The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age c6.80

c6.80

viii. The main part of the Viṣṇu account is in prose and, not being affected by the exigencies of metre, runs in ordinary Skt, and displays no verbal peculiarities. It contains the same matter found in the Vā and Bḍ but in a condensed shape, and closes its account where they end, so that it must have been composed directly in Skt from them or their original, the revised version in the Bhaviṣya, for it is not probable that its account was a new and independent compilation, when the compilations in those Purāṇas were available. A difference may be noticed in its account to this extent that the dynastic matter is generally narrated in curt sentences, often without regard for sandhi¹, and that the subsequent matter of the evils of the Kali age is in ordinary good prose Skt with a predilection for compound phrases. Hence it would seem that the dynastic portion was an earlier and somewhat crude condensation, and that the latter portion was an addition made with regard to the canons of good prose.