Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c10.2

c10.2

While the authors of Dharma Śāstras were promulgating or compiling their regulations on life, another class of compositions was put into shape. The dates of the Purāṇas are as uncertain as those of the Smṛtis. The term occurs in later Vedic literature. The Atharva Veda, for instance, speaks of Itihāsa-Purāṇa which later was called the fifth Veda. There existed from very ancient times accounts of cosmic creation and regal dynasties cast in a more or less popular form. They were edited and re-edited, and added to, from time to time until they assumed the form of eighteen Purāṇas between the fifth and tenth centuries A.D. Interpolations continued to be made till long afterwards. Some of the Purāṇas bear traces of sixteenth century influence but their form and contents were for the most part settled during the centuries following the break-up of the Gupta Empire. The Purāṇas fall into three schools after Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu, the Hindu trinity. They vary according to tradition in size, from the 81,000 couplets of the Skanda Purāṇa to 9,000 of the Mārkaṇḍeya. Altogether they perhaps comprised about 400,000 couplets, as tradition will have it. But owing to losses and interpolations, the actual numbers of couplets do not always agree with the orthodox computation.¹