Muhammad in the Bhavishya Purana: Difference between revisions

The "mahapuranas" or "great puranas" are traditionally counted at 18, but many more puranas exist outside of these, composing a vast mass of mythological and historical literature on the history of Hindu kings, gods and people. The word "purana"  पुराण in both Hindi and Sanskrits means "old" or "ancient" and the Puranas are thus "the tales of the ancients."  They are traditionally attributed to Vyasa, the narrator of the Mahabharata. They purport to relate the history of the world from its creations. Like most of the Sanskrit Hindu scriptures, the puranas were originally oral texts handed down from teacher to pupil by the priestly brahmin caste. Unlike the Vedas, though, the Puranas show the deep influence of the medieval, popular bhakti worship movement in addition to the high-caste brahmin conception of dharma <ref>Dimmitt, Cornelia; van Buitenen, J. A. B. (2012). Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas. Temple University Press (1st Edition: 1977). ISBN 978-1-4399-0464-0, 10</ref> The actual composition of the puranas happened far after their actual and supposed composition, and the texts themselves show much evidence of accretions, editions, additions and subtractions along the way to finally being written down. The texts as they come to us in modern times appear to be an amalgation of multiple texts across generations, a veritable encyclopedia of spirituality, myth, chronicles of kings and heroes, as well as devotional and philosophical literature.

The Bhavishya Purana purports to tell the "history of the future" (Bhavishya भविष्य means the future both in Sanskrit and modern Hindi) and also contains a description of the genesis of the worship of Lords Vishnu, Shiva and Surya. Like the other puranas much more recent material has been added to the primordial core of orally composed text, and scholars agree that the "prophecies" which it contains are actually examples of ''Vaticinium ex eventu'' "prophecies after the fact", historic events introduced into a "prophetic" text to make it appear to have prophetic powers of future understanding.