Varaha Purana

01Bhudevi asks

Bhagwan Vishnu as Varaha had just lifted the earth from the waters of pralaya on the tip of his tusk, and Bhudevi, held safe there, asked him the first question. In every kalpa, she says, you raise me up, and yet I do not know your form or how creation first began. Varaha answers, and his answers make the Purana. Suta repeats the dialogue to the rishis as it came down from Vyasa, and the Bhagavata counts it at 24,000 shlokas. The text most read today runs to 218 adhyayas and keeps the voice of Earth and Varaha from first to last.

02The marks of a Purana

Bhudevi's questions run in the order of the Purana's marks. Sarga comes first, and at length: Narayana alone before creation, the rise of Brahma, the gunas, and the ninefold creation. Pratisarga, the world remade after each dissolution, is in her very first words, since Varaha lifts her up kalpa after kalpa. The avatars from Matsya to Kalki are recounted early. Vamsha and manvantara are told only lightly, through kings such as Ashvashiras and the sage Raibhya rather than long lists. The weight of the Purana falls on what Bhudevi most wants to know, which is how to worship.

03Every tithi has its deva

One run of chapters explains why each tithi of the lunar fortnight belongs to a particular deity, and tells the katha behind each. Pratipada is Agni's, Tritiya Gauri's, Chaturthi Ganesha's, Panchami the Nagas', Shashthi Kartikeya's, Saptami Surya's, Navami Durga's, Dvadashi Vishnu's, Chaturdashi Rudra's and Amavasya the Pitris'. This is why the Panchang and a family's calendar of fasts look the way they do. Read in this Purana, the whole pantheon is honoured, day by day, under Varaha's patient telling.

04Dvadashi vratas and the Trishakti

The Varaha gives a Dvadashi vrata for each avatar: Matsya Dvadashi, Kurma Dvadashi, Varaha Dvadashi, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki, each kept in its own month with its own katha and its own image to worship. Then comes the Trishakti Mahatmya, the glory of the Devi in three forms, born when Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva gazed upon one another: a white form, a red form and a dark form, worshipped as Brahmi or Saraswati, as Vaishnavi and as Raudri. Her battles with the asuras are told here as fully as in any Shakta text.

05Offences in the temple

Bhudevi asks what displeases Bhagwan in worship, and Varaha lists the aparadhas, the offences a servant of the temple must avoid. Entering the shrine in sandals or carried in a palanquin, turning one's back to the deity, eating before offering, touching the murti without bathing, offering food that is stale, speaking harshly in the temple: each has its fault and its expiation. Thirty-two such offences are counted in the Vaishnava tradition, and its manuals of temple service still teach them from this Purana. Few passages in the Puranas are so practical.

06Kokamukha and Badari

Asked where he always dwells, Varaha names his own places. Kokamukha comes first, the Varaha kshetra on the Kaushiki, which he says he never leaves even for a moment. Badari among the Himalayan rocks, Lohargala, the Shalagrama kshetra on the Gandaki where Vishnu is worshipped in stone, Dvaraka, Gokarna and many more follow, each with its tirthas, its rules of bathing and the fruit of dying there. These chapters made the Varaha a pilgrim's guide for Vaishnavas of the north and of Nepal, where Varahakshetra and Muktinath still draw them.

07Mathura Mahatmya

There is no kshetra in the three worlds higher than Mathura, Varaha tells Bhudevi, and he lives there always. Some thirty adhyayas follow. Mathura is laid out as a half-moon along the Yamuna, purified at every step by Krishna's play, with Vishram Ghat at its centre, where Krishna rested after slaying Kamsa. Then the twelve vanas of Braj, Madhuvana, Talavana, Kumudavana, Bahulavana, Vrindavana and the rest, the tirthas along the Yamuna and on Govardhan. The Braj parikrama that pilgrims walk in Bhadrapada follows these chapters, and the pandas of Mathura still recite them.

08Nachiketa and Yama's city

Near its end the Purana tells of Nachiketa, sent by his father's angry word to Yama, who returns to describe what he saw: the road of the dead, the city of Yama, Chitragupta reading the record of each life, and the narakas that answer each kind of wrong. The chapters are stern, and they are told to urge dharma, not to frighten. Shri Vaishnava acharyas also cite from the Varaha Purana the two verses called the Varaha charama shloka: whoever remembers Bhagwan while still healthy in body and mind, Bhagwan himself remembers at the hour of death and leads to the highest goal.

09Editions and readers

The All-India Kashiraj Trust of Varanasi published a critical Sanskrit text of the Varaha Purana, and the Bibliotheca Indica had printed it in Calcutta before that. Gita Press gives it in Hindi, and Motilal Banarsidass in English in two volumes. The Varaha charama shloka is not found in every printed text, and Shri Vaishnava teachers have always quoted it from the manuscripts their own acharyas used. Temple servants learn its aparadhas, Braj pilgrims its Mathura chapters, and householders its Dvadashi vows, so the book lives on in parts even where few read it whole.

What it contains

1. 1
   Creation and the avatars

   Bhudevi's first questions, creation from Narayana and the ninefold sarga. The avatars from Matsya to Kalki and the kathas of early kings and sages such as Ashvashiras and Raibhya.

2. 2
   The tithis and their devas

   Why each tithi belongs to its deity, from Agni on Pratipada to the Pitris on Amavasya. Each tithi comes with the katha behind it and the worship due on that day.

3. 3
   Dvadashi vratas

   A Dvadashi vow for each avatar of Vishnu, from Matsya to Kalki. Each has its month, its katha and its rite of worship.

4. 4
   Trishakti Mahatmya

   The Devi born of the Trimurti's gaze, in her three forms as Brahmi, Vaishnavi and Raudri. Her battles with the asuras and the rites of her worship.

5. 5
   Rules of worship

   Daily worship, shraddha, the offences to avoid in the temple and their expiations, and the rites of pratishtha. Its list of aparadhas is still taught to temple servants.

6. 6
   Tirtha mahatmyas

   Kokamukha, Badari, Lohargala, the Shalagrama kshetra on the Gandaki, Dvaraka, Gokarna and others. Then about thirty adhyayas on Mathura and the twelve forests of Braj.

7. 7
   Nachiketa's account

   Nachiketa returns from Yama's realm and describes the road of the dead, Chitragupta's record and the narakas. These closing chapters urge a life of dharma.

Famous verses

कल्पे कल्पे भवानेव मां समुद्धरते विभो। न चाहं वेद ते मूर्तिं नादिसर्गं च केशव॥

Bhudevi to Varaha: In kalpa after kalpa it is you alone who lift me up, O all-pervading one, and yet, Keshava, I know neither your true form nor the first creation.Varaha Purana 1.5 (sa.wikisource text)

मथुरायाः परं क्षेत्रं त्रैलोक्ये न च विद्यते। तस्यां वसाम्यहं देवि मथुरायां च सर्वदा॥

Shri Varaha: There is no kshetra in the three worlds higher than Mathura. There, O Devi, in Mathura, I dwell always.Varaha Purana 169.1 (sa.wikisource text)