The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.18

v1.c24.18

The total number of couplets comprised in the eighteen Purāṇas as given in the lists is 400,000, the length of the different versions varying from 10,000 to about 81,000 couplets. These statements were no doubt accurate at the time when the computation was made; but great changes have since taken place. On the one hand, whole sections have been lost. The Vishṇu Pur., usually regarded as the best conserved of all, has now less than 7000 couplets: in the lists it appears with 23,000. On the other hand, numerous more recent works claim to belong to one or other of the Purāṇas, so that it is now sometimes impossible to define the precise limits of the latter. If all the productions which profess to form portions of the Skanda Pur., for instance, were included, the total given in the lists would be greatly exceeded.