If we take the PurANas as being allegorical tales, then it may be asked here: who wrote them?
Before start answering this question, we will do well to notice one important fact that the Vedic Deities are no more considered as Gods in the PurANas. What were the Vedic Deities once became mere names, of many JivAs (enlightened/ exalted/ ignorant souls), and thus dissolved into insignificance. SavitR, BrahmaNaspati, Aditi, Sudhanvan, Indra--- all these transformed into just words, or at best were conserved through attaching some harmless connotation (Aditi thus denoting the name of the wife of certain Rsi), or worse still, by making a formal mockery of the words (Indra, "the corrupt demigod", being a case-in-point, or even Daksha).
But, now, to the other end of the spectrum.
Many "new" Deities came to be, as if from nowhere: GaNesha, KāLI, HanumAn,
DurgA, LakshmI, PArvati, Murugan, AyappA, BrahmA, NarayaNa, Shiva, and many others.
That their coming into existence is pre or post Vedic is arguable, but what can be said with some certainty is that the PurANas were not originally the creations of priests or elites, as they were more engaged with the "high brow" theories of "Brahman", "Moksha", "NirvANa", "bhedAbheda", "chintyAchintya", and so on. On one hand these elites were unable to come to terms with the Veda, on the other they felt threatened by the seeming chaos of Hinduism that was practiced on ground- a riot of innumerable PurANic Gods and Goddesses.
Indeed, dismissing PurANas will be dismissing RamayaNa (dont make ShivaFan Ji angry
) and MahabhArata, too, since these form a part of PurANas.
Veda was a secular religion, it will come back to the centre stage in a future, no doubt about that also. In the meantime, I dare say, PurANas became the Veda de facto. And they were created by "common folks". They were the Rsis of the Kaliyuga, the illiterate ones who went around places singing the songs of various Deities.
Hinduism was living. PurANas became its creative expression and the driver. And the living one, this being, was no different than that of the Vedic times. Yes, you can say it was "low brow", but at the same time infinitely superior to crude and puerile attempts in Vedanta, Samkhya, etc.
The PurANas, that "educated" among us today love to hate, is a Sanskritised, textualised version of a true and original Hindu creativity. Sure, there will be a movement towards the Veda, but no one, who has not understood the spirit of the PurANas properly, nor felt their dynamism in their heartbeats, can really hope to achieve their goal.
PurANas to me, is therefore, a bewildering mix of fact, fiction, goodness, joy and life. Who is Shiva, then? Was BhAgiratha for real? The travels of Narada? RAjA HariSchandra? King BAli and Avatara VAmana?
There can be thousands of such questions. The "stories" seem to have stayed there, in the "vertical time" That is their framework. Ganesha laughing about some trivia- Skanda still playing around there- Shiva and PArvati still talking over some pet issues.
A mysterious world, this.
