Śivadharma Manuscripts from Nepal and the Making of a Śaiva Corpus

The article focuses on the study of a group of Nepalese palm leaf
manuscripts transmitting a collection of hitherto critically unpublished Śaiva texts, known by the name of ‘Śivadharma corpus’. The earliest dated manuscript belonging to this category dates back to the 11th century, although palaeographical reasons enable us to detect a few earlier manuscripts in the Nepalese collections. The number of works contained in each of these manuscripts may vary from three to a maximum of eight. In spite of the possible variation in number, the texts transmitted are always the same and their sequence is kept unaltered.

Although some of the texts belonging to this collection circulated also in other regions of the Indian subcontinent, it was only in Nepal that they were arranged and transmitted as a ‘corpus’. On the basis of an analysis of the codicological features and of some issues raised by the texts themselves, I will investigate the reasons why the Nepalese manuscripts of the ‘Śivadharma corpus’ can be considered proper ‘corpus-organizers’. At the same time, I will try to outline the grounds underlying this arrangement and how the process of creating a corpus is reflected in the words of the texts.