Shiva Purana


The Shiva Purana and Śivamahāpurāṇa is one of eighteen major texts of the Purana genre of Sanskrit texts in Hinduism, and part of the Shaivism literature corpus. It primarily revolves around the Hindu god Shiva and goddess Parvati, but references and reveres all gods.
The Shiva Purana, like other Puranas in Hindu literature, was likely a living text, which was routinely edited, recast and revised over a long period of time. The Shiva Purana asserts that it once consisted of 100,000 verses set out in twelve Samhitas ; however, the Purana adds that it was abridged by Sage Vyasa before being taught to Romaharshana. The surviving manuscripts exist in many different versions and content, with one major version with seven books, another with six books, while the third version traced to the medieval Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent with no books but two large sections called Purva-Khanda and Uttara-Khanda. The two versions that include books, differ in how they title the books. The oldest manuscript of surviving texts was likely composed, estimates Klaus Klostermaier, around 10th- to 11th-century CE. Some chapters of currently surviving Shiva Purana manuscripts were likely composed after the 14th-century.
The Shiva Purana contains chapters with Shiva-centered cosmology, mythology, and relationship between gods, ethics, yoga, tirtha sites, bhakti, rivers and geography, and other topics. The text is an important source of historic information on different types and theology behind Shaivism in early 2nd-millennium CE. The oldest surviving chapters of the Shiva Purana have significant Advaita Vedanta philosophy, which is mixed in with theistic elements of bhakti.
In the 19th and 20th century, the Vayu Purana was sometimes titled as Shiva Purana, and sometimes proposed as a part of the complete Shiva Purana. With the discovery of more manuscripts, modern scholarship considers the two texts as different, with Vayu Purana as the more older text composed sometime before the 2nd-century CE. Some scholars list it as a Mahapurana, while some state it is an Upapurana.

Date

The date and authors of Shiva Purana are unknown. No authentic data is available. Scholars such as Klostermaier as well as Hazra estimate that the oldest chapters in the surviving manuscript were likely composed around the 10- to 11th-centuries CE, which has not stood the test of carbon dating technology hence on that part we must rely on the text itself which tells when it was composed. Certain books and chapters in currently surviving Shiva Purana manuscripts were likely composed later, some after the 14th-century. The Shiva Purana, like other Puranas in Hindu literature, were routinely edited, recast and revised over the centuries.
Hazra states that the Bombay manuscript published in the 19th-century is rarer, and is likely older than other versions published from eastern and southern India.

Different manuscripts

Several recensions of this text exist. The Bombay 1884 manuscript recension published by the Vangavasi Press, Calcutta in 1896 consists of six s :
The second manuscript of Shiva Purana published in 1906, reprinted in 1965, by the Pandita Pustakalaya, Kashi consists of seven s:
According to a passage found in the first chapters of and of these recensions the original Shiva Purana comprised twelve s, which included five lost s:,,, and . The number of verses in these sections were as follows:
  1. Vidyeshvara Samhita - 10,000
  2. Rudra Samhita - 8,000
  3. Vainayaka Samhita - 8,000
  4. Uma Samhita - 8,000
  5. Matri Samhita - 8,000
  6. Rudraikadasha Samhita - 13,000
  7. Kailasa Samhita - 6,000
  8. Shatarudra Samhita - 3,000
  9. Sahasrakotirudra Samhita - 11,000
  10. Kotirudra Samhita - 9,000
  11. Vayaviya Samhita - 4,000
  12. Dharma Samhita - 12,000
Several other s are also ascribed to the. These are the, the, the, the and the.
Haraprasad Shastri mentioned in the Notices of Sanskrit MSS IV, pp. 220–3, Nos, 298–299 about another manuscript of the, which is divided into Two Khandas, the and the. The consists 3270 s in 51 chapters written in Nagari script and the has 45 chapters written in Oriya script. It was preserved in Mahimprakash Brahmachari Matha in Puri. The of this manuscript is same as the of the Vangavasi Press Edition.

Contents

Like the Linga Purana and other Shaivism-related Puranas, the Shiva Purana dedicates chapters to Shaiva-Advaita philosophy, advocating it as a system for moksha. The text also presents the Brahman as satcitananda theme, with masculine and feminine Shiva-Shakti as a unity, and perception of plurality-discrimination as a form of nescience. Love-Driven Devotionalism, asserts the text, leads to knowledge, and such love combined with knowledge leads to attracting saintly people and guru, and with them one attains liberation, states the Shiva Purana. These ideas, states Klaus Klostermaier, are similar to those found in Devi-related Puranas and Shakti Literature.

Vidyesvara Samhita

The Vidyesvara Samhita appears in both the six and seven section versions, and is dedicated to describing the greatness and the bhakti of Shiva, particularly through the linga. This section is also notable for mentioning both Shaiva Agamas and Tantric texts, along with frequently quoting from the Vedas and asserting that the text is the essence of the Vedic teaching and Vedanta. The chapters of this section in different versions of the Shiva Purana include a description of India's geography and rivers from north and south India so often and evenly that Hazra states it is difficult to gauge if this part was composed in north or south India.

Jnana Samhita

The Jnanasamhita in one manuscript shares content with Rudrasamhita of the other manuscript, presents cosmology and history, and is notable for its discussion of saguna and nirguna Shiva.
The text discusses goddesses and gods, dedicates parts of chapters praising Vishnu and Brahma, as well as those related to avatars such as Krishna. It asserts that one must begin with karma-yajna, thereon step by step with tapo-yajna, then self study, then regular meditation, ultimately to jnana-yajna and yoga to achieve sayujya with Shiva within.
This section notes the Vedas as the highest authority, but Shiva communicated them to Vishnu.

Pranava

The Shiva Purana offers various explanations for the etymology of pranava.
  1. the boat to cross samsara
  2. there is no diffusiveness for you
  3. the ideal way to overcome maya and attain new divine wisdom

Commentaries

There are translations of this Sanskrit texts in English and Tamil language. One important translation in Tamil language with commentary is done by "Dravidācārya" Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇan Svāmīji of . The following is a list of translations:

English">English language ">English

  • Shiva Purana by Bibek Debroy
  • The Shiva Purana by J.L. Shastri
  • Shiv MahaPurana by shanti Lal Nagar