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The Purana Index v1.c3.s3: The Vayu Purana

The Purāṇa Index v1.c3.s3

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The Vayu Purana

v1.c3.s3.1

We know it as a matter of fact that every Purāṇa furnishes us with a list of the eighteen Mahāpurāṇas. But all such lists are not identical; they vary slightly from one another. The Vāyu Purāṇa, for example, is omitted in the lists of the Padma Purāṇa, the Vishṇu Purāṇa, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. The lists in the other Purāṇas do not fail to include the Vāyu Purāṇa as a Mahāpurāṇa. Sometimes the Vāyu Purāṇa is identified with Śiva Purāṇa and sometimes with Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa. As many as six Purāṇas have the name of Śivapurāṇa in their lists. But a close examination of the contents of these two Purāṇas shows that Vāyu and Śiva are not identical.

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The apparent confusion may be due to the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā tacked on to the end of the extant Śivapurāṇa. But again there is no similarity between the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā and the Vāyu Purāṇa. It is reasonable to assume therefore that the Vāyu Purāṇa is an independent Purāṇa and has nothing common whatsoever with the Śiva Purāṇa or its section.

v1.c3.s3.3

We have already examined the contents and the date of composition of this Purāṇa in a separate booklet entitled Some Aspects of the Vāyu Purāṇa published by the University of Madras, (in 1933) We shall for our present purpose touch upon the problem of its date.

v1.c3.s3.4

As we shall show presently, some portions of the Purāṇa can go back to the fifth century B.C. and earlier, while other portions must have been added or revised at the end of the third or fourth centuries of the Christian era. We are told in the Harṣacarita that Bāṇa attended the exposition of the Vāyu Purāṇa in his village. Bāṇa could not have lived later than 625 A.D and therefore the Purāṇa was very much earlier The epic Mahābhārata and its supplement Harivaṃśa definitely make mention of the Vāyu Purāṇa (III, 194, 15), and therefore it is reasonable to take that this Purāṇa is much anterior to the didactic epic. In its recommendation of particular modes of dancing accompanied by music to the ascetics as a means of attaining salvation, the Purāṇa is on a par with the Yājñavalkya Smṛti where similar descriptions are found (III, 1, 13) According to the late Ganapati Sastri, the Law-book of Yājñavalkya is much earlier than the Kauṭalya, for which the generally accepted date is the 4th century B.C.

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In the same way the Purāṇa nowhere makes mention of religious sects like Buddhism and Jainism which came to stay in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The Purāṇa is further an ardent advocate of the ancient Yoga theory. In as much as its injunctions regarding the practice of Yoga can be traced to Chalcolithic period of Indian history, as evidenced by the statues of the proto-historic and pre-historic Indus valley sculptures, we can say that it is the oldest of the Purāṇas, though we cannot say that it is as ancient as the Indus valley culture.

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A study of the religion and philosophy of the Purāṇa shows that the Purāṇa is a typical representative of the transformation of the old Yoga school incorporating into it the salient features of both Yoga and Sānkhya. This metamorphosis took place perhaps in the period of the Upanishads, and therefore may be dated roughly in the fifth century B.C. It is interesting to know that the Purāṇa prescribes feeding of Yogis and ascetics for the Śrāddha, a practice which has long fallen into disuse. The fact that the Purāṇa harps on this is itself an eloquent testimony to its antiquity. It may be noted in passing that this Purāṇa does not preach exclusive worship of a particular deity.

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We can add to these the artificial style of the Purāṇa which recalls the language of the plays of the famous dramatist, Bhāsa. The late Ganapti Sastri has assigned on substantial grounds that these plays belonged to the sixth century B.C. The common features of the plays and the Purāṇa is the use of a large number of archaic (arsha) words and a large number of grammatical irregularities which suggest a period when the canons of grammatical treatise were still in the making. The references to Vyākaraṇa, Bhāshya and Dharmaśāstra in a single line does not help us much in our enquiry. Again there is no reference in this Purāṇa to the Tantric system of worship, which consists of Devī conceived as Śakti, though we do not dispute the fact that Śaktism as a form of religion was already in existence. But it is almost certain that this form of worship was not quite popular during the age of the Vāyu Purāṇa.

v1.c3.s3.8

According to its own version in the later chapters dealing with royal dynasties, the scene of the Purāṇa is laid in the reign of the Paurava king Adhisīmakṛṣṇa, who is said to have lived before the commencement of the Kali age. But his contemporaries were Senājit of Magadha and Divākara of the Ikshvāku dynasty. According to Prof. Rapson the genealogy assigned indicates a more definite date; for ‘of his immediate forbears, Aśvamedhatta, Śatānīka, Janamejaya, Parīkshit, all but the first, his father Aśvamedhatta, are no doubt to be identified with kings of the same names who appear in the Brāhmaṇas’. Therefore we have to look for a date prior to 1110 B C for Adhisimakrishna. From this we cannot imagine that the Purana was composed as early as 1110 B C It may be that a particular teacher narrated the ancient Purana when Adhisimakrishna was ruling. The same version was more or less continued orally when it was reduced to writing perhaps in the 5th century B C. But there are portions in dealing with dynasties of the Kali age, where reference is made to the reign of Chandragupta I of the Gupta dynasty and also to the Huns who invaded India some time after. And this portion according to us was added to the verse already existing.

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According to astronomical data furnished by this Purana it may be placed at a period between B C. 204 and A.D 44. In as much as almost verbatim quotations from the Upanishads are made in this Purana, we would not be far wrong in assigning this Purana to the epoch of the early Upanishads From the 5th century B C the Purana was enlarged, and this went on growing till 500 A.D. We therefore conclude that most of the portions were reduced in writing about the 4th and 5th centuries before Christ and the other portions were added now and then until it reached its present form somewhere between 350 B C. and 500 A.D.

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