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Garuda purana

The Garuda Purana is one of 18 Mahāpurāṇa texts in Hinduism. It is a part of Vaishnavism literature corpus, primarily centering around Hindu god Vishnu. Composed in Sanskrit and also available in various languages like Gujarati and English. The earliest version of the text may have been composed in the first millennium BCE, but it was likely expanded and changed over a long period of time.

The Garuda Purana text is known in many versions, contains 15000+ verses. Its chapters encyclopedically deal with a highly diverse collection of topics. The text contains cosmology, mythology, relationship between gods, ethics, good versus evil, various schools of Hindu philosophies, the theory of Yoga, the theory of "heaven and hell" with "karma and rebirth", ancestral rites and soteriology, rivers and geography, types of minerals and stones, testing methods for gems for their quality, listing of plants and herbs, various diseases and their symptoms, various medicines, aphrodisiacs, prophylactics, Hindu calendar and its basis, astronomy, moon, planets, astrology, architecture, building home, essential features of a Hindu temple, rites of passage, charity and gift making, economy, thrift, duties of a king, politics, state officials and their roles and how to appoint them, genre of literature, rules of grammar, and other topics.The final chapters discuss how to practice Yoga (Samkhya and Advaita types), personal development and the benefits of self-knowledge.

The Padma Purana categorizes the Purana, along with itself, Bhagavata Purana and Vishnu Purana, as a Sattva Purana (a purana which represents goodness and purity). The text, like all Mahapuranas, is attributed to sage Veda Vyāsa in the Hindu tradition.

According to Pintchman, the text was composed sometime in the first millennium of the common era, but it was likely compiled and changed over a long period of time. Gietz et al. place the first version of the text only between the fourth century CE and the eleventh century.

Leadbeater states that the text is likely from about 900 CE, given that it includes chapters on Yoga and Tantra techniques that likely developed later. Other scholars suggest that the earliest core of the text may be from the first centuries of the common era, and additional chapters were added thereafter through the sixth century or later.

The version of Garuda Purana that survives into the modern era, states Dalal, is likely from 800 to 1000 CE with sections added in the 2nd-millennium. Pintchman suggests 850 to 1000 CE. Chaudhuri and Banerjee, as well as Hazra, on the other hand, state it cannot be from before about the tenth or eleventh century CE.

The text exists in many versions, with varying numbers of chapters, and considerably different content. Some Garuda Purana manuscripts have been known by the title of Sauparna Purana (mentioned in Bhagavata Purana section 12.13), Tarksya Purana (the Persian scholar Al-Biruni who visited India mentions this name), and Vainateya Purana (mentioned in Vayu Purana section 2.42 and 104.8).

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, a text called Garudapuranasaroddhara was published, then translated by Ernest Wood and SV Subrahmanyam. This, states Ludo Rocher, created major confusion because it was mistaken for Garuda Purana, when it is not, a misidentification first discovered by Albrecht Weber. Garuda-purana-saroddhara actually is the original bhasya work of Naunidhirama, that cites a section of now non-existent version of Garuda Purana as well as other Indian texts. The earliest translation of one version of Garuda Purana, by Manmatha Nath Dutt, was published in the early twentieth century.

Available only in the Venkateswara Edition of the Garuda Purana,it has 29 chapters in the form of an interlocution between Krishna and Garuda, on the supremacy of Vishnu, the nature and form of other Gods, description of the shrine of Venkateshwara at Tirupati and other Tirthas there.[68] While speaking about the supremacy of Vishnu and the nature of other gods, it criticises some of the Advaitic doctrines (like Upadhi, Maya,Avidya) and upholds the doctrine of Madhvacharya's school; a distinctive feature which is scarecely observed in any other purana.

The form and the contents of this section prove it's later origin ,a fact further substantiated by the absence of any reference to this section in other Puranas such as The Narada Purana.

Courtesy--wikipedia
- Garuda purana

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