{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/vp/vp003.htm","path":"hin/vp/vp003.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp003.htm","text":"The Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840]\nForm of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as\nThe invariable form of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as is that of a dialogue, in which some person relates its contents in reply to the inquiries of another. This dialogue is interwoven with others, which are repeated as having been held on other occasions between different individuals, in consequence of similar questions having been asked. The immediate narrator is commonly, though not constantly, Lomaharsha\u0144a or Romaharsha\u0144a, the disciple of Vy\u00e1sa, who is supposed to communicate what was imparted to him by his preceptor, as he had heard it from some other sage. Vy\u00e1sa, as will be seen in the body of the work 19, is a generic title, meaning an 'arranger' or 'compiler.' It is in this age applied to Krish\u0144a Dwaip\u00e1yana,\nthe son of Par\u00e1\u015bara, who is said to have taught the Vedas and Pur\u00e1\u0144as to various disciples, but who appears to have been the head of a college or school, under whom various learned men gave to the sacred literature of the Hindus the form in which it now presents itself. In this task the disciples, as they are termed, of Vy\u00e1sa were rather his colleagues and coadjutors, for they were already conversant with what he is fabled to have taught them 20; and amongst them, Lomaharsha\u0144a represents the class of persons who were especially charged with the record of political and temporal events. He is called S\u00fata, as if it was a proper name; but it is more correctly a title; and Lomaharsha\u0144a was 'a S\u00fata,' that is, a bard or panegyrist, who was created, according to our text 21, to celebrate the exploits of princes; and who, according to the V\u00e1yu and Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144as, has a right by birth and profession to narrate the Pur\u00e1\u0144as, in preference even to the Brahmans 22. It is not unlikely therefore that we are to understand, by his being represented as the disciple of Vy\u00e1sa, the institution of some attempt, made under the direction of the latter, to collect from the heralds and annalists of his day the scattered traditions which they had imperfectly preserved; and hence the consequent appropriation of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as, in a great measure, to the genealogies of regal dynasties, and descriptions of the universe. However this may be, the machinery has been but loosely adhered to, and many of the Patinas, like the Vish\u0144u, are referred to a different narrator.\nAn account is given in the following work 23 of a series of Paur\u00e1\u0144ik compilations, of which in their present form no vestige appears. Lomaharsha\u0144a is said to have had six disciples, three of whom composed as many fundamental Sanhit\u00e1s, whilst he himself compiled a fourth. By a Sanhit\u00e1 is generally understood a 'collection' or 'compilation.' The Sanhit\u00e1s of the Vedas are collections of hymns and prayers belonging to them, arranged according to the judgment of some individual sage, who is therefore looked upon as the originator and teacher of each. The Sanhit\u00e1s of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as, then, should be analogous compilations, attributed respectively to Mitrayu, \u015a\u00e1n\u015bap\u00e1yana, Akritavra\u0144a, and Romaharsha\u0144a: no such Paur\u00e1\u0144ik Sanhit\u00e1s are now known, The\nsubstance of the four is said to be collected in the Vish\u0144u Pur\u00e1\u0144a, which is also, in another place 24, itself called a Sanhit\u00e1: but such compilations have not, as far as inquiry has yet proceeded, been discovered. The specification may be accepted as an indication of the Pur\u00e1\u0144as having existed in some other form, in which they are no longer met with; although it does not appear that the arrangement was incompatible with their existence as separate works, for the Vish\u0144u Pur\u00e1\u0144a, which is our authority for the four Sanhit\u00e1s, gives us also the usual enumeration of the several Pur\u00e1\u0144as.\nxi:22 Journ, Royal As. Soc. vol. V. p. 281.","title":"The Vishnu Purana: Preface: Form of the Pur\u00e1n\u0301as","type":"page"}