One purpose, however, and that a paramount one, is not included in the argument by which Sayana en- deavored to account for the composition of the Pu- ranas; it is the purpose of establishing a sectarian creed. At the third phase of the Hindu religion, two gods of the Hindu pantheon especially engrossed the religious faith of the masses — Vishnu (q. v.) and Siva (q. v.), each being looked upon by his worshippers as the supreme deity, to whom the oilier, as well as the remaining gods, was subordinate. Moreover, when the power or energy of these gods bad been raised to the rank of a separate deity, it was the female Sakti, or en- ergy, of Siva who. as Durga, or the consort of this god, was held in peculiar awe by a numerous host ,.| h< liev- ers. Now, apart from the general reasons mentioned before, a principal object, and probably ih* principal one, of the Puranas was to establish, as the case might be, the supremacy of Vishnu or Siva, and, it may be like- wise assumed, of the female energy of Siva, though the worship of the latter belongs more exclusively to the class of works known as Tantras. There are. accord- ingly, Vaishnava- Puranas, or those composed for the glorj of Vishnu; Saiva-Puranas, or those which extol the worship of Siva; and one or two Puranas. perhaps, but merely as far as a portion of them is concerned, will be more consistently assigned to the Sakta wor- ship, or that of 1 >ur-a. than to that of Vishnu or Siva.
■•The invariable form of the Puranas." says Prof. Wilson, in his preface to the Vishnu- Purdna, "is that of a dialogue, in which some person relates ii- con- tents in reply to the inquiries of another. This di- alogue is interwoven with others, which are repeated as having been held on other occasions, between dif- ferent individuals, in consequence of similar questions having been asked. The immediate narrator is com- monly, though not constantly, I aharshana, or Ro-
maharshana, the disciple of Vyasa, who U supposed to communicate what was imparled to him by his precep- tor as lie had heard il from some other Sage. . . . Lo-
maharshana is called Suta, as if it were a proper nam.';
but it is. more correctly, a title, and Lomaharsbana wa,
'a Suta.' that is. a hard or panegyrist, who was ere-
PURANA
793
PURCELL
ated, according to the Vishnu-Pur una, to celebrate the exploits of princes, and who, according to the Vayu and Padma Purdnas, has a right, by birth and profession, to narrate the Puranas, in preference even to the Brah- mins." The number of the actual Puranas is stated to be eighteen, and their names, in the order given, are the following: 1. Brahma-; 2. Padma-; 3. Vishnu-; 4. Siva-; 5. Bhagavata- ; 6. Naradiya- ; 7. Markande- ya-; S.Agni-; 9. Bhavishya- ; 10. Brahma-vaivarila- ; 11. Liiuja-; 12. Vardha- ; 13. Skanda-; 14. Vdmana-; lb.Kurma-; 16. Matsya- ; 17. Gartida-; and L8. Brah- manda - Purdna. In other lists, the Agni-Pin-dna is omitted, and the Vdyu-Purdna inserted instead of it; or the Garuda and Brahmanda are omitted, and re- placed by the Vdyu and Nrisinha Purdnas. Of these Puranas," 2, 3, 5, C, 10, 12, 17 and probably 1, are Pu- ranas of the Vaishnava sect; 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, of the Saiva sect; 7 is, in one portion of it, called Devima- hatmya, the text-book of the worshippers of Durga; otherwise, it has little of a sectarian spirit, and would, therefore, neither belong to the Vaishnava nor to the Saiva class ; 14, as Prof. Wilson observes, " divides its homage between Siva and Vishnu with tolerable im- partiality ; it is not connected, therefore, with any sec- tarial principles, and may have preceded their introduc- tion." The Bhavishya-Purdna (9), as described by the Matsya-Purdna, would be a book of prophecies ; but the Bhavishya-Purdna known to Prof. Wilson con- sists of five books, four of which are dedicated to the gods Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and Twashtri; and the same scholar doubts whether this work could have any claim to the name of a Purana, as its first portion is merely a transcript of the words of the first chapter of Manu, and the rest is entirely a manual of religious rites and ceremonies. There are similar grounds for doubt regarding other works of the list.
If the entire number of works, nominally, at least, corresponding with those of the native list, were taken as a whole, their contents might be so defined as to em- brace the five topics specified by the commentators on the glossary of Amara-Sinha ; philosophical speculations on the nature of matter and soul, individual as well as supreme ; small codes of law ; descriptions of places of pilgrimage ; a vast ritual relating to the modern wor- ship of the gods; numerous legends; and, exception- ally, as in the Agni-Purdna, scientific tracts. If taken individually, however, the difference between most of them, both in style and contents, is so considerable that a general definition would become inaccurate. A short description of each Purana has been given by the late Prof. H. H. Wilson in his preface to his translation of the Vishnu- Purana; and to it, as well as to his de- tailed account of some Puranas in separate essays (col- lected in his works) we must therefore refer the reader who would wish to obtain a fuller knowledge of these works.