of the age
The world has drawn together but is still quarrelling. What is missing is not comfort but a common cause.
Human society is no longer bounded by geographical limits to particular countries or communities. Human society is broader than in the Middle Ages, and the world tendency is toward one state or one human society.
What this book is for
The Preface names the book's work in one line.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam will fill this need, for it is a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society.
The source of everything
Before the first verse, the Preface points to what everything comes from.
There is God, or the Almighty One, from whom everything emanates, by whom everything is maintained and in whom everything is merged to rest.
To be taught to everyone
The Preface asks that this book be put into schools and colleges, on Prahlāda Mahārāja's advice.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam should be introduced also in the schools and colleges, for it is recommended by the great student-devotee Prahlāda Mahārāja in order to change the demoniac face of society.
God, and the Absolute Truth
The Introduction begins by separating the two ideas, and says where the book aims.
The conception of God and the conception of Absolute Truth are not on the same level. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam hits on the target of the Absolute Truth.
The supreme person
The book's own word for that goal, and why it means a person, not a force.
This Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam designates the Absolute Truth or the summum bonum as the paraṁ satyam.
Then