Vishnu Purana

Context

Because Hinduism dates back thousands of years, when written records were not kept, it is difficult to date its founding and development. Among nineteenth-century scholars, the “classical theory” of the origins of Hinduism prevailed. According to this view, the roots of Hinduism lay in the Indus Valley civilization and date back to 4000 BCE. In about 1500 BCE the area was invaded by Aryans, or Indo-European tribes from Central Asia, and the Indus Valley civilization disappeared. The invading tribes brought with them a religion called Vedism, and, according to the theory, Hinduism developed out of a mingling of Vedism and the Indus Valley culture.

More-recent scholars have rejected the classical theory, arguing that there was no Aryan invasion and that Hinduism developed directly out of the beliefs of the Indus Valley culture. Astronomers even point to a specific date for the “founding” of Hinduism. One of Hinduism’s sacred texts describes the positions of the stars when Krishna, a Hindu god, was born; the stars were in this position in 3102 BCE. Another significant date is the year 600 BCE, when the Rig Veda, one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts, was officially codified.

In the early centuries of the Common Era, various Hindu sects emerged, each dedicated to a specific god or goddess. Today, most Hindus are followers of one of three major divisions within Hinduism. One is called Vaishnavism, which sees Vishnu, “the Preserver,” as the central god; the followers of Shivaism see Shiva, “the Destroyer,” as the central god; the Shaktis worship Devi, or the mother aspect of the divine. In rural areas, many Hindus worship a village god or goddess who influences such matters as fertility and disease.

Scholars recognize six major epochs in Hindu history. The pre-Vedic epoch gave way to the Vedic epoch in roughly 1700 BCE. It was during the Vedic period, which lasted until 500 BCE, that most of the Hindu scriptures, including the Vedas, were written down and most of the basic beliefs of Hinduism were formulated. The epoch of ascetic reformism, marked by the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, extended roughly from 500 BCE to 200 BCE. It was during the ensuing fourth epoch, that of classical Hinduism, when Hinduism’s two great epic poems, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, were composed. The Mahabharata contains the Bhagavad Gita, the first literature on the Bhakti devotional movement in Hinduism, centered on unmitigated loving devotion. Lasting until 1100 CE, the classical epoch saw a great outpouring of philosophical works and the development of numerous schools of thought, leading into the fifth epoch, which was marked by the growth of Hindu sects. The modern epoch began around 1850; since then Hinduism has seen increasing contact with Western cultures and ways of thinking, primarily because India was a British colony during much of this time.

It is very difficult to assign any definite date to the Vishnu Purana, and the tentative dates given by scholars are speculative and vary broadly. The mythological conception is that this Purana records descriptions of activities beginning in the Varaha Age—the mythical age when Vishnu incarnated as a boar (Varaha) in order to save the earth from demons. Such stories were first handed down through oral tradition, while various revisions or additional stories may have been introduced over time. Regarding the composition of the Vishnu Purana in the present form, dates ranging from 700 BCE to 1045 CE have been proposed by different scholars. Book III, chapter XVIII (the first excerpt here) gives some hint of the era of the text’s composition, as it refers to the time when the historical Buddha was not yet regarded or appropriated in the Vaishnava tradition as an incarnation of Vishnu—an idea that finds expression in other Puranas, such as the Bhagavata Purana and Matsya Purana. By comparing different Puranas, some scholars argue that this story of Vishnu’s delusive form was an interpolation in a very late period or, at the earliest, typifies the time when Brahmanical religion was gaining popularity before about 320 CE.