What is Puraan?

Answer 1

Purana

In Hinduism, an encyclopaedic collection of myth, legend, and genealogy. A Purana traditionally treats five subjects: primary creation of the universe, secondary creation after periodic annihilation, genealogy of gods and saints, grand epochs, and histories of the royal dynasties. Written in narrative couplets, the Puranas date from c. 400 to c. 1000. The 18 principal surviving Puranas are grouped according to whether they exalt Vishnu, Shiva, or Brahma. Most popular is the Bhagavata Purana, which treats the early life of Krishna.

Answer 2

The Puranas are sacred Hindu texts that were composed many hundreds of years ago. The knowledge of the Puranas supplements the knowledge of the Vedas and the Upanishads. There are a number of Puranas, but 18 or 19 Mahapuranas (there is a dispute in one of the Puranas being a Mahapurana or not). The main confusion is about the fourth Purana - is it the Shiva Purana or the Vayu Purana? The other Puranas are known as Upapuranas.

The Purana definition of the Mahapurana is that it must exhibit five characteristics: _It must describe the original creation of the universe (sarga), the periodic destruction and recreation (pratisarga) , the different eras (manvantras), the histories of the solar dynasty (Surya vamsha) and the lunar dynasty (Chandra vamsha), and the royal genealogies (vamshanucharita).
In the strictest sense, only the Vishnu Puran conforms to the typology rigidly.
Scholars ascribe a time frame of between 300 AD and 1000 AD, although some earlier sections could have been composed as early as 500 BC.
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Answer 3

PURANA

'Old,' hence an ancient legend or tale of olden times. The Puranas succeed the Itihasas or epic poems, but at a considerable distance of time, and must be distinguished from them. The epics treat of the legendary actions of heroes as mortal men, the Puranas celebrate the powers and works of positive gods, and represent a later and more extravagant development of Hinduism, of which they are in fact the Scriptures. The definition of a Purana by Amara Sinha, an ancient Sanskrit lexicographer, is a work" which has five distinguishing topics:- (1.) The creation of the universe; (2.) Its destruction and renovation; (3.) The genealogy of gods and patriarchs; (4.) The reigns of the Manus, forming the periods called Manwantaras. (5.) The history of the Solar and Lunar races of kings. "These are the Pancha-lakshanas or distinguishing marks, but no one of the puranas answers exactly to the description; some show a partial conformity with it, others depart from it very widely. The Vishnu purana is the one, which best accords with the title. Wilson says, "A very great portion of the contents of many is genuine and old. The sectarial interpolation or embellishment is always sufficiently palpable to be set aside without injury to the more authentic and primitive material ; and the Puranas, although they belong especially to that stage of the Hindu religion in which faith in some one divinity was the prevailing principle, are also a valuable record of the form of Hindu belief which came next in order to that of the Vedas, which grafted hero. worship upon the simpler ritual of the latter, and which had been adopted, and was extensively, perhaps universally, established in India at the time of the Greek invasion. " According to the same authority, Pantheism " is one of their invariable characteristics," and underlies their whole teaching, "although the particular divinity who is all things, from whom all things proceed, and to whom all things return, is diversified according to their individual sectarian bias." The puranas are all written in verse, and their invariable form is that of a dialogue between an exponent and an inquirer, interspersed with the dialogues and observations of other individuals. Thus Pulastya received the Vishnu Purana from Brahma; he made it known to Parasara, and Parasara narrated it to his disciple Maitreya. The Puranas are eighteen in number, and in addition to these there are eighteen Upa Puranas or subordinate works. The Puranas are classified in three categories, according to the prevalence in them of the qualities of purity, gloom, and passion. Those in which the quality of Sattwa or purity prevail are-(1.) Vishnu, (2.) Naradiya, (3.) Bhagavata, (4.) Garuda, (5.) Padma, (6.) Varaha.

These are Vaishnava Puranas, in which the god Vishnu holds the pre-eminence. The Puranas in which Tamas, the quality of gloom or ignorance, predominates are-(1.) Matsya, (2.) Kurma, (3.) Linga, (4.) Siva, (5.) Skanda, (6.) Agni. These are devoted to the god Siva. Those in which Rajas or passion prevails relate chiefly to the god Brahma. They are-(I.) Brahma, (2.) Brahmanda, (3.) Brahma-vaivarta, (4.) Markandeya, (5.) Bhavishya, (6.) vamana. The works themselves do not fully justify this classification. None of them are devoted exclusively to one god, but Vishnu and his incarnations fill the largest space. One called the vayu Purana is in some of the Puranas substituted for the Agni, and in others for the Siva. This Vayu is apparently the oldest of them, and may date as far back as the sixth century, and it is considered that some of the others may be as late as the thirteenth or even the sixteenth century. One fact appears certain: they must all have received a supplementary revision, because each one of them enumerates the whole eighteen. The Markandeya is the least sectarian of the Puranas; and the Bhagavata, which deals at length with the incarnations of Vishnu, and particularly with his form Krishna, is the most popular. The most perfect and the best known is the Vishnu, which has been entirely translated into English by Professor Wilson, and a second edition, with many valuable notes, has been edited by Dr. F. E. Hall. The text of the Agni and Markandeya Puranas is in course of publication in the Bibliotheca Indica. The Puranas vary greatly in length. Some of them specify the number of couplets that each of the eighteen contains. According to the Bhagavata, the sum total of couplets in the whole eighteen is 400,000; the Skanda is the longest, with 81,000, the Brahma and the vamana the shortest, with 10,000 complete each. The UpaPuranas are named-(1.) Sanat-kumara, ( 2.) Nara-sinha or Nri-sinha, (3.) Naradiya or Vrihan (old) Naradiya, (4.) Siva, (5.) Dur-vasasa,(6.) Kapila, (7.) Manava, (8.) Ausanasa, (9.) Varuna, (10) Kalika, (11.) samba, (12.) Nandi, (13.) Saura, (14-) Para-sara, (15.) Aditya, (16.) Maheswara, (17.) Bhagavata, (18.) Vasishtha. These works are not common. Other modern works exist to which the term purana has been applied. An account of each of the eighteen great Puranas is given under its own name.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Thanks for the 2 points!