52. The Eighteen Puranas

The Puranas were written to popularize the doctrine of the Vedas. They contain the essence of the Vedas. The aim of the Puranas is to impress on the minds of the masses the teachings of the Vedas and to generate in them devotion to God, through concrete examples, myths, stories legends, lives of saints, kings and great men, allegories and chronicals of great historical events. The sages made use of these things to illustrate the eternal principles of religion. The Puranas were meant not for the scholars, but for the ordinary people who could not understand high philosophy and who could not study the Vedas.

Veda Vyasa is the compiler of the Puranas, which are eighteen in number and are very popular.