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Welcome back to the New Books and Indian Religions podcast. I'm your host Dr. Rosh Volkoran, and today I have two very special guests working on a very important project. I have with me Dr.
Peter Bishop, who's professor of Sanskrit and ancient cultures of South Asia at Laian University, and also Dr. Yuko Yukochi, who's professor of Sanskrit literature at Kyoto University, yes by the power of the internet on the same call. We have someone at Laian, Kyoto, and myself in Toronto, and we will be speaking with both of them. We will be speaking with both of them about a very important project in the field, the Skanda Pudana project.
Before we dive into that, Peter and you go welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. So who wants to say a bit about the Skanda Pudana project?
What is the aim of the project? What is it you're endeavoring to accomplish in the project? Peter? Yeah, I'm sorry.
So the aim, well there are a number of aims, but the primary aim is to, for the first time, critically edit the text of the Skanda Pudana, and then right from the start it's important to get a sense of what we mean by the Skanda Pudana, because as you will know, the Skanda Pudana is a very important textual tradition in India, but the text that we are concerned with is one that was for a long time unknown. It was only known from medieval sources, mainly the so called Dharmani Bandhas, sources which collect and refer to individual Puranas, and there when the text of the Skanda Pudana was quoted, that text was not known from the published editions that we were familiar with in the 20th century, so the Venkatesh-repress edition which collected different kandas, collected different sahenitas, and published that under the name, general headings, Skanda Pudana. So the text that we are concerned with is the text that was known in, yeah, according to our sources, earliest quotations, and that has survived in very early, neverly, formerly of manuscripts, and that makes it very important because that gives us suddenly access to an early form of the Purana, much earlier than many of the other Puranas that we are familiar with. In fact, I think I'm right to say that one of the manuscripts that we use, which is S1, we call it S1, dates to 810 of the common era, and that makes it earliest dated, Purana, manuscript in existence.
So what we aim very briefly is to critically edit the text for the first time, and it's not only an edition, it's also a full study which accompanies it because you cannot edit a text unless you also understand it, unless you understand where it comes from, what the office is fired to do, and so it comes with an extensive study, synopsis, accompanying studies. So very recently, just a month ago, in fact, there was published the latest installment of this project, the fifth installment featuring certain other ideas of the S1, that work has been made available open access. We will put it into the podcast notes, so anybody listening can actually take a look at that and read through the detailed synopsis and, if you're a Sanskritist, take a look at the re-constituted text, the fabric of the S1, that's going to put on earlier, so as I die as thereof. Now, this is a term that's important to unpack many scholars.
For example, my master's was in the Vahlikiramaina. So, of course, I instinct to return to the critically edited text, now fully published by the Goldman Translation Project, similarly with the Mahabharata. Yet, to get to the critically edited text takes a phenomenal amount of work. Could you explain to people what is this creating a critical edition?
What do you start with? What is that process like? I think you should start with this. What do you mean for the classic?
So for those who don't understand what a critical edition is, you've internalized it as a way of life. But for those who are like, that's going to put on, where is that text? Where can I find that text? And people who understand, there really is no go-to text.
And so, what are you working with? And how are you working with it? Actually, for me to the least text that's going to put on is for me the first experience of editing the text. So in that way, it was also very important for me to personally.
And so the first of course, we have the several manuscripts. Correcting all the manuscripts. We can't know it at all, but as much as possible. And then we will read the manuscript and correct it.
And what is important and also very useful, I mean for the editors. In case of the Scandogurano, the recension is very clearly divided. I mean, we call it the initial recension, consisting with three old Nepalese manuscripts. They are very old from ninth century.
Maybe one is written, but yeah, around that. And then the other manuscript is very late. It's clearly very late. It's one is dated at the end of the 17th century, 18th century, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot, 17th century.
And the other recension we call the Ambica-Canda is the second manuscript. And the other 19th, maybe the oldest is 18th century. And the new one is 20th century. So the Ambica-Canda is one group.
So the usually, for example, in the Mahabharata, Warama, and so this, developing the recension, time in the group in the manuscripts is sometimes very difficult because it's usually each manuscript has contaminated during the transmission. So usually, the regional recensions, we can say that south Indian recension, or the non-Indian recension, or east Indian recension, and so on, but some manuscripts are contaminated to each other. And then it's very difficult to divide. But in case of the Skandakurana, we can create a redivide manuscript into these basically three recensions.
And so that means we can trace the development of the text. I mean, the transmission of the text, how it is the early form, and then how it is changed. In this case, only we have a manuscript in the Eastern region, so around Bengal. And then in the late medieval time, how it is changed, and what is new element is added.
And then in the current form, what is, yeah, what part is corrupt and what is new additions and so on. So not only what is reconstructed or the form, that is also very important, but still in addition, we can trace how the Purana is what is revised or what revised and added new material, and how it is changed, how it is living. So for those listening to get a sense, these brave scholars start off with a number of manuscripts, which they have to make sense of, in the discerned different recensions. And so there's a process whereby they will reconstitute a critical edition, which, if I'm understanding correctly, is considered to be the most recent ancestor of all of the extent manuscripts.
But in addition to the critical edition, you're also mapping the ways in which the historical processes whereby the Purana has adapted in the intervening centuries. I think if I may follow up, I think Yoko was making an important point there, which is important to stress because that is often forgotten. And certainly if you think about the parallels of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, where scholars have a tendency to accept the constituted text of the Mahabharata or the Ramayana by the critical edition as kind of the original or basic text. And we are trying to do something different because by analyzing the different recensions, we try to really put into focus the changes of the text.
The text is not a fixed phenomenon, text is in process. That is precisely what makes Puranas fascinating because they are indeed, well, I call them, living text. They are in a constant process, they are important for communities. And because we have these groups of texts from different time periods, as you can make clear from the 9th century onwards, all the way up to the 19th century, so that's 1,000 years.
And we also have it from different regions. So that allows us to get insight into these changes that the text is undergoing. And the text is not just one text here. The text exists in all its various manifestations.
And we really want to make the goal of our critical edition. We make that emphatic. And maybe one last point about it is also if you look at our edition, the way it appears, you will also see that we try to represent that because you have different layers in the apparatus which allow you to see the different resensions. So that if you are interested in a particular form of the text, you can actually find it in the apparatus.
I think that's a really important point. In so far as you take the effort and time to preserve the dynamism, the ways in which the Puranas may study in a traditional lineage, you have a teacher where you are learning a text on the tongue. Say, for example, many current Puranas will transmit, for example, the Guru Gita. And upon memorizing 100, 200 verses, the end of it is.
It is usually in the Purana, Uddhakande. There is a sound in the Purana, Uddhakande. We don't know if it's there. But the tradition preserves it as such.
And that's the one way in which it lives. And what you are showing is the way in which it has lived traditionally historically. In these various manuscripts, variations and resensions, you are preserving the dynamism of how the Purana has arrived to us in modern day. But of course, the ultimate goal is also to study it, to try to account for changes.
Why did certain people, composers, transmitters, however you want to call them, feel the need to change it? And it shows that a Purana is not just some relic from the past, but it has a real important force in living. It's living. In many other Puranas, already the Hatra pointed out that the extent Purana is different from the same name Purana, for example, according to the early Darmani Bandaritra.
But because most of the Purana has only a new manuscript, for example after 15th century, but in our text, very forthwittery, we have a very old manuscript and also the new manuscript. So we think now the text was revised very largely before the 12th century. I mean before the Darmani Bandar works from that. So maybe around the 10th century.
So that you, I think it occurred in many times, this. But because we have only the manuscript after that, so we can't follow it. But in this case, we can trace it, how it is changed. One of the examples of the recent publication is voting factor, the last chapter that is largely revised in the earlier How long have you been at this project?
And how much of it would you say is completed? Just to give people a sense of the labor involved in this. Before it started, we didn't start it. So it was conceived originally by a different group of editors.
As you can see, if you look at Volume 1, Volume 1 has as names of editors Hans Makar Harunaga Isaacson and Rob Adiansson. So they started it at the University of Fronomenon at the time. It was published in 1998. So that's from now 23 years ago.
Just before the 1996 or 1996 movie. Yeah, so you course name is already there in the preface. I was still a student at the time. So it has gone through different people have been involved.
So now it's in the hands of you going to me as main editors. And yeah, it is such very much teamwork. It involves coming together, preparing different parts, reading them together, discussing them together, not only between you and me, but also affiliated scholars who have interested in it. And where we are, I think with Volume 4, we reach the middle, more or less the middle of the text, Volume 5 takes us across the middle.
So we are now more than halfway. And we made a rough plan on the future volumes, what they will contain. And we expect you to correct me from four more volumes. Yes, yeah.
But also, if we want to increase the volume number, we can do because after this, not after this, but the volume. Now we are working on Volume 6. In the last part, it's the two recent, no, two or the radar extensions device that takes very much. So it increased about three times or four times or sometimes five times.
So that part is very difficult for us to edit. Yeah, it depends on the position of the page. Yeah, but overall, the minimum number of volumes would be four more. So certainly not for the instant gratification crowd, this work, it's a patient and perseverant work indeed.
Yeah, but it's also, I think it's very satisfying because if you look at each individual volume, you will see, and we've also tried to do that in producing individual volumes. They have a certain coherence. There are certain aspects that are treated in the text. So it basically gets you through Hindu mythology at large.
And each volume also brings with it its own questions and ideas, so we try to also explore that, aside from simply editing the text. So then with respect to this recent fifth volume, say a bit about your findings or the ideas or what you're advancing in that volume in terms of study. Well, the first thing, if you just look at it at the basics of volumes four and five, I would put together. That takes us into incorporation of Fission's mythology.
That is a kind of underlying subject in this part of the text. And it's very fascinating because as such, it's one thing that we should have said from the start about the Skandapurana. The Skandapurana is a text that is heavily Shiva. So that means its ideology, its theology, relates around the figure of Shiva.
Shiva is the ishra, the Lord of the universe, wedded to his wife, Parvati. They are the divine couple. So it's a Shiva text in that sense. But the Skandapurana covers much more.
And so the part that we are working on at the moment in previous volumes is roughly about the incorporation of Viscence mythology. So Volume 4 told the miscycle of Narasimha, Volume 5 is the most recent one, that of Varaha, who is interestingly called Naravaraha. So that's also an attempt to connect the different manifestations of Viscence. And the next volume will also do with Vamana.
It's a very important cultural, historical process that you are being given access to through these manuscripts of the Skandapurana. So there should be, there's a lot of fascinating material there and there's no doubt it'll be the basis of some very important scholarship. I can't tell myself because it's near and dear to my heart. I want to note that Vachyakoshi has actually looked at the, has used the Skandapurana project findings for researching the Devimhaatma.
And she has a couple of important studies on the Devimhaatmaatma. She has corona preparing an Oxford biviography syndiwism in trended Devimhaatmaatma. And there's some seminal studies. Do you want to say just a quick word about how you use this project to understand the Devimhaatmaatma?
Yes. That is in my beginning from working on the Skandapurana. And yeah, before working on this, before starting working on the Skandapurana, I studied Devimhaatmaatma for my MA master thesis. And then I wanted to study the history leading to the competition of the Devimhaatmaatma.
So the prehistory of the Devimhaatmaatmaatmaatma. But actually, it's not much material. Just a few verses in the Hallibansa. And also there are a lot of what is an image of my sasramarini, of course.
But the Sanskrit text is really, very scanty. And then I come to running and science back at all of me. Okay, yeah, you should read it. And then I read it.
Oh, this is a material. I want it. Because it is clearly the earlier than the Devimhaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatmaatma world behind the text. That's very important.
Peter, why don't you tell us a little bit about what I'd like to share about your own research in general or your backstory, your background is about backstory, so tell us a bit about your entry into this world, if you will. Yeah, well my research from the start has been on the bat because that's basically where I was talking about the project which was happening at the time. So my initial work, my PhD was on the list of sacred places that is founded in one of the chapters, chapter 167, which is a very important chapter that gives us a lot of detailed insight into Shaifa topography. So it's more or less a description of the Indian subcontinent in relation to places sacred to Shiva.
So that was my starting point, but at the same time I've also always had an interest in the Pashipotas. The Pashipotas tradition is clearly very much present in the in the Skondapurana. So I also have a, yeah, I've been working quite a bit on the Pashipotasutra and the Pancharatasya, the commentary by Kondina on that, which is a such much more about ascetic tradition, ascetic worship of Shiva. And then most recently, or in recent years, I've also started working on another text that for long was forgotten and has been very important in medieval India, the Shiva Dharma, the Shiva Dharma Shastri in particular.
So that is a manual of Shiva worship. It's effectively a manual about linga worship, most of it is about the worship of linga. But it is a text that is slightly difficult to kind of pin down. It's not a Purana, it's not a Kavya, it is a manual of Shiva worship, it's not a Tantra either, but a very influential text.
So if you look at the number of manuscripts also surviving, it's very impressive. So I started working on that and for that I published two or three years ago, a book called Universal Shaivism, which includes a, again, an edition and a translation study of one chapter, which is an invocation of all the gods for Shanti, for peace, for pacification of the kingdom, and all these gods are devoted to Shiva. That's also why I refer to it as universal Shaivism, because not only the human beings are supposed to be devoted to Shiva, but the same applies to the gods as well, and the sages of course, and the rivers and mountains. That's really good for how to say, for existing or prospective grad students out there, how might one get into this work of dealing with critical editions?
What might you recommend to them? For graduate students, well, one thing that has been attractive, I think about the Purana project, is that in fact, several graduate students have been involved. So also different dissertations have been produced in the process, minus four as a part of it as well. But this year, we had a defense here in Leiden of my former student, Sanadok Dommers, precisely about his incorporation of recent mythology into the text.
Yeah, and we also, our seminars typically are open, so we get requests from doctoral students to attend, and we welcome them and we have our workshops. You and I have our meetings ideally twice a year, and then we meet for like one or two weeks on a daily basis, reading the text, going through it first by first, and attending that, yeah, that is, I think, the best training ground. I think in general, really, what also makes this project very alive and inspiring is reading together. Yeah, you cannot do this kind of thing on your own, that is maybe my advice.
Don't read these things on your own. Go and talk with people, read text together, try to figure it out together. Yeah, I don't have to take it from reading it and this whole I'll have to take you up on that, Peter, and you can help me read through some of these texts at some point. That's great.
That's great. I guess as difficult as it is to take these texts, if you would be better poised than you to do so, how would you, according to our current knowledge date, to this kind of put on? Of course, you're 40 on it. Sorry, do you repeat it?
I realized that it might be ambiguous, but you would know best how would we get this kind of put on currently? Yeah, that's I have argued much about the introduction of the Goring Sree and now I think between 550 to 650. So, yeah, it's one day already. Of course, we started by saying that there are different forms.
The text has gone through different. So what is the question about it would be the first thing to ask? Are you interested in the very first form of the text? Because in fact, the argument is that it continues over time.
First form, I mean, the first reduction probably in 6th to the 7th century. Maybe from the middle of 6th century to the middle of the 7th century. And then the major division, the magic division is made around, that's not so good. Maybe 9th to 10th century, because before there was an actual meeting from the text.
So, as I said, many parts increased. Yeah, and that was with us. If some additions are on, it's added. Yeah.
So, many important dimensions also is that the main text, so did you find on the printed page and our main focus, because we have to have a focus on what we are editing. That is what we think is the more or less earliest form of the text. Yeah, so the text. Brinted text roughly 6th, 7th centuries are essentially.
What I want to, in general, for the constitutive text of the edition, for, you know, it's kind of a problem also in the machea vera vera vera vera vera vera vera vera. I want to say that this constitutive text is just a hypothesis of the editors. But yeah, often the readers who are not so accustomed to editing the text think this is what is a fixed text. Yeah, but it's not.
It is just a hypothesis of the editors. So, the e-reader can try to constitute it by themselves using these apparatus, critical apparatus, variant readings and so on. That's a really important point. Peter wonderfully problem ties the question of what is the data that's going to put on a byte?
What do you mean by it? What are you talking about? It's a process. But this is an important point that the critical edition is no doubt an important tool, a one arrived at a great deal of labor and patience and training.
Nevertheless, it's a hypothesis, not a conclusion. Yeah. And we can get the one new manuscript, maybe very old, 10th century manuscript from Casamil. Or a time machine?
Yeah. But then you reach off of the deck based on that manuscript. Fantastic. Was there anything else about this going to put on a project or critical editions that you wanted to share before we close for today?
Yeah, one point. Peter says this is a very old manuscript, 9th century manuscript. And it is the oldest manuscript of the program, but also the from Mahabharata and Ramayana. I think that the oldest is around 11th century.
So in that way, in the grammatical things, for the so-called epic Sanskrit or vernacular Sanskrit, we have good evidence of that, because we have old manuscript and clearly in the late manuscript, it is more what is a usually changed to conform to the panning grammar. So that is the point that we have old manuscript is not only for the this is kind of the pranic self, but also for the all the epic and the pranic studies, it's some contributions. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a neat about the the Sanskrit. And I think in that respect also, I mean, our work is also in line with some other work that is happening, for example, in relation to Shaipat Antras. You can see the same phenomenon based on earlier manuscripts. It turns out that many texts in an earlier form had less paninian correct sense with them.
What you see that over time is that these texts tend to be corrected and to be normalized that you could say. And so we are, because of the, let's say, 20th century or 19th century editions, we're accustomed to these normalized forms of the text that are, as you go says, very often based on rather late manuscript traditions. And now that we have access to these earlier manuscripts, we can, yeah, we can get into that respect also closer to lift Sanskrit again, getting better with this tradition to get Sanskrit is not just a fossilized paninian type of tradition, but there are varieties of Sanskrit. And yeah, in that respect, it also, yeah, a lot of the artwork also relates to studying the type of Sanskrit in which it offers composed of the text.
Your work in many ways serves as an important people into ancient India. And there's relatively few clear, clear, it's murky, right? So to find an old manuscript that evidences style that advances content, I mean, that's, you know, that's pretty much even the lottery in the Australian ancient India to find some material culture or so pristine. Yeah, especially in the case of Puranas, because yeah, Puranas are so, I mean, by definition, and also as we're actually trying to hide their historicity, that it's all attributed to Fyasa, there's no kind of clear basis.
So the moment that you have, as we have a more kind of, at least we have a fixed point with this, one minus with these early manuscripts, you can at least be sure that by that time this was the form that the text had. But yeah, in relation to that, so what we've also been trying to do, and you were also alluded to that in terms of dating, is to connect the text to material culture, to, for example, well, also our latest volume, in fact, we get also into the iconography of Raha, and you've done the same about Devi, the form of Maisha, Suram al-Ridini, in the text and how it relates to the telling of the narrative. Yeah, and from my side, of course, I already started right from the beginning with this topography, so the place is mentioned. And then from there, also it becomes a stepping point to other studies, so to individual places and to the different religious communities that were there.
So the more you do this, you come to realise that the constitution of the text that we do is all dependent upon all those aspects. So you cannot just do a study of the text like this in isolation, just deal with the manuscripts. That's not possible. It involves all these perspectives.
That's an important point, and fascinating indeed, to think about the web of subfields and be replicated. May I add one? Of course. Yeah, one of the important points is this text.
This kind of random includes a lot of Mahatma type text. It's not that independent Mahatma, but a small Mahatma, but there are many. And I think this is the earliest text that includes various people and that includes many Mahatma type text inside. Yeah, of course, Mahatma has several theory of the other sections, but it is a period of reach.
And it's not the Mahatma of the fix of a certain place. So in that way, this is a, in a way, the precursor of the data development of the Mahatma in the program. That's super fascinating. It's super fascinating.
It's super fascinating. As you both well know, there's a, the day in Mahatma is in the Macundae, and there is a studio glorification, the parallels, the Surya Mahatma for lack of a better term. And it is fascinating because it seems to me that the, maybe the ancient Sowera doctors and bozers, they took their lead from the day in Mahatma. So we work some of those narratives of the sun.
So it might be interesting to see if there are aspects of the Mahatma of the Sundapulana that we see in these Mahatma, that might be a fascinating line of questioning. Yeah, I think the point was mainly about the geographical types of the Mahatma. It's about particular places and the rather, yeah, detailed information that at times we get about these places, so rivers, mountains, linga, names of lingas, potential temples, and then to also, indeed, what we tried to do is to, yeah, connect it to epigraphy, see if there are inscription references to it. So although yeah, Puranas are typically identified as somehow kind of mythological works in some time zone out there, it's actually possible, the Sundapulana really makes it possible to connect it to the particular places.
Yeah, and then you see indeed this development of, yeah, pilgrimage and narratives of sacred sites, etc. And there are a lot of very fascinating narratives. Anyway, the other thing, of course, it's a wonderful text. It's really well, badly, of course, we're biased, but it is written in a very lively manner with intricate dialogues and battles and conversations between sages and in a very likely style, I would say.
It's also just that we do that. That probably is a good point. That's a great storytelling. Indeed, fascinating.
All right, so we've taken enough of your time for today. Imagine you're quite busy. So I want to thank you both for appearing on the podcast today. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your conversation. You're most welcome. For those of you listening, once again, we've been speaking with Dr. Peter Bishop of Latin University and Dr.
Yoko Yoko Yoko of Kyoto University on their joint monumental project, the Stendepudana project, you will have a link in the podcast notes to the project to their most recent open access publication pertaining to the project. Until next time, stay safe, stay sane, keep listening, keep reading and keep contemplating the dynamism of Purana. Take care.