Within the living tradition of Hinduism, the Puranas are said to have been compiled by the sage Vyasa, also known as Veda Vyasa or Krishna Dvaipayana. He is revered as the one who arranged the Vedas and gave form to the Mahabharata, and in the same spirit is regarded as the compiler of the eighteen great Puranas. In this traditional view, Vyasa is less a solitary author and more a master redactor, gathering and organizing sacred narratives, cosmologies, and teachings on dharma. The texts themselves often present their wisdom as flowing from Vyasa to his disciples, and then onward through lineages of sages.

From a historical and scholarly perspective, however, the Puranas emerge as layered compositions shaped by many anonymous hands over a long span of time. Their earliest portions are generally placed in the early centuries of the Common Era, with significant material taking form around the third or fourth century. The main period of compilation and expansion extends through the following centuries, with a particularly active phase up to about the tenth century. Even after this, additions and revisions continued, with some sections and later strata being composed as late as the second millennium. This long process allowed the Puranas to absorb diverse regional traditions, theological developments, and evolving understandings of cosmology and dharma.

Seen in this way, Vyasa can be understood as a symbolic figure representing the unifying intelligence behind a vast and evolving body of sacred lore. The attribution to a single sage expresses the sense that, despite multiple authors and redactors, the Puranas participate in a coherent spiritual vision. At the same time, their gradual growth over centuries reflects the dynamic nature of Hindu thought, in which revelation is not frozen at a single moment but continually interpreted, retold, and re-woven into new cultural and devotional contexts.