Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c11.3

c11.3

The Vāyu and Brahmāṇḍa have the best text of the genealogies. Their accounts agree closely, so that they are really only two versions of the same text. They have a great part of their contents in common, generally almost verbatim, and it appears they were originally one Purana. This is indicated also by the lists given in the Puranas.¹ Nearly all mention the Brahmāṇḍa, putting it last, and omit the Vāyu, though it was one of the best known. The Kūrma² also mentions it last and calls it the Vāyavīya Brahmāṇḍa. The Vāyu and Brahmāṇḍa are named separately only in the Vāyu itself and the Garuḍa.³ These lists are of course late insertions, which could not have been completed till after the latest of these Puranas was composed; yet they show that the two were not regarded as distinct and the differentiation of the one original into two versions with separate names was a later process. Both these Puranas say they were declared by the god Vāyu;¹ thus both were Vāyu-prokta and either might be so described; but the use of the name Brahmāṇḍa in the above lists to the general exclusion of the name Vāyu suggests that Brahmāṇḍa was the older and better-known name. Their version may be conveniently called the ‘Vāyu version’.