The Garuda Purana is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a Vaishnava Purana named for Garuda, the eagle who carries Vishnu. In its opening chapters Garuda asks Vishnu for a boon — to free his mother Vinata from servitude to the serpents, to become Vishnu's vehicle and to tell a Purana — and Vishnu grants it, saying the Purana will bear Garuda's name. Garuda tells it to Sage Kashyapa, and Sage Suta, who heard it from Sage Veda Vyasa, recites it to the sages at Naimisharanya. Its text has two parts, the Achara and Preta Kandas, and the Venkateshwar Press edition adds a third, the Brahma Kanda.
The Achara Kanda, much the longer part, ranges widely: beside Vishnu's avatars and the worship of Vishnu, Shiva, the Goddess and the Sun, it holds a hymn of Vishnu's thousand names, chapters on temple measures and the installation of images, places of pilgrimage and the testing of gems. It gives a long run of chapters to medicine and others to grammar, metre, conduct and statecraft, and retells the Ramayana, the Harivamsha and the Mahabharata in brief. Its closing chapters turn to yoga, devotion and the knowledge of the Self, with a summary of the Bhagavad Gita.
Its second part, the Preta Kanda, opens as Garuda, grieved by the sorrow he has seen across the worlds, comes to Vishnu with questions on what follows death, and the Garuda Purana is read in many homes in the days of mourning. In this collection, at Tirumala, Garuda's shrine stands opposite the golden doorway of the sanctum, his image facing Venkateswara; one of the seven hills, Garudadri, is named for him, and during the Brahmotsavam lakhs of devotees gather to see Venkateswara's processional image carried on Garuda.