Index

There are eighteen main Puranas and an equal number of subsidiary Puranas or Upa-Puranas.

The 18 main Puranas are:

1. Vishnu Purana,
2. Narada Purana,
3. Srimad Bhagavata Purana,
4. Garuda (Suparna) Purana,
5. Padma Purana,
6. Varaha Purana,
7. Brahma Purana,
8. Brahmanda Purana,
9. Brahma Vaivarta Purana,
10. Markandeya Purana,
11. Bhavishya Purana,
12. Vamana Purana,
13. Matsya Purana,
14. Kurma Purana,
15. Linga Purana,
16. Siva Purana,
17. Skanda Purana (Kartika Purana) and
18. Agni Purana.

The number of verses in each Purana is listed in other verses of the Srimad-Bhagavatam (12.13.4-9):

• The Brahma Purana consists of ten thousand verses,
• the Padma Purana of fifty-five thousand,
• Sri Visnu Purana of twenty-three thousand,
• the Siva Purana of twenty-four thousand and
• Srimad-Bhagavatam of eighteen thousand.
• The Narada Purana has twenty-five thousand verses,
• the Markandeya Purana nine thousand,
• the Agni purana fifteen thousand four hundred,
• the Bhavisya Purana fourteen thousand five hundred,
• the Brahma-vaivarta Purana eighteen thousand and
• the Linga Purana eleven thousand .
• The Varaha Purana contains twenty-four thousand verses,
• the Skanda Puranas eight-one thousand one hundred,
• the Vamana Purana fourteen thousand,
• the Garuda Purana nineteen thousand and
• the Brahmanda Purana twelve thousand.

Thus the total number of verses in all the Puranas is four hundred thousand. Eighteen thousand of these, once again, belong to the beautiful Bhagavatam..

The 18 Upa-Puranas are:

1. Sanatkumara,
2. Narasimha,
3. Brihannaradiya,
4. Sivarahasya,
5. Durvasa,
6. Kapila,
7. Vamana,
8. Bhargava,
9. Varuna,
10. Kalika,
11. Samba,
12. Nandi,
13. Surya,
14. Parasara,
15. Vasishtha,
16. Devi Bhagavatam,
17. Ganesa and
18. Hamsa.

The Vishnu Purana has twenty-three thousand shlokas divided into six major sections or amshas.