PURANA Media

Current Issue

Vol. 1 (2025)

Published September 29, 2025

Cover of volume 1, with light yellow background and original artwork across the center third.

PURANA Media is an annual, peer-reviewed, open access journal focused on modes of cultural production encompassed by the term purāṇa (a Sanskrit word designating things 'ancient’ or 'primordial'). The journal approaches purāṇa as a way of worldmaking expressed in visual, performative, and ritual media, showing how it shapes cultural memory, narrates history, and imagines possible futures.

Full Issue

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Print Copy of Inaugural Issue Available

A print-on-demand copy of PURANA Media Volume 1 (2025), the Inaugural Issue, is now available.

Front Matter

i-vi

Volume 1 (2025): Inaugural Issue

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Editors' Introduction

Elizabeth A. Cecil, Peter C. Bisschop

1-18

Purāṇa as a Way of Worldmaking

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Research Articles

Ayelet Kotler

19-49

Mythical and Historical Time in the Author Portraits of the Persian Puranic Translator Anandghan ‘Khwush’ (fl. 1790–1795)

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Gaurika Mehta

50-74

Churning the Kalapani: Dark Water Histories, Oceanic Origins, and Marine Deities of the Indo-Caribbean Madrasi Diaspora

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James Mallinson

75-108

Joining the Clubs: Continuities between Pāśupata and Nāth Asceticism

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Photo Essays

Avni Chag

109-131

Revering the Relic Manuscript in Contemporary Hinduism

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Arya Adityan

132-149

Avatāra as Embodied Practice: Narrative, Performance, Image

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Artist's Essay

Samboleap Tol

150-167

“I feel like my ancestors have left me a thousand voice notes to decipher”

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RESEARCH
Studies in purāṇic practice across media, tracing histories, transmissions, and reinventions.

PHOTO
Photo essays from museums and archives, showing how collections shape memory.

REFLECTION
Perspectives on how tradition and ancestral memory drive creative processes.