The Puranas (Sanskrit: पुराण, Purāṇa, meaning "ancients") are a vast genre of Hindu literature encompassing legends, traditional lore, and a wide range of cultural and religious subjects. Originally composed in Sanskrit and later rendered in several Indian languages, many of these texts are named after major deities such as Devi, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. The Puranic genre is found in both Hinduism and Jainism, and is noted for the layered symbolism within its narratives.
Puranic literature is encyclopedic in scope. It addresses topics including cosmogony and cosmology, genealogies of gods, goddesses, kings, queens, sages, heroes and heroines, rituals, folktales, pilgrimages, temples, medicine, astronomy, grammar, mineralogy, theology and philosophy, alongside humour and love stories. The content varies considerably across texts, and individual Puranas have survived in numerous manuscripts that are themselves inconsistent with one another.
Tradition attributes the Hindu Mahapuranas to Vyasa, though many scholars regard them as the work of multiple authors composed over several centuries. In contrast, most Jaina Puranas can be dated and their authors identified. There are 18 Mahapuranas (major Puranas) and 18 Upapuranas (minor Puranas), together comprising over 400,000 verses. The earliest versions of various Puranas are generally considered to have been composed between the 3rd and 10th centuries CE.
Within Hindu tradition, the Puranas are classified as Smriti rather than Shruti, and thus do not hold the scriptural authority accorded to the Vedas. Nevertheless, they have profoundly shaped Hinduism, often described as offering a "cultural synthesis" by weaving diverse local traditions into the broader Vedic-Brahmanic fold. The religious practices they describe are regarded as Vaidika, that is, congruent with Vedic literature. The Puranas praise numerous gods and goddesses, and their themes became closely interwoven with the Bhakti movement in India. Both Dvaita and Advaita