History of Sanskrit Poetics c5.s1.2.2

c5.s1.2.2

51–64) it states that all vidyās have been dealt with and it enumerates the several subjects treated of such as the avatāras, Gītā, Rāmāyaṇa, Bhārata, Harivaṃśa, the Āgamas, āśauca, prāyaścitta, rājadharma, vyavahāra, vratas & c. Chapters 122–148 contain a summary of युद्धजयार्णव. We have hardly any means for judging which parts were in the original Agnipurāṇa and which were interpolated later. The commentary of Maheśvara and that on Vidyābhūṣaṇa quoted above apparently make no distinction between Agnipurāṇa and Vahnipurāṇa. But there is a Vahnipurāṇa that is different from the extant Agnipurāṇa as Eggeling's Catalogue of India Office Sanskrit mss. part 6 pp. 1294 ff clearly shows. Vide Prof. Hazra's papers ‘On present Agni’ in I. H. Q. Vol. XII pp. 683–691, ‘Studies in genuine Āgneya alias Vahnipurāṇa’ in ‘Our Heritage’ vol. I part 2 pp. 209–245, and vol. II part 1 pp. 70–109 and ‘Discovery of genuine Āgneyapurāṇa’ in JOI (Baroda) vol. V (1956) pp. 411–416. Most of the passages quoted in the दानसागर and अद्भुतसागर of बल्लालसेन (3rd quarter of 12th century A. D.) from the Agnipurāṇa are not found in the present Agnipurāṇa, and in many extracts the interlocutors are Vasiṣṭha and king Ambariṣa (and not Agni and Vasiṣṭha as in the current Agni). It appears that the old Agnipurāṇa was recast and then it assumed the present form. Vide J. O. R., Madras, Vol. XII p. 129 at pp. 134-135 (for the paper ‘Purāṇas known to Ballālasena’). Chapter 336(=337 of Ānan.