The Vishnu Purana: Preface: 16. The Matsya Purán&#... | Internet Sacred Text Archive

The Matsya Puráńa

16. Matsya Puráńa. "That in which, for the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishńu, in the beginning of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasinha and the events of seven Kalpas, that, O sages, know to be the Mátsya Puráńa, containing twenty thousand stanzas 78."

We might, it is to be supposed, admit the description which the Matsya gives of itself to be correct, and yet as regards the number of verses there seems to be a mistatement. Three very good copies, one in my possession, one in the Company's library, and one in the Radcliffe library, concur in all respects, and in containing no more than between fourteen and fifteen thousand stanzas: in this case the Bhágavata is nearer the truth, when it assigns to it fourteen thousand. We may conclude, therefore, that the reading of the passage is in this respect erroneous. It is correctly said that the subjects of the Puráńa were communicated by Vishńu, in the form of a fish, to Manu.

The Puráńa, after the usual prologue of Súta and the Rishis, opens with the account of the Matsya or 'fish' Avatára of Vishńu, in which he preserves a king named Manu, with the seeds of all things, in an ark, from the waters of that inundation which in the season of a Pralaya overspreads the world. This story is told in the Mahábhárata, with reference to the Matsya as its authority; from which it might be inferred that the Puráńa was prior to the poem. This of course is consistent with the tradition that the Puráńas were first composed by Vyása; but there can be no doubt that the greater part of the Mahábhárata is much older than any extant Puráńa. The present instance is itself a proof; for the primitive simplicity with which the story of the fish Avatára is told in the Mahábhárata is of a much more antique complexion than the mysticism and extravagance of the actual Matsya Puráńa. In the former, Manu collects the seeds of existing things in the ark, it is not said how: in the latter, he brings them all together by the power of Yoga.

[paragraph continues] In the latter, the great serpents come to the king, to serve as cords wherewith to fasten the ark to the horn of the fish: in the former, a cable made of ropes is more intelligibly employed for the purpose.