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Author: R. Sathyanarayanan and Dominic Goodall

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Rites of expiation and reparation (pr?ya?citta) may not seem central to the history of the Mantram?rga, but they provide a fascinating angle from which to view the evolution of this broad religious tradition. Instead of focussing on the evolution and philosophical defence of ?aiva doctrines, or on the examination of ritual practices and of theories developed to justify and shore up such practices, this study puts the spotlight instead on social dimensions of the religion.

This book contains a first edition and translation of a South Indian compendium of ?aiva expiation rituals compiled by Trilocana?iva, a twelfth-century theologian celebrated for his Siddh?ntas?r?val?, a metrical treatise on the ?aivasiddh?nta that is still traditionally studied in the Tamil-speaking South today. Trilocana does not reveal the sources from which he quotes, many of which are lost to us, but an earlier Northern treatise on the same theme from Malwa by a certain Hr?daya?iva consists only in large labeled quotations, typically whole chapters, from those sources. A Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript kept in Cambridge that is dated to 1157 ad may be the earliest surviving codex to transmit Hr?daya?iva’s text and we have included a complete transcription of that manuscript as an appendix. A combined quarter-verse-index helps readers to navigate both Trilocana’s and Hr?daya?iva’s works.