The most influential Purana is the Bhagavata, one of the great scriptures for all sects which worship Krishna.  It is said to have been translated into every language of India and forty versions in Bengali alone are mentioned.[446] It was probably composed in the eighth or ninth century.[447] A free translation of the tenth book into Hindi, called the Prem Sagar or Ocean of Love, is greatly revered in northern India.[448] Other sectarian Puranas are frequently read at temple services.  Besides the eighteen great Puranas there are many others, and in south India at any rate they were sometimes composed in the vernacular, as for instance the Periya Purana (c. 1100 A.D.).  These vernacular Puranas seem to be collections of strangely fantastic fairy tales.

C. The word Tantra originally meant a manual giving the essentials of a subject but later usage tends to restrict it to works, whether Hindu or Buddhist, inculcating the worship of Siva’s spouse.  But there are exceptions to this restriction:  the Panca-tantra is a collection of stories and the Lakshmi-tantra is a Vishnuite work.[449]

The fact is that a whole class of Sanskrit religious literature is described by the titles Tantra, Agama and Samhita,[450] which taken in a wide sense are practically synonymous, though usage is inclined to apply the first specially to Saktist works, the second to Sivaite and the third to Vishnuite.  The common character of all these productions is that they do not attempt to combine Vedic rites and ideas with sectarian worship, but boldly state that, since the prescriptions of the Veda are too hard for this age, some generous deity has revealed an easier teaching.  This teaching naturally varies in detail, but it usually comprises devotion to some special form of the godhead and also a special ceremonial, which commences with initiation and includes the use of mystic formulae, letters and diagrams.  Tantras, Agamas and Samhitas all treat of their subject-matter in four divisions[451] the first of which relates to the great problems of philosophy, the second to the discipline necessary for uniting the self and God; the third and fourth to ceremonial.

These works have another feature in common, namely that they are little known except to those Hindus who use them for religious purposes and are probably not very anxious to see them published.  Though they are numerous, few of them have been printed and those few have not been much studied by European scholars.  I shall say something more about them below in treating of the various sects.  Some are of respectable antiquity but it is also clear that modern texts pass under ancient names.  The Pancaratram and Pasupatam which are Vishnuite and Sivaite Samhitas are mentioned in the Mahabharata, and some extant Vishnuite Samhitas were perhaps composed in the fourth century A.D.[452] Ramanuja as quoted above states that the Pancaratra-sastra (apparently the same as the Pancaratra-tantra which he also mentions) was composed by Vasudeva himself and also cites as scripture the Sattvata, Paushkara and Parama Samhitas.  In the same context he speaks of the Mahabharata as Bharata-Samhita and the whole passage is interesting as being a statement by a high authority of the reasons for accepting a non-Vedic work like the Pancaratra as revealed scripture.