JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 3.— March, 1832. 



1. — Analysis of the Purdnas. By H. H. Wilson, Sec. As. Soc. 



[Read at the Meetings of the Asiatic Society.] 

 1. — The Agni Pur ana. 



The Agni Purdna, or more correctly, in a derivative form, the 

 Agneya Purdna, is one of the eighteen principal Purdnas. Although, 

 in common with the other compositions so termed, it is attributed to 

 Vydsa, it is narrated as usual by his disciple Siita, and was received 

 by him from the Muni Vasishtha, to whom it was communicated by 

 Agni, whence its denomination. 



According to the assertion of its own text, the Agneya Purdna con- 

 tains fourteen thousand stanzas ; the Bhdgavat and other authorities 

 give it 15,000 or 16,000. The copy to which this account refers, 

 has about the former number. 



The text is divided into a number of small sections, according to the 

 subject, but without any enumeration: the number of them in the 

 present instance amounted to 332. Colonel Wilford speaks of a 

 supplement, and of a chapter, apparently the same, which he calls 

 the 63rd, or last. The supplement, however, from which he derives 

 his account of the modern princes of India up to the Mohammedan 

 invasion, is no part of the work to which the name of Agneya Purdna 

 is applied. It is clearly a distinct and subsequent composition. 



The Agneya Purdna is interesting from the variety of the subjects of 

 which it treats, and in which it deviates very materially from the 

 definition given by its own reputed author of the contents of a Purdna. 

 These Agni declares to be five : primitive creation; subsequent 

 creations ; the genealogies of demigods and kings ; the reigns of 

 the Menus, and the histories of royal dynasties. These, however, 



M 



