Page:Works by the late Horace Hayman Wilson Vol 6.djvu/17

 The different works known by the name of Puranas are evidently derived from the same religious system as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, or from the mytho-heroic stage of Hindu belief. They present, however, peculiarities which designate their belonging to a later period, and to an important modification in the pro- gress of opinion. They repeat the theoretical cosmo- gony of the two great poems; they expand and systematize the chronological computations; and they give a more definite and connected representation of the mythological fictions and the historical traditions. But, besides these and other particulars, which may be derivable from an old, if not from a primitive, era, they offer characteristic peculiarities of a more modern description, in the paramount importance which they assign to individual divinities, in the variety and pur- port of the rites and observances addressed to them, and in the invention of new legends illustrative of the power and graciousness of those deities, and of the efficacy of implicit devotion to them. Siva and Vishnu, under one or other form, are almost the sole objects that claim the homage of the Hindus, in the Puranas; departing from the domestic and elemental ritual of the Vedas, and exhibiting a sectarial fervour and exclusiveness not traceable in the Ramayana, and only to a qualified extent in the Mahabharata. They are no longer authorities for Hindu belief, as a whole: they are special guides for separate and, sometimes, conflicting branches of it; compiled for the evident purpose of promoting the preferential, or, in some cases, the sole, worship of Vishnu, or of Siva.1

1 Besides the three periods marked by the Vedas, Heroic