4:11 One copy reads Yuga dherma, the duties peculiar to the four ages, or their characteristic properties, instead of Yugánta.

4:12 Sacrifice of Paráśara. The story of Paráśara's birth is narrated in detail in the Mahábhárata (Ádi Parva, s. 176). King Kalmáshapáda meeting with Sakti, the son of Vaśisht́ha, in a narrow path in a thicket, desired him to stand out of his way. The sage refused: on which the Rája beat him with his whip, and Sakti cursed him to become a Rákshas, a man-devouring spirit. The Rája in this transformation killed and ate its author, or Sakti, together with all the other sons of Vaśisht́ha. Sakti left his wife Adriśyantí pregnant, and she gave birth to Paráśara, who was brought up by p. 5 his grandfather. When he grew up, and was informed of his father's death, he instituted a sacrifice for the destruction of all the Rákshasas; but was dissuaded from its completion by Vaśisht́ha and other sages or Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, and Kratu. The Mahábhárata adds, that when he desisted from the rite, he scattered the remaining sacrificial fire upon the northern face of the Himálaya mountain, where it still blazes forth at the phases of the moon, consuming Rákshasas, forests, and mountains. The legend alludes possibly to some transhimalayan volcano. The transformation of Kalmáshapáda is ascribed in other places to a different cause; but he is every where regarded as the devourer of Sakti or Saktri, as the name also occurs. The story is told in the Linga Puráńa (Púrvárddha, s. 64) in the same manner, with the addition, conformably to the Saiva tendency of that work, that Paráśara begins his sacrifice by propitiating Mahádeva. Vaśisht́ha's dissuasion, and Pulastya's appearance, are given in the very words of our text; and the story concludes, 'thus through the favour of Pulastya and of the wise Vaśisht́ha, Paráśara composed the Vaishńava (Vishńu) Puráńa, containing ten thousand stanzas, and being the third of the Puráńa compilations' (Puráńasanhitá). The Bhágavata (b. III. s. 8) also alludes, though obscurely, to this legend. In recapitulating the succession of the narrators of part of the Bhágavata, Maitreya states that this first Puráńa was communicated to him by his Guru Paráśara, as he had been desired by Pulastya: i. e. according to the commentator, agreeably to the boon given by Pulastya to Paráśara, saying, You shall be a narrator of Puráńas;. The Mahábhárata makes no mention of the communication of this faculty to Paráśara by Pulastya; and as the Bhágavata could not derive this particular from that source, it here most probably refers unavowedly, as the Linga does avowedly, to the Vishńu Puráńa.