Nothing ever really dies in India. That which is old is perennially revived and recast as the new. In the domain of literature, ancient texts and tropes were never forgotten; they were simply reinvented – repurposed to respond to the emergent needs of a quickly changing world. George Hart and Hank Heifetz summarise this dynamic well:
South Asian culture is essentially syncretistic. Its writers and thinkers tend not to attempt to create a coherent system by discarding earlier cultural elements that do not fit in with their ideas but rather to synthesise everything that has gone before, throwing away nothing but rather subordinating everything to the idea or point of view that they wish to advance.
Every text in this chapter reflects (to a lesser or greater degree) this syncretic process of literary synthesis. Each text also puts forth an idiosyncratic epistemology particular to the beliefs and agendas of its composers/advocates. Thus, although authors presented different world views, their processes of articulation, i.e., their methods of synthesis and reformulation, were shared. For example, in the diverse, multi-religious milieu of post-Gupta-era India (roughly 400-1000 CE), Jains took up Hindu myths, sanitised them and refashioned them with a Jaina sensibility, while Hindus embraced the Buddha as an avatāra of their central god Viṣṇu. These were classic examples of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Thus, even though these projects were reactionary by nature, they accomplished their objectives not through rejection but through integration.
All of the texts in this chapter are from the purāṇas, a voluminous and varied body of sacred literature primarily concerned with cosmology, mythology and genealogy. The word purana means old, ancient, primeval and decayed. It also means an old tale, legend or ancient history. As a genre of literature, all puranic texts are said to include five elements or lakṣaṇas: 1. genesis (sarga); 2. dissolution (pratisarga); 3. genealogy (vaṁśa); 4. cosmic cycle (manvantara); and 5. royal dynasties (vaṁśānucarita).
In addition, Vyāsa is considered the traditional author of all the Hindu puranas; and the recitation of the text is often set in a frame story similar to the one described in the Mahābhārata, that is, a grand Vedic ritual where a sūta (often Ugraśravas or his father Romaharṣaṇa) arrives and entertains the priests with enchanting stories. By borrowing such pre-existing tropes, the puranic authors were able to advance their agendas within a well-established narrative framework. Here is another example, in which a Vedic hymn is invoked in the Bhāgavatam. In the detailed section on śṛṣṭi, or creation, the text includes the following description: ‘an expansion of the universe is created by the arrangement of God’s limbs as an essential form which is truly pure and powerful’, a direct reference to the famous Puruṣa Sūkta of the Ṛig Veda.
Time, in all its manifestations (cosmic, earthly, causal, etc.), is a central concern of the puranas. Puranic time is cyclical, foldable, non-linear and asynchronous. It breaks down common notions of chronological temporality and overlays them with a worldview that blurs myth, history and lived experience. In short, a purana is the old made new, and the past made present. In fact, there is even a Bhaviṣya Purāṇa that tells of things yet to come; it literally means “the future past”.
From a cosmological perspective, the puranic present is the Kali Yuga, the final epoch of the four-tiered yuga system in which dharma is on its last leg. The Kali Yuga is our present time, an age of moral decline and social unrest, and a harbinger of the universe’s dissolution. The Bhagavatam elaborates:
In this Kali Yuga, the force of irreligion cuts the four legs of religion down to one . . . a time of deceit, falsehood, lethargy, violence, depression, sorrow, delusion, fear and poverty. People’s materialistic minds are wrapped up in self-interest and political power . . . political leaders quarrelling over land, each claiming it’s all mine, fight and kill each other. People are greedy, merciless, needlessly hostile and hapless; short-sighted, gluttonous, lustful, dispossessed, and isolated. Communities are overrun by thieves; heretics desecrate the Vedas; political leaders devour their own citizens; and priests are devoted to their groins and bellies. People’s minds are constantly anxious and fearful, debilitated by taxes and famine . . . the land is drought-ridden and barren.
This rather grim assessment of our present condition is a mere set-up for the purana’s primary function, which is glorification of God – or rather, a god, for each purana presents its chosen deity as the ultimate saviour. In the case of the Bhagavatam, it is Kṛṣṇa who is the sole path to redemption, “the one saving grace in the ocean of sin that is the Kali Yuga”. Here it is crucial to bear in mind that the coming end, or pralaya, is not total annihilation but rather a “melting away”, a “repose” or even an “embrace”. It is simply dormancy before another cycle of creation. Like the Greek term “apocalypse”, pralaya is not a terminal end but a revelatory “uncovering”. The doomsday prophecies of the Kali Yuga are being experienced by us right now. And with the spectre of war, famine, drought, climate change and planetary extinction hanging over us, the puranas take on an eerie relevance and urgency – they foretell both the doom of cosmic dissolution and the promise of universal renewal.
At this point in the evolution of Hinduism, the concept of the trimūrti, or Divine Trinity, was developed, in which Brahma is the creator of the universe, Vishnu its sustainer and Śiva its destroyer. For reasons explained in the puranas themselves, only Vishnu and Shiva are worshipped; there are no temples or pūjas for Brahma.5 His position of worship is filled by Śakti or Devī, the goddess in all her divine manifestations. Thus, the three main branches of Hindu religiosity are Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva and Śākta. It is important to bear in mind that these sectarian differences are often overemphasized in the puranas and that they hold little meaning for most practitioners. In India today, most Hindus visit temples and offer prayers to all the gods. One often has an iṣṭa-devata, a favourite deity, or a kuladevata, a family deity, but they do not preclude worship of other deities. This form of ecumenical religiosity is another expression of Hinduism’s unique ability to integrate singularity and plurality.
Excerpted with permission from Illuminating Worlds: An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature, Srinivas Reddy, Bloomsbury India.
