Studies in the Epics and Puranas c10.28

c10.28

Supporters of the claims of the *Śiva Purāṇa* to be ranked as a Mahāpurāṇa base their evidence not only on the statements of the Purāṇa itself¹⁵ but on the fact that a quotation given by Śrīdhara Svāmin in his commentary on the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa* as from Vāyavīya¹⁶ is found in the *Śiva Purāṇa*.¹⁷ Not much reliance can be placed on the self-laudations of the Purāṇa, nor on the preliminary stanzas about the creation of the worlds, etc., bearing resemblance to the *Vāyu Purāṇa*, appended to the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā; for they are quite out of place in the context in the *Śiva Purāṇa*. The Purāṇa, as we shall show later on, belongs to quite a late date showing profound sectarian bias, and the author has incorporated stanzas proving not only its antiquity but conformity with the descriptions in the Anukramaṇis. With reference to the quotation from Śrīdhara Svāmin, it can at best prove that in the thirteenth century A.D. the *Śiva Purāṇa* was known in the South as the Vāyavīya (Saṃhitā), and had the same text as we have now. Mr. Chaudhury suggests as a possible explanation the probability of the *Śiva* completely eclipsing the *Vāyu* in the thirteenth-fourteenth century,—the period of Śrīdhara Svāmin—and people taking the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā to mean the *Vāyu Purāṇa*.¹⁸ The evidence of Nibandha-writers, however, runs counter to this theory, as they always quote from the *Vāyu* in preference to the *Śiva*,¹⁹ and they pertain