{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/vp/vp010.htm","path":"hin/vp/vp010.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp010.htm","text":"The Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840]\n6. The Narad\u00edya Pur\u00e1\u0144a\n6. N\u00e1rada or Narad\u00edya Pur\u00e1\u0144a. \"Where N\u00e1rada has described the duties which were observed in the Vrihat Kalpa, that, is called the N\u00e1rad\u00edya,\nhaving twenty-five thousand stanzas 53.\" If the number of verses be here correctly stated, the Pur\u00e1\u0144a has not fallen into my hands. The copy I have analysed contains not many more than three thousand \u015blokas. There is another work, which might be expected to be of greater extent, the Vrihat N\u00e1rad\u00edya, or great N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a; but this, according to the concurrence of three copies in my possession, and of five others in the Company's library, contains but about three thousand five hundred verses. It may be doubted, therefore, if the N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a of the Matsya exists 54.\nAccording to the Matsya, the N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a is related by N\u00e1rada, and gives an account of the Vrihat Kalpa. The N\u00e1rad\u00edya Pur\u00e1\u0144a is communicated by N\u00e1rada to the Rishis at Naimish\u00e1ra\u0144ya, on the Gomati river. The Vrihann\u00e1rad\u00edya is related to the same persons, at the same place, by S\u00fata, as it was told by N\u00e1rada to Sanatkum\u00e1ra. Possibly the term Vrihat may have been suggested by the specification which is given in the Matsya; but there is no description in it of any particular Kalpa, or day of Brahm\u00e1.\nFrom a cursory examination of these Pur\u00e1\u0144as, it is very evident that they have no conformity to the definition of a Pur\u00e1\u0144a, and that both are sectarial and modern compilations, intended to support the doctrine of Bhakti, or faith in Vish\u0144u. With this view they have collected a variety of prayers addressed to one or other form of that divinity; a number of observances and holidays connected with his adoration; and different legends, some perhaps of an early, others of a more recent date, illustrative of the efficacy of devotion to Hari. Thus in the N\u00e1rada we have the stories of Dhruva and Prahl\u00e1da; the latter told in the words of the Vish\u0144u: whilst the second portion of it is occupied with a legend of Mohin\u00ed, the will-born daughter of a king called Rukm\u00e1ngada: beguiled by\nwhom, the king offers to perform for her whatever she may desire. She calls upon him either to violate the rule of fasting on the eleventh day of the fortnight, a day sacred to Vish\u0144u, or to put his son to death; and he kills his son, as the lesser sin of the two. This shews the spirit of the work. Its date may also be inferred from its tenor, as such monstrous extravagancies in praise of Bhakti are certainly of modern origin. One limit it furnishes itself, for it refers to \u015auka and Par\u00edkshit, the interlocutors of the Bh\u00e1gavata, and it is consequently subsequent to the date of that Pur\u00e1\u0144a: it is probably considerably later, for it affords evidence that it was written after India was in the hands of the Mohammedans. In the concluding passage it is said, \"Let not this Pur\u00e1\u0144a be repeated in the presence of the 'killers of cows' and contemners of the gods.\" It is possibly a compilation of the sixteenth or seventeenth century.\nThe Vrihann\u00e1rad\u00edya is a work of the same tenor and time. It contains little else than panegyrical prayers addressed to Vish\u0144u, and injunctions to observe various rites, and keep holy certain seasons, in honour of him. The earlier legends introduced are the birth of M\u00e1rka\u0144d\u0301eya, the destruction of Sagara's sons, and the dwarf Avat\u00e1ra; but they are subservient to the design of the whole, and are rendered occasions for praising N\u00e1r\u00e1ya\u0144a: others, illustrating the efficacy of certain Vaish\u0144ava observances, are puerile inventions, wholly foreign to the more ancient system of Paur\u00e1\u0144ik fiction. There is no attempt at cosmogony, or patriarchal or regal genealogy. It is possible that these topics may be treated of in the missing stanzas; but it seems more likely that the N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a of the lists has little in common with the works to which its name is applied in Bengal and Hindustan.\nxxxii:54 The description of Vish\u0144u, translated by Col. Vans Kennedy (Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 200) from the N\u00e1rad\u00edya Pur\u00e1\u0144a, occurs in my copy of the Vrihat N\u00e1rad\u00edya. There is no N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a in the East India Company's library, though, as noticed in the text, several of the Vrihat N\u00e1rad\u00edya. There is a copy of the Rukm\u00e1ngada Charitra, said to be a part of the \u015ari N\u00e1rada Pur\u00e1\u0144a.","title":"The Vishnu Purana: Preface: 6. The Narad\u00edya Pur&aa...","type":"page"}