Description
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.
Our introduction attempts to trace the social developments within the _aivasiddh_nta that give context to the evolution of _aiva reparatory rites.
