Date of the Purāṇas

The Purāṇas are also works of evidently different ages, and have been compiled under different circumstances, the precise nature of which we can but imperfectly conjecture from internal evidence, and from what we know of the history of religious opinion in India. It is highly probable, that of the present popular forms of the Hindu religion, none assumed their actual state earlier than the time of Śaṅkara Ācārya, the great Śaiva reformer, who flourished, in all likelihood, in the eighth or ninth century. Of the Vaiṣṇava teachers, Rāmānuja dates in the twelfth century, Madhvācārya in the thirteenth, and Vallabha in the sixteenth^[1]; and the Purāṇas seem to have accompanied or followed their innovations, being obviously intended to advocate the doctrines they taught. This is to assign to some of them a very modern date, it is true; but I cannot think that a higher can with justice be ascribed to them. This, however, applies to some only out of the number, as I shall presently proceed to specify.

Another evidence of a comparatively modern date must be admitted in those chapters of the Purāṇas which, assuming a prophetic tone, foretell what dynasties of kings will reign in the Kālī age. These chapters, it is true, are found but in four of the Purāṇas, but they are conclusive in bringing down the date of those four to a period considerably subsequent to Christianity. It is also to be remarked, that the Vāyu, Viṣṇu, Bhāgavata, and Matsya Purāṇas, in which these particulars are foretold, have in all other respects the character of as great antiquity as any works of their class^[2].