The Vishnu Puranam is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of ancient and medieval texts of Hinduism. It is an important Pancharatra text in the Vaishnavism literature corpus. The manuscripts of Vishnu Purana have survived into the modern era in many versions.
The Vishnu Purana is one of the more concise texts in the Purana genre, containing around 7,000 verses in the versions we have today. Its main focus is on the Hindu god Vishnu and his incarnations, including Rama and Krishna. It also recognizes Brahma and Shiva and emphasizes their reliance on Vishnu. According to Wilson, this Purana embodies pantheistic ideas and, similar to other Puranas, is rooted in Vedic concepts and beliefs.