Parāśara

Parāśara was the son of Śakti and grandson of Vasiṣṭha. He recited the Veda in his mother's womb, and his voice called his grief-stricken grandfather back from death. When he learned that his father had been eaten by a rākṣasa, one of the demons who feed on men, he resolved to destroy the worlds, and Vasiṣṭha turned him from it with the story of Aurva. He burned the rākṣasas in a great sacrifice until Pulastya asked him to stop, and he stopped. On the Yamunā he met the ferry girl Satyavatī, and their son was Vyāsa, who divided the one Veda into four and made the Mahābhārata. And it is Parāśara who tells the whole Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the long book of the god Viṣṇu and of how the world is made and comes to its end, to his pupil Maitreya.

Contents

  1. The Voice in the Womb
  2. The One Who Called Him Back
  3. The Story of Aurva
  4. The Fire for the Rākṣasas
  5. The Ferry on the Yamunā
  6. Maitreya's Questions

Beside them