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285 No. 1270. varahapuranam | ? Substance, country-made yellow paper, 12 x 9 inches. Folia, 277. Lines, 31 on a page. Extent, 9,123 slokas. Character, Bengali. Date, Place of deposit, Srirampur College. Appearance, fresh. Verse. Incorrect. Varaha Purana. The twelfth of the eighteen great Puranas attributed to Vyasa. The following is Professor Wilson's account of this work: "It is narrated by Vishnu as Varaha, or in the boar incarnation, to the personified Earth. Its extent, however, is not half that specified; little exceeding ten thousand stanzas. It furnishes, also, itself, evidence of the prior currency of some other work, similarly denominated; as, in the description of Mathura contained in it, Sumantu, a Muni, is made to observe: "The divine Varaha in former times expounded a Purana, for the purpose of solving the perplexity of Earth." "Nor can the Varaha Purana be regarded as a Purana agreeably to the common definition; as it contains but a few scattered and brief allusions to the creation of the world and the reign of kings: it has no detailed genealogies, either of the patriarchal or regal families, and no account of the reigns of the Manus. Like the Linga Purana, it is a religious manual, almost wholly occupied with forms of prayer and rules for devotional observances, addressed to Vishnu; interspersed with legendary illustrations, most of which are peculiar to itself, though some are taken from the common and ancient stock. Many of them, rather incompatibly with the general scope of the compilation, relate to the history of Siva and Durga. A considerable portion of the work is devoted to descriptions of various Tirthas, places of Vaishnava pilgrimage; and one of Mathura enters into a variety of particulars relating to the shrines of that city, constituting the Mathura Mahatmya. In the sectarianism of the Varaha Purana there is no leaning to the particular adoration of Krishna; nor are the Rathayatra and Janmashtami included amongst the observances enjoined. There are other indications of its belonging to an earlier stage of Vaishnava worship; and it may, perhaps, be referred to the age of Ramanuja, the early part of the twelfth century." Vishnu Purana, p. LXX. The guess about the date, as already elsewhere noticed, is wide of the mark. The MS. comprises 165 chapters numbered irregularly, and sometimes incorrectly. The subjects of these chapters have been detailed below in Sanskrit.