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-: Religious Texts :-
Bhagvad Gita |
Bhagvata Purana |
Ramayana | Puranas |
Ramacaritmanas |
Jnaneshvari
The Puranas are a class of literary texts, all
written in Sanskrit verse, whose composition
dates from the 4th century BCE to about 1,000
A.D. The word "Purana" means "old", and
generally they are considered as coming in the
chronological aftermath of the epics, though
sometimes the Mahabharata, which is generally
classified as a work of itihas (history), is
also referred to as a purana. Some scholars,
such as van Buitenen, are inclined to view the
Puranas as beginning around the time that the
composition of the Mahabharata came to a close,
that is about 300 A.D. Certainly, in its final
form the Mahabharata shows puranic features, and
the Harivamsa, which is an appendix to the
Mahabharata where the life of Krishna or Hari is
treated at some length, has sometimes been seen
as a purana. The special subject of the puranas
is the powers and works of the gods, and one
ancient Sanskrit lexicographer, Amarasinha,
writing in the fifth or sixth century A.D.,
defined a purana as having five characteristic
topics, or pancalaksana: "(1) The creation of
the universe; (2) Its destruction and
renovation; (3) The genealogy of gods and
patriarchs; (4) The reigns of the Manus, forming
the periods called Manwantaras; (5) the history
of the Solar and Lunar races of kings." No one
purana can be described as exhibiting in fine
(or even coarse) detail all five of these
distinguishing traits, but sometimes the Vishnu
Purana is thought to most closely resemble the
traditional definition. Around the time when the
puranas first began to be composed, the belief
in particular deities had become established as
one of the principal marks of the Hindu faith,
and to some degree the puranas can be described
as a form of sectarian literature. Some puranas
exhibit devotion to Shiva; in others, the
devotion to Vishnu predominates.
There are eighteen major puranas, as well as a
similar number of minor or subordinate puranas.
One method of the classification of puranas
deploys the traditional tripartite division of
the gunas or qualities which tend toward purity
(sattva), impurity or ignorance (tamas), and
passion (rajas). Thus, there are those puranas
where the quality of sattva is said to
predominate, and these are six in number:
Vishnu; Narada; Bhagavata; Garuda; Padma; and
Varaha. According to another scheme of
classification, these are also the puranas in
which Vishnu appears as the Supreme Being. A
second set of puranas, also six in number, are
described as exhibiting qualities of ignorance
or impurity (tamas), and in these Shiva is the
God to whom devotion is rendered: Matsya; Kurma;
Linga; Shiva; Skanda; and Agni. In the third set
of six puranas, the quality of rajas or blind
passion supposedly prevails: Brahma; Bramanda;
Brahmavaivarta; Markandeya; Bhavishya; and
Vamana. The list of eighteen is sometimes
enlarged to twenty, to include the Vayu Purana
and the Harivamsa. Yet clearly this mode of
classification, which shows every sign of
sectarianism, is inadequate, since none of the
puranas is devoted exclusively to either Vishnu
or Shiva. Among these puranas, the Vishnu Purana
and the Bhagavata Purana (also known as the
Bhagavatam) are, with respect to their standing
as works of devotional literature, preeminent;
and the Bhagavata Purana is even the supreme
work of Krishna devotional literature. Since
each of the eighteen major puranas enumerates
the other puranas, it is reasonable to surmise
that all the puranas were revised at one point.
Their length varies considerably: the Skanda has
80,000 couplets, while the Brahma and Vamana
Puranas have 10,000 couplets each.
Though all the Puranas have been translated into
major Indian languages as well as English, only
a few of them, principally the Vishnu Purana and
the Bhagavatam, can safely be described as being
widely known. Nonetheless, the stories told in
the Puranas are part of the common currency, and
in this respect the Puranas can rightfully be
spoken of as the scriptures of popular Hinduism.
It is the Puranas that British scholars had in
mind when they mocked the literature of the
Hindus as fanciful, hyperbolic, and absurd.
Genealogies in which certain kings are said to
rule for thousands of years, or conceptions of
time where tens of thousands of years are said
to be a mere instant, were not calculated to
make the British regard the Puranas as a set of
rational religious texts. However, it requires a
very different imagination, as well as
interpretive strategy, to read the Puranas. To
suppose that Hindus truly believe in "330
million gods and goddesses" is to fail to
understand the place of numbers in the Indian
imagination, and the hermeneutic, interpretive,
and creative work that numbers do. The Puranas
are works that most eminently represent the deep
mythic structuring of Indian civilization, and
they are properly viewed as expanding upon,
modifying, and transforming the orthodox
Brahminism of the Vedas, principally by the
introduction of the idea of bhakti or devotion.
It is the Puranas which, it is no exaggeration
to say, assisted in the transition from
Brahminism to Hinduism, particularly a Hinduism
that was more receptive to folk elements,
popular forms of devotion and worship, and
everyday arts, crafts, and sciences. The Puranas
carry story about the gods who had become the
objects of peoples devotion, as well as about
the modes of worship of these gods; these gods
are no longer Vedic gods, but the gods who form
the Hindu trinity. Besides them, the Puranas
speak of the battle between the devas and the
asuras, and one can doubtless read the
narratives as allegorical accounts of the
struggle within each person between the forces
of light and the forces of darkness. The
Puranas delineate the religious obligations by
which each person is bound, and as such they are
a guide to dharmic living. Though the Puranas
are a vast repository of Hindu lore, religious
practices yoga, vows, puja, prayers,
sacrifices -- and everyday customs, they are not
without a sense of humor and irony, and they
complement the metaphysical austerity of the
Upanishads, the magical and sacrificial lore of
the Atharva Veda, and the sacerdotal orthodoxy
of the Rig Veda. |
