History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.65
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.65
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The question about the Purāṇas is further complicated by the fact that some of the Purāṇas themselves mention the names of a number of Upapurāṇas, though others ignore them. For example, the Matsya (53. 59-62) names the Nārasiṁha, the Nandi, the Āditya and Sāmba as Upapurāṇas and appears to say that the Nārasiṁha extended to 18000 ślokas and elaborated the description of the Man-Lion *avatāra* declared in the Padma-purāṇa. The Kūrma (I. 1. 16-20), Padma (IV. 111. 95-98), the Devībhāgavata (I. 3. 13-16) set out the names of eighteen Upapurāṇas. Some of the Upapurāṇas bear the same names as those of the principal purāṇas, viz. Skanda, Vāmana, Brahmāṇḍa and Nārādīya. Prof. Hazra¹³⁵⁸ states that the number of Upapurāṇas is 100. Only a few of the Upapurāṇas have been published and those published do not differ much in the matter of subjects from some of the principal purāṇas and almost all belie the definition of Purāṇa as 'pañcalakṣaṇa'. It has been seen above (note 1349) that the number of ślokas in the 18 principal Purāṇas is said to be four lakhs. It must be remembered that this total does *not include* the number of the ślokas assigned to the Upapurāṇas, and no Purāṇa includes the verses of the Upapurāṇas in the total of four lakhs. Further, no one should forget or ignore the significance of the remarks of the Matsya and Kūrma about the Upapurāṇas.
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The Matsya¹³⁵⁹ speaks of the Upapurāṇas as sub-sections (upabhedas) of the principal eighteen Purāṇas and emphatically asserts 'know that whatever is declared as distinct from the eighteen Purāṇas came forth (or issued from) these (18)'. The Kūrma is no less clear. It states that¹³⁶⁰ the Upapurāṇas are the summaries or abridgments of the 18 (principal) Purāṇas made by sages after studying them. The lists of Upapurāṇas given by several works, most of which are set out by Prof. Hazra in his paper on Upapurāṇas (in ABORI vol. XXI. at pp. 40-48) and in his Studies (pp. 4-13) diverge a good deal from each other. As the Matsya mentions by name only four Upapurāṇas it is not unreasonable to hold that more than four were not in existence at the time when this passage of the Matsya was inserted in it or at least that more than four had not been accepted as Upapurāṇas at that time. A good many of the Upapurāṇas are of late date. Only a few of the rest such as the Narasiṁha, the Viṣṇudharmottara, the Devī, can possibly be held to be as old as the 7th or 8th century A D. I do not accept the view of Prof. Hazra, who places the period of the formation of the group of eighteen Upapurāṇas between 650-800 A. D (in ABORI. vol. XXI. at p 50 and also in 'Studies in Upapurāṇas' vol. I. by Dr.
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Hazra), where while admitting (p 14) that in the Upapurāṇa litarature there are works of comparatively late dates, he boldly states that the age of the Upapurāṇas began approximately from the Gupta period (p. 16) For this last statement there is absolutely no evidence whatever. A detailed discussion of the dates of all the Upapurāṇas would demand a large space and would be somewhat irrelevant in this section. We must hold fast by the facts that even when the 18 principal purāṇas assumed their present form, the number of Upapurāṇas was small, that they were looked upon as no more than abridgments or summaries of the principal Purāṇas, that the Purāṇas that mention upapurāṇas do not state that they were composed by the divinely inspired Vyāsa (but only by some sages as the Kūrma says) and that originally they had not the status or authority of the 18 purāṇas The Saura, an Upapurāṇa itself, speaks of Upapurāṇas as *khilas* (9 5). It is only the late medieval dıgests like the Smṛtitattva (1520-1570 A D.) or the Vīramitrodaya (first half of 17th century) that were separated by several centuries from the Mahāpurāṇas as well as the Upapurāṇas and the writers of which had practically lost all sense of the distance in time between the two sets of Purāṇas, that say that the mention of Purāṇas¹³⁶¹ as a source of dharma in Yāj must be deemed to include Upapurāṇas also This last may be the opinion of such late writers as Mitramiśra, but no scholar is bound to accept it.
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It is doubtful whether by the word Purāṇa, Yāj. refers to the Mahāpurāṇas now extant and whether he knows that there were eighteen of them. If some Upapurāṇas glorify themselves as of equal authority with the Mahāpurāṇas, that is of a piece with what the principal Purāṇas state about themselves viz. that Brahmā first thought of the Purāṇas and then the Vedas issued from his lips Modern scholars should discount all these attempts at self-glorification. Upapurāṇas are due to sages Upapurāṇas are distinguished from Purāṇas in several important respects. Firstly, the 18 purāṇas are attributed to the semi-dıvine Vyāsa, secondly, according to both Matsya and Kūrma, they were summaries of the Purāṇas, thirdly, the ślokas in the Upapurāṇas are not included in the 4 lakhs of verses of all the Purāṇas together; fourthly, early commentators and nibandha writers like the Mitākṣarā and the Kṛtyakalpataru either do not mention any of the Upapurāṇas or at the most only about half a dozen or so and that too rather sparingly; and lastly, as Prof. Hazra himself asserts ('Studies', vol. I. p 23) adherents of various sects such as Śāktas, Sauras, Pāñcarātras interpolated chapters in the Purāṇas of the established group and in some cases wrote new and independent works to propagate their own ideas and styled them Purāṇas.