Śiva in text before the common era: an analysis in 2022

[Megh Kalyanasundaram]

Śiva in text before the common era: an analysis in 2022

Abstract: Is the term Śiva, as a noun, attested only in the itihāsa-s and purāṇa-s, and therefore, in existence supposedly only after around 500 BCE? Was Śiva a minor, non-supreme, figure in the text corpus indigenous to the Indian subcontinent before Śvetāśvataropaniṣad? Does clear and reliable evidence for organized sectarian worship of Śiva exist only after the beginning of the common era? If you were to look for answers to these questions in the entry for "Shaivism" in the Oxford Bibliographies—which sports a tagline "Your best research starts here"—or Wikipedia, you will find either answers or sources to answers, in the near affirmative, to all questions above. This paper will foreground evidence that problematizes answers in the affirmative to the above-mentioned questions. It will do so, in part, by foregrounding evidence about Śiva from Aṣṭādaśavidyā texts that appear missing in at least those essays considered "up-to-date introductions on the historical development of the Shaiva sectarian traditions'' by Peter Bisschop, the author of the entry for "Shaivism" in the Oxford Bibliographies. 

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