[Advaita-l] Fwd: Free Download of Skanda purana in English

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Fri, 19 Feb 2021, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l wrote:

> Writes the Uploader, of the efforts:
>
> The Skanda Purana is a huge compilation of ancient Hindu scriptures
> <https://holybooks.com/mahabharata-all-volumes-in-12-pdf-files/>. They were
> discovered in a library in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 1898 by Haraprasad Shastri
> and Cecil Bendall. The manuscripts were written on palm leafs, the oldest
> one dated to 810 CE. However, earlier versions are likely to have existed.

This requires some clarification.  The Skandapurana was certainly not 
discovered in 1898.  What Haraprasad Shastri discovered was an early 
manuscript of an earlier stage of development of the Purana.

Unlike some shastras like the Vedas which whose transmission was very 
meticulously guarded, in the Puranas there has been a lot of 
interpolation of other material.  (Not necessarily newer material.)  At 
one extreme we have e.g. the Bhagavata Purana.  Of its' 338 adhyayas there 
is doubt about only 3.  On the other side we have e.g. the Skanda Purana 
which is voluminous and contains everything from Shaiva and Advaita 
leaning works such as Kashi Khanda and Suta Samhita to Vaishnava leaning 
ones such as Vasudeva Mahatmya and Satyanaraya Katha. Many other tirtha 
mahatmyas and sthala puranas are also considered part of it.

In recent years there has been  a German-Nepali joint venture that has 
been cataloguing and preserving manuscripts in the Kathmandu valley and 
they have discovered serveral more early manuscripts of the Skandapurana.

This isn't that.  It looks like the uploader is not aware of such things 
and merely copied some text from the wikipedia article on skanda purana 
which like most wikipedia articles on Hinduism is rather mediocre.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>