VISIINU PURANA, a religious book of the Hindi's. It has less than 7000 stanzas in six books. It treats of tive specified topics,—pritnary , creation, secondary creation, Sarga, Pratisarga, genealogies of gods and patriarchs, reigns of the Menu, history. It was translated by Professor Wilson, and a second edition by Dr. F. The course of the elementary creation in all the Puranas is taken from the Sankhya philosophy. In the primitive dogmas of the Hindus, the dis tinctness of the deity and his works are enunciated. But the Vishnu Purina declares ishnu to be Put-main' or spirit, Pradhana or crude matter, Vyakta or visible form, and Kala or time. The Vishnu Pumna is supposed by Professor Wilson to have been possibly written about A.D. 1015, in the Kali year 4146. The fourth book contains all that the Hindus possess of their ancient history. It is a tolerably comprehensive list of dynasties and individuals, but is a barren record of events. It can scarcely be doubted, however, but that much of it is a genuine chronicle of persons, if not of occurrences. The Veda, the Purana,andother works forming the body of Sanskrit literature, are all named ; and so is the Maliabharata, to which there fore it is subsequent. Both Buddhists and Jains are adverted to. It was therefore written before the former had disappeared ; but they existed in sonie parts of British India as late as the twelfth century at least, and it is probable that the Purana was compiled before that period. It is discredited
by palpable absurdities in regard to tho longevity of the princes of the earlier dynasties, and the particulars preserved of sorne of them are trhial and fabulous. Still there is an inartificial sim plicity and consistency in the succession of persons, and it is not essential to its credibility or its use fulness that any exact chronological adjustment of its different reigns should be attempted. Deducting, however, from the larger number of princes a considerable proportion, there is nothing to shock probability in supposing that the Hindu dynasties and their ramifications were spread through an interval of about twelve centuries anterior to the war of the Mahabharata, and con jecturing that event to have occurred about fourteen centuries D.C., the commencement of the regal dynasties of India is thus carried to about 2600 years before that date. After the date of the great war, the Vishnu Purana, in common with those Puranas which contain similar lists, specifies kings and dynasties with greater pre cision, and offers political and chronological particulars, to which, on the score of probability, there is nothing to object.—Professor Wilson, pp. 64, 70, 71, quoted in Thomas' Prinsep, p. 235 ; Dowson ; Garrett.