Early Saivism and the Skandapurana: Sects and Centres.

• Position: Book review

Early Saivism and the Skandapurana: Sects and Centres. By PETER C. BISSCHOP. Groningen Oriental Studies, vol. 21. Groningen: EGBERT FORSTEN, 2006. Pp. 8 + 368.

This volume contains a slightly revised version of the author's 2004 doctoral dissertation at the University of Groningen. It is part of the Groningen Skandapurana project, under the direction of Hans T. Bakker, to whose Origin and Growth of the Puranic Text Corpus, with Special Reference to the Skandapurana (2004) Bisschop contributed an essay related to the present edition: "Siva's Ayatanas in the Various Recensions of Skandapurana 167" (pp. 65-78; cf. JAOS 126 [2006]: 131).

Until now two volumes of the critical edition of the original Skandapurana have been published: vol. I, containing adhyayas 1-25 (SP I, by R. Adriaensen, H. T. Bakker, and H. Isaacson, 1998); and after the death of Adriaensen, a second volume, with chapters 26-31.14 (SP IIA, by Bakker and Isaacson, 2004). Bisschop's text corresponds to chapter 167 in Krsnaprasada Bhattarai's 1988 edition.

The original Skandapurana has been preserved in three recensions: one represented by four Nepalese palm-leaf manuscripts [SP.sub.s] the oldest of which is dated to 810. "probably the oldest manuscript of a Puranic text" (Adriaensen, Bakker, Isaacson, IIJ 37 [1994], 326); a Revakhanda recension [SP.sub.R] represented by a single, corrupt paper manuscript in Bengali script dated to...