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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s18: Rise of Minor Smritis and Purāṇas.

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s18

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Rise of Minor Smritis and Purāṇas.

v3.c41.s18.1

The needs of these changed aspects of Hinduism and of the increase of ritual and ceremony could not be satisfied by the promulgation of Āgamas and the extension of the eighteen Purāṇas. Hence minor Smṛitis besides the old eighteen conventional Smṛitis and new minor Purāṇas besides the old eighteen were composed probably in this or preceding sub-period. We have shown elsewhere that the Bhāgavata must have been composed in the tenth century. It would be an interesting study to see how the minor Smṛitis and Purāṇas introduce new practices which came into vogue in the Hindu period, to see in fact to what time and place they can be ascribed by a consideration of their contents. The literature is, however, extensive and its study is a matter of great labour; but it seems nearly certain that this literature arose about this sub-period, especially when we find the mention of Kalivarjas in some of the minor Purāṇas and notably in the Āditya Purāṇa. These Kalivarjas give us almost a complete idea as to how modern Hinduism has changed from Vedic religion of the Sūtra period. The practices said to be prohibited in the Kaliyuga, as enumerated in detail in these Purāṇas, are really practices which had gradually ceased during the long period which had elapsed from the Vedic Sūtras (circa 1000 B. C.) down to the end of the mediæval period (circa 1200 A. D ) and which could be easily found from a comparison of what modern Hinduism allows with what the Vedic Sūtras and even the Smṛitis sanction. This list gives us a complete idea of the changed aspect of modern Hinduism. Such transformation required some sanction; the Kalivarja provisions, therefore, were enunciated as given in these new minor Purāṇas and the Nibandhakāras or writers of modern treatises on Dharmaśāstra quote them as authorities from these Upapurāṇas.

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∗ अष्टादशपुराणेषु दशभिर्गीयते शिवः ।। चतुर्भिर्गीयते विष्णुर्द्वाभ्यां शक्तिश्च मिश्रपः ।।

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