The Vishnu Purana: Preface: 9. The Bhavishya Purán... | Internet Sacred Text Archive

9. The Bhavishya Puráńa

9. Bhavishya Puráńa. "The Puráńa in which Brahmá, having described the greatness of the sun, explained to Manu the existence of the world, and the characters of all created things, in the course of the Aghora Kalpa; that, is called the Bhavishya, the stories being for the most part the events of a future period. It contains fourteen thousand five hundred stanzas 62." This Puráńa, as the name implies, should be a book of prophecies, foretelling what will be (bhavishyati), as the Matsya Puráńa intimates. Whether such a work exists is doubtful. The copies, which appear to be entire, and of which there are three in the library of the East India Company, agreeing in their contents with two in my possession, contain about seven thousand stanzas. There is another work, entitled the Bhavishyottara, as if it was a continuation or supplement of the former, containing also about seven thousand verses; but the subjects of .both these works are but to a very imperfect degree analogous to those to which the Matsya alludes 63.

The Bhavishya Puráńa, as I have it, is a work in a hundred and

twenty-six short chapters, repeated by Sumantu to Śatáníka, a king of the Pańd́u family. He notices, however, its having originated with Swayambhu or Brahmá; and describes it as consisting of five parts; four dedicated, it should seem, to as many deities, as they are termed, Brahmá, Vaishńava, Śaiva, and Twásht́ra; whilst the fifth is the Pratisarga, or repeated creation. Possibly the first part only may have come into my hands, although it does not so appear by the manuscript.