A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1245

c5.1245

NĀRADA-PURĀNA, NĀRADĪYA-PURĀNA. “Where Nārada has described the duties which were observed in the Brihat Kalpa, that is called the Nāradīya, having 25,000 stanzas.” But the only copy that Wilson analysed contained not more than 3000 stanzas. There is another work called the Brihan or Great Nāradīya, but this extends only to 3500 verses. These Purānas, says Wilson, bear “no conformity to the definition of a Purāna; both are sectarial and modern compilations, intended to support the doctrine of Bhakti or faith in Vishnu.” They are modern compositions, possibly even of so late a date as the sixteenth or seventeenth century. One of them refers to the “killers of cows” and “contemners of the gods,” meaning, no doubt, the Mohammadans, so that the passage would seem to have been written after India was in their hands.