The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age c2.23

c2.23

4. The Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata have very much in common and their versions are generally alike, with the differences that the latter is in verse and the former in prose, and that the latter by the exigencies of its metre has less freedom and is often cramped. Both are distinguished from the Matsya, Vāyu, and Brahmāṇḍa in being much condensed, so that their accounts are often little more than a string of names fitted in with connecting words and occasional terms of relationship; yet they vary at times in important names and particulars so far as to indicate some independence. The Viṣṇu has ślokas at the end of the Paurava and Aikṣvāku dynasties, and the whole of its final chronological and astronomical portion is in verse; and it cites all these as pre-existing ślokas. The Bhāgavata has at times fuller verses which resemble those of the three Purāṇas, and its final portion agrees largely with that of the Viṣṇu. Wherever the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata have the fuller form of verse, they agree with or approximate to the version of those three Purāṇas, and so testify that they have been derived from an original which was the same as or closely like the original of those Purāṇas. These peculiarities show that these two are condensed redactions. They are also later, for the Viṣṇu elaborates its prose at times in the ornate classical style especially when referring to Kṛṣṇa-Viṣṇu¹, and the age of the Bhāgavata will be considered further on².