[Advaita-l] Significance of Puranas;shiva,vishnu and Brahma

[Girish Ramadurgam]

Hi

I have been reading a book Devi - Devata by Subhadra Sen Gupta. In brief 
its a book trying to tell us about the Gods and Godess in India.

The author says that the Vishnu,Shiva and Brahma did not have 
significant hyms in Vedas and instead Indra/Agni/Varuna/Surya/Dyaus and 
many other. The three gods gained significant importance during the 
Mauryan period.

Note - this is not an excerpt but the same message is conveyed.

--> What I wanted to know was; do you think the above is true, justified?
I would appreciate if anyone can provide me more information regarding this.

--> For my next question - Whats the significance of Puranas? Were 
puranas written/told to actually give us a clear picture of our gods and 
to make us understand how everything gells together?

--> Vedas - The main intention of vedas, was it to show us how to lead 
our lives. If so how many hyms serve this purpose and how many of them 
actually are written to praise the lords?

I am not a very learned person when it comes to the matters like 
Vedas/Puranas. I can see there are many learned people in this mailing 
list and hope to get answers in order to help me understand better and 
take me to the closer to the next step and get over my ignorance.

Thank you very much in Advance.

Kind Regards,
Girish