Garuda Purana

01The Purana of Garuda

Brahma once found Rudra on Kailasa, ash-smeared and deep in meditation, and asked whom he was meditating on. Vishnu, said Rudra, and the two went with the devas to ask Hari himself. What Hari told them, the essence he had once given Garuda, Brahma passed to Vyasa, and Vyasa to Suta at Badarikashrama. It is counted seventeenth of the eighteen Mahapuranas and is a Vaishnava Purana throughout. Its first shloka praises Hari as unborn, undecaying, endless, all-pervading. Few Puranas are read in so many homes, and almost always at the same hour of a family's life: when someone has just died.

02The Preta Kalpa

Garuda flew over the three worlds and saw the dead in pain. He returned and asked Shri Krishna why. The answer fills the Preta Kalpa, the Dharma Kanda of the Uttara Khanda, forty-nine adhyayas in the form of a dialogue between Krishna and Garuda. It tells how the departed soul walks the road to Yama's city, the river Vaitarani it must cross, the hells that follow certain deeds, and the dana and shraddha that ease that road. It says plainly what deeds lead to suffering, so that the living may change while there is time, and it ends on moksha.

03Ten days, ten pindas

Much of the Preta Kalpa is rite. For ten days after death the family offers a pinda each day. The first pinda, the text says, forms the head of the departed's new body; the second the ears, eyes and nose; the third the neck, shoulders, arms and chest; and so on until on the tenth day the body is complete and feels hunger. On the eleventh come the ekadasha shraddha and the vrishotsarga, the release of a bull. On the twelfth the departed is joined with the pitris in sapindana, and on the thirteenth gifts are given. Families who follow these steps are following the Garuda.

04Read in the house of mourning

In much of north India, after a death the family invites a pandit to read the Garuda Purana during the days of mourning, finishing by the thirteenth day, the terahvin. Relatives sit on the floor in the evenings and listen. What is usually read is the Garuda Purana Saroddhara, a sixteen-adhyaya digest of the Preta Kalpa made by Naunidhirama, which Gita Press prints with Hindi meaning. The reading is for the departed and for those left behind, who hear that the soul goes on, that their offerings reach it, and that the name of Hari carries it across. Some families keep the book away from the house at other times; others read it freely.

05The Achara Kanda: worship and dharma

The first and largest part, 240 adhyayas, is the Achara Kanda, and it ranges widely. It begins with the worship of Vishnu: the mandala, diksha, the nine vyuhas, the Vishnu Panjara stotra and the Vishnu Sahasranama. Then the worship of Surya, Shiva, Durga, Gopala, Sudarshana and Hayagriva, with the Gayatri and the rules of sandhya. It gives vastu and the consecration of images, the duties of varna and ashrama from Yajnavalkya and Parashara, prayashchitta, and a long run of vratas, Ekadashi, Shivaratri, Krishna Ashtami, Mahanavami and the Bhishma Panchaka among them.

06Gems, medicine and the Nitisara

The Achara Kanda also carries sciences that a household or a court might need. Ratna pariksha, the testing of gems, goes stone by stone: diamond, pearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire, vaidurya, topaz, coral, crystal. Jyotisha and samudrika, the reading of bodily marks in men and women. Nearly sixty adhyayas of Ayurveda follow, the nidana of fever, cough, asthma and many other diseases, then their treatment, with chapters on horses and elephants. The Nitisara of Brihaspati gives sayings on conduct and kingship. Grammar and the metres of verse close out the learning.

07The five marks, and Gaya

Among all this the Garuda keeps the five marks, and names them itself. Creation and the births of the Prajapatis come early. The bhuvanakosha describes the continents, Bharatavarsha, the netherworlds and the hells. The Manus and their lines are given, the Solar and Lunar dynasties, the kings to come in the Kali age, the ten avatars, and short tellings of the Ramayana, the Harivamsha and the Mahabharata. Five adhyayas praise Gaya, where the Vishnupad temple stands. Shraddha at Gaya is named among the four roads to mukti, and a family that brings its pinda to the Phalgu is fulfilling a duty this Purana sets.

08The Brahma Kanda

The Venkateshvara Press text ends with a third part, the Brahma Kanda, twenty-nine adhyayas told by Suta to Shaunaka. It opens by saluting Krishna as he stood in Kamsa's arena with his elder brother, seen differently by each who looked: a thunderbolt to the wrestlers, the finest of men to the people, Kama in person to the women, a child to his parents, the highest truth to yogis. It then discusses the nature of Hari, the classing of the Puranas and the right objects of worship. Madhva Vaishnavas read this kanda with special attention; it is not found in every edition.

09Editions and translations

The complete Sanskrit text was printed by Khemraj Shrikrishnadas at the Venkateshvara Press, Mumbai, and is the base of the GRETIL e-text. Gita Press, Gorakhpur publishes the Saroddhara with Hindi meaning, and a Sankshipta Garuda Purana in Hindi. In English, Ernest Wood and S. V. Subrahmanyam translated the Saroddhara in 1911 for the Sacred Books of the Hindus, Allahabad, and Motilal Banarsidass published the whole Purana in three volumes of its Ancient Indian Tradition series. Jewellers once kept the gem chapters close, and vaidyas the medical ones.

What it contains

1. 1
   Purva Khanda (Achara Kanda) आचारकाण्डः

   Two hundred and forty adhyayas: the worship of Vishnu and the other deities, the Vishnu Sahasranama, vastu and pratishtha, varnashrama dharma after Yajnavalkya, vratas, the bhuvanakosha, jyotisha, ratna pariksha, Gaya Mahatmya, Brihaspati's Nitisara, the dynasties and avatars, Ayurveda, grammar and metre. It is a handbook for a householder's whole life. Shraddha rites close it.

2. 2
   Uttara Khanda: Dharma Kanda (Preta Kalpa) प्रेतकल्पः

   Forty-nine adhyayas of dialogue between Shri Krishna and Garuda. Death, the subtle body built by ten days of pinda, the road to Yama, the Vaitarani, the hells, shraddha, dana and the path to moksha. The sixteen-adhyaya Saroddhara read in homes is drawn from it.

3. 3
   Uttara Khanda: Brahma Kanda ब्रह्मकाण्डः

   Twenty-nine adhyayas told by Suta to Shaunaka, found in the Venkateshvara Press text. They treat the nature of Hari, the classing of the Puranas and the right objects of worship. Madhva Vaishnavas cite it often.

Famous verses

धर्मदृढबद्धमूलो वेदस्कन्धः पुराणशाखाढ्यः। क्रतुकुसुमो मोक्षफलो मधुसूदनपादपो जयति॥

Victory to the tree that is Madhusudana: its roots bound fast in dharma, the Vedas its trunk, rich in the branches of the Puranas, the yajnas its flowers, moksha its fruit.Garuda Purana 2.1.1, opening of the Dharma Kanda (GRETIL, Venkateshvara ed.; the e-text misprints 'dharmandṛḍha')

विष्णुरेकादशी गीता तुलसी विप्रधेनवः। असारे दुर्गसंसारे षट्पदी मुक्तिदायिनी॥

Vishnu, Ekadashi, the Gita, Tulsi, the brahmana and the cow: in this hollow and hard-to-cross samsara, these six give liberation.Garuda Purana 2.2.24cd–25ab (GRETIL, Venkateshvara ed.)

अहोरात्रैस्तु नवभिर्देहो निष्पत्तिमाप्नुयात्। शिरस्त्वाद्येन पिण्डेन प्रेतस्य क्रियते तथा॥

In nine days and nights the body is formed. By the first pinda the head of the departed is made.Garuda Purana 2.5.33 (GRETIL, Venkateshvara ed.)

ब्रह्मज्ञानं गयाश्राद्धं गोगृहे मरणं तथा। वासः पुंसां कुरुक्षेत्रे मुक्तिरेषा चतुर्विधा॥

Knowledge of Brahman, shraddha at Gaya, death in a cowshed, and dwelling at Kurukshetra: for men, these are the four kinds of liberation.Garuda Purana 1.82.15 (Gaya Mahatmya; GRETIL, Venkateshvara ed.)