The researches of the scholars have revealed that the Puranas are antique in its character and composition. There is no doubt that the Puranas represent the earliest traditional chronicle and that much of their material is old and valuable. The references of the Puranas in the ancient texts reveals that the Puranas existed even before the advent of the Vedic texts, though not as a form of literary genre

The researches made on the Puranas in different times. Modern scholarship has varied its attitude towards the Puranas at different times.

In the last decades of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, the Puranas were not provided enough importance for depicting history. This is so because the Puranas represent a confused conglomeration of their legendary and historical events, thereby depicts a peculiar idea of age. Hence the confused and disintegrated idea of age reduces the historical significance of the Puranas.

In the early decades of the 19th century, H.H Wilson made a systematic study of the Puranas and brought out an English translation of the Vishnu Purana. The English translation of Vishnu Purana made by Wilson opens with an exhaustive introduction and critical and comparative notes which attracted the attention of European scholars to this important branch of Sanskrit literature.

However the antique Puranas again came into limelight when it is considered as worthy of credence and corroborated by independent evidence. In the early decades of the 20th century the methodical research of F.E Pargiter placed before the world a critical survey of the historical material of the Puranas. Before the advent of the detailed study of F.E Pargiter the Puranas were in the darkest oblivion as a literary genre.

Researches made by VA Smith proved that the Matsya account of the Andhras regarding the Puranas is substantially correct. Scholars have found that the Vishnu version about the Mauryas and the Vayu version about the early Guptas merit credence, and the Puranas now are regarded as worthy of more serious attention than they have hitherto received.

However the modern scholars have opined that the present view is to accept the Puranas as one of the important sources of traditional history of ancient India. Nowadays the Puranas are being critically studied in order to extract the traditional historiacal data stored in it. Modern historians also depend on the Puranic materials for their own works.

Being the ancient existing literary genre, the Puranas are significant to throw light to the comprehensive history of Indian Culture. The Puranas embody the vastness of the rich Indian Culture and Civilization. It has sections dealing with polity, sociology, administrative institutions, fine arts, architecture, etc which articulate the very essence of Indian culture and civilization. The function of a modern historian should be to disentangle legendary, fictitious or mythological material from the purely historical or cultural data.

However the Puranas stand unique as the literary genre in its antiquity of age.