The cosmicity of it all

In fact, the Puranas are not at all to be read as history and geography, nor are they to be regarded as fiction. Pandits who often interpret all the accounts of the Puranas as facts of our three-dimensional space and time do as much harm to the minds of people as many moderns who brush them aside as cock-and-bull stories. They belong to an order different from both history and fiction, though they may have superficial affinities with both.