AN ABSTRACT OF MY NEW PURÂNIC CHRONOLOGY. 1 That the Purânas were touched and retouched at various periods is a fact too evident to need demonstration. There is reason to believe that the Puránas have been tampered with sometimes with intention and on other occasions with ignorance. The earliest redaction of the Purânas seems to have been made about the beginning of the Christian Era, when the Solar and Lunar dynasties were brought down to their last princes, Sumitra and Kshemaka, who were succeeded by the Nandas and Chandragupta, after the Bhrihadratha line of the Mâgadha Empire. At this very time, some chronological facts seem to have been recorded in the earlier versions of the Puránas, which are not now extant, but which are referred to by the extant version of the Vâyu-Purâna-account, which, though the earliest of the present puránic versions, is yet later than the end of the Andhrabhrityas, if not still later ! 2 The Vayu Purána gives the earliest tradition about the period that elapsed between the Mahabharata war and the coronation of Mahádeva or Chandragupta. The verses run thus:- महादेवाभिषेकात्तु यावज्जन्म परीक्षितः । एकवर्षसहस्रं तु ज्ञेयं पंचाशदुत्तरम् ॥ ४०९ ॥ प्रमाणं वै तथा चोक्तं महापद्मांतरं च यत् । अंतरं तच्छतान्यष्टौपच्च समाः स्मृताः ॥ ४१० ॥ वायुपुराण, (Calcutta Edition, Ch. 37.)
