Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c10.12

c10.12

On the Purāṇas, see in particular Pargiter, Dynasties of the Kali Age. and Indian Historical Tradition. Recently there has set in a reaction against the nineteenth century underrating of Purāṇas. Mr. Rapson, for instance, thinks that they have preserved, though in a perverted form, an independent tradition which supplements the priestly tradition of the Vedas and Brāhmaṇas and which goes back to the same period (Cambridge History of India, p. 302). The Purāṇic tradition pertains to the heroic Kṣatriya literature which has largely disappeared. The Kūrma Purāṇa gives a list of nineteen Purāṇas. For the Purāṇas and their size, see also the Matsya Purāṇa, Ch. LIII, 13–58. It is claimed that all the Purāṇas describe the four Vargas—Dharma, Artha, Kāma and Mokṣa—and the evil consequences following from sin. (Ibid., 66.) The Matsya Purāṇa preserves the tradition, which may have some historical basis, that the Purāṇas were composed after the Mahābhārata by Vyāsa. (Ibid., 69.)