The Puranas

Purana means 'ancient'. Already in the Upanishads, 'itihasa-purana', the corpus of histories and ancient tales, is called the fifth Veda (Chandogya Upanishad 7.1.2). The Puranas we have today are huge works, often told as conversations: a suta (bard) such as Ugrashravas recites them to sages gathered at the Naimisha forest, repeating what he heard from his father Lomaharshana, who learned from Vyasa.

If the Vedas are the root of Hindu tradition, the Puranas are its branches and flowers. The descent of the Ganga, Dhruva's devotion, Prahlada and Narasimha, the churning of the ocean, Shiva's marriage to Parvati, Krishna's childhood in Vraja and the Devi's battle with Mahishasura are all Puranic stories. Temple rituals, vrata kathas, festival calendars and the greatness of tirthas such as Kashi, Prayag and the Jyotirlingas are also mostly described in the Puranas.

Several Puranas define a Purana by five subjects (pancha-lakshana): sarga (creation of the universe), pratisarga (its dissolution and re-creation), vamsha (genealogies of gods and sages), manvantara (the great time-periods of the fourteen Manus) and vamshanucharita (the histories of the solar and lunar royal dynasties). In practice, the Puranas go far beyond this: they include theology, philosophy, ritual, pilgrimage guides, medicine, architecture and law. The Bhagavata Purana gives a longer list of ten topics.

Lists of the eighteen differ slightly: some include the Shiva Purana, others the Vayu Purana; the Devi Bhagavata Purana's place is also debated, some texts counting it among the Mahapuranas and others among the Upapuranas. The order and the verse figures below follow Bhagavata Purana 12.13.4–8. These are traditional sizes; the printed texts that survive today are often considerably shorter or longer.

According to tradition, there was originally one Purana-samhita. Vyasa compiled it and taught it to his disciple, the suta Lomaharshana, whose disciples in turn produced their own collections (Vishnu Purana 3.6). Vyasa is thus honoured as the author of all eighteen Mahapuranas, though each Purana also has its own narrator, such as Parashara in the Vishnu Purana or Shuka in the Bhagavata.

Scholars see the Puranas as living texts that grew and changed over many centuries, combining Brahmin learning with older bardic traditions. Most date the first versions of the surviving Puranas to between about the 3rd and 10th centuries CE, with much of the core material established in the Gupta period, and some parts revised as late as the second millennium. Even for well-studied texts like the Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas, proposed dates vary widely, and the scholar Ludo Rocher cautions that no Purana can be given a single date. A 9th-century Nepalese manuscript of the Skanda Purana, for example, is very different from the Skanda Purana printed today.

Tradition also classifies the eighteen by the three gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas), usually in a way that favours the Purana or deity the classifier follows. Different sampradayas therefore emphasise different Puranas, and scholars note that even the most devotional Puranas generally honour the other deities as well.

The Sanskrit below follows the texts on Sanskrit Wikisource.

The Puranas reach most Hindus through katha (sacred storytelling) rather than private reading. The Bhagavat Saptah, a seven-day recitation and explanation of the Bhagavata Purana, draws large gatherings, as do Shiva Purana and Devi Bhagavata kathas. The Durga Saptashati from the Markandeya Purana is recited during both Navaratris. The Garuda Purana's account of the soul's journey is traditionally read in the days after a death. Many vrata kathas, including the Satyanarayan Katha and numerous Ekadashi stories, are presented as coming from the Puranas.

Puranic stories also shape temple art, classical dance, folk theatre, calendar art and modern television serials, and the tirtha-mahatmyas still guide pilgrims to sacred sites across India.

Gita Press, Gorakhpur publishes the major Puranas with Sanskrit text and Hindi translation, or in Hindi abridgements, and its 'Kalyan' special issues have presented many of them to Hindi readers. The Bhagavata Purana is the natural first choice for devotional reading; the Vishnu Purana is the best short introduction to the classic Puranic form. In English, H. H. Wilson's 1840 translation of the Vishnu Purana is in the public domain, the Motilal Banarsidass series 'Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology' translates many Puranas in full, and Edwin Bryant's 'Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God' (Penguin) translates the tenth book of the Bhagavata.

For families with children, illustrated retellings are a good bridge, but an adult reader who wants depth should move on to a full translation of one Purana and read it slowly, as tradition intended, ideally alongside a katha by a respected teacher.