JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



JVo. 12.— December, 1832. 



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

 4. The Vayu Pura'na. 



The Vayu Purdna is so named from having been originally, it is 

 said, communicated by Vayu, or the deity of the wind, to the assembled 

 sages. It afterwards descended to Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, by 

 whom it was taught to his disciple Lomahershana, and at his desire it 

 is repeated by his son Ugrasrava to the holy ascetics at Naimisha- 

 ranya, agreeably to the form in which these works usually commence. 



At starting however, a peculiarity occurs : the right of Su'ta to the 

 possession of the Vedas is denied, and he admits that he is entitled to 

 teach only the Itihasas and Purdnas. This distinction is attributed 

 to his equivocal origin which is very obscurely assigned to an error at 

 a sacrifice held by Prithu, in which the Ghi appropriated to Vri- 

 haspati, the teacher, was confounded with that set apart for Indra, the 

 disciple, and from the oblation, termed Sutya, Su'ta was produced. 

 He consequently held an intermediate station between the Brahman 

 and Kshetriya, whom these gods, it may be inferred, severally repre- 

 sent ; and whilst in one capacity he is a scholar of Vyasa and a teacher 

 of the secondary scriptures, he is excluded in the other from instruct- 

 ing in the Vedas, and restricted to such means of acquiring a livelihood 

 as are compatible with the military profession. 



The origin of Su'ta as well as of Magadha at the sacrifice of Prithu, 

 is also related in the Vishnu Purdna ; they are there said to have 

 sprung from the juice of the acid Asclepias, offered on that occasion. 

 The same story opens the Srishti Khan'da of the Padma Purdna, and 

 is there more fully, if not more intelligibly detailed : the account being 

 in fact the same as that of the Vdyu Purdna, and in the very same 

 words, with the addition of some stanzas, and the partial alteration of 



2 Y 



