Шива Пурана: Древний санскритский текст о Шиве и Парвати

Sanskrit scripture

The Shiva Purana 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 asserts that it once consisted of 100,000 verses set out in twelve Samhitas (Books); 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 (traced to South India), 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 (Previous Section) and Uttara Khanda (Later Section). The two versions that include books, title some of the books same and others differently. 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 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 (pilgrimage) 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.

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. 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 (Bhakti), 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.