Kurma Purana

01Told at the churning

When the ocean was churned and Lakshmi rose from it, the sage-king Indradyumna, reborn there, asked Kurma for the knowledge that frees. Kurma, Bhagwan Vishnu as the tortoise who bore Mount Mandara on his back, answered, and the rishis later heard it from Suta. The text calls itself the fifteenth Purana and says it once had four samhitas, Brahmi, Bhagavati, Sauri and Vaishnavi, of which the Brahmi, six thousand shlokas, is the one recited. Like every Mahapurana it is held to have been given its form by Maharshi Vyasa, who, it says, arranged the Puranas into eighteen.

02Lakshmi's word

Indradyumna saw Lakshmi rise and asked who she was. She smiled, remembering Vishnu, and answered that neither munis nor devas led by Indra really see her; she is the one supreme Maya, made of Narayana. On reflection, she said, there is no difference between her and Narayana: she is the highest Brahman in him, and he is Vishnu, the supreme Lord. Those who worship that Lord, the refuge of beings, by knowledge and by karma yoga, are beyond her power to bind. With this the Kurma sets its tone. The forms of the one Lord are not to be divided.

03The five marks

The Purva Vibhaga gives the five marks in order. Sarga comes first, creation from Prakriti, Brahma born on the lotus from Narayana's navel, and Rudra born from Brahma's brow. The measures of time follow: the yugas, the kalpa and the pralaya. Then the lineages of the Prajapatis, the Solar kings with the katha of Shri Rama, and the Lunar line through Yadu to Shri Krishna. The fourteen Manvantaras are counted, and Vyasa's division of the Veda into its shakhas is told, with the list of the twenty-eight Vyasas. Last come the dvipas, the seas and Mount Meru, and Bharatavarsha with its rivers.

04Krishna at Upamanyu's ashrama

Shri Krishna, though he had come into the world by his own will and lacked nothing, wished for a son and set out to do tapas. Riding Garuda, conch, discus and mace in hand, he came to the ashrama of the muni Upamanyu, where the Ganga flows, where ascetics smeared with ash recited the Rudra mantras. There he received diksha, worshipped Mahadeva, and Shiva appeared with Parvati. Shiva gave him the boon of a son and then told him plainly to see the Self within himself: there is no difference between the two of us, and the wise see it so. Samba was born of that boon.

05Kashi and Prayaga

Two long mahatmyas sit in the Purva Vibhaga. The first is of Varanasi, the Avimukta, the place Shiva never leaves, where dying is itself a release; Vyasa, in the Kurma's telling, comes there and answers Jaimini's questions on the hidden meaning of the city. The second is of Prayaga, told by Markandeya to Yudhishthira after the war, when the Pandava king is weighed down by the deaths of his kin. Markandeya tells him of the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna, of bathing in Magha, and of what is gained by dying there. The Uttara Vibhaga adds the Narmada and a long list of tirthas across Bharata.

06The Ishvara Gita

The Uttara Vibhaga opens with the Ishvara Gita. Sanatkumara and the other great yogis are doing tapas at Badarikashrama when Narayana appears with Nara. Then a light rises from the sky and Shiva himself appears, and at the rishis' request he teaches them in eleven adhyayas on the Self, on Brahman, on Prakriti and Purusha, on yoga and on devotion. Vishnu sits beside him as he speaks. At the close Shiva says that Narayana is himself, and that those who see the two as one are not born again. Advaita teachers often read it with the Bhagavad Gita.

07The Vyasa Gita

After Shiva, Vyasa speaks. The Vyasa Gita is the Kurma's dharma-shastra: the duties of the brahmachari and the householder, the daily sandhya, the five great yajnas, purity and food, the rules of shraddha, the forest-dweller and the sannyasi, and the prayashchitta for wrongs done. Within the chapters on atonement the Purana tells the katha of Sita in its own way: Agni hid the true Sita when Ravana came, and the one carried to Lanka was her likeness; at the fire ordeal Agni returned the real Sita to Shri Rama. The Devadaru forest katha and the last pralaya close the Uttara Vibhaga.

08Hari and Hara

The Kurma Purana says again and again that whoever sees a difference between Narayana and Mahadeva has not understood either. Lakshmi says it of herself and Narayana; Shiva says it to Krishna; Shiva says it again at the close of the Ishvara Gita, of the unmanifest Vishnu and himself. It gives the Shaiva and Vaishnava tirthas side by side. Smarta households, who worship the five deities together, find in it their own way of seeing, and the Purana names Shiva and Vishnu as the one Lord appearing in two forms for the good of the worlds.

09Editions and reading today

The All-India Kashiraj Trust at Ramnagar, Varanasi, published a critical edition of the Kurma in 1971 with an English translation, and the Venkateshvara Press text is the older standard. Gita Press prints it in Hindi, and the Motilal Banarsidass series gives it in English in two volumes. The Ishvara Gita circulates on its own and is taught in Advaita and Shaiva study circles. Its account of bathing at the Sangam in Magha is among the shastric grounds cited for the Magh Mela at Prayagraj.

What it contains

1. 1
   Purva Vibhaga पूर्वविभागः

   Fifty-one adhyayas. Indradyumna's question and Lakshmi's word, creation, time and the lineages, Krishna's tapas at Upamanyu's ashrama, and the long mahatmyas of Kashi and Prayaga. It ends with the Manvantaras, the twenty-eight Vyasas and the shape of the worlds.

2. 2
   Ishvara Gita ईश्वरगीता

   Uttara Vibhaga, adhyayas 1–11: Shiva's teaching to Sanatkumara and the rishis at Badarikashrama, with Narayana present. It covers the Self, Brahman, Prakriti, the Pashupata yoga and devotion. It ends by declaring the oneness of Shiva and Vishnu.

3. 3
   Vyasa Gita व्यासगीता

   Vyasa on the duties of the ashramas, daily rites, purity, food, shraddha and prayashchitta. It reads as a complete short dharma-shastra inside the Purana. The Kurma's katha of the hidden Sita is told within it.

4. 4
   Tirthas and pralaya

   The last chapters of the Uttara Vibhaga: the Narmada and the tirthas of Bharata, again told by Markandeya to Yudhishthira, and the katha of the Devadaru forest. The Purana closes with the dissolution at the end of the kalpa and the fruit of hearing it.

Famous verses

न मे नारायणाद्भेदो विद्यते हि विचारतः। तन्मयाहं परं ब्रह्म स विष्णुः परमेश्वरः॥

Lakshmi to Indradyumna: on reflection there is no difference between me and Narayana. I am the Supreme Brahman, one with him, and he is Vishnu, the Supreme Lord.Kurma Purana 1.1.58 (GRETIL ed.)

पश्य त्वमात्मनात्मानमात्मीयममलं पदम्। नावयोर्विद्यते भेद एवं पश्यन्ति सूरयः॥

Shiva to Krishna: see the Self by the Self, your own stainless abode. Between us two there is no difference; so the wise see it.Kurma Purana 1.24.89 (GRETIL ed.)

ये त्विमं विष्णुमव्यक्तं मां वा देवं महेश्वरम्। एकीभावेन पश्यन्ति न तेषां पुनरुद्भवः॥

Shiva at the close of the Ishvara Gita: those who see this unmanifest Vishnu and me, the deva Maheshvara, as one, are not born again.Kurma Purana 2.11.114 (GRETIL ed.)