My understanding of the Puranas

• The Puranas (Sanskrit: purāṇa, "of ancient times") are ancient Hindu texts eulogizing various deities and are supplementary explanations of the Vedas through divine stories. Vyasa, the narrator of the Mahabharata, is traditionally considered the compiler of the Puranas.
• All the Puranas belong to the class of 'Suhrit-Samhitas,' or friendly treatises, markedly differing in authority from the Vedas, which are called the 'Prabhu-Samhitas' or the commanding treatises.
• The Puranas have the essence of the Vedas and were written to popularize the thoughts contained in the Vedas. They were meant, not for the scholars, but for the ordinary people who could hardly fathom the high philosophy of the Vedas. The Vedas and Puranas are one and the same in purpose. They ascertain the Absolute Truth, which is greater than everything else. The aim of the Puranas is to impress upon 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 chronicles of great historical events.
• The Puranas are mainly written in the form of a dialogue in which one narrator relates a story in reply to the inquiries of another.
• Puranas usually give prominence to a particular deity, employing an abundance of religious and philosophical concepts and are usually written in the form of stories related by one person to another. The Puranas are distinguished as Maha-puranas and Upa-puranas, both being 18 in number. Srimad Bhagavata and Varaha-purana are considered the Maha-puranas.
• The MahaPuranas are frequently classified according to the Trimurti (Trinity or the 3 aspects of the divine intended) but as all men are not equal, the Padma Purana classifies the puranas for the 3 types of men, in accordance with their 3 gunas or qualities of Sattva (Truth and Purity), Rajas (Dimness and Passion) and Tamas (Darkness and Ignorance) into sattvik ,rajasic and tamasic puranas, each consisting of 6 puranas.
• Of the 18 major texts,

1. 6 are Sattvic Puranas glorifying Vishnu;
2. 6 are Rajasic and glorifying Brahma; and
3. 6 are Tamasic and they glorifying Shiva.

They are categorized serially in the following list of Puranas:

Bhagavat Purana	18,000 verses	the most celebrated and popular of the Puranas, describing Vishnu's ten Avatars. Its tenth and longest canto narrates the deeds of Krishna, introducing his childhood exploits, a theme later elaborated by many Bhakti movements.
Vishnu Purana	23,000 verses	Describes the many deeds of Vishnu and various ways to worship him.
Naradiya Purana	25,000 verses	Describes the greatness of Vedas and Vedangas.
Garuda Purana	19,000 verses	Describes death and its aftermaths.
Padma Purana	5 5,000 verses	Describes the greatness of Bhagavad Gita. Hence, it is also known as gītāmāhātmya (the majesty of Gita).
Varaha Purana	24,000 verses	Describes various forms prayer and devotional observances to Vishnu. Many illustrations also involve Shiva & Durga.
Brahma Purana	10,000 verses	Describes the Godavari and its tributaries.
Brahmanda Purana	12,000 verses	Includes Lalita Sahasranamam, a text some Hindus recite as prayer.
Brahma-Vaivarta Purana	17,000 verses	Describes ways to worship Devis, Krishna and Ganesha.
Markandeya Purana	09,000 verses	The Devi Mahatmya, an important text for the Shaktas, is embedded in it.
Bhavishya Purana		Signifies a work that contains prophecies regarding the future.
Vamana Purana	10,000 verses	Describes areas around Kurukshetra in North India.
Matsya Purana	14,000 verses	Narrates the story of Matsya, the first of ten major Avatars of Vishnu. It also contains genealogical details of various dynasties. Narrates the story of Matsya, the first of ten major Avatars of Vishnu. It also contains genealogical details of various dynasties.
Kurma Purana	17,000 verses	Is the second of ten major avatar of Lord Vishnu.
Linga Purana	11,000 verses	Describes the magnificence of Lingam, symbol of Shiva & origin of the universe. It also contains many stories of Lingam one of which entails how Agni Lingam solved dispute between Vishnu & Brahma.
Shiva Purana	24,000 verses	Describes the greatness of Shiva, worthiness in worshiping Shiva and other stories about him.
Skanda Purana	81,100 verses	Describes the birth of Skanda (or Karthikeya), first son of Shiva. The longest Purana, it is an extraordinarily meticulous pilgrimage guide, containing geographical locations of pilgrimage centers in India, with related legends, parables, hymns and stories. Many untraced quotes are attributed to this text.
Agni Purana	15,400 verses	Contains details of Vastu Shastra and Gemology

• Foremost among the many Puranas are the Srimad Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana. In popularity, they follow the same order. A portion of the Markandeya Purana is well known to all Hindus as Chandi, or Devimahatmya. Worship of God as the Divine Mother is its theme. The list of 18 puranas is sometimes enlarged to 20, to include the Vayu Purana and the Harivamsa = 16,000 verses and is considered to be itihāsa (epic poetry).
• The topics that form the subject matter of a Maha-purana are primary creation, secondary creation, means of sustenance, protection including Incarnations, epoch of Manus, genealogy of royal and priestly lines from Bhahma down, dynastic history of distinguished emperors, dissolution, purpose of all creative activity and ultimate support or the substratum.
• Of the ten subjects, the last one, the Supreme Being Who is the final stay of all, and to which man's devotion is to be unconditional and total, forms the one theme with which the Bhagavata is primarily concerned. All other subjects are subordinated to it. The object is to bring man into an adequate conception of His excellences and to generate in him unconditioned devotion to the Lord.
• As for Varaha-purana, it deals mainly with primary creation and secondary creation. It is full of religious and theological matters and glorification of the gods, mainly Visnu.
• The Pauranikas say that their accounts are traditions based on the intuition, inspiration and revelation that have come to wise and realized sages.
• The immortal works of literature and art that have survived several centuries are always considered the works of intuition, inspiration and revelation. On the other hand, rationalists contend that the contents of the Puranas are either imaginary or absurd and do not have historical validity.