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RELIGIOUS PRACTICES AND OPINIONS
in great part to the juvenile Krishna, and his favourite mistress, Rádhá; and although the worship of Rádhá is now so exceedingly popular, particularly in western Hindustan, yet her person, and even her name, are unknown to all the other Puráñas, to the heroic poems, and even to the popular literature of the Hindus, to the plays, poems, and tales which are not compositions of the last three or four centuries.
It would occupy too much time to enter into any further details upon this subject. The grounds upon which the opinions intimated have been formed may be found in analytical descriptions of the contents of several of the most popular of the Puránas which have been published in the Journals of the Asiatic Societies of Bengal and Great Britain, and in the preface to the Vishnu Purána to which I have previously referred1.
There seems good reason to believe that the Puráñas in their present form accompanied or succeeded a period of considerable religious forment in India. and were designed to uphold and extend the doctrines of rival sects, which then disputed the exclusive direction of the faith of the Hindus. It began perhaps in the third or fourth century of our æra, having for its object the extermination of the Buddhists, who in
1
Analysis of the Agni Purana: Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal, Vol. I, p. 81; of the Brahma Vaivartta P., ib. p. 217; of the Vishnu P., ib. p. 431; of the Váyu P., ib. p. 535: of the Brahma P., Journ. Royal As. Soc. of Great Britain, Vol. V, p. 61; of the Padma P., ib. p. 280.
