History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.174

v7.c90.174

The extant Narasiṁhapurāṇa is an insignificant one as compared with the principal Purāṇas like Vāyu, Matsya, Viṣṇu; the Sāmba is not quoted at all by Aparārka, the Viṣṇudharma only twice and even the Viṣṇudharmottara is quoted by Aparārka only 7 times for about 25 verses in all The very extensive digest Kalpataru (first half of 12th century A. D.) contains hardly any quotation from Viṣṇudharmottara on vratas (though the latter devotes about 1600 verses to vratas), nor is it quoted in the sections on brahmacārī and other kāṇḍas, while hundreds of verses are quoted from Matsya, Brahma, Bhaviṣya, Mārkaṇḍeya and other Purāṇas. Aparārka in his huge digest of 1252 printed pages quotes the Narasiṁhapurāṇa only 9 times and in all about 30 verses only, of which about half are in respect of *sannyāsa*, while the Brahmapurāṇa is quoted 68 times for hundreds of verses, the Matsya is quoted over 50 times for several hundred verses. The Tulasī plant is now sacred to the devotees of Viṣṇu, but it does not figure in early Paurāṇika or other literature. It is mentioned in chapters 31. 87 (in a prose passage) and 34 (19 and 23) of the printed Narasimhapurāna. As usual Prof Hazra holds these references are due to later revisions and should not be held to suggest a late date for the extant Narasimhapurāna (p. 255). Tulasīmāhātmya is very much in evidence in the Padma e. g. in IV. 94. 4-10, V 58 109ff and V. 59, VI. 24 2-43. The very late part of Padma VI (chap 98-107) contains the story of Jālandhara, whose wife Vrndā is said to have become Tulasī Prof. Hazra fails to realize the full force of his own admission that the Narasimha was revised several times and that writers of the 16th century had a version before them different from that before the writers of the 13th or 14th century In the author's opinion the whole Purāna becomes suspect and that by mere diplomatic criticism one would not be able to support beyond doubt any chronological conclusion derived from the present truncated and garbled version of the original Narasimha.