The earth having been duly prepared for the reception of living creatures, it was peopled by the will-begotten sons of Brahma, the Prajapatis or patriarchs. But it was necessary to provide these "grey forefathers" of the early world with wives. For this purpose, the Manu Swayambhuva and his wife Satarupa, were invented; and their daughters supplied the patriarchs with female partners. Numerous legends were built up on this basis, and the whole story assumed an allegorical form. Swayhambhuva, the son of the self-born or uncreated, and his wife Satarupa, the hundred-formed or multiform, are themselves allegories; and their female descendants, who became the wives of the Rishis, are Faith, Devotion, Content, Intelligence, Tradition, and the like; whilst among their posterity are found the different phases of the moon and the sacrificial fires. There are other legends in explanation of the peopling of the earth. All seem to indicate that the Prajapatis and Rishis were "real personages, the authors of the Hindu system of social, moral, and religious obligations, and the first observers of the heavens, and teachers of astronomical science."
The genealogy is traced of the royal personages of this first race or dynasty, and is continued into the second book; after which comes a detail of the geographical system of the Puranas, with Mount Meru, the seven circular continents, and their surrounding oceans, to the limits of the world. This (except so far as India or Bharata is concerned) is purely mythological. In the early portion of the third book, the arrangement of the Vedas and other sacred writings of the Hindus is described. Then follows an account of the principal Hindu institutions, the duties of castes, the obligations of different stages of life, and the celebration of funeral rites, in a brief but primitive strain, and in harmony with the laws of Manu. "It is a distinguishing feature of the Vishnu Purana, and it is characteristic of its being the work of an earlier period than most of the Puranas, that it enjoins no sectarial or other acts of supererogation; no Vratas, occasional self-imposed observances; no holy days, no birthdays of Krishna, no nights dedicated to Lakshmi; no sacrifices or modes of worship other than those conformable to the ritual of the Vedas. It contains no Máhálinyas or golden legends, even of the temples in which Vishnu is adored."