naimiṣe 'nimiṣa-kṣetre ṛṣayaḥ śaunakādayaḥ | satraṃ svargāya lokāya sahasra-samam āsata ||
Sets the scene for the entire Bhāgavatam: in the forest of Naimiṣāraṇya -- a place so sacred that even time is said to blink slower there -- the sage Śaunaka and other ṛṣis gathered and undertook a great sacrifice lasting a thousand years, seeking the attainment of the higher, heavenly worlds. It is during this gathering that the Bhāgavatam is recited to them.
Syllable timings on this page are an estimate: derived from the chant's own guru/laghu (light/heavy syllable) prosody and scaled to this clip's real length, not a frame-exact forced alignment — so the highlight tracks the rhythm closely but may drift slightly from the exact syllable being sung. Each syllable is transliterated independently into Kannada, Devanāgarī, and IAST, matching the three-script display used elsewhere in the project.