A caturmukha-liṅga outside the Bhuvaneśvarī shrine Deopatan, Kathmandu
Lecture by Nina Mirnig on the Śivadharmaśāstra
24 MARCH 16
Dr. Nina Mirnig, of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who is currently visiting the Pondicherry Centre and joining the daily Śaiva reading sessions, will be giving a lecture at 4pm on Thursday 24th March in the library hall in 19, Dumas Street, on the subject of her research as part of the project « The Śivaliṅga Cult on the Eve of the Tantric Age: A Study and Critical Editions of the Śivadharmaśāstra, Chapters 1-5 and 7-9 », which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
The title of the lecture is: « The Śivadharmaśāstra in the “Śivadharma-corpus”: an overview ».
A group of texts commonly referred to as the "Śivadharma-corpus", typically constituting a set of eight works on different aspects of Śaiva lay religion, has increasingly figured in studies of early Śaivism over the past decades. But the only published edition so far has been produced by Yogī Naraharinātha in 1998 and appears to be a - partly hand-written - transcription of a Nepalese manuscript containing the entire corpus. In the past years, an international group of scholars has formed and embarked on producing critical editions of different parts of these texts. In this lecture, I will give an overview of the “Śivadharma-corpus”, in particular of the earliest two layers, the Śivadharmaśāśtra and Śivadharmottara, which were probably produced sometime in the sixth or seventh century CE. While the rest of the corpus is only found in Nepalese manuscripts, these two texts are widely transmitted across South Asia, with over 40 specimens (if not more) scattered across Nepal, South India, Kashmir and Bengal. Drawing from my experience so far editing the first three chapters of the Śivadharmaśāstra, I will also touch upon the intriguing transmissional history, the full complexity of which is yet to be established through the study of the various manuscripts.
lectures
The title of the lecture is: « The Śivadharmaśāstra in the “Śivadharma-corpus”: an overview ».
A group of texts commonly referred to as the "Śivadharma-corpus", typically constituting a set of eight works on different aspects of Śaiva lay religion, has increasingly figured in studies of early Śaivism over the past decades. But the only published edition so far has been produced by Yogī Naraharinātha in 1998 and appears to be a - partly hand-written - transcription of a Nepalese manuscript containing the entire corpus. In the past years, an international group of scholars has formed and embarked on producing critical editions of different parts of these texts. In this lecture, I will give an overview of the “Śivadharma-corpus”, in particular of the earliest two layers, the Śivadharmaśāśtra and Śivadharmottara, which were probably produced sometime in the sixth or seventh century CE. While the rest of the corpus is only found in Nepalese manuscripts, these two texts are widely transmitted across South Asia, with over 40 specimens (if not more) scattered across Nepal, South India, Kashmir and Bengal. Drawing from my experience so far editing the first three chapters of the Śivadharmaśāstra, I will also touch upon the intriguing transmissional history, the full complexity of which is yet to be established through the study of the various manuscripts.
lectures