{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/vp/vp002.htm","path":"hin/vp/vp002.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp002.htm","text":"The Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840]\nDate of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as\nThe Pur\u00e1\u0144as are also works of evidently different ages, and have been compiled under different circumstances, the precise nature of which we can but imperfectly conjecture from internal evidence, and from what we know of the history of religious opinion in India. It is highly probable,\nthat of the present popular forms of the Hindu religion, none assumed their actual state earlier than the time of \u015aankara \u00c1ch\u00e1rya, the great \u015aaiva reformer, who flourished, in all likelihood, in the eighth or ninth century. Of the Vaish\u0144ava teachers, R\u00e1m\u00e1nuja dates in the twelfth century, Madhw\u00e1ch\u00e1rya in the thirteenth, and Vallabha in the sixteenth 17; and the Pur\u00e1\u0144as seem to have accompanied or followed their innovations, being obviously intended to advocate the doctrines they taught. This is to assign to some of them a very modern date, it is true; but I cannot think that a higher can with justice be ascribed to them. This, however, applies to some only out of the number, as I shall presently proceed to specify.\nAnother evidence of a comparatively modern date must be admitted in those chapters of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as which, assuming a prophetic tone, foretell what dynasties of kings will reign in the K\u00e1l\u00ed age. These chapters, it is true, are found but in four of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as, but they are conclusive in bringing down the date of those four to a period considerably subsequent to Christianity. It is also to be remarked, that the V\u00e1yu, Vish\u0144u, Bh\u00e1gavata, and Matsya Pur\u00e1\u0144as, in which these particulars are foretold, have in all other respects the character of as great antiquity as any works of their class 18.\nx:17 As. Res. vols. XVI. and XVII. Account of Hindu Sects.\nx:18 On the history of the composition of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as, as they now appear, I have hazarded some speculations in my Analysis of the V\u00e1yu Pur\u00e1\u0144a: Journ. Asiatic Society of Bengal, December 1832.","title":"The Vishnu Purana: Preface: Date of the Pur\u00e1n\u0301as","type":"page"}