Table of Contents
The Puranas are the large Sanskrit collections of Hindu cosmology, myth and royal genealogy: the Vishnu, Bhagavata, Matsya, Padma, Agni, Linga and Shiva Puranas, among others. I keep returning to them for three things: their vast time cycles, their flood story of Manu and the fish, and their descriptions of divine weapons. These are the pages where I used them.
Yugas and the long count of time
On Four Yugas I list what the main Puranas contribute: the Vishnu Purana’s genealogies of the Solar and Lunar dynasties, the Bhagavata Purana’s account of Krishna and the Yadu kings, and the Matsya Purana’s dynasties. On 432,000 Years: The Number Shared by Berossus, the Kali Yuga and Valhalla I work through the Vishnu Purana in H. H. Wilson’s 1840 translation: twelve thousand divine years make up the four ages, and one divine year counts as 360 human years, which gives the Kali Yuga its 432,000 years. The Numbers Before the Flood: Base 60, the Sar and the 10 Patriarchs vs 10 Kings adds that the Vishnu Purana counts fourteen Manus in one day of Brahma.
The Hindu Puranic King List covers the genealogies of gods, sages and kings that the Puranas preserve, and Padma Purana looks at how that Purana follows the Hindu cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.
Manu, the fish and Ila
On Who Was Vaivasvata Manu? I follow the flood story from the Vedic version, where a small fish comes into Manu’s hands while he washes and asks to be reared, to the Matsya Purana, where the fish is Vishnu himself and the cast grows to include the seven sages and the seeds. Ila traces the story of Manu’s child, changed from daughter to son in the Linga Purana and the Mahabharata, and disinherited in the Matsya Purana so that the kingdom passed to Pururavas.
Weapons of the gods
The Bastra, a tool capable of drilling into rock, producing effects similar to vaporization draws on the Vishnu and Agni Puranas for tools given to mortals by the gods, including the astra Agni gave a king to cut a valley through the mountains. Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater pointed to the Puranas for memories of Atlantean air warfare. On The Civilisation of Atlantis I quote them:
if such a city were to be attacked, these birds-of-war were sent to hover over it, and to drop into it bombs which burst in the air, and discharged a rain of heavy poisonous vapour, destructive of human life. Allusions to these may be found in the conflicts related in the great epics and Puranas of the Hindus.
Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
In Relativity and Quantum Mechanics Were Hidden in Shiva Purana, Sadhguru reads the Shiva Purana’s stories as metaphors for spiritual practice and for the soul’s quest to transcend its limits and merge with the divine.
Related pages
- Four Yugas
- 432,000 Years: The Number Shared by Berossus, the Kali Yuga and Valhalla
- The Numbers Before the Flood: Base 60, the Sar and the 10 Patriarchs vs 10 Kings
- The Hindu Puranic King List
- Padma Purana
- Who Was Vaivasvata Manu?
- Ila
- The Bastra, a tool capable of drilling into rock, producing effects similar to vaporization
- The Civilisation of Atlantis
For every page I tagged with Puranas, see the Puranas tag archive.
