The Sivalinga Cult on the Eve of the Tantric Age

The present project is intended as a contribution to the historical study of the development of early Shaivism from the fifth to the ninth century CE, a pivotal period during which Shaiva religious culture increasingly came to the fore and emerged as one of the leading religious forces of the early medieval Indic world. Its main focus of interest is the Shivalinga cult, that is to say the worship of the aniconic representation of the god Siva, as reflected in the influential Shivadharmashastra. This sphere of devotional practices related to the Shivalinga represents one of the most archaic traceable modes of Shiva worship, with material evidence dating back to the beginning of the Common Era, and was adopted and adapted as the core of the Tantric Shaiva ritual repertoire. The Shivadharmashastra is a work for the Shaiva laity that constitutes the earliest source to systematically promote the idea of a Shaiva social order with its own institutions, officiants and practices. Composed sometime between the fifth and the seventh century CE, the Shivadharmashastra constitutes a key text of this transformative period during which two important developments took place: firstly, the increase of religious systems favoring devotion to a deity (bhakti) over Vedic ritualism, and secondly, the emergence of Tantrism as a larger phenomenon. While the study of early Shaivism has largely focused on its initiatory traditions, i.e. the pre-Tantric Shaiva ascetic groups (the Atimarga) and the various branches of Tantric Shaivism (the Mantramarga), little attention has so far been given to the study of the broad community of Shaiva lay devotees, ranging from common householders to kings and members of the royal elite, that constituted the socio-religious environment within which the initiatory traditions developed and thrived. This is partly due to the fact that such key texts as the Shivadharmashastra remain hitherto unedited and only accessible through a published but uncritical transcription or directly through the manuscript material. The present project is expected to make a crucial step towards filling this gap in the history of early Shaivism by providing a critical edition and annotated translation of a substantial portion of the Shivadharmashastra, namely chapters 1-5 and 7-9. These sections constitute the earliest textual source to systematically propagate the beliefs and practices related to the Shivalinga cult, yet they have never been considered in studies on the development of Shivalinga worship. Thus, these chapters have been chosen to form a theme for a case study through which the socio- religious background of the Shivadharmashastra and its impact on the Tantric traditions will be explored. The results of this project will contribute towards the understanding of the formation and context of Shaiva religious culture at this important but complex historical intersection.

The project investigated the formation and canonization of Śaiva devotional practices during a pivotal moment in Indian religious history: the transition of Śaivism from a religious movement marginalized by the authors of the well-established brahmanical mainstream to one producing its own voice and gaining increasingly more influence in public and political life across the Indic world. At the center of the project's investigation was the Śivadharmaśstra, a work composed sometime in the sixth or seventh century and thus marking the beginning of this development by constituting the earliest comprehensive foundational text to systematize and canonize the beliefs and practices of a Śaiva laity. The work provides a socio-religious outlook that radically subordinates orthodox brahmanical values to Śaiva devotion, thereby promoting the spiritual superiority of the Śaiva devotee. In order to identify some of the concrete strategies which led to Śaivism's dominant position in the religio-political landscape in the following centuries, the project focused on two key aspects treated in this work: firstly, the conceptualization of devotion (bhakti) and it's implication for the socio-religious organization of a Śaiva community; and, second, early layers of devotional practices centered on the Śaiva cult object called the śivaliga, including their contextualization against contemporaneous epigraphical sources from the Kathmandu Valley. The investigations showed how the Śivadharmaśstra pursues several agendas. On the one hand, it promotes a system of beliefs and practices that could potentially function independently of brahmanical institutions. Thus, spiritual status was not solely dependent on one's innate position in the brahmanical system of castes and classes and śivaliga worshipping practices focused on personal worship of private śivaligas rather than public temple worship. Such concepts for the social and religious organization of society would have been favorable for the spread of Śaivism in times of political expansion into new territories, which are not dominated by brahmanical orthodoxy. On the other hand, the Śivadharmaśstra remains open to align with the brahmanical system by simply superimposing Śaiva devotion on the existing structures, thus, for instance, promoting the spiritual superiority of Śaiva Brahmins. Another topic of investigation was to trace signs of the increasing institutionalization of Śaivism in the Śivadharmaśstra through injunctions to establish habitation and infrastructure close to śivaliga-shrines and to donate land to Śaiva devotees. Finally, the project also produced for the first time a critical edition and annotated translation of chapters 1-5 and 9, which had hitherto not been available in edited form despite their centrality to reconstruct early Śaiva religious history. The philological work was also accompanied by investigations into the religious environment at the time of composition of the Śivadharmaśstra - focusing in particular on contemporaneous Vaiava works -, as well as the work's strong reception history in Nepal and South India.