1832.] Analysis of the Purdnas. 83 



site of Benares was the same as at present, or between the Varana and 

 the Asi rivulets. 



The Mdhdtmyas, or legends of the few Tirthas noticed, are very 

 brief, except that of Gayd, which is so very minute, that it may be 

 suspected to be an interpolation, as it is not in keeping with the 

 rest, nor with the manner in which all such subjects are usually dis- 

 posed of in a Puranic miscellany. Such interpolations or rather append- 

 ages are not at all uncommon, although the legends are more frequent- 

 ly attached to some of the other Purdnas, as the Brahmdnda and 

 Skdnda. We have, however, a case in point with the Agni Purdna ; 

 there being current in the South of India a work called the Kdveri 

 Mdhdtmyam of the Agni Purdna, which is never found in the copies 

 of the Purdna itself, and which indeed is very nearly as extensive as 

 the whole work of which it is called a section. 



The Tirthas are followed by the description of the Indian continent, 

 and other portions of the world; also the distances and dimensions of 

 the regions below and above it. The whole of this chapter has not 

 been compared with other works, but in some passages, particularly the 

 description of the sun's car, it is word for word the same with the 

 text of the Vishnu Purdna : being in other respects, however, much 

 less full and satisfactory than that work. 



The description of the sun and planets leads to the astronomical or 

 astrological section, and that to magical rites and formulae ; from these 

 the work proceeds rather abruptly to the periods of the Manwantaras, 

 and then to the civil institutes of the Hindu caste, as birth, investiture, 

 marriage, death, &c. the duties of the religious orders, and the contem- 

 plation of the deity, conformably to the tenets of the Vedanta : a lon°- 

 string of Vratus or religious obligations, both special and occasional, 

 follows. The next subject discussed is, that of gifts as religious duties, 

 and this branch of the work finally closes with the description of cor- 

 poreal austerities of a meritorious and pious complexion. 



The next portion of the Agneya Purdna treats at considerable length, 

 and with many interesting particulars, of the duties of princes, beginning 

 with the ceremonies of their coronation, and comprehending their civil 

 and military obligations ; it forms what constituted the Niti of Hindu, 

 writers, (Polity or the art of government.) and is of a character with 

 which Hindu ideas have long ceased to be familiar. Some of the details 

 correspond accurately enough with those that occur in a passage of the 

 Ddsa Kumdra, and both are probably indebted to a common source, 

 possibly the work ascribed to Chdnakya, cited by the author of the 

 Ddsa Kumar a. As the system is wholly unmixed with foreign notions, 



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