Puranas

The Puranas are the richest collection of mythology in the world. The Puranas deal with many religious and moral matters of importance, and document Hindu religious concerns from about 400 to 1000 CE.

The aim of the Puranas is to impress on the minds of the masses the teachings of the Vedas and to generate in them devotion to God, through concrete examples, myths, stories, legends, lives of saints, kings and great men, allegories and chronicles of great historical events. The sages made use of these things to illustrate the eternal principles of religion. The Puranas were meant, not for the scholars, but for the ordinary people who could not understand high philosophy and who could not study the Vedas.

The Puranas are a class of literary texts, all written in Sanskrit verse. There are eighteen main Puranas and an equal number of subsidiary Puranas or Upa-Puranas. The main Puranas are:

Vishnu Purana Naradiya Purana Srimad Bhagavata Purana Garuda (Suparna) Purana Padma Purana Varaha Purana Brahma Purana Brahmanda Purana Brahma Vaivarta Purana

Markandeya Purana Bhavishya Purana Vamana Purana Matsya Purana Kurma Purana Linga Purana Siva Purana Skanda Purana Agni Purana

Among these, six are Satvic Puranas and glorify Vishnu; six are Rajasic and glorify Brahma; six are Tamasic and they glorify Shiva.

Beginners in the spiritual path are puzzled when they go through Shiva Purana and Vishnu Purana. In Shiva Purana, Lord Shiva is highly eulogized and an inferior position is given to Lord Vishnu. Sometimes Vishnu is even belittled. In Vishnu Purana, Lord Hari is highly eulogised and an inferior status is given to Lord Shiva. This is only to increase the faith of the devotees in their particular Ishta since Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu are one and the same.

The most popular Purana is the Srimad Bhagavata Purana. Next comes Vishnu Purana. A portion of the Markandeya Purana is well known to all Hindus as it contains Devimahatmya which extols the worship of Maa Chandi, as the Divine and Supreme Mother of all Universe.