• Find answers to what are Puranas, which are the major Puranas, what are their contents, when were they written, difference between Upanishads and Puranas, key role played by Puranas and their links to the Vedas.

The Puranas are a collection of Hindu religious texts that tell stories about the history of the universe, the creation of gods and humans, and the genealogies of kings, heroes and deities. The word ‘Puranas’ comes from the Sanskrit word purâna, which means ‘ancient’ or ‘old’. The Puranas cover a wide range of topics, including the creation of the universe, the history of solar and lunar dynasties, and the genealogy of gods and patriarchs.

The Puranas are an important part of Indian culture and have inspired many aspects of modern India, including Hindu practices and history. Douglas Harper states that the etymological origins of Puranas are from the Sanskrit Puranah, literally ‘ancient, former ’, from pura (‘formerly, before’), cognate with Greek paros (‘before’), Avestan paro (‘before’), Old English ‘fore, from’, and Proto-Indo-European pre-, from per-.

The Puranas were originally written in Sanskrit and other Indian languages. Some Puranas are named after major Hindu gods, such as Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, and Adi Shakti.

The Bhagavata Purana focuses on the worship of Vishnu, while the Skanda Purana is the longest Purana, with 81,000 verses. The Puranas are divided into two major types, the Maha Puranas and the Upa Puranas. Allied to the epics, the Puranas are 18 in number with an equal number of Upa Puranas, of which the Bhagavata Purana is the most important. The Vishnu Purana is also noteworthy for its historical content mentioning the succeeding dynasties of kings and their periods of reign, offering valuable chronological data. There are also other types of Puranas that cover topics like castes, Jainism and geography.

There is one small verse created in Sanskrit that we can call a Sutra to remember the names of all the 18 Maha Puranas: (Sanskrit words omitted) That is: Starting with- , there are 2: there are 2: - and there are 3: and, there are 4: Remaining are as follows: starting with— 

By remembering the verse, you may remember the names of all the 18 Maha Puranas for the rest of your life.

The Puranic literature is encyclopaedic, and it includes diverse topics ranging from cosmogony, cosmology, genealogies of gods, goddesses, kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, folk tales, pilgrimages, temples, medicine, astronomy, grammar, mineralogy, humour, love stories, as well as theology and philosophy.

A Purana must have five characteristic features (Lakshanas). The first is Sarga (creation of the cosmos); second is Pratisarga (how eon after eon it expanded); third is Vamsa (the lineage of living creatures beginning with the children of Brahma); fourth is Manvantara (dealing with the 14 Manus, forefathers of mankind during the 1,000 chatur yugas); and the fifth is Vamshanucharita (genealogy of the rulers including the solar and lunar dynasties). There are also descriptions of the Earth, the heavens and the different worlds.

The Puranas also contain lessons in Papa (sin) and Punya (virtue). Their choice of stories and narration are such as to bring people closer to the path of Dharma. They also contain accounts of individuals, who by dint of their steadfast adherence to Dharma, attained nirvana in this birth itself. They even tell us about the persons, who, by their acts of Adharma, came to grief in this birth itself. In fact, there is no Puranic story that does not have a moral imperative.

The Hindu Maha Puranas are traditionally attributed to Ved Vyasa, but many scholars considered them likely the work of many authors over the centuries; in contrast, most Jaina Puranas can be dated and their authors assigned. In the Chandogya Upanishad, the sage Narada speaks about the subjects learned by him, which include the Puranas. It is, therefore, reasonable to infer that some Puranas existed concurrently alongside the Vedas and the Upanishads.

The first versions of various Puranas were likely to have been composed between the 3rd and 10th century CE. While the Puranas do not enjoy the authority of a scripture, these are considered Smritis in as much as they shaped Hinduism more than the Vedas, providing a ‘culture synthesis’ in weaving and integrating the diverse beliefs of a great number of local traditions into the Vedic-Brahmanic fold.

While all the Puranas praise many gods and goddesses and “their sectarianism is far less clear-cut” than assumed, the religious practices included in them are considered Vaidika (congruent with Vedic literature).

The Puranic literature wove the Bhakti movement in India, and both Dwaita and Advaita scholars have commented on the underlying Vedantic themes in the Maha Puranas. Early mention of the term ‘Itihas-purana’ is found in the Chandogya Upanishad (7.1.2), translated by Patrick Olivelle as “the corpus of histories and ancient tales as the fifth Veda”. Even the Brihadaranyaka refers to the Purana as the ‘fifth Veda’.

It is not possible to set a specific date for any Purana as a whole, states Ludo Rocher, who points out that even for the better established and more coherent Puranas such as Bhagavata and Vishnu Puranas, the dates proposed by scholars continue to vary widely and endlessly. The date of the production of the written texts does not define the date of origin of the Puranas. They existed in an oral form before being written down.

In the 19th century, F E Pargiter believed that the ‘original Purana’ may date to the time of the final redaction of the Vedas. Wendy Doniger, based on her study of Indologists, assigns approximate dates to the various Puranas. She dates the Markandeya Purana to c. 250 CE (with one portion dated to c. 550 CE), Matsya Purana to c. 250–500 CE, Vayu Purana to c. 350 CE, Harivamsa and Vishnu Purana to c. 450 CE, Brahmanda Purana to c. 350–950 CE, Vamana Purana to c. 450–900 CE, Kurma Purana to c. 550–850 CE, and Linga Purana to c. 600–1000 CE.

The Upanishads and Puranas are both important texts in Hinduism, but they differ in a number of ways.

The Upanishads are concerned with discovering the relationship between rituals, cosmic realities, and the human body, while the Puranas provide social and moral guidance. The Upanishads focus on philosophy and spirituality, while the Puranas cover a wide range of topics. The Upanishads present a vision of an interconnected universe, while the Puranas are structured into five sections that focus on different subjects. The Upanishads mark the beginning of a long transformation of the Vedic religion to Hinduism, while the Puranas and the epics form the basis of modern Hinduism. The Kaivalya Upanishad explores the state of being alone, while the Brahmanda, Devi, Kurma, Markandeya, Matsya, Vamana, Varaha, Vayu, and V ishnu are some of the earliest Puranas.

The Vedas are the religious hub of Hinduism, the Upanishads are the philosophical hub, the Puranas are the central repository of knowledge about the various deities. According to Shriman Ripley, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are epic poems that present a heavily exaggerated (over millennia)

account of the history of the dynasties ruling ancient India.

The Bhagavad Gita is a chapter within the Mahabharata which adds to the philosophical concepts put forward in the Upanishads, and the Gita and the Upanishads taken collectively are referred to as ‘Vedanta’. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita is also known as ‘Gitopanishad’. 

The Gita is the philosophical summary of Hinduism, which was heavily influenced by Buddhism; there were significant differences though. Compare Krishna’s call for battle without caring about Karma-phala, with the Buddhist story of Ashok’s abjuring violence after the Kalinga war.

The Vedas establish the core philosophy of the Vedic religion with concepts like karma, the cycle of rebirth, an infinite spatial and temporal universe, etc. The Upanishads elucidate and build on the philosophical themes contained in the Vedas, and along with the Vedas, form perhaps the greatest contributions of Ancient India towards literature and philosophy.

As mentioned earlier, the Puranas form the basis of modern Hinduism. The pantheon of the Vedas is relegated to playing second fiddle to newer gods like Shiva, Vishnu and their avatars. They are of immense literary value and contain some of the masterpieces in classical Sanskrit.

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This article was first published in the Bhavan’s Journal, April 1, 2025 issue. This article is courtesy and copyright Bhavan’s Journal, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai-400007. eSamskriti has obtained permission from Bhavan’s Journal to share. Do subscribe to the Bhavan’s Journal – it is very good.

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