Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.273

c7.273

The Purāṇas have influenced the development of Ācāra even more strongly than the Itihāsas. The popularity enjoyed by these extensive collections of legends was certainly attained by them already in the days of the earliest Dharmanibandhas. Thus Hemādri supports his exposition of the Vratas, which forms a great part of his colossal work, almost only on the Purāṇas which are generally his chief source. Even in the Dharmasūtras the Purāṇas are frequently quoted as sources of law and Āp. 1, 24, 6 refers specially to the Bhaviṣyatpurāṇa. Neither is it advisable to sever the existing Purāṇas completely from those of antiquity and to consider them to be worthless modern compilations. The existing Purāṇas² are connected with the Vedas and the Smṛtis in many ways. Thus Caland³ in his exposition of the Śrāddha found a close connection between the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa and the unpublished metrical Gaut. of the Burnell collection, between the Viṣṇudharmottara and Vi., the Caturviṃśatipurāṇa and the Mānavaśrāddhakalpa, the Kūrmapurāṇa and the Smṛti of Uśanas, and between the Brahmapurāṇa and the rites of the Kaṭhas or Kapi-sthala-kaṭhas. The Śrāddhakalpa of Y. has passed over to the Agni and the Garuḍapurāṇas; the former contains moreover the whole of the second book of Y. and the latter contains almost the whole of the first and the third books of Y.¹ The Bhaviṣyapurāṇa has borrowed long passages from the first three Adhy. of our M.² The so-called Smṛti of Laghu-Hārīta is identical with a part of the Nṛsiṃhapurāṇa and seems to have been taken from it and purposely stamped as a Smṛti³