Book Description

The Vishnu Purana is a religious Hindu text and one of the eighteen Mahapuranas. It is considered one of the most important Puranas and has been given the name Puranaratna (gem of Puranas). Vishnu Purana includes many stories well known in Vedic tradition, including the various avatars of God Vishnu and the life of his complete incarnation, Krishna. Presented as a dialogue between Parashara and his disciple Maitreya and divided into six parts, the major topics discussed include creation, stories of battles fought between asuras and devas, the Avatars (divine descents) of Vishnu and genealogy and stories of legendary kings. Vishnu Purana ascribes its authorship to Veda Vyasa. The Padma Purana categorizes Vishnu Purana as a Sattva Purana (Purana which represents goodness and purity). In Vishnu Purana, worship of Vishnu has been given a lot of importance. Vishnu Purana puts forward that the worship of Vishnu could enable man to obtain the consummation of all earthly or materialistic desires and leads man to attain moksha or liberation from cycle of births and deaths in the material world. Similar to Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana declares Vishnu or Narayana as Para Brahman Supreme God who creates unlimited universes and enters each one of them as Lord of Universe. God Narayana engages in creation of 14 worlds within the universe as Brahma when he deliberately accepts rajas guna. God Narayana himself sustains, maintains and preserves the universe as Vishnu when he accepts sattva guna and annihilates the universe at the end of maha-kalpa as Shiva or Rudra when he accepts tamas guna.