मल्लपुराण (ज्येष्ठिमल्ल - प्राचीन भारतीय मल्लविद्या, अखाड़ा व्यायाम व कुश्ती महाग्रन्थ)

INTRODUCTION
I. What is Mallapurāṇa
Mallapurāṇa is a Purāṇa of the Jyeṣṭhī Mallas or a caste of professional
wrestlers found in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Mysore and other parts of
India. They claim Gujarat as their place of origin. The term 'Purāṇa' is used
in India from a very long time in the sense of Purāṇam Ākhyānam i.e. the
ancient story. The term is loosely used to denote Itihāsa, which also narrates
the old story. The Indians have used the terms Purāṇam, Ākhyāna and Itihāsa
in a loose way and often they are used as synonyms.¹
In India from a very early period the Ākhyānas, Itihāsa and Purāṇas are
found and they are mentioned as a branch of study, "in fact the Itihāsapurāṇa
is actually called the fifth Veda".² The stories under this literature were
literary public property which was drawn upon by the Buddhists, Jains as well
as by the Epic poets.
But our 'Purāṇa' texts are comparatively late and "at least from the
Sutra literature, the real existence of works whose contents approximately agreed
with our Purāṇa texts could be proved."³ From this high antiquity upto the
present day Purāṇas were written. Some books claim for themselves the proud
title of Purāṇas while others rest content with the claim of the part of an old
Purāṇa.
Purāṇas are defined as consisting of five characteristics: (1) Sarga:
creation (2) Pratisarga: recreation (destruction or Pralaya and recreation)
(3) Vaṁśa: geneology (4) Manvantara: time cycle from one Manu to the
other (5) Vaṁśānucarita: the history of the dynasties.⁴
When the Paurāṇic literature is surveyed it is found to contain data
which are either more or less than that expected by the above-mentioned
standard definition. Some Purāṇas are sectarian, some deal with the rights
and duties of Caste and Āśrama and occasionally parts of Sāṅkhya and Yoga
Philosophy, Dhanurveda fine arts and many other diverse subjects are
interwoven.
In the Paurāṇic literature there are eighteen Mahā-Purāṇas: Bhrama,
¹ M. Winternitz, A history of Indian Literature, p. 311, University of
Calcutta, 1927.
² Ibid. p. 313.
³ Ibid. p. 519.
⁴ Besides this definition, there are others which give the characteristics of
the Purāṇas. These ten characteristics are for Mahā Purāṇas and the five
characteristics are for Upapurāṇas. Winternitz, op. cit. 522, fn. 2.