Listen to Vedabase

Open the verse on vedabase.io in Chrome — for example, Bhagavad Gita 2.47, the famous verse on action without attachment to results. Click the CastReader icon. Audio reads the English translation followed by Prabhupada's purport. To listen to a whole chapter at once, open the chapter view (which shows all verses on one page) and click CastReader.

It reads whatever the page displays as English text — so the translation and the purport, but not the Sanskrit verse or the word-for-word synonyms list. The Sanskrit (devanagari script) is for your eyes; the English-trained TTS would mispronounce it. The IAST transliteration (Kṛṣṇa, Pāṇḍu, Kurukṣetra) is preserved on screen and the verse highlight tracks it correctly. Some IAST names (Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Bhīṣma) may sound a bit elongated when the TTS hits unusual diacritics — that's a known TTS limitation on Sanskrit transliteration, not a feature of Vedabase or CastReader.

Yes. Open the chapter index (e.g., Chapter 2 — Contents of the Gita Summarized) and click any verse to load the chapter view, or use the 'show all' / chapter view that displays every verse with its purport on one page. Click CastReader and the chapter reads from verse 1 to the end. A typical chapter runs 30–60 minutes at 1.2x.

Yes — the Srimad-Bhagavatam is structured the same way as the Gita: each verse has translation, synonyms, and purport. CastReader reads the translation and purport for any verse or chapter. The 10th canto on Krishna's pastimes runs to thousands of verses; listen by chapter.

Yes. The Caitanya-caritamrta has the same page structure and is fully on Vedabase. CastReader reads any chapter — the Adi-lila, Madhya-lila, Antya-lila — including the Sanskrit verse translations and Prabhupada's purports.

Vedabase also hosts Prabhupada's lectures, conversations, letters, and morning walks. These are plain prose — no verse structure. CastReader reads them as a single document, paragraph by paragraph. Useful for listening to a 1972 lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.13 while walking.

IAST diacritic characters (the dot under 'ṛ', the macron over 'ā', the dot above 'ṁ') indicate Sanskrit phonemes that English doesn't have. Standard English TTS engines fall back to spelling out unusual character combinations, which can make a single word like 'Dhṛtarāṣṭra' sound longer than expected. This is a TTS engine limitation. The text on screen is exactly the IAST you're reading; the audio approximates the English pronunciation. If a future TTS engine adds Sanskrit support, it will improve automatically.

Completely free. No account needed, no verse limits, no ads. CastReader is a free browser extension for Chrome and Edge. Vedabase itself is also free, hosted by The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.