The Yuga Purana is a Sanskrit text and the last chapter of a Jyotisha text Vriddhagargiya Samhita. It is also considered a minor text in the Puranic literature.
Contents
The Yuga Purana is structured as a chronicle, and is notable for historical information presented as a prophecy. It is the only surviving Indian text that includes a detailed description of Greeks who advanced into India after Alexander the Great, and the Indo-Greek conquest of Pataliputra, the capital of the Mauryan Empire. It includes mythology, but also chronicles the Magadha empire, Maurya emperor Shalishuka, the Shunga dynasty the Yavanas, and Sakas. The record is described in the style of a "prophecy", as if the text was written before recorded human history began. The invasion of the Yavanas is described in a rather detailed account:
Manuscripts and Date
The extant manuscripts of the Yuga Purana are in poor form and considered by scholars as highly corrupted over its history, although recent "research has been concerned with establishing a more acceptable text". Its importance is contested, with claims ranging from possibly the "oldest surviving text" with Purana in its title, to "quite late and worthless" manuscript. The few manuscripts discovered are highly inconsistent, and early 20th-century translators reconstructed the manuscript by "liberally altering" proper names in the text to arrive at "guesses at truth" that these manuscripts might have intended. Scholars in the early 20th century stated that this text is a late text and dismissed the Yuga Purana as historically worthless, with Tarn adding that "naturally, I cannot be sure". However, the situation has been improved by the discovery of eight more manuscripts by Indologist John Mitchiner, who has produced a complete translation of the text. Sanskrit scholar Ludo Rocher says that "The Yuga is important primarily as a historical document. It is a matter-of-fact chronicle of the Magadha empire, down to the breakdown of the Sungas and the arrival of the Sakas. It is unique in its description of the invasion and retirement of the Yavanas in Magadha." John Mitchiner suggests it to be one of the useful, important and oldest Purana giving it an estimate of c. 25 BCE because of the archaic, unusual Sanskrit found in the text. Mitchiner notes that the manuscripts themselves were likely copied from their sources in 18th or 19th century, but a stemmatic study of the various manuscripts indicates that they are derived from a source "considerably earlier than A.D. 1000." A few scholars place the origin of this astrology-related text to between 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE. Other scholars suggest that this text is written with a mix of Prakrit and Sanskrit languages, but attribute this to "extreme corruption" of the text. There is no consensus on an acceptable version of the text. However, the situation has been improved by the discovery of eight more manuscripts by Indologist John Mitchiner, who has produced a complete translation of the text.
