The Markandeya Purana’s Pralaya narrative

Record summary

The Markandeya Purana contains descriptions of cosmic dissolution in which the sage Markandeya encounters a world transformed by overwhelming waters and receives a vision associated with divine preservation. Nineteenth-century printed editions and translations helped establish this as a comparative example of Indian catastrophe imagery. It can be studied beside the Mahabharata’s Markandeya material, though the two traditions should not be assumed identical. The main uncertainties concern textual layering, episode boundaries, and how later translators categorized visionary or theological material as a ‘flood myth.’