The Geography of the Puranas c6.64

c6.64

The style of all the Purāṇas is typical. Information is conveyed to the reader in the form of dialogues: questions by a pupil and answers by Romaharṣaṇa (called Sūta, a disciple of Vyāsa), who is the master and who unveils the mysteries of the universe to one who does not know. His answers are relevant to the questions put to him and he tries to make them easy enough to be comprehended by the listener—the common man. He makes the answers colourful, personifies diverse facts and phenomena of nature and terse philosophical notions and presents them in the form of legends and adventures of persons to make them appealing to the imagination of the pupil and to prepare him for the study of the source literature, particularly the Vedas and the epics.