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The Purana Index v1.c3.s1: The Term Purana and Its Origin

The Purāṇa Index v1.c3.s1

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The Term Purana and Its Origin

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The etymology of the term Purāṇa is furnished by the Vāyu Purāṇa, (verse 203, Chap I) which runs thus:

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Yasmāt purā hi anati idam purāṇam

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I.e. that which lives from very remote times. In other words it means some very ancient account or very old narrative. It also shows that the term was in use long before the Purāṇas were reduced to writing. This may be read with another stanza in the Vāyu Purāṇa itself which runs as follows:—

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Prathamam sarvaśāstrāṇām purāṇam brahmaṇā smṛtam |
Anantaram cha vaktrebhyo vedāstasya vinisṛtāḥ ||
(Vāyu I. 60)

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As if to confirm this statement, in the Matsya Purāṇa it is also said that it was Brahmā who first remembered the Purāṇa and then revealed the Vedas. This means that originally there was only one Purāṇa, and according to one authority it consisted of a hundred crore of verses. The stanza in the Vāyu Purāṇa together with that in the Matsya Purāṇa gives then the clue that even long before the age of the Vedas, the Purāṇa was thought of and was in existence. This is borne out by the fact that the Vedic literature, as we understand to-day, contains mythological and mythical lore, which must have been traditionally remembered, and when the Vedas were reduced to writing, these floating legends were referred to here and there. Thus there is the justification for the statement of the Matsya and Vāyu Purāṇas that Brahmā thought of the Purāṇa before he thought of the Vedas. This need not mean and certainly did not mean that the Purāṇa as an independent literature grew up before the Vedic composition. It undoubtedly means that mythological and legendary lore existed from remote times and was handed down to posterity without interruption. If we can rightly understand these significant statements made by two ancient Purāṇas, we have to infer that the Purāṇa or old tales existed, but not Purāṇa literature as such.

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There is also another account as to the origin of the Purāṇas as told by the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. In fact we have to look for their origins in the Vedic literature itself. The myths and legends to which allusion is made therein as well as the particular forms of prayer and worship inculcated, afforded ample material for the later compiler of the Purāṇa especially the sarga and pratisarga portions. These portions are intimately connected with the origin of the world. It is not difficult to believe that cosmogonic hymns of the Ṛg Veda Saṃhitā afforded a convenient material to build up a literary superstructure. There is therefore much justification for the remark of Prof. Macdonell that " those ' cosmogonic ' hymns of the Ṛg Veda were not only the precursors of Indian Philosophy but also of the Purāṇas " (History of Indian Literature, p. 138).

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Not only the sarga and pratisarga portions of the Purāṇas are indebted to the Vedic literature but also the numerous ancient legends which are scattered in the Brāhmaṇas (also included as a branch in the Vedic literature). The Brāhmaṇas mainly deal with the sacrifices and different rites and ceremonies and also contain special spells and prayers. In these particular forms of worship and prayer which are associated with the legends of yore, we are led to think that the foundations of the later Purāṇa literature were laid. According to Weber (History of Indian Literature, 1914. p. 24) the miscellaneous topics and subjects in the Purāṇas had their sources in these Vedic legends which were elaborated in content and character. Thus arose a distinct class of literature which goes by the name of Purāṇas by the commencement of the epoch of the Upanishads.

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Though we have been dealing with the Vedic origin of the Purāṇa there are informing stanzas in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa which deal with their origin and evolution. According to this testimony, Vyāsa, the sage, originally compiled what is known as the Purāṇa Samhitā and taught it to his disciple Lomaharṣaṇa. He was the Sūta or the professional chronicler. Because he was a Sūta we must not misunderstand that he held an inferior position Lomaharṣaṇa was, on the other hand, a great sage. He had under him six disciples. These were Agnivarcha, Maitreya, Sāṁśapāyana, Kāśyapa and Sāvarṇi. To them he imparted the Purāṇa Samhitā as he heard it from his guru Vyāsa. He and his disciples were then the famous chroniclers of ancient India and their versions were respectfully heard in different learned assemblies, specially called for on the occasion of the performance of great yajñas by the reigning monarch of the realm.

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In the Agni Purāṇa (Ch. II, 70, vv. 10-13) the same version is told but with a slight variation. This Purāṇa makes Vyāsa imparting the Purāṇa Samhitā to his own six disciples. If we compare the names given here with the names mentioned in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (Bk. III, ch. 6, vv. 17-19) four names are common. The names given in the Brahmāṇḍa and Vāyu Purāṇas as the disciples of Lomaharṣaṇa, also spelt Romaharṣaṇa, though slightly different, are common. Among these sages the names of Kāśyapa, Sāvarṇi and Sāṁśapāyana are mentioned as the authors of an independent Purāṇa Samhitā and these three together with Romaharṣaṇa composed what is known as the Mūla Samhitā (sometimes Pūrva Samhitā) of the Purāṇa literature. This would demonstrate that this was the first Samhitā or the original Samhitā from which the later Purāṇas developed, adding more information to what already existed. Among these again priority is given to Lomaharṣaṇa Samhitā; then came Kāśyapa's, then Sāvarṇi's and lastly, Sāṁśapāyana's Unfortunately these Purāṇas have been lost to us; but it is said that they contained four pādas or divisions which were named prakriya, anushanga, upodghāta and upasamhāra. But these chatushpādas are preserved to us in the existing versions of the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa.

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The Purāṇa writers who had an insight into these original versions spread far and wide the traditions contained in the Purāṇas. Though they did not merely repeat verbatim what they heard from their master, they did not tamper with the accounts narrated to them. They added something more here and there and thus enlarged the scope and contents of the Purāṇas. The expressions like anuśusruma, smṛtaḥ, iti naḥ śrutam or iti śrutam are enough to point out that they carried on the tradition of the land faithfully. In some of the later Purāṇas also, the terms like Purāvit, Purāṇajña, Paurāṇika Jana, Vamśavit show the author's intimate acquaintance with the extant Purāṇas and their indebtedness to them.

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This indirectly shows that ancient India was not devoid of historians and historical literature. Vamśavit and Vamśavittama are epithets which can be translated generally as ‘historians of the ordinary type’ and ‘historians of authority’. Even among them were a few specialists as is evidenced by the expression, Somavamśavit, an authority on the history of the lunar race. Those who went about preaching and teaching the Purāṇas not only on the occasion of sacrifices but also in other places were known as Sūtas. The term Sūta has three distinct meanings (1) a great rishi and ayonija, (2) a charioteer, (3) a citizen of the Anūpa country. This Anūpa country is said to be on the east of Magadha. In addition to this there was in later times the Sūta of the mixed caste (pratiloma), i.e., a person born of a Kshatriya father and Brahmaṇa mother, was a Sūta by caste. This occurs both in the Mānava Dharma Śāstra and the Mahābhārata.

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Mr. F. E. Pargiter who has made a special study of the Purāṇas has been confused with this term Sūta as an ordinary human being belonging to a pratiloma caste, being the narrator of the Purāṇas. Pargiter is undoubtedly wrong in his thesis. The mythical Sūta sprang out of the sacrificial fire of the first king of the earth, Pṛthu. He was therefore a venerable sage and ayoni-ja. He first chronicled the story of Pṛthu. The Sūtas who were the narrators of the Purāṇas and chroniclers of the kings, belonged to this family of the sage and were sages themselves. Thus it can be asserted without any fear of contradiction that the Purāṇas were narrated in different places by the sages who were known as Sūtas, being themselves versed in Vedic literature.

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Based on this untenable theory Pargiter had built up another theory styling these Purāṇas as belonging to a distinct Kshatriya tradition. On this western scholars began to speak of the Kshatriya literature, a Parivrājaka literature as distinct from Brahmanic literature. Surely these are imaginary theories, which have no legs to stand on. According to the Hindu tradition the Purāṇas are the fifth Veda, and those who follow it are followers of the Vedic school. Even in the Vedic literature there are Kshatriya sages and families to whom hymns are addressed. Taking the Ṛgveda, for example, nine families are mentioned of which the three, viz., Vaivasvata, Aila, and Cākṣuṣa are Kshatriyas. There are again hymns in the Veda whose authorship is assigned to Vivasvān, Manu, Purūravas, Yayāti, Māndhātṛ, Viśvāmitra, etc., names which are ever the pride of not only the Kshatriya community but of all communities. From these several references is it proper to term this portion of Vedic literature as Kshatriya literature? So there is no justification either taking the Sūta to be an ordinary man, or the classification of Sanskrit literature as Brahmanical or Kshatriya.

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From this digression we shall revert to the topic under discussion. By the time of the Atharvaveda Samhitā (v. 19.9; 11.7.24), the Purāṇas had assumed some independent form and their compositions were generally familiar with the literary people of the land, though not with the masses. It took some more time before they were familiarised among the masses, and the latter took any interest in them. A reference in the Atharvaveda Samhitā from the verse addressed to the sage Nārada is evidently taken from some Purāṇa. But we cannot determine the name of the Purāṇa which was given to Nārada. But we can confidently assert that some Purāṇas were in existence.

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The same inference can be drawn from the use of the term in the Upanishads. That a definite work is meant is seen from the seventh book of the Chāndogya Upanishad where Nārada explicitly says that he had mastered the Itihāsa and Purāṇa (VII.1.2 and 4). When we come to the epoch of Sūtra literature we find reference to the contents of the Purāṇas profusely quoted. The Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra for example, definitely mentions that the quotation was taken from the Bhavishyat Purāṇa. The Purāṇas are again mentioned by name in the Mahābhārata (I.5.55 ff.) both in their special and general sense. In a later book of the epic (Bk. XVIII) there is a definite mention of the Purāṇic literature as a class, and the names of eighteen Purāṇas as handed down by tradition.

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Further among the particular class of literature prescribed for a prince as an important branch of study, Kauṭalya, who belongs to the fourth century B.C., mentions the Purāṇa in his epoch-making book, the Arthaśāstra. If we go further and examine literature by Amarasimha, one of the ancient lexicographers, he mentions Purāṇas and gives pañchalakṣaṇa as the attributes to a Purāṇa treatise. Thus it is evident that the Purāṇas have become popular even in times before Amarasimha. It was honestly felt that it will take more than a life time to study the Vedic literature and as a result this Vedic literature was the monopoly of the few. But the masses hankered after some religious literature which would give them the old legends and tales and which would give them mental peace So the Itihāsa-Purāṇa literature became popular with the masses. As they contained many interesting and valuable information, arrangements were made to expound them for the benefit of the public in the common hall of the village or town. It formed a useful course of general and adult education for which we are crying to-day.

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It would appear that even men of letters went to hear the expositions of these Purāṇas. An instance in point is as furnished by the Harṣacharita, that Bāṇa himself went to hear the Vāyu Purāṇa in his village. In general the Purāṇas contain many forms of worship and prayer, superstitions, a crude knowledge of geography and history, legendary descriptions of places of pilgrimage and rituals, some knowledge of astronomy and astrology, different schools of philosophy, easy methods of attaining salvation and others. These and other topics of a common place interest would cater largely to the taste of the common person. In this way the Purāṇic literature contributed largely to general culture.

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Tradition has unanimously accepted the existence of eighteen Mahāpurāṇas and eighteen Upapurāṇas. The Upapurāṇas are very late productions and are much more of a sectarian character while they are of purely local interest. Their value to the student of history and even religion, is very little and therefore we may dismiss them for the time being. Confining them to the Mahāpurāṇas, one classification is according to the preferential worship of deities like Śiva, Viṣṇu, Devī. From the nature of the subjects dealt with, it is wrong to assume that the ancient Purāṇa literature was divided into few water-tight compartments like the Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava. On this unfounded assumption, these works of value are looked upon as sectarian in character and extent. Whatever classification any Purāṇa may come under, the fact is that every Purāṇa speaks of almost of all deities. For example, in the so-called Śaiva Purāṇa, we come across legends of Viṣṇu, Brahmā and other gods together with their heroic exploits. This can be seen from the Vāyu Purāṇa itself. In the same way, in the so-called Vaiṣṇava Purāṇa, the legends of Śiva and other deities largely figure. Some Purāṇas extol the legendary exploits of a particular deity, and thus seem to inculcate preferential worship to that deity. From this we cannot rush to the conclusion that that Purāṇa is exclusively Śaiva or Vaiṣṇava. Though a particular deity is extolled, it cannot be said that the other deities were ignored or condemned. One interesting point about these Purāṇas is that every Purāṇa specifies the number eighteen together with their names. If it is really sectarian, it will not make mention of other sectarian Purāṇas.

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It is difficult to ascertain the time and the occasion when these eighteen Purāṇas were moulded into their present shape. It does not stand to reason that all the Purāṇas were composed at one and same time and afforded the occasion to the compiler of each Purāṇa to mention the names of the eighteen. The eighteen versions seem to have been the result of their version in different parts of the land. We would be lacking in historical sense, if we say, that all these Purāṇas were confined to a certain locality like the Naimiśāraṇya. At the most the then busy centres of religious activity were perhaps the locale of the Purāṇa compilations. The chief places of pilgrimage were often thronged by a large number of people from all parts of India, and were the best venue for the propogation of this literature. From the detailed glorification of certain places, we may venture to conjecture that the particular version of the Purāṇa sprang up in that centre. A Purāṇa that deals with the Gayā māhātmya in extenso may be reasonably taken to have been compiled in the city of Gayā or its environs. In that way we must look for the compilation of this or that version of a particular Purāṇa in one locality or other.

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