Studies in the Puranic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs

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The Puranas present a rich collection of materials for the study of Hindu rites and customs during the period ranging approximately from 200 to 1000 A.D.

As the rites and customs were not the production of a single social dictator or of a particular period of time but were revised from generation to generation, the subject involves the perplexing problem of chronology not only of the individual Puranas but also of their chapters and parts. However, the Puranas contain evidence of their rites and customs. The present study is an attempt, on the basis of this evidence, to determine the chronology of the Puranas. The book is divided into two parts. Part I comprises four chapters that deal with the problem of the Puranic chronology. Part II contains five chapters that describe the stages in the development of the Puranic rites and customs on the basis of the chronology. The book has two appendices. These contain lists of traceable and untraceable Puranic verses cited by the commentators and Nibandha-writers. The lists are useful for determining the dates of the Puranic chapters from which the quotations were made.

Rajendra Chandra Hazra (1905-10 May 1982) after being a star-pupil during his schooling years, he obtained a B.A. and M.A. in Sanskrit from Dacca University in 1929 and 1931, respectively; standing first class first at both stages. He earned a PhD in 1936 under the guidance of S. K. De, while working as a lecturer in Sanskrit and Bengali at the Jagannath Intermediate College. From 1939 to 1951, Hazra worked at Dacca University, where he rose to be the head of the Department of Sanskrit.

He was a scholar and Sanskritist known for his studies of Puranic literature (the Puranas and the Upapuranas).

The extant Puranas present a very rich collection of materials for the study of the development of Hindu rites and customs during the centuries intervening between Yajnavalkya and the Smrti- Nibandhas. During this long period, the Hindu society passed through numerous vicissitudes, so much so that in many respects the Hindu rites and customs, as found in the Nibandhas, differ from those in the Codes of Manu and Yajnavalkya. Hence the study of the Puranas is of immense importance for a clear under- standing of the whole course of the development. But none of the extant Puranas being assignable to any positive date, the greatest difficulty which makes their study impracticable and unscientific is the want of a proper chronology of the chapters constituting the individual Puranas. Unfortunately no systematic attempt was made to remove this long felt want, probably because, as Mr. P. V. Kane says, 'the chronology of the Puranas is, like that of the epics, a subject full of perplexing problems'. The work, done by such eminent scholars as H. H. Wilson, F. E. Pargiter and Haraprasad Shastri even in regard to the approximate dates of only a few of the Puranic works, is not at all considerable, nor are their conelusions always acceptable. Hence the first thing, on which attention has been directed in this work, has been to determine as approximately as possible the chronology of the Puranic chapters, or parts thereof, on Hindu rites and customs. I should mention here that in this chronology, which is based only on such evidences as are contained in the majority of the editions of the individual Puranas, attention has been given especially to those chapters which are devoted mainly to the treatment of the above mentioned topics; and, the scope of this work being limited to the study of these matters during the period ranging approximately from 200 to 1000 A.D., those Puranas, which have been found to be hardly earlier than the tenth century, have been dealt with very briefly. However, on the basis of this chronology, which forms Part I of this work, I have attempted to describe in Part II the different stages in the development of the Puranic rites and customs.