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Flowers in Cupped Hands for Siva: A Critical Edition of the Sambhupuṣpanjali, A Seventeenth-Century Manual of Private Worship by Saundaranatha (Sanskrit and English)
Author
Edited by Mishra, Deviprasad with the help of the late S. Sambandhasivacarya
Specifications
  • ISBN 13 : 9788184702361
  • year : 2020
  • language : Sanskrit and English
  • binding : Softcover
Description
The Sambhupuṣpāñjali is a seventeenth-century manual in 824 Sanskrit verses, with some prose, that describes the worship of Siva, not in a temple, but in a South Indian domestic context. It is full of quotations from scriptures and manuals of the Śaivasiddhānta, notably those of Somaśambhu (C11th), Aghoraśiva (C12th) and Vedajñāna (C16th). About the author, Saundaranātha, we can deduce little other than his provenance, for he tells us that he also wrote a manual, now lost, about the worship of Sivasurya (Siva as the sun) in Maṇipravaḷam, a mixture of Sanskrit vocabulary and Tamil inflections and syntax, a literary idiom usually associated today with Vaiṣṇava commentarial works. Several features of his Sanskrit style also reveal the influence of Tamil. The introduction presents the work and gives a detailed synopsis of its structure.