The Eighteen Mahapuranas:
Stories that Carry the Vedas
Journey through the eighteen Mahapuranas — the vast, story-rich texts that carry the essence of the Vedas to everyone. Learn their structure, the traditional Vishnu / Shiva / Brahma groupings, their great narratives and the deep philosophy woven through them.
📖 Course Overview
The eighteen Mahapuranas are encyclopaedic texts that carry the essence of the Vedas in the form of stories, cosmology, genealogies and devotion — making the highest ideas accessible to every person, not only scholars.
They are traditionally grouped by the three qualities (gunas): the Sattvic Puranas centred on Vishnu, the Rajasic on Brahma, and the Tamasic on Shiva. Together they include the Bhagavata, Vishnu, Shiva, Markandeya, Skanda, Bhavishya and others.
This course maps all eighteen, explains their shared five-fold structure (the pancha-lakshana), and journeys through key narratives — reading the stories both for their beauty and for the philosophy hidden within them.
🎯 What You Will Learn
📚 Curriculum — 12 Weeks · 54 Lessons
👩🏫 Your Teacher
Pandit Vyasa Prasad
Pandit Vyasa Prasad comes from the living tradition of Puranic kathā — the art of narrating the Puranas — and has told and taught these stories for many years. He has a storyteller’s warmth and a scholar’s care, drawing out the philosophy inside each narrative. On Vedanvesha’s Digital Gurukul he brings the eighteen Puranas vividly to life.
📜 Your Certificate
Vedanvesha Puranic Studies Certificate
Complete the course and final assessment to receive your digitally-signed certificate from Vedanvesha Digital Gurukul, recognising a structured study of the eighteen Mahapuranas.
⭐ What Early Learners Say
“Panditji finally made sense of the eighteen for me — which is which, and why. The Bhagavata weeks were beautiful.”
“As a kathā lover this deepened everything. The pancha-lakshana framework is so useful.”
“Rich and well-organised. A superb overview of a huge subject.”