Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/312

 is to recommend the sectarian cult of Vishṇu, though some of them favour the worship of Çiva.

Besides cosmogony, they deal with mythical descriptions of the earth, the doctrine of the cosmic ages, the exploits of ancient gods, saints, and heroes, accounts of the Avatārs of Vishṇu, the genealogies of the Solar and Lunar race of kings, and enumerations of the thousand names of Vishṇu or of Çiva. They also contain rules about the worship of the gods by means of prayers, fastings, votive offerings, festivals, and pilgrimages.

The Garuḍa, as well as the late and unimportant Agni Purāṇa, practically constitute abstracts of the Mahābhārata and the Harivaṃça.

The Vāyu, which appears to be one of the oldest, coincides in part of its matter with the Mahābhārata, but is more closely connected with the Harivaṃça, the passage which deals with the creation of the world often agreeing verbatim with the corresponding part of the latter poem.

The relationship of the Matsya Purāṇa to the great epic and its supplementary book as sources is similarly intimate. It is introduced with the story of Manu and the Fish (Matsya). The Kūrma, besides giving an account of the various Avatārs of Vishṇu (of which the tortoise or kūrma is one), of the genealogies of gods and kings, as well as other matters, contains an extensive account of the world in accordance with the accepted cosmological notions of the Mahābhārata and of the Purāṇas in general. The world is here represented as consisting of seven concentric islands separated by different oceans. The central island, with Mount Meru in the middle, is Jambu-dvīpa, of which Bhārata-varsha,