SALIENT FEATURES OF THE HINDU PURANAS IN CONTRAST OF THE VEDAS.

SALIENT FEATURES OF PURANAS VIS-A-VIS THE VEDAS.

The usual list of the Puranas is as follows:

The Brahma-, Brahmanda-, Brahmavaivarta-, MaIkandeya-, Bhavisya-, and Vamana-Puranas;

The Visnu-, Bhagavata-, Naradiya-, Garuda-, Padma-, and Varaha-Puranas. 

The Shiva-, Linga-, Skanda-, Agni- (or Vayu-), Matsya-, and Kurma-Puranas.

Many deal with the same or common material.

With the epics, with which they are closely linked in origin, the Puranas became the scriptures of the common people; they were available to everybody, including women and members of all orders of society, and were not, like the Vedas, restricted to men of the three higher orders.

The origin of much of their contents may be non-Brahmanic, but they were accepted and adapted by the Brahmans, who thus brought new elements into their orthodox religion.

At first sight the Vedic and Puranic mythology appears to be so sharp that they might be considered as being of altogether different traditions.

Yet it soon becomes clear that they are in part continuous and that what appears to be discrepancy is merely a difference between the liturgical emphasis of the Vedas and the more eclectic genres of the epics and Puranas.

For example, the great god of the Rigveda is Indra, the god of war and monsoon, prototype of the warrior; but for the population as a whole he was more important as the rain god than the war god, and it is as such that he survives in early Puranic mythology.

Little is learned in the Veda of goddesses, yet they rose steadily in recognition in Puranic mythology.

Although in the Puranas some of the Vedic gods have an afterlife in which their importance is reduced, other gods, previously of less official significance, arise.

The two principal gods of Puranic Hinduism are Vishnu and Rudra- Shiva. Both are known in the Vedas, though they play only minor roles: Vishnu is the strider who, with his three strides, established the three worlds (heaven, atmosphere, and Earth) and thus is present in all three orders; and Rudra-Shiva is a mysterious god who must be propitiated.

Puranic literature documents the stages of the rise of the two gods as they eventually attract to themselves the identities of other popular gods and heroes:

Vishnu assumes the powers of those gods who protect the world and its order, Shiva the powers that are outside and beyond Vishnu's.

To these two is often added Brahma, creator of the world and teacher of the gods.

Although still a cosmic figure, Brahma appears in the Puranas primarily to appease over-powerful sages and demons by granting them boons.

In the Puranic literature of AD 500 to 1000, sectarianism creeps into mythology, and one god is extolled above the others.

Of prime interest are cosmology, myths of the great ascetics who in some respects eclipse the old gods, and myths of sacred places, usually rivers and temples, whose powers to reward the pilgrim are often cited and related to local legends.