The Purana Index v1.c3.s2.3

v1.c3.s2.3

The Purāṇas then constitute a work of various periods in succession. For example, one and the same Purāṇa may have spread over a long period of some centuries. The kernel of the Purāṇa may have been born in the earlier times, and its contents could be amplified in the course of the following centuries. Thus we have the Purāṇas belonging to the epoch of the Upanishads, to the Sūtra treatises, to the epics, and to the post-epic periods. Therefore every Purāṇa must be judged by its contents, by its external and internal evidence, and its chronology fixed accordingly. We shall not attempt here at an examination of the date of all the Mahāpurāṇas but we shall confine ourselves to the five Purāṇas indexed in these volumes.