Everything about Vishnu Purana totally explained
Introduction
The
Vishnu Purana is often considered to be the most important of all the eighteen
Puranas and is given the name Puranaratna (gem of Puranas).Presented as a dialogue between
Parashara with his disciple
Maitreya. It is divided into six parts. The major topics discussed include creation myths, stories of battles fought between
Asuras and
Devas, the
avatars (incarnations) of
Vishnu and genealogy and stories of legendary kings.
It is said to contain some 23,000
shlokas, though the actual number of verses contained is less than seven thousand. All the copies, procured both in the east and in the west of India, agree; and there's no appearance of any part being wanting. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end, in both text and comment; and the work as it stands is incontestably entire. This is a discrepancy not easy to account for.
Contents
The book starts with detailed stories of creation and introduces the concept of four
yugas. The tale of Rudra, an elaborate story of the
Samudra Manthana, or the churning of the ocean, the Story of
Dhruva, an ardent devotee of Vishnu, and stories of ancient kings
Vena and
Prithu are also discussed in the first section. Tales of Prithu's descendants, the
Prachetas, the famous story of
Hiranyakashipu and
Prahlada, some topological details of the known world with mentions of lands, tribes, mountains and rivers, concepts of the universe, and the stories of the many births of
Jadabharata are the major topics discussed in the next book. The third section discusses the stories of
Manvantara (cycles of creation and destruction), the sages
Vyasa and
Yajnavalkya,
Surya (the sun god),
Yama (the god of the dead), devotees
Shatadhanu and
Shaivya, the four classes (
varnas) and the four stages of life(
ashramas) and details of many rituals. The fourth section gives a detailed account of all the famous Kings from the solar and lunar dynasties of ancient India, and also lists the names of kings who 'would appear' in the age of
Kali. The second list contains the name of historical kings of Magadha, including kings from the
Shishunaga,
Nanda and
Maurya dynasties. The next section deals in details the different events in the life of Lord
Krishna, starting from his birth, through his childhood and up to his death and the destruction of the entire
Yadava clan. The sixth and last section mainly discusses the impending age of Kali, the concepts of universal destruction that would eventually follow and explains the importance of the
Puranas in general.
The
Vishnudharmottara Purana, a separate text dedicated to the arts, is a Supplement or Appendix to the Vishnu Purana.
H. H. Wilson considers it one of the oldest of the
Puranas, and dates it to the first century BCE, though Gavin Flood dates it later to the fourth century CE.
Further Information
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