Preface

A few preliminary remarks on the history, scope and contents of the Garuda Puranam may be necessary. The Garuda Puranam may be safely described as a sister work to the Agni Puranam. Each of them treats of Para Vidya and Apara Vidya, secular knowledge and metaphysical truths, and partakes more of the nature of a catechism of the then prevailing Brahmanism, or of what a Brahmana was required to know at the time, than of the Puranam proper, at least if we may be admitted to look upon the Ramayana or the Mahabharatam as the model of that class of literature. Superficially conforming to the Rules of Pancha Sandhis, etc., the Garuda Puranam, like its sister work, reflects but the knowledge of the Brahmanical world at the time, and had its uses then as it has even now.

Without doing violence to the antiquarian instinct, we must say that it is quite futile to attempt to lay down the precise date of the composition of the Garuda Puranam. Its name occurs in the Halayudha’s Brahmana. Sarvasvam. Chakrapani Datta has quoted many a recipe from it, and the Vishnu Dharmottaram, according to several eminent authorities, orginally formed a portion of the Garuda Puranam. All these [factors emphatically demonstrate the fact that, the Garuda Puranam was in existence even before the tenth century of the Christian Era, On the contrary, we have reasons to believe that, hosts of Puranas and Upapuranas were composed in the age of Brahmanic renascence, which immediately followed the overthrow of Buddhism in India. The Garuda Puranm, like the Agni, Shiva, Padma, and the like Puranas, were the exponents of the victorious Brahmanism, which, being inevitably divided into schisms, tried to invest the tutelary deity of each sect with the attributes of supreme divinity or Brahma, and to equip its members with a complete code of rituals, law and other necessary informations regarding the incidents of every day life, subservient to, and in conformity with, the Vedas and the Vedic literature. Thus each schism or faction, or more correctly, each Puranam, the scripture of each sect of special, tutelary divinities, became a new school of law, medicine and metaphysics, etc., re-instating the old errors of the Vedic literature, as if to ignore the many advanced truths and principles of the later day Buddhistic science, and to confirm the victory of Brahmanism even in error and fallacy.

The description of the incidents of the life of Buddha, however meagre and incidental it might be, and the occurrence of the name of Sushruta in the medical portion of the Garuda Puranam leaves not the slightest doubt that its author was intimately acquainted with the Buddhistic literature of the age, both medical and metaphysical. It is a settled fact of history that the Sushruta Samhita, at least the recension of the Sashruta Samhita by the Buddhist Nagarjuna, was written in the second century before the birth of Christ, Now, the Sushruta Samhita says that, the number of bones in the human body is three hundred. The Vishnu Smriti (Institutes of Vishnu) following the orthodox (Vedic) non-medical opinion on the subject gives it as three hundred and sixty-six.

We know that Nagarjuna, the Buddhist redactor of the Sushruta Samhita, mentioned in his recension of the work that there are “three hundred bones in the human organism, but the followers of the Vedas say that their number is three hundred and sixty” which tallies with the number given in the Yajnavalkya Samhita. The Garuda Puranam gives the number as the three hundred and sixty two (Asthnam Dvyodhikam Proktam Sashthyadhika shatatrayam) —a sort of compromise between the Vedic and the Buddhistic osteology, or between the dictates of conscience, imperatively urging the man to state the whole truth, and the pride of conquest impelling him to set up a schism against truth. The author of the Garuda Puranam, whoever he might be, must have been sufficiently familiar with the works of Nagarjuna and other Buddhistic Medical Acharyas so as to be fully convinced of the truth of their statement, and attempted to make the Vedic number of skeletal bones as near to the truth as possible. This fact serves to throw a new light upon the date of the composition of the Garuda Puranam. It unmistakably points to a period of history when the victorious Brahmanism once more attempted to restore the teachings of the Vedas in their pristine glory, and the truths of the Buddhistic science or metaphysics.were still too potent a factor to be ignored or lightly dismissed—a fact which supports our contention and lends a plausible colour to the view we have adopted as regards the probable date of the composition of the Garuda.

The second question, that confronts us, is the purity of the text, i.e., whether the Garuda Puranam, as we now possess it, is what it was originally written by its author; or whether its bulk has been considerably increased by subsequent additions? In the first Chapter we learn that, the Puranam consists of eight thousand and eight hundred verses, and the subjects dealt with therein are creation of the universe, Pujas, Holy pools and shrines, Cosmogony and Geography, Ages of Manus, Duties of different social orders, Gift-making, Duties of kings, etc., Laws, Vratas, Royal dynasties, Therapeutics with Ætiology, Vedangas, Pralaya, Laws of Virtue, desire, and money, and Knowledge (of Brahma and external things). These then were the main themes that were originally dealt with in the Garuda Puranam, and we may say that this was so in the light of the principle of Adhvaya Sampravibhaga (classification of chapters which forms one of the cardinal rules informing the plan of a Sanskrit work. We regret to say that, many things, having no legitimate connection with the main themes of this Puranam, nor having a direct bearing thereon, have been added to it, and a large mass of original matter has been expunged from it so as to bring it within the compass of the eight thousand and eight hundred Slokas, as laid down in the introductory chapter. Thus we see that the Pretakhanda or Vishnu-dharmottara was added to it by way of an appendix, and the reason of these successive accretions to the text can be easily understood if we consider that, the Garuda Puranam, like the Agni, etc., although originally a compendium of the available Brahminical knowledge, and rituals, pursued and followed by the Vaishnava section of the community, came to gather in many tributaries from the other branches of Brahmanic thought and religion, as the distinction between the sect of Vishnu and other sects of shiva and Sakti etc., came to be less marked and pronounced, and the points of difference or antagonism between them were more rounded off. Thus we see many Tantrik rites and Mantras such as, the Tripura Vidya, Nìtyaklinna Vidya were introduced into the Garuda Puranam, one of the Scriptural Puranas of Vaishnavism; and the Preta-khanda, which we find invariably appended to the Puranam in many of the manuscripts, does but reflect the necessity of [subsequently adding to it a treatise on funeral rites, or on punishment and reward after death according to one’s deserts, only to enhance the utility of the work as a book of reference in every day life, as the members of the sect began to be more bigoted and averse to reading religious works, or Puranas dedicated to the tutelary gods of other sects. It requires nothing more than an average intellect to detect that the part under reference (Preta-Khanda) is manifestly an interpolation, inasmuch as the subject has been already dealt with in chapters on shraddha-vidhi, Papa-Chinha Lakshanam and Prayaschitta, etc., and the insertion of a more detailed and elaborate dissertation on the subject under the style of Preta-Khanda is an unnecessary repetition and re-opening of a finished discourse (Samapta Punarattata) which is bad both in reason and rhetoric. We have attempted to expunge all spurious portions, or passages of questionable authenticity from the text in the light of the reasons stated above, and tried to restore it to its original form as far as possible after the progress of so many centuries since it first saw the light.

We may be asked the rationale of our conduct in undertaking the English translation of the Garuda Puranam. The question is natural enough, if the work is nothing but a compendium of Brahmanic rituals and mysteries, what is the profit of disinterring it from beneath the oblivion which it so unqualifiedly deserves. Our answer is that, in addition to the many mystic rites and practices, which legitimately fall within the range of studies in spiritualism, the Garuda Puranam contains three Samhitas, viz., the Agastya Samhita, the Brihaspati Samhita (Nitisara), and the Dhanvantari Samhita; any one of which would give it a permanent value, and accord to it an undying fame among the works of practical Ethics or applied medicine. The Agastya Samhita deals with the formation, crystallisation and distinctive traits of the different precious gems, and enumerates the names of the countries from which our forefathers used to collect those minerals. The cutting, polishing, setting, and appraising, etc., of the several kinds of gems and diamond, as they were practised in ancient India, can not but be interesting to artists and lay men alike, and the scientific truths, imbedded in the highly poetic accounts of their origin and formation, shall, we doubt not, be welcomed even by the present day mineralogists, if they only care to look through the veil and to see them in their pure and native nuditity. In these days of Oriental research, it is quite within the possibilities of every ardent enquirer to make himself acquainted with the terms and technicalities of the science of our Rishis, and we are confident that any labour he may bestow on the subject in connection with the Agastya Samhita will be remunerated a hundred-fold.

The next Samhita in the Garuda Puranam is the Brihaspati Samhita, commonly known as the Nitisara, in which we find observations on practical conduct and a knowledge of human nature, which strongly remind one of Bacon’s essays and in comparision with which the Samhita gains one or two points more, not to speak of its excellent poetry and harmony. In the Ætiological portion of the Dhanvantari Samhita, one is astonished to find that in “certain types of fever the blood undergoes a sort of chemical change which produces the morbific factors of the disease, that in hæmoptisis the blood comes from the spleen, liver or the blood-vessels (facts unknown to the Nidanist, Madhava), that there is a kind of parasites that produces leprosy, and cutaneous affections in general,” facts which, it was but yesterday, that the science of the west have gained access to. The therapeutical portion of the Samhita contains many excellent remedies which can not but benefit man in the art of living a long, healthy life. It is almost impossible for us to give within such a small compass even the faintest glimpse of the splendid truths that lie scattered through the pages of this noble Puranam; enough if we conclude our remark with the saying that, it broadens the vision of a man into regions where systems and worlds are but bubbles and atoms, and enables him to consolidate his amity with those profound realities, which encompass “being and becoming” in every plane of existence, or at least helps him to lift up the veil of the Nature’s workshop and to catch a view, however slight and momentary, of the nature and essence of things.

CALCUTTA,
The 12th June, 1908.

M. N. DUTT.