Lord Siva's Song: The Isvara Gita

248 Pages·2014·3.71 MB·English

by  Campochiaro

LORD ŚIVA’S SONG

LORD ŚIVA’S SONG
The Īśvara Gītā
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
Andrew J. Nicholson
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Cover art: Prince Subuddhi in the Forest of Illusion (folio 35 from the
Suraj Prakash), accession number RJS1660, used with permission of
Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, and His Highness
Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur.
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Albany
© 2014 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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For information, contact
State University of New York Press
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Production, Laurie Searl
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Puranas. Kurmapurana. Isvar-gita. English.
Lord Siva’s Song : the Isvara Gita / Translated with an introduction and
notes by Andrew J. Nicholson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
Translated from Sanskrit.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5101-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
I. Nicholson, Andrew J. II. Title.
BL1140.4.K8742I8813 2014
294.5’925—dc23 2013020385
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of Shri Narayan Mishra
yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau
tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ
“These matters described by the great one
reveal themselves to the person
who shows the highest love toward god,
and as toward god, toward his own teacher.”
—Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.23

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
TRANSLATION
1 The Arrival of the Gods 35
2 The Changeless Self 47
3 The Unmanifest Lord 59
4 The God of Gods 65
5 The Lord’s Dance 73
6 The Glory of Lord Śiva 87
7 The Master of Beasts 99
8 The Hidden Lord 107
9 Brahman’s Powers 113
10 Brahman and the Lord 119
11 The Highest Yoga 125
Commentarial Notes 155
Sanskrit Text 185
List of Concordances 219
Glossary of Sanskrit Names and Terms 223
Bibliography 233
vii

Acknowledgments
The quest for liberation through yoga in medieval India, although
sometimes depicted as a solitary endeavor, was more often a project
involving an entire community of teachers and disciples. The same is
true of the quest to complete a book such as this one. I have benefited
enormously from the guidance and friendship of many scholars, only
a few of whom I have the space to acknowledge here. First, I wish to
offer thanks to my teachers in the United States and in India, espe-
cially to Shri Narayan Mishra, who helped me with this translation
but passed away before publication.
I am very grateful to Stony Brook University, which granted me a
semester research leave in 2009 to begin this project, and which also
awarded me an FAHSS research grant to travel to Varanasi in 2011.
Mario Piantelli was very kind to make his excellent Italian transla-
tion of the Īśvara Gītā available to me in digital form. The online text
of the Kūrma Purāṇa and other Purāṇas provided by the Göttingen
Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL) was also
an important digital resource. My expert colleagues David Buchta,
Whitney Cox, James Fitzgerald, Deven Patel, and Travis Smith read
parts of my manuscript and offered invaluable advice. I presented
parts of the introductory section of this book to audiences at the
American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in 2010, the Freie
Universität Berlin Zukunftsphilologie Seminar in 2011, and the McGill
University Faculty of Religious Studies Lecture Series in 2012. Their
spirited, insightful questions have led me to refine my interpreta-
tions of the Īśvara Gītā and of Pāśupata philosophy. The students
who read drafts of this work in undergraduate seminars with me at
Stony Brook University offered suggestions to improve some of my
unclear and ungainly translations. Finally, I thank my family, Claudia
Misi, Silvia Nicholson, Marlene Nicholson, Norman Nicholson, and
Elizabeth Nicholson, who have always sustained me with their love
and encouragement.
ix