Diptagama: Edition critique.

• Author: Davis, Richard H.
• Position: The Pahcavaranastava of Aghorasivacarya: A Twelfth-Century South Indian Prescription for the Visualisation of Sadasiva and His Retinue - Book review

Diptagama: Edition critique. Edited by MARIE-LUCE BARAZER-BILLORET, BRUNO DAGENS and VINCENT LEFEVRE. 2 vols. Collection Indologie, vol. 81.1-2. Pondicherry: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE PONDICHERY. 2004, 2007. Vol. I: Pp. iv + 449; Vol. 2: Pp. 602.

The Pahcavaranastava of Aghorasivacarya: A Twelfth-Century South Indian Prescription for the Visualisation of Sadasiva and His Retinue. Edited by DOMINIC GOODALL. NIBEDITA ROUT, R. SATHYANARAYANAN, S. A. S. SARMA, T. GANESAN, and S. SAMBANDHASIVACARYA. COLLECTION LNDOLOGIE, VOL. 102. Pondicherry: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE PONDICHERY, 2005. Pp. 237, figs.

When the French Institute of Indology was established in 1955 under the direction of Jean Filliozat, the Saiva Agamas and the Sanskrit texts of the Saiva Siddhanta school were largely unknown to academic study. The texts formed the basis of much South Indian Hindu practice, but remained almost entirely the private preserve of the community of Saiva priests and pious devotees. Filliozat decided that the French Institute should devote its scholarly efforts to collecting, editing, and translating the texts of this tradition. Over several decades pandits and scholars associated with the Institute amassed an enormous collection of rare printed texts, manuscripts, and manuscript transcriptions, which in turn have provided the foundation for numerous publications of Saiva works. Starting in the 1960s N. R. Bhatt produced the first true critical editions of Saiva Agama works, and Helene Brunner authored translations of Saiva ritual works that are masterpieces in erudition--to name only two of the most prolific Pondichery-based scholars. Thus, Filliozat set in motion an enterprise that has continued to bear immense scholarly fruit for over fifty years. In the volumes reviewed here, researchers affiliated with the French Institute have added important new contributions to this distinguished legacy of Pondichery scholarship.

One of the twenty-eight core Agamas, the Diptagama is a lengthy work of some six thousand verses. Barazer-Billoret, Dagens, and Lefevre have critically edited the text from a large and rather disorderly collection of manuscripts in the Pondichery archives and elsewhere, and here present the first sixty-two chapters of the work in two substantial volumes. A third volume, containing chapters 63 to 98, is planned for publication soon. The publications include the Sanskrit text with alternative readings in devanagari, introductions outlining the...