1832.] Analysis of the Pur an as. 537 



little doubt, re-made or re-modelled to a. very considerable extent. By 

 all classes, however, the historical traditions of the Su'tas, or bards> 

 were treated with neglect. They disappeared altogether from most 

 of the Purdnas, and were in all much mutilated and compressed. Such 

 fragments as remain are, however, probably genuine, and when 

 separated from what is marvellous and unnatural, furnish some insight 

 into the actual history of India, in periods remotely past. 



To return from this digression, however, to the Vdyu Purdna, it may 

 be observed, that as far as can be judged from the portion analysed, it 

 is a work perhaps of the earliest date, amongst the existing Purdnas, 

 and clearly emanates from the Yoga school ; it inculcates upon the 

 whole the preferable worship of the forms of Siva, but its sectarial 

 bias is less violently displayed than is usual in these works, the le- 

 gends are fewer, the cosmological parts are much more detailed, and 

 there is altogether a copiousness and consistency of system which is not 

 common in the Purdnas. It is impossible in going through this work 

 not to feel an air of originality and antiquity about it, which is not 

 perceptible in any of the others hitherto examined. As far as appears to 

 be the case also, from the translated chapters, there is no allusion to 

 works or systems of an indisputably modern date. 



The opening chapters profess to give a summary of the contents of 

 the work, but upon the first glance the detail is far from being applica- 

 ble to the sections that follow, either in subject or arrangement ; on a 

 further examination, however, it appears that the summary is more than 

 once repeated, with different degrees of precision, and withont any suf- 

 ficient mark of distinction between the end of one series and the begin- 

 ing of another ; this want of method is not unfrequent in Hindu works 

 and the first books of the Mahdbhdrat and Rdmdyana furnish speci- 

 mens of the same defective mode of indexing. There appear to be 

 three indexes in the first chapters of the Vdyu Purdna, of which the 

 two first are partial and inappropriate ; the third is more regular and 

 entire, and corresponds with tolerable accuracy with the contents of 

 the Purdna, as far as they extend in our copy, or to the description of 

 the Manwantaras. The index then proceeds to the families of the 

 sages and kings, observing apparently very little order in the details, 

 but comprising some curious particulars : as in the Vishnu Purdna, the 

 account is carried forward into futurity, and the kings of the present 

 age are noticed. These historical sections are followed by cosmology, 

 terminating with the destruction of the world at the end of a Kalpa ; 

 the Purdna then gives the history of Vyasa, and of the divisions of 



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