Tradition holds that the Vishnu Purana is attributed to the sage Parashara, one of the revered rishis of the Hindu spiritual heritage. Within the narrative itself, Parashara is presented as the one who imparts this sacred teaching to his disciple Maitreya, thus embodying the ideal of wisdom transmitted from teacher to student. This attribution situates the text within a living lineage of realized seers, rather than treating it as an anonymous composition. The figure of Parashara thereby becomes both the spiritual source and the narrative voice through which the theology and devotion to Vishnu are articulated.

Parashara is also remembered as the father of Vyasa, the sage traditionally associated with the compilation of the Vedas and the authorship of the Mahabharata. This familial link symbolically connects the Vishnu Purana to the broader tapestry of Hindu sacred literature, suggesting a continuity of insight flowing through generations of sages. To contemplate Parashara as the author is thus to see the text as emerging from a stream of realized wisdom, where devotion, metaphysical reflection, and scriptural composition are intertwined. In this way, the traditional attribution does more than assign a name; it frames the Purana as an expression of a venerable and deeply rooted spiritual lineage.