Skanda Purana
medieval era Sanskrit text, one of eighteen major Puranas
The Skanda Purana (IAST: Skanda Purāṇa) is the largest Mukhyapurāṇa, a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts. The text contains over 81,000 verses, and is of Shaivite literature, titled after Skanda, a son of Shiva and Parvati (who is also known as Murugan in Tamil literature). While the text is named after Skanda, he does not feature either more or less prominently in this text than in other Shiva-related Puranas. The text has been an important historical record and influence on the Hindu traditions and rituals related to the war-god Skanda.
The earliest text titled Skanda Purana likely existed by the 8th century CE, but the Skanda Purana that has survived into the modern era exists in many versions. It is considered as a living text, which has been widely edited, over many centuries, creating numerous variants. The common elements in the variant editions encyclopedically cover cosmogony, mythology, genealogy, dharma, festivals, gemology, temples, geography, discussion of virtues and evil, of theology and of the nature and qualities of Shiva as the Absolute and the source of true knowledge.
The editions of Skandapurana text also provide an encyclopedic travel handbook with meticulous Tirtha Mahatmya (pilgrimage tourist guides), containing geographical locations of pilgrimage centers in India, Nepal and Tibet, with related legends, parables, hymns and stories.
This Mahāpurāṇa, like others, is attributed to the sage Vyasa.
Date of composition
Haraprasad Shastri and Cecil Bendall, in about 1898, discovered an old palm-leaf manuscript of Skanda Purana in a Kathmandu library in Nepal, written in Gupta script.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Skanda Purana” is medieval era Sanskrit text, one of eighteen major Puranas. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Skanda, Purana and medieval, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “medieval era Sanskrit text, one of eighteen major Puranas” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2497735. VIAF identifies the subject as 181443077. The Library of Congress control number is n80066756. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1898.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Skanda Purana primary sources, Skanda Purana archive and Skanda research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Skanda Purana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.