It was Vyasa who started the compiling of and propagating the Puranas. Dr. S.K. Chatterji writes on the importance of the Puranas: “The history of the development of Indian thought and culture will have a great light thrown on it through the proper study and elucidation of the Puranas.” If read with caution the genealogical accounts of the Puranas are most valuable to the historians for the political history of ancient India. It is the Puranas that expose Hinduism in all its different aspects mythology, idol worship, theism, pantheism, superstitions, festivals and ceremonials. The legendary stories cannot belittle the historical merit of the Puranas. As Dr V.A. Smith writes: "The historian of the remote past of any nation must be content to rely upon tradition as embodied in literature.”