Puranas: Literary sources of ancient history

The ancient history of India helps us to acknowledge how our country was and how it started. Ancient history gives us a picture of India, which is not known by us. The knowledge of ancient history helps us know the country’s initial economic, cultural, regional, and religious aspects. It tells us which king ruled for how many years, which monument was built and why, what was the economic condition in a particular era, how people lived, and what they did for the occupations. Ancient literature like Puranas holds the most important content based on ancient history. 

Sources of ancient history 

The only way to know about ancient history is to dig up its various sources. The sources can be various and so many. From folklore, myths to photographs and literature. These help to study and have deeper knowledge in the doings of history.

The two most reliable and authentic sources for ancient history are –

• Literary sources 
• Archaeological sources

By literary source, it means the kinds of literature based on the subject matter of ancient history. The literary sources of ancient history mainly comprise the traditional literature, which has the most genuine and explained content. There are types of these traditional kinds of literature that we will discuss.

Vedas 

The Vedas are the most anticipated and oldest of religious texts. The Vedas were composed and written in Vedic Sanskrit. The text is the oldest literature that tells us about the scriptures of Hinduism. The Vedas have four types – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda. These Vedas are further divided into four parts – Samhitas, Aranyakas, Brahmanas, and the Upanishads. All these texts are a part of traditional literature and give us an insight into the religious philosophies of ancient Indian people. The text also comprises day-to-day lives, households, and other social working norms present in society.

Puranas 

The word Purana itself means old. This text is a very crucial and huge part of Indian literature. These texts usually deal with and talk about legends, myths, and lores which have been popular since the ancient period. Puranas are deeply studied because of their uniqueness in symbolism and layers of literary contexts. Puranas were originally written in Sanskrit but later translated into different Indian languages. Puranas are often called encyclopedias because of their vast content in cosmology and cosmogony. The Puranas texts also know gods and goddesses, heroes, demigods, horror, humour, religion, astronomy, theology as well as philosophy.

Pali and Prakrit 

The Pali and Prakrit are the main languages used in Buddhist texts. The first-ever written work on Buddhism was in Pali. The text deals with 549 Jatakas. Pali and Prakrit also talk about the politics, economics, and religious aspects of Buddhists in India. These jatakas also talks about the future Buddha. Every story on Buddhist realms is related to these tales of Jatakas. The Pali and Prakrithas have a huge range of socio-economic, political, mythology and folklore stories too.

Dramas 

Puranas are not the only ancient literature. There are three substantially important Dramas written by Kalidasa. These dramas are popularly known as Malavikagnimitram, Vikramorvashiyam, and Abhigyan Shakuntalam. These three texts were written in Sanskrit and are also very informative and threw light on ancient India’s socio-political and other social aspects.

Epics 

Speaking of ancient history and literature, no one can ever miss out on one of the two most popular epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata. Both Ramayana and Mahabharata are two epic tales of heroism, philosophies, relations, battles, politics and betrayal. Though they are depicted as fictional, still these two kinds of literature have a major hold on people’s lives and teach us about the art of war, family relations and political complexities.

Conclusion 

Ancient history is an important part of all aspects of life. It helps us to have an idea about our land. The ancient details give us an idea of how the place used to be thousands and thousands of years ago. The only and most valuable way to gain knowledge in ancient history is by gathering and reading up all the traditional literature written on the topic. These literary sources help to picture the ancient economic, religious, ruling, culture and norms of primitive and old India.