Know the Puranas

by Ramanuj Prasad

In fact the word Purana in Hindi, meaning `old`, owes its origin to The Puranas. There are ancient scriptures - 18 in all,with 18 Upapuranas - which are the guidelines to life in the form of ancient tales and instructions, and show us the true path of devotion to the duties, discipline [conduct] and identity with the Lord. They are basically classified into three categories: Sattavic, Rajasic and Tamasic.

An overview:

• Bhavishya Purana,deals with the building of temples, types of temples, suitable places for temples etc. It also suggests a number of vratas like ubhaya dvadasi vrata, tilak vtata, rasakalyani vrata etc.for propitiating gods.
• Padma Purana extols the blessings of elders and holy persons.
• Garuda Purana talks about the glorification of rituals.
• Vishnu Purana tells us that whatever is glorious,excellent and permanent verily,is in the splendour of the Lord.
• Brahma Vaivbarta Purana describes that Lord Krishna is the initiator of the creation, and from his body other gods have come
  into being such as Mahadeva, Durga, Lakshmi and Narayana.

About the author:

Born in 1936, Ramanuj Prasad has been associated with spiritual houses such as the Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Arsha Vidya Gurukula, Narayana Gurukulam and Yogoda Satsang Society. Introspection and logical thinking led to the author producing many professional papers and case studies. An ardent believer in Vedanta,he has also composed about a dozen poems on Vedantic themes. The author has been blessed with multi-discipline academic records in Economics, Engineering and Management. Having served government and public sector institutions for around 40 years, he retired as a senior executive in 1994. Vedantic Truth Revealed, Veda: A way of life, and Know the Upanishads ,published by Pustak Mahal ,are some of his highly acclaimed books.