The Puranas

The eighteen sacred Puranas correspond to parts of Vishnu’s body. Each Purana is associated with one part of Vishnu’s anatomy.
The Brahma-Purana - The head.
The Padma-Purana - The heart.
The Vishnu Purana - The right arm.
The Shiva Purana - The left arm.
The Bhagavata Purana - The thighs.
The Narada Purana - The navel.
The Markandeya Purana - The right foot.
The Agni Purana - The left foot.
The Bhavishya Purana - The right knee.
The Brahmavaivarta Purana - The left knee.
The Linga Purana - The right calf.
The Varaha Purana - The left calf.
The Skanda Purana - Body-hair.
The Vamana Purana - The skin.
The Kurma Purana - The back.
The Matsya Purana - The fat of the body.
The Garuda Purana - The marrow.
The Brahmanda Purana - The bones.

All of these texts are sacred and reading them brings a lot of punya.

Dandaka

In the last dvapara yuga, there was a thief named Dandaka. He stole the property of brahmanas, was a traitor to his friends, lied all the time and was very cruel. He ate beef for his food and drank wine instead of water.

Dandaka once went to one of Vishnu’s temples to steal the property that was in the temple. His feet were muddy and he wiped them on the threshold before entering the temple. This act had an effect that was certainly not what Dandaka had intended. The threshold was dirty and when Dandaka wiped his feet on the threshold, some of the dust that was there got cleaned.

The main chamber of the temple had a solid wooden door that Dandaka broke open with an iron rod. Inside was an image of Vishnu. The thief did not think that the image itself would be of any use to him. But there were several other valuable objects of gold and silver in the chamber. Dhandaka proceeded to tie these up in a piece of cloth. But in the process of doing this, he managed to drop a few of the objects and this made a terrible racket.

The noise brought the guards running to see what was happening. Dandaka fled. And in his hurry, he stepped on a poisonous snake which promptly bit him. Thus it was that Dandaka died and was brought before Yama.

Yama’s court has an officer named Chitragupta. He keeps accounts of all the good deeds and all the sins that a person commits on earth. When Dhandaka was brought before Yama, Yama asked Chitragupta to tell him what the thief’s record showed.