It is only the intensive and comparative study of the Puranas
based on highly critical editions which can help us to some
extent in reconstructing the political history of pre-Buddhist
India, Dr Ramakrishna points out. By Syed Akbar Hyderabad:
Puranas, the ancient Hindu religious texts, are not mythological
records but books of historical evidence. A comprehensive
research study carried out in the State by a Vedic research
organisation shows that Puranas reflect the development of
social and moral ideas of the ancient Indian society, besides
being chroniclers of the kings and the dynasties of those times.
The Puranas are also prophetic in nature with several forecasts
which later became "Puranas are not imaginary but have
historical value. In numerous cases what the Puranas formulate,
the Jatakas (ancient Buddhist texts) seem to illustrate. The
striking agreement between the two accounts proves that they are
not works of fiction but based on events of yore," says Vedic
researcher and Sanskrit scholar Dr Dhuli