A Sociological Approach to the Study of the Sanskrit Purānas

Dear Colleagues,

Background: Stories from Sanskrit Purānas have informed much of popular Hindu practice for over a thousand years.  Western and Indian scholars alike have generally assumed that the diverse Purāna story collections contain little historically reliable material and have focused instead on making sense of their seemingly endless variations in stories of Hindu deities. To deal with the sheer volume of these works, those brave enough to translate entire Purānas have understandably skimmed over historically relevant details without comment. Those pursuing comparative analysis of Purāna mythology have similarly assumed that Purānas contain little of historical significance, often editing out historical clues in juxtaposing related passages (e.g., Courtright, 1985; O’Flaherty, 1973; Dimmit and van Buitenen, 1978).

More recently, however, a handful of scholars have complemented the above approaches by drawing out historically meaningful information from these complex works. Most generally, Bailey (1999, 2002, 2003) notes that some paurānikas—those charged with preserving Purānas—peek out from the dominant mythological time frame and hint at specific historical contexts.  Narayan Rao (1993, 2004) points out the need to move beyond treating Purānas exclusively as written works, given that paurānikas never read through an entire Purāna in sequential order.  He also emphasizes that paurānikas have continually retold, rearranged and added to the Purānas over thousands of years, suggesting that such an evolution may at least be partly discernible by a comparative reading between the lines of individual purānas. Indeed, Söhnen-Thieme (2005) and Malinar (2005) offer one way of looking for traces of paurānika lineages by analyzing the frame stories of two important Purānas. Vassilkov (2002) stresses the importance of pilgrimage sites and rituals in making sense of the way the Mahābhārata epic, the precursor of the later Purāna collections, attained its current form; his analysis suggests that pilgrimage is central to understanding the evolution of the Purāna literature as well. In another case, Coburn’s (1984) research points out the independent ritual use of the Devī Mahātmya since at least the colonial period.

The above examples seek to demonstrate the need for a deeper and more nuanced historical–sociological approach to the Purāna literary genre. From expanded, combined vantage points of the above seminal scholarship, purānas do more than catalogue the exploits of numerous deities.  These medieval compendia also reflect place-specific interactions between paurānika storytellers and their audiences, linked across space and time by a shared reverence for India’s sacred geography.  Obsolete descriptions of the Purānas as loose-knit compilations of divergent mythologies reinforce the common stereotype of the Hindu tradition as a haphazard clustering of divergent beliefs and practices, rather than identify the consistency and integrity of distinct storytelling lineages prior to their amalgamation during later periods; such an amalgamation was often driven by the need for a unified front in response to external critiques of Hindu ways of life.  

Our Aim & Scope: For this Special Issue of Religions, we invite scholars whose research builds on the above-mentioned scholarship focused on the historical–sociological study of the Purānas, illuminating the ways that paurānikas throughout history have focused, and/or continue to focus, on the lived practice of their communities. The above ground-breaking scholarly analyses have so far remained scattered in specialized journals and are thus mostly ignored by those who would benefit from a clearer understanding of the Purānas. Contributors to the Special Issue are invited to expand on the insights of the aforementioned seminal Purāna scholars so that this newest wave of expansion can be collected in one place.

Research Areas: We welcome both original research articles and reviews of existing research from a historical–sociological perspective. Researchers are encouraged to engage in the systematic comparison of contextual clues related to themes in the Purāna scholarship outlined above, including, but not limited to, the following:
(a) Pilgrimage, sectarian affiliations and associated rituals treated in purānas, including distinguishing between travel prescriptions vs. glorification of worship sites at a distance;
(b) Lineages of sages, storytellers and listeners identified in outermost frame stories;
(c) Alignment (or lack thereof) of a given purana with other paurānika lineages and/or traditional lists of 18 Purānas.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarizing their intended contribution to the Guest Editors, Prof. Joël Dubois ([email protected]) and Prof. Deven M. Patel ([email protected]), and CC the Assistant Editor, Margaret Liu ([email protected]) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review.

We thank you in advance for your interest in this topic and look forward to receiving your contributions.

References:

Bailey, Greg (2003), 'The Sanskrit Purānas: A Critical Survey of Recent Scholarship,” in A. Sharma (ed.), The Study of Hinduism (Charleston: University of South Carolina Press), 139-168.

Bailey, Greg (2002), 'Temporal Schemes in the VāmanaPurāna,” in Brockington, M. (ed.) Stages and Transitions: temporal and historical frameworks in epic and purānic literature (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences), 193-220.

Bailey, Greg (1999), “Intertextuality in the Purānas: a neglected element in the study of Sanskrit literature,” in Brockington, M. and Schreiner, P., (eds) Composing a Tradition: Concepts, Techniques and Relationships (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences), 179-198.

Coburn, Thomas (1984), Devī Māhātmya: The Crystalization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers).

Courtright, Paul (1985), Ganesha: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings (New York: Oxford University Press).

Dimmit, Cornelia and van Buitenen, J.A. (1978), Classical Hindu Mythology: a Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press)

Malinar, Angelika (2005). “How Purāṇas Relate the Mahābhārata: The Case of King Parikṣit,” in Epics, Khilas, and Purāṇas: Continuities and Ruptures. Proceedings of the Third Dubrovnik International Conference on Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), 465-494.

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed. (1993), Purana Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts (Albany, NY: SUNY Press).

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed. (1973), Śiva, the Erotic Ascetic (New York: Oxford University Press).

Rao, Velcheru Narayana (2004), "Purāna," in Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby, eds. The Hindu World (New York: Routledge), 97-114.

Rao, Velcheru Narayana (1993), "Purāna as Brahminic Ideology," in Wendy Doniger, ed., Purāna Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts (Albany, NY: SUNY Press), 85-100.

Söhnen-Thieme, Renate (2005). The setting of Puranas: frame stories, layers of interlocution, and ultimate authority,” in Koskikallio, Petteri, (ed.), Epics, Khilas, and Puranas: Continuities and Ruptures. Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, pp 437-469

Vassilkov, Yaroslav (2002), “Indian practice of pilgrimage and the growth of the Mahābhārata,” in Stages and Transitions: temporal and historical frameworks in epic and puråˆic literature (Zabreb: Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences), 193-220

Dr. Joël Dubois
Dr. Deven M. Patel
Guest Editors

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• Sanskrit
• Purānas
• sociological analysis
• historical analysis
• storytelling lineages