Purana

August 24th
Ludo Rochers Purana almost like Bible
- Frequently used but never defined,
- Western textual point of view does not work here
- Genre/not a genre
- Usual western textual way scholars thought of collecting
manuscripts, then they classified and collated them e.g.
visnupurana etc. very wrong way of handling this
- Purana, in traditional way with reference to sastra, veda, itihasa,
Purana-itihasa, kavya.
Veda is a text that s written orally, fixed, lots of resistence to see it
written,
- It is called sruti that which is authored
- But technically there is no author to veda - that is how tradition
wants to describe it
- Chandas memorize and repeat it in the particular accentual
pattern
- Lots of resistence to reciting vedas when you are not taught
- It has the value only for the sound
- Sound has an affect of its own
- Remembering sruti and memorizing it when young only boys utter
women are not allowed to do it non-Brahmins cannot
- Very limited texts
- Rig, Sama,Yajur, Atharvana, - 3+1 rather than 4
- Technically RigVeda is the real Veda articulated in a dfferent way in
a different tone becomes sama samaveda beginning of music in
India.
- Atharvana rituals
- Trayi another word for Vedas
Purana interestingly related to Veda
- A slightly different way of looking at it
- Sabda divided into two sound and meaning
- Veda is all sound, you dont memorise it for meaning
- only after Yaska people started thinking about meaning
- by then meanings of many sounds were already lost
- Everyone/every family had their own vedas make sure that you
learn your veda first before others
- the three vedas are preserved
- Veda-reciters and veda-scholars who know the meanings are
different
- Purana is written for meaning, not fixed, even the written form is
not the standard form
- Veda and Purana - Sound and meaning tremendous change to the
religion
- Purana allows change in the meaning

Vedas were not translated into any Indian languages until

eighteenth century
Enormous Sanskrit materials translated into Indian languages were
Puranas

Kavyas- both sound and meaning when you come to translate you dont
translate Kavyas
- Only Puranas were translated
- Vedas and Kavyas not translated
- Kalidasa was not translated
- All the Puranas translated into Telugu
- What is the relationship between Puranas and Vedas
- You will be hurting the Vedas if you dont learn the purana before
- Puranas claim superiority in comparison to Vedas
- Why do they say that way?
Sound is not translatable
Only the meaning of the text is translatable
Veda is supposed to legislate like a king
It doesnt tell the benefits of doing it
Veda - Prabhusambhida
Purana mitrasamhita
Kavya advises you like a girlfriend kantasamhita
All three supposed to be saying the same thing
18 Mahapuranas a symbolic number and 18 sub-puranas
- again an oral tradition there is a certain way of remembering it
- these puranas available in texts but the texts themselves say they
are not written
syllables organized to be begin with sounds
Panini the greatest Grammar utterly produced with sound uttering
the Mahesvara-sutras in sound first
- much later graphic forms were associated
- you can have many graphic forms to the sound
- always beginning with sound
- because they wanted to make sure vedas are pronounced they
define it by sound
- is it samvrita or vivrta is it voiced or unvoiced
- defining a sound by place and manner sthana and karana of
articulation for how it should be pronounced with effort prayatna
- Sanskrit has no script but it is written in the nigari script
- A whole organization to propagate Nagari script
- Sanskrit is a language that came with sound first
- Indian languages can have two forms written and oral forms
- Well learned people with no script

Bahusruta one who heard a lot of things scholarship without

script
One who writes down has a lower status
Vyasa dictating Ganapati was writing
Writing and sound
Oraliteracy graphic-literacy
You say a book, utter, create --- a book
Write was never used to compose
How a text is conceptualized in India what is a text

Itihsa
- A subdivision of purana Mahabharata is a purana
- Mahabharata is called a itihasa for a particular reason
Ramayana is a kavya
- Valmiki poet
Sastra
- Following the dictation of the veda sastra to liegislate sas-to
command
- Veda- no human wrote it
- Vyasa author of purana
- Sastra always a mythologically ascribed author e.g. Manudharmasastra, Bharata, ---composed by people who have a higher
level of knowledge than human beings
Can find fault with kavya but not in the other texts
What makes Purana a genre by tradition?
If purana is a genre how does the tradition define it?
Characterstics of Purana Amara says 5 (puranam pancalaksanam)
i.
Sristi creation
ii.
Pratisristi recreation
iii.
Manvantara which Manu is
iv.
Vamsa family
v.
Vamsanucarita
Time is cyclic in Puranic culture
I.
Kritayuga
II.
Tretayuga
III.
Dvaparayuga
IV.
Kaliyuga
At the end of age there is a minor destruction
Pancalaksana-purana orients a time a cultural definition of time
Puranas provides theme
Sastras never contradicts a purana

Purana at the very centre of things but they themselves cannot defined
easily
Orally literate text articulated by a person called pauranika
Purana-discourse becomes more than one purana
Contradictions in the purana
Purana- text-feel, has dual authorship Vyasa and Pauranika
Purana begins with a question
- Reproduction of an answer given by an earlier scholar
- Puranas dialogic
- Origin itself is oral
Living and dead puranas
Some information can be produced on some of the puranas when they
were discoursed
Many puranas only available in names
Largely bhakti has taken over --Narayaniya was stotra
Kalajnana
Puranas collective compendium of all the stories people know
Interpolation two meanings
- In the West Textual has to have some scholastic basis
- In India It is semantic two contradictory stories both can be ok.
Puranas - before and after bhakti traditions
-

Bhagavatapurana is the marker

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Stories already known by the person asking it.
You can borrow the narrative and do something very different.
Telegu version of the Prijtpaharaa
- Krishna stealing Parijaata tree repeated in many stories.
- Earlier it was told to show the emergence of new Gods in the Pura
- In the Telugu version Nrada comes to visit Ka gives him a
Parijata flower which he gives to Rukmini Satyapama was envying
Wives rivalry at home
- Ka stealing the whole tree for Satyaapaamaa
- Life in the world is better than life in heaven
- Human life is better than the gods life Ka is more important
than the other Gods.

Concept of time in Vishnu-Pura -

How is genre understood in Sanskrit texts?

Most rasa-s are already inherent in human. People may have to refine
their literary taste.
Bhakti was debated on whether it is a rasa or not.
Jaganntha-paita said it is not a rasa. Bhakti is not acquired just by
the fact of being human. Rasa-gangadhara in relation to Gtagovinda. If
you are describing gods in poems describe them like human beings.
Rasa- is basically secular.
stra qualities?