Where would you like to begin?

Choose a feeling, a festival or a question. Each door opens the library at a good first place.

How the texts are grouped

Shruti“what was heard”: The Vedas: hymns and rituals, and at their end the Upanishads.
Itihasa“so it happened”: The two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Gita sits inside the Mahabharata.
Purana“of old”: Encyclopedic story-books of gods, creation, kings and dharma.
Darshana“ways of seeing”: Philosophy in compressed aphorisms, such as the Yoga Sutras.
Yoga and Nath texts: Teachings and practice for the inner path, such as the Yoga Vasistha.

The five marks
A Purana is traditionally said to cover creation, re-creation after dissolution, the lineages of gods and sages, the ages of the Manus, and the deeds of royal dynasties. When a chapter is a list of names, it is doing one of these jobs.
The frame
Most Puranas are told by someone to someone. In many, the bard Ugrashravas recites to sages gathered in the Naimisha forest, and inside that a god or sage tells the story to another. Knowing the frame tells you who “I” and “you” are on the page.
The lens
Many Puranas centre one deity: Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess. Others range across many gods. A text's lens is its angle, not a verdict, and each guide says what it is.

Choose a feeling, a festival or a question. Each door opens the library at a good first place.

Shruti“what was heard”: The Vedas: hymns and rituals, and at their end the Upanishads.
Itihasa“so it happened”: The two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Gita sits inside the Mahabharata.
Purana“of old”: Encyclopedic story-books of gods, creation, kings and dharma.
Darshana“ways of seeing”: Philosophy in compressed aphorisms, such as the Yoga Sutras.
Yoga and Nath texts: Teachings and practice for the inner path, such as the Yoga Vasistha.

The five marks
A Purana is traditionally said to cover creation, re-creation after dissolution, the lineages of gods and sages, the ages of the Manus, and the deeds of royal dynasties. When a chapter is a list of names, it is doing one of these jobs.
The frame
Most Puranas are told by someone to someone. In many, the bard Ugrashravas recites to sages gathered in the Naimisha forest, and inside that a god or sage tells the story to another. Knowing the frame tells you who “I” and “you” are on the page.
The lens
Many Puranas centre one deity: Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess. Others range across many gods. A text's lens is its angle, not a verdict, and each guide says what it is.