In this volume, leading American, European, and Indian scholars including John E. Cort, Friedhelm Hardy, Padmanabh S. Jaini, Laurie L. Patton, A. K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulman discuss the subject of the Purāṇas, focusing particularly on the relationship between the "Great Puran'as" of the Sanskrit tradition and the many other sorts of Purāṇas. The Puran'as are essentially collections of stories dealing with all aspects of myth, ritual, science, and history, and the authors of these essays are all superb storytellers.

The Mahapuranas embody the received tradition of Hindu mythology. This anthology contains fresh translations of these myths, only a few of which have ever been available in English before, thus providing a rich new portion of Hindu mythology. The book is organized into six chapters. "Origins" contains myths relating to creation, time, and space. "Seers, Kings and Supernaturals" relates tales of rivers, trees, animals, demons, and men, particularly heroes and sages. Myths about the chief gods are dealt with in three separate chapters: Krsna, Visnu, and Siva. The chapter The Goddess presents stories of the wives and lovers of the gods, as well as of Kali, the savage battle goddess. In their introductions, the editors provide a historical setting in which to discuss Hindu mythology as well as a full analysis of its basic sources. The many names are given the original. The editors have provided a thorough glossary to make these names accessible.

Vishnu Puran is believed to be one of the most important Puranas, if not the most valuable ancient record of the faith called Sanatan Dharma. Its stories reveal about the various exploits of Vishnu incarnations. In rendering this holy text into English, the attention has been paid to put only those details that have certain fundamental truths of life. Hence, in this work those details have been deliberately omitted which may appear rather confusing or uninteresting to the reader not having the initiation in the sacred love. The main thrust of this attempt has been to show a clear glimpse of our ancient hermitage.

A vast literature available in the form of Puranas, stands next to the Vedas, in importance and popularity. It envisages to popularize the precepts, morals and values, propounded in the Vedas, the Upanisads, the Epics, and the DharmaSutras. It not only succeeded in its mission, but also in completely revitalising and revolutionising, and modernising the Vedic religion. Later and modern Hindu religion is an offshoot of the Pauranic religion. The path of devotion and worship propounded in Vedic literature as against the path of ritualistic exercises was followed more vigorously in the Puranas. Thus, the Puranas freed Hinduism from the clutches of the chosen few and spilled it over to masses who were unable to understand the complexities of the Vedic doctrines. The simple and lucid language of these works made more easier the attainment of the desired objective of instruction to the masses in moral and mental education. The value of Puranas cannot be minimized by calling them mythological or religious. Their avowed theme is the presentation of the history of the kings up to the end of the 5th century A.D. There is no doubt that the Puranas embody the earliest traditional history and that much of their material is old and valuable. Altekar has correctly stressed the importance of the Puranas as a source of valuable information for the archaic period of Indian history. Taken collectively they may be described as a popular encyclopaedia of ancient and medieval Hinduism, religion, philosophy, history, politics, ethics etc. Indian tradition believes that the sage Vyasa, with the help of the tales, anecdotes, songs and lore, which had come down from the ages, compiled a Purana and taught it to his pupil, the Suta. He made that Puranasamhita into six versions and taught them to his six disciples. Evidently this handing over from teacher to his pupil continued for some times and resulted in the evolution of eighteen Puranas. The order of enumeration seems to be, more or less, stereotyped, with a few exceptions. The Puranas are classified on the basis of the trinity of gods, Brahma Visnu and Siva. According to the Padma Purana, the Saiva Puranas are : Matsya, Kurma, Linga, Siva, Skanda and Agni ; the Vaisnavas are Visnu, Narada, Bhagavata, Garuda, Padma and Varaha. The Puranas dedicated to Brahma are Brahmanda, Vamana, and Brahma. This would mean that the three gods Brahma, Visnu, and Siva would, respectively, be the object for adoration in their groups of the Puranas. But the two gods Visnu and Siva attained greater prominence which gave currency to the view that the Puranas advocate the worship of either Visnu or Siva.

Retold in simple language, underlining importance of each Purana, with a lucid summary.