[1] The pūrvakhaņḑa begins at the Naimisha Forest, with Suta reporting to the sages assembled there about Vyasa's discourse to Jabali on dharma and its constituent parts: satya, daya, shanti and ahimsa.
In chapters 5-30, Vyasa, in answer to another question of Jabali, describes the tirthas (sacred places), reporting it as a conversation between goddess Rudrani and her two associates, Jaya and Vijaya.
The description starts with a song of praise to Ganga and it includes the origin and sanctity of tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) plant and the bilva (Aegle marmelos) tree.
These narratives related to Ganga are briefly interrupted in chapter 23, which describes the birth of Uma as the second daughter of Himalaya and Mena.
This discussion includes a passage supporting the practice of Sati which mentions that it is the obligation of a widow to follow her husband in death (Chapter 8, 8-10).
[1] The first printed edition of this text was published by The Asiatic Society, Calcutta (1888–97), as a part of their Bibliotheca Indica series.
In 1915, a free and abridged English translation by Syama Charan Banerji was published from Lucknow by the Indian Commercial Press as the first volume of its Rambles in Scripture Land series.