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The Brahmanda Purana (Sanskrit: ब्रह्माण्डपुराण, romanized: brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa) is a Sanskrit text and one of the eighteen major Puranas, a genre of Hindu texts.[1] It is listed as the eighteenth Maha-Purana in almost all the anthologies.[2] The text is also referred in medieval Indian literature as the Vayaviya Purana or Vayaviya Brahmanda, and it may have been same as the Vayu Purana before these texts developed into two overlapping compositions.[1][3]
The text is named after one of the cosmological theories of Hinduism, namely the "Cosmic Egg" (Brahma-Anda).[4] It is among the oldest Puranas, the earliest core of text maybe from 4th century CE, continuously edited thereafter over time and it exist in numerous versions.[5] The Brahmanda Purana manuscripts are encyclopedic in their coverage, covering topics such as Cosmogony, Sanskara (Rite Of Passage), Genealogy, chapters on ethics and duties (Dharma), Yoga, geography, rivers, good government, administration, diplomacy, trade, festivals, a travel guide to places such as Kashmir, Cuttack, Kanchipuram, and other topics.[1][5][6]
The Brahmanda Purana is notable for including the Lalita Sahasranamam and Shri Radha stotram (a stotra praising the Goddess Lalita and Radha as the supreme being in the universe), and being one of the early Hindu texts found in Bali, Indonesia, also called the Javanese-Brahmanda.[7][8] The text is also notable for the Adhyatma Ramayana, the most important embedded set of chapters in the text, which philosophically attempts to reconcile Rama-Bhakti with Advaita Vedanta over 65 chapters and 4,500 verses.[9][a][10]
- ^ a b c Dalal 2014, p. 88.
- ^ Hazra 1962, p. 255.
- ^ Rocher 1986, pp. 33, 156–157, with footnotes
- ^ Dalal 2014, p. 83.
- ^ a b Rocher 1986, pp. 156–160.
- ^ Dikshitar 1951, pp. xx–xxiii.
- ^ Rocher 1986, pp. 78–79, with footnote 61
- ^ Hinzler 1993, p. 442.
- ^ a b Rocher 1986, pp. 158–159, with footnotes
- ^ Winternitz 1927, pp. 578–579.
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