Matsyendra Samhita, Ascribed to Matsyenranatha: Part I.

• Author: Garzilli, Enrica
• Position: Review

Edited by DEBABRATA SENSHARMA. The Asiatic Society, Bibliotheca Indica, no. 138. Calcutta: THE ASIATIC SOCIETY, 1994. Pp. xii + 65 + 138 (in Devanagari numbering). Rs 150 (cloth).

Debabrata Sensharma, for decades Professor of Sanskrit at Kurukshetra University and a leading authority on the Trika philosophical system - the different saivadvaita schools also known, since J. C. Chatterji (1914), under the collective name of Kashmir Shivaism - found the manuscript copy of the Matsyendranatha Samhita (MSam) in the course of his search for unpublished Saiva and Sakta Tantric manuscripts in several British libraries. He found it in the library of the Wellcome Institute of History of Medicine - which, even though it has a large collection of manuscripts, had not been well investigated by scholars of Saivism in Britain or on the Continent.

The MSam was listed in the handlist of Sanskrit manuscripts written by V. Raghavan. As Sensharma explains in the preface, this important Tantric text dealing with yogic practices of the Kaula school, one of the Trika schools, remained in the Institute unknown and unnoticed, as its name does not appear in any published catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts, or in any work on the history of Sanskrit literature.

In this review we are assuming that the Kaula and Kula schools are synonymous. On the contrary, Abhinavagupta distinguishes between the Kula (or Sakta), and Kaula schools in his Paratrisikavivarana (PTV) (see Singh 1988).

In his book Sensharma has added an exhaustive introduction - several chapters in length - to the first 20 patala (out of 55) of the text, which are transcribed, numbered in Devanagari (pp. 1-138), and edited. He plans to publish the remaining work in two or more parts. The introduction includes sections on the origin and development of the Kaula school; the authorship of the text; the date of Matsyendranatha; legends related to Matsyendranatha's life; and his works and his contribution to Kaula tradition. This edition is based on a unique manuscript which Sensharma ascribes to A.D. 1858. There are three other incomplete manuscripts bearing the same title as this text, written in Bengali and preserved by the National Archives in Kathmandu. However, these are totally different texts (cf. Bagchi 1934, 1ff.).

The MSam is mostly written in verses, mainly anustubh but also upajati, indravajra, arya, etc. It is complete, but full of lacunae and gaps. The author has edited the text in an open fashion, used his "wits for corrections" and resorts "to heavy dose[s] of emendation" (p. vi). He had to leave the text in corrupt form in many places. The name of the original author of the text is not given, but the colophon at the end (pat. 55) says it was originally composed by Matsyendranatha, who heard it from Siva himself; Matsyendra, who was illiterate, then sang it to Colendranatha, a Cola king, who gave it to the people on earth to obtain siddhi or spiritual perfection. In MSam I: 9 the way Matsyendranatha listened to the dialogue between Siva and Parvati while in the belly of a big fish is described in detail (and this explains his name as Lord of the Lords of Fish).

Sensharma, who was a pupil of M. M. Gopinath...