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The Brahmanda Purana (The history of the universe) ((サンスクリット:ब्रह्माण्ड पुराण), ) is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts and has been assigned the eighteenth place in almost all the lists of the Puranas.〔Hazra, R.C. (1962). ''The Puranas'' in S. Radhakrishnan ed. ''The Cultural Heritage of India'', Vol.II, Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, ISBN 81-85843-03-1, p.255〕 ''Brahma'' in Sanskrit means the creator deity Brahma or by extension "the universe" coming from the root ''briḥ'' meaning expansion,〔http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/hmvp/hmvp16.htm〕 and the word ''anda/andam'' meaning egg. So, Brahmanda means the "universal egg" or "cosmic germ" signifying the origin from which the universe expands. The Brahmanda Purana gets its name from the Brahmanda (the cosmic egg) also known as hiranyagarbha. It deals with the origin of the universe as told by Brahma. In the beginning, there was a golden egg, and the ''prapanca'' (Universe with its activities) was formed out of it. Portions of Adhyatma Ramayana, references to Radha and Krishna and the incarnation of Parasurama are included in this. According to tradition, this text contains twelve thousand verses. ==Outline== The Venkateshvara Press, Bombay edition of the text, published in 1906 comprises 14,286 verses. It is divided into two distinct parts. The first part comprises first two sections of the text, the ''Pūrvabhāga'', the ''Madhyabhāga'' and the first part of the third section ''Uttarabhāga'' (up to chapter 4). The ''Pūrvabhāga'' comprises two ''pāda''s (sub-sections): ''Prakriyā'' (chapters 1–5) and ''Anuṣaṅga'' (chapters 6–38). The ''Madhyabhāga'' and the ''Uttarabhāga'' comprise only one ''pāda'' each, ''Upodghāta'' (chapters 1–74) and ''Upasaṃhāra'' (chapters 1–4). The names of these four ''pāda''s of the text are same as the extant ''Vayu Purana'' and its contents are also almost same as the latter text. The second part, which comprises chapters 5–44 of the third section, the ''Uttarabhāga'' is styled as the ''Lalitopākhyāna'' (narrative of Lalita). It narrates the worship of the Goddess Lalita according to the Tantric rites.〔 This part is written as a dialogue between Hayagriva and sage Agastya. It describes about Goddess Lalita's emergence out of fire during a sacrifice offered by Indra to Devi, her war with Asura Bhanda and her final triumph. The major sections of this Purana include: *Detailed description of creation of cosmos, discussion about the time as a dimension and details of Kalpa and Yuga. *Aspects of religious geography and in this context description of Jambudvipa and Bharata-varsha, and certain other locations identified as islands and landmasses like Anudvipa, Ketumaala-varsha. *Description of certain dynasties like the houses of Bharata, Prithu, Deva, Rishi, and Agni. *Describes the vedangas; describes the Adi Kalpa. The Adhyatma Ramayana, a text consisting about 4500 verses in 65 chapters and divided into seven ''kanda''s, the ''Nasiketopkhyana'', a text in 18 chapters, the ''Pinakinimahatmya'', a text in 12 chapters, the ''Virajakshetramahatmya'' and the ''Kanchimahatmya'', a text in 32 chapters are considered to be connected with this Purana.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brahmanda Purana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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