Garuda Purana
The Sanskrit text Garuda Purana is one of 18 Mahapuranas in Hinduism. The Garuda Purana was likely composed in the first millennium CE, with significant expansions and revisions occurring over several centuries. Scholars estimate that the earliest core might date back to between the 4th and 11th centuries CE, with substantial additions and modifications continuing into the 2nd millennium CE.
The Garuda Purana text, known in many versions, contains more than 15,000 verses. Its chapters deal encyclopedically with a highly diverse collection of topics, including cosmology, mythology, the relationship between gods, ethics, good versus evil, various schools of Hindu philosophies, the theory of yoga, heaven and hell, karma and rebirth, ancestral rites and other soteriological topics; rivers and geography, types of minerals and stones, the testing of gems for their quality, lists of plants and herbs, various diseases and their symptoms, various medicines, aphrodisiacs, and prophylactics; astronomy, astrology, the moon and planets, and the Hindu calendar and its basis; architecture, home building, and the essential features of a Hindu temple; rites of passage, charity and gift making, economy, thrift, the duties of a king, politics, and state officials and their roles and how to appoint them; and genres of literature and rules of grammar. The final chapters discuss how to practice yoga, personal development, and the benefits of self-knowledge.
The Padma Purana categorizes the Garuda Purana—along with the Bhagavata Purana, the Vishnu Purana and itself—as a sattva Purana. The text, like all Mahapuranas, is attributed to the sage Vyasa in the Hindu tradition.
History
According to Pintchman, the text was composed sometime in the first millennium CE, but likely compiled and changed over a long period of time. Gietz et al. place the first version of the text only between the fourth and eleventh centuries CE.Leadbeater states that the text is likely from about 900 CE, given that it includes chapters on Yoga and Tantra techniques that likely developed later. Other scholars suggest that the earliest core of the text may be from the first centuries of the common era, and additional chapters were added thereafter through the sixth century or later.
The version of the Garuda Purana that survives into the modern era, states Dalal, is likely from 800 to 1000 CE, with sections added in the 2nd millennium. Pintchman suggests 850 to 1000 CE. Chaudhuri and Banerjee, as well as Hazra, on the other hand, state that it cannot be from before about the tenth or eleventh century CE.
The text exists in many versions, with varying numbers of chapters and considerably different content. Some Garuda Purana manuscripts have been known by the titles "Sauparna Purana", "Tarksya Purana", and "Vainateya Purana".
The book Garudapuranasaroddhara, translated by Ernest Wood and SV Subrahmanyam, appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This, states Ludo Rocher, created major confusion because it was mistaken for the Garuda Purana, a misidentification first discovered by Albrecht Weber. Garuda-purana-saroddhara is actually the original bhasya work of Naunidhirama, which cites a section of the now nonexistent version of Garuda Purana as well as other Indian texts. The earliest translation of one version of the Garuda Purana, by Manmatha Nath Dutt, was published in the early twentieth century.
Structure
The Garuda Purana is a Vaishnava Purana and has, according to the tradition, 19,000 shlokas. However, the manuscripts that have survived into the modern era have preserved about 8,000 verses. These are divided into two parts: a Purvakhanda and an Uttarakhanda. The Purvakhanda contains about 229 chapters, but in some versions of the text this section has between 240–243 chapters. The Uttarakhanda varies between 34 and 49 chapters. The Venkatesvara Edition of the Purana has an additional Khanda named Brahmakhanda.The Garuda Purana was likely fashioned after the Agni Purana, the other major medieval India encyclopedia that has survived. The text's structure is idiosyncratic, in that it is a medley, and does not follow the theoretical structure expected in a historic puranic genre of Indian literature. It is presented as information that Garuda learned from Vishnu and then narrated to the sage Kashyapa, which then spread in the mythical forest of Naimisha to reach the sage Vyasa.
Contents: Purvakhanda
The largest section of the text is Purvakhanda, which discusses a wide range of topics associated with life and living. The remaining is Pretakhanda, which deals primarily with rituals associated with death and cremation.Cosmology
The cosmology presented in Garuda Purana revolves around Vishnu and Lakshmi, and it is their union that created the universe. Vishnu is the unchanging reality called Brahman, while Lakshmi is the changing reality called Maya. The goddess is the material cause of the universe, the god acts to begin the process.Like other Puranas, the cosmogenesis in Garuda Purana weaves the Samkhya theory of two realities—the Purusha and Prakriti, the masculine and feminine—presented as interdependent, each playing a different but essential role to create the observed universe. Goddess Lakshmi is the creative power of Prakriti, the cosmic seed and the source of creation. God Vishnu is the substance of Purusha, the soul and the constant. Pintchman states that the masculine and the feminine are presented by the Garuda Purana as inseparable aspects of the same divine, metaphysical truth Brahman.
Madan states that the Garuda Purana elaborates the repeatedly found theme in Hindu religious thought that the living body is a microcosm of the universe, governed by the same laws and made out of the same substances. All the gods are inside the human body; what is outside the body is present within it as well. Body and cosmos, states Madan, are equated in this theme. Vishnu is presented by the text as the supreme soul within the body.
Deity worship
The text describes Vishnu, Vaishnava festivals and puja, and offers mahatmya to Vishnu-related sacred places. However, the Garuda Purana also includes significant sections with reverence for Shaiva, Shakti, and Smarta traditions, including the Panchayatana puja of Vishnu, Shiva, Durga, Surya, and Ganesha.Features of a temple
The Garuda Purana includes chapters on the architecture and design of a temple. It describes recommended layouts and dimensional ratios for design and construction.In the first design, it recommends that a plot of ground should be divided into a grid of 8×8 squares, with the four innermost squares forming the chatuskon. The core of the temple, states the text, should be reachable through 12 entrances, and the walls of the temple raised touching the 48 of the squares. The height of the temple plinth should be based on the length of the platform, the vault in the inner sanctum should be co-extensive with adytum's length with the indents therein set at a third and a fifth ratio of the inner vault's chord. The arc should be half the height of pinnacle, and the text describes various ratios of the temple's exterior to the adytum, those within adytum and then that of the floor plan to the vimana.
The second design details a 16 square grid, with four inner squares for the adytum. The text thereafter presents the various ratios for the temple design. The dimensions of the carvings and images on the walls, edifices, pillars and the murti are recommended by the text to be certain harmonic proportions of the layout, the adytum and the spire.
The text asserts that temples exist in many thematic forms. These include the bairaja, puspakaksa, kailasha, malikahvaya, and tripistapam. The text claims these five themes create 45 different styles of temples, from the Meru style to Shrivatsa style. Each thematic form of temple architecture permits nine styles of temples, and the Purana lists all 45 styles. It also states that within these various temple styles, the inner edifice is best in five shapes: triangle, lotus-shaped, crescent, rectangular, and octagonal. The text thereafter describes the design guidelines for the Mandapa and the Garbha Griha.
The temple design, states Jonathan Parry, follows the homology at the foundation of Hindu thought, that the cosmos and body are harmonious correspondence of each other; the temple is a model and reminder of this cosmic homology.
Gemology
The Garuda Purana describes 14 gems, their varieties, and how to test their quality. The gems discussed include ruby, pearl, yellow sapphire, hessonite, emerald, diamond, cats eye, blue sapphire, coral, red garnet, jade, colorless quartz, and bloodstone. The technical discussion of gems in the text is woven with its theories on the mythical creation of each gem, astrological significance, and talisman benefits.The text describes the characteristics of the gems, how to clean and make jewelry from them, and cautions that gem experts should be consulted before buying them. For example, it describes using jamvera fruit juice mixed with boiled rice starch in order to clean and soften pearls, then piercing them to make holes for jewelry. A sequential vitanapatti method of cleaning, states the text—wherein the pearls are cleaned with hot water, wine, and milk—gives the best results. It also describes a friction test by which pearls should be examined. Similar procedures and tests are described for emerald, jade, diamonds, and all other gems included in the text.
Laws of virtue
Chapter 93 of the Garuda Purvakhanda presents sage Yajnavalkya's theory on laws of virtue. The text asserts that knowledge is condensed in the Vedas, in texts of different schools of philosophy such as Nyaya and Mimamsa, in the Shastras on dharma, on making money and temporal sciences written by 14 holy sages. Thereafter, through Yajnavalkya, the text presents its laws of virtue. The first one it lists is dāna, which it defines as:The text similarly discusses the following virtues—right conduct, damah, ahimsa, studying the Vedas, and performing rites of passage. The text presents different set of diet and rites of passage rules based on the class and stage of life of a person.. In one version of the Garuda Purana, these chapters on laws of virtue are borrowed from and duplicates of nearly 500 verses found in the Yajnavalkya Smriti. The various versions of Garuda Purana show significant variations.
The Garuda Purana asserts that the highest and most imperative religious duty is to introspect into one's own soul, seeking self-communion.