The Vishnu Purana: Preface: Form of the Puráńas | Internet Sacred Text Archive

Form of the Puráńas

The invariable form of the Puráńas is that of a dialogue, in which some person relates its contents in reply to the inquiries of another. This dialogue is interwoven with others, which are repeated as having been held on other occasions between different individuals, in consequence of similar questions having been asked. The immediate narrator is commonly, though not constantly, Lomaharshańa or Romaharshańa, the disciple of Vyása, who is supposed to communicate what was imparted to him by his preceptor, as he had heard it from some other sage. Vyása, as will be seen in the body of the work 19, is a generic title, meaning an 'arranger' or 'compiler.' It is in this age applied to Krishńa Dwaipáyana,

the son of Paráśara, who is said to have taught the Vedas and Puráńas to various disciples, but who appears to have been the head of a college or school, under whom various learned men gave to the sacred literature of the Hindus the form in which it now presents itself. In this task the disciples, as they are termed, of Vyása were rather his colleagues and coadjutors, for they were already conversant with what he is fabled to have taught them 20; and amongst them, Lomaharshańa represents the class of persons who were especially charged with the record of political and temporal events. He is called Súta, as if it was a proper name; but it is more correctly a title; and Lomaharshańa was 'a Súta,' that is, a bard or panegyrist, who was created, according to our text 21, to celebrate the exploits of princes; and who, according to the Váyu and Padma Puráńas, has a right by birth and profession to narrate the Puráńas, in preference even to the Brahmans 22. It is not unlikely therefore that we are to understand, by his being represented as the disciple of Vyása, the institution of some attempt, made under the direction of the latter, to collect from the heralds and annalists of his day the scattered traditions which they had imperfectly preserved; and hence the consequent appropriation of the Puráńas, in a great measure, to the genealogies of regal dynasties, and descriptions of the universe. However this may be, the machinery has been but loosely adhered to, and many of the Patinas, like the Vishńu, are referred to a different narrator.