Purāṇa / The eighteen / Kūrma Purāṇa
Kūrma Purāṇa (कूर्मपुराण)
About 17,000 verses in the traditional lists. Tamas in the Padma Purāṇa's sorting. Neither figure is this shelf's own measurement.
About seventeen thousand verses in the lists, tamas in the Padma sorting. The tortoise is the avatāra who is a base. At the churning of the ocean the mountain needs something to stand on, and Viṣṇu takes the form that can bear a mountain on its back. The tortoise himself is the speaker. At the churning, Viṣṇu as Kūrma tells this purāṇa to Indradyumna and the sages. The other books tell the churning as a harvest of gifts. This book takes its name from the support under the harvest. A theology of the underneath.
The Īśvara Gītā opens the book's second part, the Uparibhāga. It is a dialogue in which Śiva teaches. The shelf maps that dialogue and does not sit it line by line. The presence is the interesting fact. A purāṇa the Padma list calls tamas carries a Śaiva teaching a devotee may love. The guṇa label does not tell you what the page in your hand is doing. That mismatch is part of why this profile exists, so the label and the page can be seen at once.
The teaching is bearing. Someone, or something, holds the work the bright gifts depend on. The tortoise is not the nectar. He is why the churning does not sink. Devotion to a base is a quieter devotion than devotion to a prize, and the book asks for it.
What it tells
The tortoise under the mountain at the churning; creation and the ages; Kūrma as the speaker; the Īśvara Gītā at the opening of the second part, mapped and not sat line by line.
The teaching
The gift is not the support. A world of prizes still needs a back to stand on.
What a reader keeps
- About seventeen thousand, as a list-number.
- Tamas only in the Padma list, which does not describe the Īśvara-gītā.
- The dialogue is mapped. It is not sat line by line.
A line
A line people recite from this book is not sat here. The shelf does not print a verse it has not checked.
नेपालीमा
सूचीले करिब सत्र हजार श्लोक भन्छ। पद्मको तमस् यो तहको राय होइन। कूर्म आधार हुन्। मन्थनमा मन्दरा पर्वतको मुनि विष्णुले कछुवाको रूप लिए। वक्ता कूर्म आफैँ हुन्। मन्थनमा कूर्म रूपका विष्णुले इन्द्रद्युम्न र ऋषिहरूलाई यो पुराण सुनाए। कूर्म अमृत होइनन्, मन्थन नडुब्ने आधार हुन्। दोस्रो भाग, उपरिभाग, ईश्वरगीताबाट सुरु हुन्छ, शिवको संवाद। यो खण्डले नक्सा दिन्छ, श्लोक-श्लोक समावेश गर्दैन। गुणको लेबलले हातमा भएको पृष्ठ के गर्दै छ भन्ने बताउँदैन।
Where it sits
The churning is also told on the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata profiles. This one keeps the base.