{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/vp/vp006.htm","path":"hin/vp/vp006.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp006.htm","text":"The Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840]\n2. The Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144a\n2. Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144a. \"That which contains an account of the period when the world was a golden lotus (padma), and of all the occurrences of that time, is therefore called the P\u00e1dma by the wise: it contains fifty-five thousand stanzas 37.\" The second Pur\u00e1\u0144a in the usual lists is always the P\u00e1dma, a very voluminous work, containing, according to its own statement, as well as that of other authorities, fifty-five thousand slokas; an amount not far from the truth. These are divided amongst five books, or Kha\u0144d\u0301as; 1. the Srisht\u0301i Kha\u0144d\u0301a, or section on creation; 2. the Bh\u00fami Kha\u0144d\u0301a, description of the earth; 3. the Swarga Kha\u0144d\u0301a, chapter on heaven; 4. P\u00e1t\u00e1la Kha\u0144d\u0301a, chapter on the regions below the earth; and 5. the Uttara Kha\u0144d\u0301a, last or supplementary chapter. There is also current a sixth division, the Kriy\u00e1 Yoga S\u00e1ra, a treatise on the practice of devotion.\nThe denominations of these divisions of the Padma P. convey but an imperfect and partial notion of their contents. In the first, or section which treats of creation, the narrator is Ugra\u015bravas the S\u00fata, the son of Lomaharsha\u0144a, who is sent by his father to the Rishis at Naimish\u00e1r\u00e1\u0144ya to communicate to them the Pur\u00e1\u0144a, which, from its containing an account of the lotus (padma), in which Brahm\u00e1 appeared at creation, is termed the P\u00e1dma or Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144a. The S\u00fata repeats what was originally communicated by Brahm\u00e1 to Pulastya, and by him to Bh\u00edshma. The early chapters narrate the cosmogony, and the genealogy of the patriarchal families, much in the same style, and often in the same words, as the Vish\u0144u; and short accounts of the Manwantaras and regal dynasties: but these, which are legitimate Paur\u00e1\u0144ik matters, soon make way for new and unauthentic inventions, illustrative of the virtues of the lake of Pushkara, or Pokher in Ajmir, as a place of pilgrimage.\nThe Bh\u00fami Kha\u0144d\u0301a, or section of the earth, defers any description of the earth until near its close, filling up one hundred and twenty-seven chapters with legends of a very mixed description, some ancient and common to other Pur\u00e1\u0144as, but the greater part peculiar to itself, illustrative of T\u00edrthas either figuratively so termed--as a wife, a parent, or a\n[paragraph continues] Guru, considered as a sacred object--or places to which actual pilgrimage should be performed.\nThe Swarga Kha\u0144d\u0301a describes in the first chapters the relative positions of the Lokas or spheres above the earth, placing above all Vaiku\u0144tha, the sphere of Vish\u0144u; an addition which is not warranted by what appears to be the oldest cosmology 38. Miscellaneous notices of some of the most celebrated princes then succeed, conformably to the usual narratives; and these are followed by rules of conduct for the several castes, and at different stages of life. The rest of the book is occupied by legends of a diversified description, introduced without much method or contrivance; a few of which, as Daksha's sacrifice, are of ancient date, but of which the most are original and modern.\nThe P\u00e1t\u00e1la Kha\u0144d\u0301a devotes a brief introduction to the description of P\u00e1t\u00e1la, the regions of the snake-gods; but the name of R\u00e1ma having been mentioned, \u015aesha, who has succeeded Pulastya as spokesman, proceeds to narrate the history of R\u00e1ma, his descent and his posterity; in which the compiler seems to have taken the poem of K\u00e1lida\u015ba, the Raghu Van\u015ba, for his chief authority. An originality of addition may be suspected, however, in the adventures of the horse destined by R\u00e1ma for an A\u015bwamedha, which form the subject of a great many chapters. When about to be sacrificed, the horse turns out to be a Brahman, condemned by an imprecation of Durv\u00e1sas, a sage, to assume the equine nature, and who, by having been sanctified by connexion with R\u00e1ma, is released from his metamorphosis, and dispatched as a spirit of light to heaven. This piece of Vaish\u0144ava fiction is followed by praises of the \u015ar\u00ed Bh\u00e1gavata, an account of Krish\u0144a's juvenilities, and the merits of worshipping Vish\u0144u. These accounts are communicated through a machinery borrowed from the Tantras: they are told by Sad\u00e1\u015biva to P\u00e1rvati, the ordinary interlocutors of T\u00e1ntrika compositions.\nThe Uttara Kha\u0144d\u0301a is a most voluminous aggregation of very heterogeneous matters, but it is consistent in adopting a decidedly Vaish\u0144ava tone, and admitting no compromise with any other form of faith. The chief subjects are first discussed in a dialogue between king Dil\u00edpa and\nthe Muni Va\u015bisht\u0301ha; such as the merits of bathing in the month of M\u00e1gha, and the potency of the Mantra or prayer addressed to Lakshm\u00ed N\u00e1r\u00e1ya\u0144a. But the nature of Bhakti, faith in Vish\u0144u--the use of Vaish\u0144ava marks on the body--the legends of Vish\u0144u's Avat\u00e1ras, and especially of R\u00e1ma--and the construction of images of Vish\u0144u--are too important to be left to mortal discretion: they are explained by \u015aiva to P\u00e1rvati, and wound up by the adoration of Vish\u0144u by those divinities. The dialogue then reverts to the king and the sage; and the latter states why Vish\u0144u is the only one of the triad entitled to respect; \u015aiva being licentious, Brahm\u00e1 arrogant, and Vish\u0144u alone pure. Va\u015bisht\u0301ha then repeats, after \u015aiva, the M\u00e1h\u00e1tmya of the Bhagavad G\u00edt\u00e1; the merit of each book of which is illustrated by legends of the good consequences to individuals from perusing or hearing it. Other Vaish\u0144ava M\u00e1h\u00e1tmyas occupy considerable portions of this Kha\u0144d\u0301a, especially the K\u00e1rt\u00edka M\u00e1h\u00e1tmya, or holiness of the month Kartika, illustrated as usual by stories, a few of which are of an early origin, but the greater part modern, and peculiar to this Pur\u00e1\u0144a 39.\nThe Kriy\u00e1 Yoga S\u00e1ra is repeated by S\u00fata to the Rishis, after Vy\u00e1sa's communication of it to Jaimini, in answer to an inquiry how religious merit might be secured in the K\u00e1l\u00ed age, in which men have become incapable of the penances and abstraction by which final liberation was formerly to be attained. The answer is, of course, that which is intimated in the last hook of the Vish\u0144u Pur\u00e1\u0144a--personal devotion to Vish\u0144u: thinking of him, repeating his names, wearing his marks, worshipping in his temples, are a full substitute for all other acts of moral or devotional or contemplative merit.\nThe different portions of the Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144a are in all probability as many different works, neither of which approaches to the original definition of a Pur\u00e1\u0144a. There may be some connexion between the three first portions, at least as to time; but there is no reason to consider them as of high antiquity. They specify the Jains both by name and practices.; they talk of Mlechchhas, 'barbarians,' flourishing in India; they commend\nthe use of the frontal and other Vaish\u0144ava marks; and they notice other subjects which, like these, are of no remote origin. The P\u00e1t\u00e1la Kha\u0144d\u0301a dwells copiously upon the Bh\u00e1gavata, and is consequently posterior to it. The Uttara Kha\u0144d\u0301a is intolerantly Vaish\u0144ava, and is therefore unquestionably modern. It enjoins the veneration of the S\u00e1l\u00e1gram stone and Tulas\u00ed plant, the use of the Tapta-mudra, or stamping with a hot iron the name of Vish\u0144u on the skin, and a variety of practices and observances undoubtedly no part of the original system. It speaks of the shrines of \u015ar\u00ed-rangam and Venkat\u00e1dri in the Dekhin, temples that have no pretension to remote antiquity; and it names Haripur on the Tungabhadra, which is in all likelihood the city of Vijayanagar, founded in the middle of the fourteenth century. The Kriy\u00e1 Yoga S\u00e1ra is equally a modern, and apparently a Bengali composition. No portion of the Padma Pur\u00e1\u0144a is probably older than the twelfth century, and the last parts may be as recent as the fifteenth or sixteenth 40.\nxix:38 See .\nxx:39 One of them, the story of Jalandhara is translated by Col. Vans Kennedy: Affinities of Ancient and Hindu Mythology, Appendix D.\nxxi:40 The grounds of these conclusions are more particularly detailed in my Analysis of the Padma P.: J. R. As. Soc. vol. V. p. 280.","title":"The Vishnu Purana: Preface: 2. The Padma Pur\u00e1n\u0301a","type":"page"}