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The Purana Index v1.c3.s8: Their Historical Value

The Purāṇa Index v1.c3.s8

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Their Historical Value

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To the historian of ancient India, the Purāṇas are an unfailing source of information. They help us to reconstruct the history of Indian culture and civilization. By culture and civilization we mean the history of Indian polity, of Indian society, the history of religion and philosophy, legal history, the history of arts and crafts, architecture and iconography besides royal dynasties and the period of their rule. With regard to the Indian political institutions in the past, there are some valuable chapters in several Purāṇas and particularly in the Matsya Purāṇa. The elective and hereditary character of monarchy, the king's rights and duties, the qualifications of councillors and ministers, systems of taxation, and administration of justice are all found described with a wealth of detail. Some Purāṇas like the Agni Purāṇa furnish material for the construction of fortifications, rules of warfare methods and weapons of war, diplomacy, etc. (See also V. R. R. Dikshitar, on the *Polity of the Purāṇas* in the "Indian Review", 1935, No. 6, Madras).

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In the same way a student of sociology will meet with details with regard to movements of people, their manners and customs, and in short their culture There are materials about the castes and tribes of ancient India, both indigenous and foreign. For example, the Viṣṇu Purāṇa speaks of the Kirātas on the eastern boundary of Jambū- dvīpa and the Yavanas on the western territory. There are also enough material as to the conventions of society and how their non-observance led to the degradation of persons. We also see how people were divided into a number of communities and how this division was made to rest on occupation and profession, and how their hereditary character promoted family spirit in all walks of life.

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From the point of view of the development of Indian religion and philosophy the Purāṇas are again infalliable sources. In some of them we find the Sāmkhya system predominating. They preach in detail how to observe karma, yoga and bhakti. In season and out of season they teach how to cultivate detachment and aim at the identification with the supreme spirit to get riddance of samsāra. Further a student of law and legal institutions will find ample scope to write a legal history of the Hindus. Many chapters in several Purāṇas seem to be a reproduction of the old Dharmasūtras and Dharmaśāstras. There are regulations relating to varṇa, āśrama, and administration of justice. There is equally valuable information with regard to arts and crafts. Even serious students of Hindu music are baffled by chapters especially in the Vāyu Purāṇa and the Brahmāṇḍa devoted to music. There is plenty of reference to painting, dancing and other arts:

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References are made now and then to guilds and corporations discharging their functions satisfactorily according to conventions. There are also passages in some Purāṇas about the development of architecture and iconography. The origin of house-building is furnished by the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa and supplemented by the Matsya Purāṇa. Temples and temple-building as well as image-making are also dealt with. Installation of images on auspicious occasions covers portions of the Purāṇas, especially in the Matsya Purāṇa. These and other things are all found scattered in the pages of the Purāṇa literature. And a student of ancient India will be profited by critically studying them.

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By far the most important chapters in the Purāṇas are the Vamśānucarita portions. The historians of ancient India have tested this material in the light of archaeological and epigraphical evidences and found them almost accurate. The Purāṇas which speak of the royal dynasties are twelve in number. The version of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa with regard to Mauryan dynasty and of the Vāyu Purāṇa with regard to the early Guptas has found general acceptance among scholars. We are not concerned with the lunar and solar race of kings; but after the war of the Mahābhārata, which Pargiter is inclined to place about 1100 B.C, three lines of kings are mentioned. These are Purus, Ikṣvākus and the kings of Magadha. The history of these three dynasties formed largely the history of ancient India. There is a continuity in the dynastic list up to the epoch of the Andhras. The Purāṇas place the Andhras after the Kaṇva kings and calculate the intervening period between these two dynasties to be 157 years. This has to be discredited, for the first of the Andhra kings is said to be much earlier in date than the first of the Śuṅga kings.

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Several Purāṇas contain accounts of genealogies of kings. It is not possible to say which accounts are the oldest and which are reliable. With regard to names of kings and their rule there seems to be some difference of opinion among the Purāṇa writers, though there is general agreement in the majority of cases. An examination of the lists in individual Purāṇas would be of no value to the historian on account of corruptions and omissions and even interpolations. The extant Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, for instance, does not contain the latter half of the Aṇava genealogy, the Paurava genealogy and a portion of the dynasties of the Kali age; but these are found in the Vāyu Purāṇa.

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There is again an incomplete version of the North Pāñcāla genealogy in the Brahma Purāṇa. Further the Brahma account furnishes two different origins for the

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INTRODUCTION

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Kanyākubja and Kāśi dynasties. The incompatibility of these origins manifests itself as erroneous. Again, when the Agni Purāṇa relates these two dynasties, Kanyākubja and Kāśi, the account seems to be vitiated by error. The Matsya and Linga Purāṇas assign six kings to the Ikṣvāku dynasty, but the Vāyu Purāṇa mentions thirty-one kings. The Kūrma Purāṇa contains more matter for chronicling the king Vasumanas, as well as the Haihaya monarchs, Jayadvaja and Durjaya. The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa furnishes in detail the early history of the Vaiśāla dynasty.

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We have been at some pains to show that different Purāṇas contain different accounts of different dynasties. But a student of history must collate together the various details all scattered, and sift historical truth therefrom. One word more. Referring to the coronation of the Nanda two intervals are given. The interval between the death of Parīkshit (the year of the Mahābhārata war) and the coronation of Nanda is said to be 1015 according to one version and 1050 according to another. The interval between the coronation of Nanda and of the Āndhra dynasty is said to be 836. According to the Kali abda era, the year 5038 corresponds to A.D. 1937. Subtracting the stellar cycle of twenty-seven centuries, we get 2338. If we again proceed to subtract 1937 from 2338, we get 401 B.C. which can be taken as the date of the accession of Nanda, though V. A. Smith would remark that Nanda was a powerful king even in 415 B.C. But whatever may be the date assigned to Nanda, the Purāṇas offer a workable hypothesis for a system of ancient Indian chronology.

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Now comes my pleasant task; my thanks are due to the Syndicate of the University of Madras for having undertaken to publish these volumes of the Purāṇa Index under the auspices of the Madras University. We hope and trust that these volumes with their encyclopaedic information will prove to be a source-book for students of ancient Indian history and culture, and stimulate further interest among the advanced students to the preparation of a similar index for the remaining thirteen Mahāpurāṇas.

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5th November, 1951, Madras.

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V. R. R. DIKSHITAR .

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