The Parakhyatantra. A Scripture of the Saiva Siddhanta (critical edition and annotated translation)

This volume furnishes one more previously unpublished document of the pre-tenth-century thought-world of the Saiva Siddhanta, a religion that was spread across and beyond the Indian subcontinent. The Parakhyatantra dates from the period before the appearance of the most significant body of theological exegesis in the history of the school, namely the writings of the tenth-century Kashmirian lineage of Bhatta Ramakantha II. Only those chapters that deal with doctrine and yoga survive. Those on ritual and other aspects of religious practice have not been transmitted in the unique codex - a beautiful palm-leaf manuscript in minute Nandinagari script. Quotations from the text have been located in later literature, and a fully positive apparatus reports the readings of all sources. A complete English translation - the first to appear of an early Siddhantatantra - accompanies the Sanskrit text. The annotation draws on parallels with other Saiddhantika writings, both published and unpublished.