Encyclopaedia of Puranas

Purana enjoins several rites of worship and acts of homage comprising a series, of physical and spiritual practices in accompaniment to the Tantra, Yantra and Mantra appliances. The book contains an account of the dissolution of the world, in both its major and minor cataclysms; and in the particulars of the end of all things by fire and water, as well as in the principle of their perpetual renovation, presents a faithful exhibition of opinions that were general in the ancient world. The metaphysical annihilation of the universe, by the release of the spirit from bodily existence, offers, as already remarked, other analogies to doctrines and practices taught by Pythagoras and Plato, and by the Platonic Christians of later days