Those Puranas that are said to be tamasic contain to some greater number false verses that are contrary to Puranas and other scriptures in which Lord Vishnu is mainly glorified, and also they contradict Shruti.

They are not completely false, though. They are also valuable source of true vedic knowledge to some extent, but if we read them we must be very careful to recognize tamasic teachings in them, and those tamasic teachings we should reject.

Thus they should not serve as a primary source of vedic knowledge, but only as secondary, only after the sattvic Puranas, and only when they do not contradict those sattvic ones and Shruti. Everything that contradict Shruti and sattvic Puranas is false and tamasic (darkness, ignorance), and should be rejected as such!

@AnilKumar Satva is predominately a Good . But when Tamas reaches its pinnacle, Sattva sprouts from it. that's the reason Satya Yuga comes after Kali Yuga.

Here we do not discuss about those things, but we are discussing about scriptures and the reason why some scriptures are true representation of vedic knowledge (sattvic Puranas), and why some other scriptures are not true representation of vedic knowledge (tamasic Puranas).

@AnilKumar You already presume this classification is genuine and you justify it by saying Satva is best.

Why should not we presume this classification is genuine?

@AnilKumar Bgavadgita you cited didn't talk anything about scriptures. It explained three modes of nature.

That is not true! The Bhagavad gita also talk about scriptures being influenced with the 3 gunas or modes of nature, ie sattva, rajas and tamas. It is said in the Bhagavad gita 2.45 that there are scriptures and doctrines or teachings that are influenced by the modes or qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas.

In that verse Lord Krishna says to Arjuna:

The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the trai-guṇya "three modes of material nature" (sattva, rajas and tamas). O Arjuna, become nistrai-guṇyaḥ "free from the influence of the three modes", and "always stay in pure sattva" (nitya-sattva-sthaḥ).

We can clearly see here in this Bhagavad gita verse that even the Vedas such as the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, etc, which are said to be Shruti!, contain teachings that are in fact a mixture of influences of the qualities (gunas) of sattva, rajas and tamas.

So even if we read the Vedas, there we will not always find only those teachings which correspond to the most sublime and purest (sattvic) Vedic truth, but we will also encounter those teachings that are of lower quality or lower nature because they are influenced by the lower qualities of nature, namely rajas and tamas.

There are three qualities of nature (trai-guṇya). It is said that sattva is the highest quality (guna) of nature, and it is also said that rajas and tamas are lower qualities (gunas) of nature, where tamas is the lowest.

And if sattva is not mixed with those two lower qualities of rajas and tamas, then that is pure sattva, and that pure sattva is the best quality of nature. But as soon as sattva becomes mixed with rajas and tamas then it is not pure sattva any more, and thus becomes tinged with impurities of lower qualities of rajas and tamas in the kind of quality mixture of sattva with rajas and tamas.

It should also be noted that in the above Gita verse 2.45 Lord Krishna advises Arjuna to rise above the impact of the three gunas sattva, rajas and tamas, He says ...

O Arjuna, become nistrai-guṇyaḥ "free from the influence of the three modes", and "always stay in pure sattva" (nitya-sattva-sthaḥ), because this is better than being under the influence of a mixture of the three modes which is not a pure state of sattva!

All this is the reason why have learned acaryas said that if we want to learn real vedic knowledge in its purest and most sublime form, we should focus our study to the sattvic Puranas only!, and not to learn vedic knowledge from the scriptures such as rajasic and tamasic Puranas where many impure verses distort true vedic knowledge.

Just like in the above Gita verse 2.45 even Vedas are said to contain sattvic teachings sometimes polluted with lower qualities of rajas and tamas, then certainly is true that the Puranas also can be influenced with lower quality teachings of tamas.

In some Puranas those kind of tamasic teachings or verses do appear in greater number, and that is the reason of why those Puranas are designated as tamasic.

By the way, similar verses about prime importance of sattvic scriptures can be seen in the Bhagavatam also, and in the Manu-smriti it is said that tamasic teachings are worthless and false.

@brahmajijnasa Why at least one Shaiva Purana not present in Satvika Puranas? Padma Purana and Matysa Purana (though Tamasic by this classification) which has these controversial verses, hails Vishnu as Supreme. Don't you see any conspiracy here? Irrespective of this classification, all those Verses of Smriti should be rejected if they contradict Shruti. BTW, do Vedas declare Vishnu as Supreme? If they explicitly mention Narayana as Supreme, then I'm ready to accept His Supremacy.

Else i will take generic name BRAHMAN for Supreme God.

@brahmajijnasa You quoted Gaudiya site and two Vaishnava Puranas to support this classification. Also, why would people maintain Sattva only by reading Krishna's Bhagavatam or so called Satvic Puranas? There are many Brahmins (Brahmins by default are Satvic) and who worship Shiva and read Shiva Purana which is tamasic Purana according to you. Doesn't this contradict you?

@brahmajijnasa Moreover, Krishna couldn't tell Arjuna Gita later. He was in union with Brahman only on battlefield. So, Krishna was Avatar of Narayana (Vyooha Vasudeva for Sri Vaishnavaites) who live on Ksheera Sagar. Not supreme as gaudiya Vaishnavaites say.

@AnilKumar Actually the Matsya Purana is a Shaiva Purana.

@AnilKumar "BTW, do Vedas declare Vishnu as Supreme? If they explicitly mention Narayana as Supreme, then I'm ready to accept His Supremacy." Yeah, the Taittiriya Aranyaka of the Yajur Veda says this:

"Narayana is the Supreme Reality designated as Brahman. Narayana is the highest (Self). Narayana is the supreme Light (described in the Upanishads). Narayana is the infinite Self. [Narayana is the most excellent meditator and meditation.] Whatsoever there is in this world known through perception (because of their proximity) or known through report (because of their distance), all that is pervaded by Narayana within and without."

@KeshavSrinivasan @AnilKumar Yeah. The Matsya and Skanda Puranas (Lord Shiva tells Karttikeya ...), see above, are both Shaiva Puranas! The Gita also says that even Vedas are not pure sattvic teachings, I explained all that above!

@KeshavSrinivasan That's it! The Subala Upanishad also says similarly, and it was quoted by the early vedantists!

And one verse in the Katha Upanishad also points to the same conclusion, namely that Lord Vishnu (Narayana) is the Supreme Lord or Brahman.

As well as the Maha Upanishad, and the Narayana Upanishad even says Lord Krishna (called devaki putra) is the Supreme Brahman.

@brahmajijnasa When you say the Narayana Upanishad, do you mean the Mahanarayana Upanishad? Where does the Mahanarayana Upanishad say that Devakiputra is the supreme Brahman?

@KeshavSrinivasan Nārāyaṇa-Upanishaḍ of Kṛshṇa-Yajurveḍa, see at sacred-texts.com/hin/tmu/tmu20.htm

"The son of Ḍevākī"

@brahmajijnasa OK, I found it: "brahmanyo devakiputro brahmanyo madhusudanah brahmanyah pundarikakso brahmanyo visnur acyuta iti" wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/narayana-upanishad/d/doc81733.html

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@brahmajijnasa I moved our conversation to our usual chat room since it was off-topic here.

@brahmajijnasa By the way, I found another Upanishad with the Devakiputra verse, the Atmabodha Upanishad of the Rig Veda: advaita.it/library/atmabodhup.htm

@KeshavSrinivasan yeah, but I think no vaishnava acarya ever has quoted from it

not that I see it as a problem, though

@KeshavSrinivasan btw, do you know for any of the tamasic verses in the Shiva or some other tamasic Purana, exact location in the book, not just from the internet?

the verse where Lord Vishnu is denigrated or depicted as some degraded god?

see eg at kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part14/chap9.htm

In the Siva Purana it is stated: "Siva is the Supreme Being. He is the highest authority for creation, sustenance and dissolution. It is at his behest, and under him, that Visnu funtions as protector. Visnu is a mere bhogin, trapped in Maya. Siva is a yogin and jnana incarnate. Visnu is subject to Siva and worships him. Once when he opposed Siva he suffered humiliation at his hands".

@brahmajijnasa Well, you could say that in the story of Vrishesha in the Shiva Purana, Vishnu suffers humiliation at Shiva's hands: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/2231/36 And the story of Sharabha: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/2479/36

@brahmajijnasa In the Shiva Purana, Sharabha kills Narasimha and skins his hide. In the Vaishnava Puranas, on the other hand, Narasimha wins the battle with Sharabha.

@KeshavSrinivasan yeah, something like that but with the exact location in the book, in the english translation, we have links on this Hi SE to translations in the PDF format

@KeshavSrinivasan or something like this one:

Siva Purana, Vayavyiya Samhita 7.1.13.4:

"The sages said: 'Even Lord Brahma and Vishnu bow down to him (Siva) out of fear. He is the destroyer of the world and their controller. Previously he created Brahma and Vishnu from the limbs of his body and he is their eternal well-wisher and master.'"

@KeshavSrinivasan what is especially interesting to note is that all these examples are real proof that those tamasic Puranas are really "tamasic", ie they contain many such verses that teach tamasic (ignorance) teachings

@KeshavSrinivasan so we don't even need Padma Purana or some other verses to tell us that Tamasic Puranas are really tamasic, but we see tamasic (ignorant) verses in them, and that is proof enough of the low quality of those Puranas

@KeshavSrinivasan this is really the most horrible example of the ignorance that tamasic Puranas teach --- can you imagine this "In the Shiva Purana, Sharabha kills Narasimha and skins his hide"!!! OMG, the most horrible ignorance and falsity that I have seen of some Purana depicted Lord Narasimha (Vishnu)!

I just can't imagine that some people might believe that nonsense verses to be true

Not only that those nonsense verses contradict the sattvic or Vaishnava scriptures such as The Bhagavad gita or The Vaishnava Puranas (Bhagavatam, Vishnu Purana, etc), but this is also contrary to Shruti!