Vedic values, used by brahmans for three main purposes: to make the bra ̄hman.ic
ideology accessible to a wider public, to draw popular myths, rituals and prac-
tices into the framework of this ideology, and to create a synthesis between the
varn.a ̄s ́ramadharmawhich gave society its norms and the s ́raman.a-derived values
of the renouncer. Although they were still performed to entertain their audi-
ences, there was now a stronger didactic purpose behind their recitation. Like
the week-end newspapers of the West at the end of the twentieth century, they
were telling their hearers not only how to live but also how to see the world.
In spite of this strong didactic character, the Pura ̄n.as are not the monologues
one might expect. They have a dialogic structure which conveys something
of the interaction between narrator and audience which took place in the days
when they were performances rather than books. All the Pura ̄n.as have a respon-
dent as well as a narrator – or perhaps he should be given the more active title
of questioner, since he requests information, changes the direction of the nar-
rative, determines the amount of detail which the narrator provides, and gen-
erally helps to shape the course of the Pura ̄n.a (cf. Bailey 1995: 75–7). Moreover,
there are hierarchies of interlocutors, and other pairs besides the chief narrator
and respondent are employed to introduce the stories and other types of ma-
terial which are embedded in the main narratives or major didactic passages.
The Pura ̄n.ic narratives are of various kinds. Some are creation myths found
also in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata, such as the churning of the Ocean of Milk (Mbh.
1.15.4–17.30;Vis.n.u1.9) or the raising of the earth from beneath the cosmic
waters (Mbh.3.100.19;Ma ̄rkan.d.eya47.2–14;Padma1.3.25b–52a; 5.3.20b–
52a;Va r a ̄ha2.21–6;Vis.n.u4.1–52). Others are stories of kings and princes which
augment the Pura ̄n.ic genealogies. Others again are stories of gods or goddesses:
Kr.s.n.a has a full-scale biography in Bha ̄gavata 10–11, Brahmavaivarta 4
(S ́ríkr.s.n.ajanmakhan.d.a),Padma(Pa ̄ta ̄lakhan.d.a69–99), and Vis.n.u5, while much
“biographical” information about S ́iva and his family is given in various parts of
theS ́ivaand the Skanda. There are also stories celebrating the power ofbhakti,
e.g. Vis.n.u’s deliverance of Ambaris.a from the wrath of Durva ̄sas (Bha ̄gavata
9.4.15–5.27), as well as others which present violations ofdharmawhich are
not to be followed, e.g. Vis.n.u3.18.52–94, which tells of King S ́atadhanu, who
has to suffer a number of animal rebirths as a consequence of talking with a
heretic (pa ̄s.an.d.a), and is only reborn eventually as a man through the loyalty of
his virtuous wife.
In spite of their awareness of their own religious significance, there is no indi-
cation that the Pura ̄n.as were ever like the Vedas in being memorized as exactly
as possible for word-perfect transmission from one generation to the next. On the
contrary, their nature as performances and the audience participation which is
symbolized by the respondent/questioner meant that they preserved the core of
their message by continually changing, perhaps incorporating the praises of a
newly-built temple (e.g. the celebration of the Su ̄ rya temple at Kon.a ̄rka in
Brahma28), referring to some important event in the life of the society around
them (as Vis.n.u3.17 may refer to the expulsion of Buddhists from the region of
the Narmada ̄), or showing changes in the religious affiliation of the group which
the pura ̄n.as 131