PRIYA-VRATA One of the two sons of Brahma and Sata-rupa; or, according to other statements, a son of Manu Swayam-bhuva. "Priya-vrata being dissatisfied that only hall the earth was illuminated at one time by the solar rays, followed the sun seven times round the earth in his own flaming car of equal velocity, like another celestial orb, resolved to turn night into day."' He was stopped by Brahma. "The ruts which were formed by the motion of his chariot wheels were the seven oceans. In this way the seven continents of the earth were made." -Bhagavata Purana. In the Vishnu Purana his wife is stated to be Kamya, daughter of Kardama, by whom he had ten sons and two daughters. Three of the sons adopted a religious life, and Priya-vrata divided the seven continents among the others.

PULAHA Name of one of the Praja-patis and great Rishis His wife was Kshama, and he had three sons, Kardama, Arva-rivat, and Sahishnu. A Gandharva (q.v.).

PULASTYA One of the Praja-patis or mind-born sons of Brahma, and one of the great Rishis. He was the medium through which some of the puranas were communicated to man. He received the Vishnu Purana from Brahma and communicated it to Parasara, who made it known to mankind. He was father of Visravas, the father of Kuvera and Ravana, and all the Rakshasas are supposed to have sprung from him.

PULINDAS Barbarians; barbarous tribes living in woods and mountains, especially in Central India; but there were some in the north and on the Indus.

PULOMAN A Danava and father of Sachi, wife of Indra. He was killed by Indra when he wished to curse that deity for having ravished his daughter.

PUNDARIKAKSHA 'The lotus-eyed;' a name of Vishnu. 

PUNDRA A country corresponding "to Bengal proper, with part of South Bihar and the Jungle Mahals." A fabulous city between the Hima-vat and Hema-kuta.

PUNYA-SLOKA (mas.), PUNVA-SLOKA (fem.)  ‘Hymned in holy verse.’ An appellation applied to Krishna, Yudhi-shthira, and Nala, also to Draupadi and Sati.

PURANA 'Old,' hence an ancient legend or tale of olden times. The Puranas succeed the Itihasas or epic poems, but at a considerable distance of time, and must be distinguished from them. The epics treat of the legendary actions of heroes as mortal men, the Puranas celebrate the powers and works of positive gods, and represent a later and more extravagant development of Hinduism, of which they are in fact the Scriptures. The definition of a Purana by Amara Sinha, an ancient Sanskrit lexicographer, is a work" which has five distinguishing topics:- (1.) The creation of the universe; (2.) Its destruction and renovation; (3.) The genealogy of gods and patriarchs; (4.) The reigns of the Manus, forming the periods called Manwantaras. (5.) The history of the Solar and Lunar races of kings. "These are the Pancha-lakshanas or distinguishing marks, but no one of the puranas answers exactly to the description; some show a partial conformity with it, others depart from it very widely. The Vishnu purana is the one, which best accords with the title. Wilson says, "A very great portion of the contents of many is genuine and old. The sectarial interpolation or embellishment is always sufficiently palpable to be set aside without injury to the more authentic and primitive material ; and the Puranas, although they belong especially to that stage of the Hindu religion in which faith in some one divinity was the prevailing principle, are also a valuable record of the form of Hindu belief which came next in order to that of the Vedas, which grafted hero. worship upon the simpler ritual of the latter, and which had been adopted, and was extensively, perhaps universally, established in India at the time of the Greek invasion. " According to the same authority, Pantheism " is one of their invariable characteristics," and underlies their whole teaching, "although the particular divinity who is all things, from whom all things proceed, and to whom all things return, is diversified according to their individual sectarian bias." The puranas are all written in verse, and their invariable form is that of a dialogue between an exponent and an inquirer, interspersed with the dialogues and observations of other individuals. Thus Pulastya received the Vishnu Purana from Brahma; he made it known to Parasara, and Parasara narrated it to his disciple Maitreya. The Puranas are eighteen in number, and in addition to these there are eighteen Upa Puranas or subordinate works. The Puranas are classified in three categories, according to the prevalence in them of the qualities of purity, gloom, and passion. Those in which the quality of Sattwa or purity prevail are-(1.) Vishnu, (2.) Naradiya, (3.) Bhagavata, (4.) Garuda, (5.) Padma, (6.) Varaha.

These are Vaishnava Puranas, in which the god Vishnu holds the pre-eminence. The Puranas in which Tamas, the quality of gloom or ignorance, predominates are-(1.) Matsya, (2.) Kurma, (3.) Linga, (4.) Siva, (5.) Skanda, (6.) Agni. These are devoted to the god Siva. Those in which Rajas or passion prevails relate chiefly to the god Brahma. They are-(I.) Brahma, (2.) Brahmanda, (3.) Brahma-vaivarta, (4.) Markandeya, (5.) Bhavishya, (6.) vamana. The works themselves do not fully justify this classification. None of them are devoted exclusively to one god, but Vishnu and his incarnations fill the largest space. One called the vayu Purana is in some of the Puranas substituted for the Agni, and in others for the Siva. This Vayu is apparently the oldest of them, and may date as far back as the sixth century, and it is considered that some of the others may be as late as the thirteenth or even the sixteenth century. One fact appears certain: they must all have received a supplementary revision, because each one of them enumerates the whole eighteen. The Markandeya is the least sectarian of the Puranas; and the Bhagavata, which deals at length with the incarnations of Vishnu, and particularly with his form Krishna, is the most popular. The most perfect and the best known is the Vishnu, which has been entirely translated into English by Professor Wilson, and a second edition, with many valuable notes, has been edited by Dr. F. E. Hall. The text of the Agni and Markandeya Puranas is in course of publication in the Bibliotheca Indica. The Puranas vary greatly in length. Some of them specify the number of couplets that each of the eighteen contains. According to the Bhagavata, the sum total of couplets in the whole eighteen is 400,000; the Skanda is the longest, with 81,000, the Brahma and the vamana the shortest, with 10,000 complete each. The UpaPuranas are named-(1.) Sanat-kumara, ( 2.) Nara-sinha or Nri-sinha, (3.) Naradiya or Vrihan (old) Naradiya, (4.) Siva, (5.) Dur-vasasa,(6.) Kapila, (7.) Manava, (8.) Ausanasa, (9.) Varuna, (10) Kalika, (11.) samba, (12.) Nandi, (13.) Saura, (14-) Para-sara, (15.) Aditya, (16.) Maheswara, (17.) Bhagavata, (18.) Vasishtha. These works are not common. Other modern works exist to which the term purana has been applied. An account of each of the eighteen great Puranas is given under its own name.  

PURAN-JAYA 'City-conqueror.' A prince of the Solar race, son of Vikukshi His story, as told in the Vishnu Purana, is that in the Treta age there was war between the gods and the .Asuras, in which the former were worsted. They had re- course to Vishnu for assistance, and he d4'ected them to obtain the aid of Puran-jaya, into whose person he promised to infuse a portion of himself. The prince complied with their wishes, and asked that their chief, Indra, would assume the form of a bull and carry him, the prince, upon his hump. This was done, and thus seated Puran-jaya destroyed all the enemies of the gods. As he rode on the hump he obtained the cognomen of Kakut-stha. In explanation of his title Puran-jaya, the Bhagavata purana says that he took the city of the Daityas situated in the west.  

PUROCHANA The emissary of Dur-yodhana who at- tempted to burn the Pandavas in their house and was burnt in his own house by Bhima. See Maha-bharata.  

PURU The sixth king of the Lunar race, youngest son of Yayati and Sarmishtha. He and his brother Yadu were founders of two great branches of the Lunar race. The descendants of Puru were called Pauravas, and of this race came the Kauravas and Pandavas. Among the Yadavas or descendants of Yadu was Krishna. See Yayati. 

PURUKUTSA A son of Mandhatri, into whose person Vishnu entered for the purpose of destroying the subterranean Gandharvas, called Mauneyas. He reigned on the banks of the Narmada, and that river personified as one of the Nagas was his wife. By her he had a son, Trasadasyu. The Vishnu Purana is said to have been narrated to him by "Daksha and other venerable sages."  

PURU-RAVAS In the Vedas, a mythical personage connected with the sun and the dawn, and existing in the middle region of the universe. According to the Rig-veda he was son of Ila, and a beneficent pious prince; but to Maha-bharata says, "We have heard that Ila was both his mother and his father. The parentage usually assigned to him is that he was son of Budha by Ila, daughter of Manu, and grandson of the moon." Through his mother he received the city of pratishthana. (See na.) He is the hero of the story and of the drama 01 Vikrama and Urvasi, or the " Hero and the Nymph. " Puru-ravas is the Vikrama or hero, and Urvasi is an Apsaras who came down from Swarga through having incurred the imprecation of Mitra and Varuna. On earth Puru-ravas and she became enamoured of each other, and she agreed to live with him upon certain conditions "I have two rams," said the nymph, "which I love as children. They must be kept near my bed- side, and never suffered to be carried away. You must also take care never to be seen by me undressed; and clarified butter alone must be my food." The inhabitants of Swarga were anxious for the return of Urvasi, and knowing the compact made with Puru-ravas, the Gandharvas came by night and stole her rams. Puru-ravas was undressed, and so at first refrained from pursuing the robbers, but the cries of Urvasi impelled him to seize his sword and rush after them. The Gandharvas then brought a vivid flash of lightning to the chamber which displayed the person of Puru-ravas So the charm was broken and Urvasi disappeared. Puru-ravas wandered about demented in search of her, and at length found her at Kuru-kshetra bathing with four other nymphs of heaven. She declared herself pregnant, and told him to come there again at the end of a year, when she would deliver to him a son and remain with him for one night. Puru-ravas, thus comforted, returned to his capital. At the end of the year he went to the trysting-place and received from Urvasi his eldest son, Ayus. The annual interviews were repeated until she had borne him five more sons (Some authorities increase the number to eight, and there is considerable variety in their names.) She then told him that the Gandharvas had determined to grant him any boon he might desire. His desire was to pass his life with Urvasi. The Gandharvas then brought him a vessel with fire and said, " Take this fire, and, according to the precepts of the Vedas, divide it into three fires j then, fixing your mind upon the idea of living with Urvasi, offer oblations, and you shall assuredly obtain your wishes. "He did not immediately obey this command, but eventually he fulfilled it in an emblematic way, and "obtained a seat in the sphere of the Gandharvas. and was no more separated from his love." Aa a son of Ila, his metronymic is Aila. There is a hymn in the Rig-veda, which contains an obscure conversation between Pururavas and Urvasi. The above story is first told in the Satapat Brahmana, and afterwards reappears in the Puranas. The Bhagavata Purana says, "From Puru-ravas came the triple Veda in the beginning of the Treta (age)."

The story is supposed to have a mythic origin. Max Muller considers it "one of the myths of the Vedas, which expresses the correlation of the dawn and the sun. The love between the mortal and the immortal, and the identity of the morning dam and the evening twilight, is the story of Urvasi and Puru-ravas ‘the word Urvasi, according to the same writer, "was originally an appellation, and meant dawn." Dr. Goldstucker's explanation differs, but seems more apposite. According to this, Puru-ravas is the sun and Urvasi is the morning mist; when Puru-ravas is visible Urvasi vanishes, ns the mist is absorbed when the sun shines forth. Urvasi in the story is an Apsaras, and the Apsarasas are "personifications of the vapours which are attracted by the sun and form into mists or clouds."

PURUSHA 'Man.' 1. The original eternal man, the Supreme Being, and soul of the universe. 2. A name of Brahma. 

PURUSHA-NARAYANA The original male. The divine creator Brahma. 

PURUSHA-SUKTA A hymn of the Rig-veda in which the four castes are first mentioned. It is considered to be one of the latest in date. See Muir's Texts, i. p. 7.