THE PURANA INDEX

About the Book: The Puranas are infallible source of information of Indian history of religion, philosophy, culture and civilisation, polity of society, arts and crafts, architecture and iconography besides royal dynasties and period of their rule. It was long felt that a comprehensive Index of the Puranas was a desideratum. We have an Index to Vedic literature by Macdonell and Keith; we have also one to the Mahabharata by Sorensen; then why not a similar Index to all the eighteen major and an equal number of the minor Puranas which constitute an important branch of Indian literature? Inspired by this idea Prof. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, an eminent historian of the Madras University, set himself to work initially on five Mahapuranas viz. Vayu, Brahmanda, Matsya, Visnu, and Bhagavata in early fifties and this resulted in the publication by the Madras University of the present work in three parts. The present work in three parts is reminder to the Indologists of the new generation of the fact that a stupendous task yet remains to be done and that they should come forward and accept the challenge.