The tenth book is the characteristic part of this Puráńa, and the portion upon which its popularity is founded. It is appropriated entirely to the history of Krishńa, which it narrates much in the same manner as the Vishńu, but in more detail; holding a middle place, however, between it and the extravagant prolixity with which the Hari Vanśa repeats the story. It is not necessary to particularize it farther. It has been translated into perhaps all the languages of India, and is a favourite work with all descriptions of people.

The eleventh book describes the destruction of the Yádavas, and death of Krishńa. Previous to the latter event, Krishńa instructs Uddhava in the performance of the Yoga; a subject consigned by the Vishńu to the concluding passages. The narrative is much the same, but something more summary than that of the Vishńu. The twelfth book continues the lines of the kings of the Kálí age prophetically to a similar period as the Vishńu, and gives a like account of the deterioration of all things, and their final dissolution. Consistently with the subject of the Puráńa, the serpent Takshaka bites Paríkshit, and he expires, and the work should terminate; or the close might be extended to the subsequent sacrifice of Janamejaya for the destruction of the whole serpent race. There is a rather awkwardly introduced description, however, of the arrangement of the Vedas and Puráńas by Vyása,

and the legend of Márkańd́eya's interview with the infant Krishńa, during a period of worldly dissolution. We then come to the end of the Bhágavata, in a series of encomiastic commendations of its own sanctity, and efficacy to salvation.