Essay name: Studies in the Upapuranas
Author: R. C. Hazra
This book studies the Upapuranas: a vast category of (often Sanskrit) literature representing significant historical, religious, and cultural insights of the ancient Indian civilization. These texts provide rich information, especially on Hinduism covering theology, mythology, rituals, and dynastic genealogies.
Page 486 of: Studies in the Upapuranas
486 (of 598)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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THE LOST ŚĀKTA UPAPURĀṆAS 467 mention of the 'Nandikeśvara-yugma' (i.e. 'two Nandi-
keśvaras'), which Kāśīrāma Vācaspati, in his commentary
on the Malamāsa-tattva, takes to mean the 'Bṛhan-nandi-
keśvara-p. and the Nandikeśvara-p.' In one of the two
lists of Upapurāṇas given by Hemādri in his Caturvarga-
cintāmaṇi, the alternative reading ‘nandikeśvara-yugmam
ca' for 'caturtham śivadharmākhyam' is found in some Mss.*
So, it seems that it was only at a comparatively late date that
an attempt began to be made to raise the Nandikeśvara-p.
and the Bṛhan-nandikeśvara to a position of authority and
antiquity by inserting their names even into the established
list of Upapurāṇas.
As the Bṛhan-nandikeśvara is drawn
upon in
Gadādhara's Kālasāra, Raghunandana's Durgā-pūjā-tattva
and Sūlapāṇi's Durgotsava-viveka, and is mentioned, along
with the Nandikeśvara-p., only in the Ekāmra-p. and the
Bṛhaddharma-p., and as Jimūtavāhana mentions neither the
Nandikeśvara-p. nor the Bṛhan-nandikeśvara in the section
on Durgā-pūjā in his Kālaviveka, it must have been written
earlier than 1000 A.D. but most probably not before 850 A.D.
Both the Nandikeśvara-p. and the Bṛhan-nandikeśvara
must have been written in Bengal. It is only the authors
of Bengal and Orissa³ who are found to have recognised
these two works as Upapurāṇas first of all and who utilised
their contents in their respective Nibandhas. Moreover, the
Nandikeśvara-p. speaks of the performance of Devi's adhivāsa
in a Bilva tree on the day preceding that of patrikā-praveśa,
³ Malamāsa-tattva (ed. Candicaraṇa Smṛtibhūṣaṇa), p. 213-nandikeśvara-yugmam
bṛhannandikeśvara-purāṇam nandikeśvara-purāṇam ca.
* Caturvarga-cintāmaṇi, II. i, p. 21. See also Vol. I, Chap. I (p. 6) of the present
work.
* Of the Smṛti-writers of Orissa, it is only Gadādhara who is found to quote, in
his Kālasāra, pp. 151-2, three metrical lines from the Bṛhan-nandikeśvara-p.
� See Durgā-pūjā-tattva, p. 2�
tathā ca nandikeśvara-purāṇam-
pūrvedyur adhivāsyaiva bilva-vṛkṣe tathāmbikām /
saptamyām mūla-yuktāyām patrikāyā� praveśanam //
etc.
etc.
We have already noted Govindānanda's remarks that the performance of Devi's adhivāsa
in a Bilva tree on the day preceding that of patrikā-praveśa was nothing but a custom
(ācāra) prevailing in Bengal and having no Śāstric injunction in its support, and that
