Bhavishya Purana
Those sections of the surviving manuscripts that are dated to be older, are partly borrowed from other Indian texts such as Brihat Samhita and Shamba Purana.
[3][5] The veracity and authenticity of much of the Bhavishya Purana has been questioned by modern scholars and historians, and the text is considered an example of "constant revisions and living nature" of Puranic genre of Hindu literature.
[3][8] However, some of the caste-related and women's rights related discussion in the Bhavishya Purana is egalitarian and challenge those found in the 19th century published manuscripts of the Manusmriti.
This last part describes festivals related to various Hindu gods and goddesses and their Tithis (dates on lunar calendar), as well as mythology and a discussion of Dharma particularly vrata (vow) and dana (charity).
[12][5] The text also has many Mahatmya chapters on geography, travel guide and pilgrimage to holy sites such as Uthiramerur,[14][15] and is one of the Tirtha-focussed Puranas.
[2] In records of land grants of the fifth century CE, verses are quoted which occur only in the Padma, Bhavishya, and Brahma Puranas.
[18] According to Winternitz, the text which has come down to us in manuscript form is certainly not the ancient work which is quoted in the Āpastambīya Dharmasūtra ; a quotation attributed to the Bhaviṣyat Purāṇa cannot be found anymore in extant editions.
[6] The "prophecy"-related third part Pratisargaparvan includes sections on comparing Upanishadic ideas to those found in non-Indic religions, as well as a history through the 18th century.
[32][33] This overlaps with Zoroastrianism-related views,[5] and may be related to ancient migration or interaction between Persia and central Asia with Indian subcontinent.
[3] This is not mentioned in other Indian text, states Hazra, to have been a part of the Bhavishya Purana, and therefore might be "a late appendage" abounding in Tantric theories of the 2nd millennium.
[6] It is written as a universal history with the first and the second chapters (called Khandas) dealing with old time, the third part with the medieval, and the fourth with the new age.
This c. mid-18th century terminus a quo would also apply to Pratisargaparvan's first khanda Genesis-Exodus sequence where its author is aware of both Arabic and English sources.
Shri Suta Goswami said that a demon called Tripurasura who was earlier burnt to ashes by Shiva has taken birth again in form of Mahamada (Muhammad) and his deeds are like that of an evil ghost.
[49] Rajendra Hazra characterizes it as "a loose collection of materials taken from various sources" that is lacking in many of the traditional five characteristics of a purana, but which offers an interesting study of vows, festivals, and donations from sociological and religious point of view.
[14][15] Indologist Theodor Aufrecht had noted the Bombay manuscript edition to be a modern era "literary fraud" that plagiarized excerpts from the Pentateuch (Bible) brought to India by early missionaries.
