The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (950 page)

(Skt., ‘the dynastic history of Hari [ = Vi
u]’). A Hindu mythological text in Skt. It is a work of considerable text-historical complexities, with early layers reaching as far back as the 1st or 2nd cent. CE. The bulk of the work is constituted by material derived from two main traditions:

(i) the
Pur
a-pañcalak
a
a
; and
(ii) stories about the life of
K
a
among the herdsmen of Vraja.

The Jains also produced, in various languages, Hariva
a (Pur
a)s which deal with their version of the K