whom, the king offers to perform for her whatever she may desire. She calls upon him either to violate the rule of fasting on the eleventh day of the fortnight, a day sacred to Vishńu, or to put his son to death; and he kills his son, as the lesser sin of the two. This shews the spirit of the work. Its date may also be inferred from its tenor, as such monstrous extravagancies in praise of Bhakti are certainly of modern origin. One limit it furnishes itself, for it refers to Śuka and Paríkshit, the interlocutors of the Bhágavata, and it is consequently subsequent to the date of that Puráńa: it is probably considerably later, for it affords evidence that it was written after India was in the hands of the Mohammedans. In the concluding passage it is said, "Let not this Puráńa be repeated in the presence of the 'killers of cows' and contemners of the gods." It is possibly a compilation of the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

The Vrihannáradíya is a work of the same tenor and time. It contains little else than panegyrical prayers addressed to Vishńu, and injunctions to observe various rites, and keep holy certain seasons, in honour of him. The earlier legends introduced are the birth of Márkańd́eya, the destruction of Sagara's sons, and the dwarf Avatára; but they are subservient to the design of the whole, and are rendered occasions for praising Náráyańa: others, illustrating the efficacy of certain Vaishńava observances, are puerile inventions, wholly foreign to the more ancient system of Pauráńik fiction. There is no attempt at cosmogony, or patriarchal or regal genealogy. It is possible that these topics may be treated of in the missing stanzas; but it seems more likely that the Nárada Puráńa of the lists has little in common with the works to which its name is applied in Bengal and Hindustan.

Footnotes

xxxii:53

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xxxii:54 The description of Vishńu, translated by Col. Vans Kennedy (Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 200) from the Náradíya Puráńa, occurs in my copy of the Vrihat Náradíya. There is no Nárada Puráńa in the East India Company's library, though, as noticed in the text, several of the Vrihat Náradíya. There is a copy of the Rukmángada Charitra, said to be a part of the Śri Nárada Puráńa.

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