PUDUCHERRY, INDIA, December 27, 2006: The Ecole Francaise de Extreme–Orient (EFEO), French School of Asian Studies in Puducherry (formerly, Pondicherry), will be organizing an international workshop on “Early Saivism: The Testimony of the Nisvasatattvasamhita” from January 2 to 13. According to Dominic Goodall, head of the center in Puducherry, the workshop will mainly focus on the Nisvasatattvasamhita, one of the earliest Agamas of Saivism that has survived. “The Nisvasatattvasamhita, a fundamental Tantra of the Saiva Siddhanta, is an enormous, unpublished text of great antiquity that contains information about the early history of the Saiva religion. The work is in many respects very different from the other ancient Tantras of the Saiva Siddhanta and is, therefore, quite difficult to interpret,” said Professor Dominic Goodall.
Nivasatattvasamhita may be the earliest scripture of Tantric Saivism and it is a source of major importance both for the early history of Tantrism and for more archaic forms of Saivism followed by Pasupata groups. It is mentioned in 10th century inscriptions in Cambodia. “It is a compendium of Saiva mantras and Saiva thought in general and it survives in an early ninth century Nepali manuscript. The text has evidence of Saivism in the whole of the Indian sub-continent at that time,” he added.
Scholars from Japan, England, Europe and the U.S. will discuss this agama in depth. Discussions focusing on finalizing the text of three of the five major sections on the Tantra will be held. These sections, called ‘sutras’, appear to be semi-independent Tantras in their own right: they teach different mantra systems and the longest of them, Guhyasutra, appears to be referred to as an independent work in Cambodian inscriptions. Lectures on different aspects of the text or some aspects of early Tantric religion will be given. Possible subjects include magic rituals; peculiarities of early Tantric language, Tantric ontology; early Tantric cosmography, developments in Tantric worship, Pasupata religion, relations between Buddhist and Saiva Tantra.
On the inaugural day of the seminar, a concert by Carnatic vocalist T.M. Krishna will be organized. The concert will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on January 2 in the library hall of the EFEO, as 19 Dumas Street. Nagai R. Sriram on the violin, Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam on the mridangam and Tiruvarur R. Krishnamurthi on the kanjira will accompany him.