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Abstract The Pur??as, often regarded as religious and mythological texts, also serve as vital sources for reconstructing the history and culture of ancient India. While primarily intended to convey religious teachings, cosmological ideas, and ethical principles, they preserve accounts of dynasties, rulers, and political traditions that illuminate the evolution of early state systems and collective memory. Genealogical lists and descriptions of succession, particularly in the Vi??u, Matsya, Bh?gavata, and V?yu Pur??as, provide historical insights despite inconsistencies and legendary embellishments. Beyond politics, these texts reveal the socio-cultural life of early India. They describe rituals, festivals, var?a and ??rama frameworks, and customary practices that governed society. Environmental attitudes appear in myths about rivers, mountains, and forests, reflecting deep links between nature and human life. Economic references--agriculture, irrigation, trade, and resource use--highlight the material basis of society. Methodological challenges remain, as myth and history often intertwine, and later interpolations complicate chronology. Yet, when critically examined alongside archaeology, epigraphy, and other traditions such as the R?m?ya?a, Mah?bh?rata, Buddhist J?takas, and Jain texts, the Pur??as emerge as hybrid records--part myth, part history. They function as cultural archives, preserving political memory, ethical ideals, and everyday realities, thereby enriching early Indian historiography.