The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c8.4

c8.4

Albērūnī, who wrote his scientific account of India in a. d. 1030, gives a list of the eighteen Purāṇas 'composed by the so-called Rishis', and had actually seen three of them, namely parts of the *Matsya*, *Āditya*, and *Vāyu*. He also gives a variant list of the eighteen works, as named in the *Vishṇu Purāṇa*.¹ It is, therefore, certain that in A. D. 1030 the Purāṇas were, as now, eighteen in number, and were regarded as coming down from immemorial antiquity when the mythical Ṛishis lived.