Writings: HinduismThe Cambridge Parameshvaratantra3 of 10

Writings: Hinduism

The Cambridge Parameshvaratantra

This is a palm-leaf copy of the Parameshvaratantra, a Shaiva Siddhanta scripture in Sanskrit, made in Nepal. Its closing note gives the year 252, which Cambridge University Library reads as 828 CE; Alexis Sanderson lists 819, and catalogues of 1883 and 1905 read 857 to 859. The library says no other copy of the work is known.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    The Shaiva Siddhanta statements consulted give no year for the Parameshvaratantra. The Kamika Agama, as translated by Sabharatanam, says the Siddhanta scriptures were revealed by Shiva, and Dancing with Siva, the catechism of a monistic Shaiva Siddhanta lineage, says many Agamas are over 2,000 years old, a statement about Agamas in general.

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    The sources used give no composition date for the Parameshvaratantra. Goodall (2004) lists it among the surviving early Siddhantas, which he dates before the 10th century. Sanderson (2009) places the rise of the Siddhanta scriptures from about the 5th century on. The copy, made in the 9th century on every reading used here, sets the latest date. Cambridge's record names no author.

  3. This copy made

    819 to 859 CE, by different readings of the colophon year 252 (Cambridge reads 828 CE, in the era of King Amshuvarman, also called Manadeva, which it says some scholars judge it to be; Sanderson lists 819 CE; the 1883 and 1905 catalogues read the year in Harsha's era as 857 to 859 CE)

  4. This copy found

    Cambridge University Library acquired it on 3 February 1875, as a gift from Daniel Wright. Cecil Bendall wrote in 1883 that Wright was given it, with a handful of other fragments, when an old temple in the durbar was cleared during his stay in Kathmandu. The year of the clearing and the temple are not given in the sources used.

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.
A black-and-white photograph of two long, narrow palm leaves with ragged edges, shown one above the other as a wide strip. The upper leaf holds four lines of small, dense ink writing and a dark patch near the left. The lower leaf, partly shown, has one or two lines of larger, bolder letters.
Plate I.2 of Bendall's 1883 catalogue: two leaves of the Cambridge Parameshvaratantra manuscriptPlate I.2, an autotype (photographic print) of leaves 9 and 62 of the manuscript Add. 1049, Cambridge University Library, from Cecil Bendall, Catalogue of the Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 1883), scanned by the University of Toronto and shared via the Internet Archive; cropped to this one plate. Public domain by age.

What it is

This is a bundle of 62 palm-leaf folios (a folio is one leaf) that holds a large part of the Parameshvaratantra, written in Sanskrit.1 A tantra is a scripture centered on the worship of a deity, and Shaiva tantras are often called Agamas.2 This one belongs to the Shaiva Siddhanta, a school that teaches the worship of Shiva as the supreme lord, which is the literal meaning of Parameshvara.13

Cambridge's record gives other titles, the Pushkaratantra and the Pushkara-Parameshvaratantra, and says no other manuscript of the work is known. Nine of its chapters appear in a work by Hridayashiva, which calls it by those names.1 Cecil Bendall wrote in 1883 that it seems to treat partly the mystical value of letters, with Parameshvara and the god Brahma as the speakers and much of it prayers.4

How the copy was dated

The copy dates itself. Its closing note, called a colophon, gives the year 252.1 Bendall wrote that the figures are clear and the open question is the era, the calendar the year counts from.4 The sources used here give three readings.

Cambridge's record says some scholars judge the year to be in the era started by the Nepalese king Amshuvarman, also called Manadeva, which gives 828 CE.1 Sanderson reports that Luciano Petech set that era's start at 576 CE, on Tibetan evidence, and 252 plus 576 is 828 (computed here).5 Sanderson's bibliography lists this manuscript as the Parameshvara, also called the Pauskaraparameshvara, dated 819 CE, and does not say why.5

Bendall, in 1883, ruled out the ordinary Nepalese era, which would give 1132 CE, because the handwriting is far older than that of 12th-century Nepalese manuscripts. He judged the writing no earlier than 600 CE and, taking the era of King Harsha, read the year as 857 CE, though his catalogue entry prints 859.4 Haraprasad Shastri's catalogue of 1905 also prints 859.6 Cambridge calls the script late Gupta, and Bendall called it transitional Gupta.14 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks the Parameshvaratantra, not this copy.

Shaiva Siddhanta sources

Shaiva Siddhanta rests on 28 Sanskrit scriptures called Agamas, which Sahapedia says declare their origin as divine knowledge revealed by Shiva. Sahapedia calls the school dualist (Shiva and souls are eternally distinct).3 In Sabharatanam's translation of the Kamika Agama, one of the 28, the scriptures come from the upper face of Ishana, one of five faces, in two streams of 10 and 18. The chapter lists a Parameshvara Agama among the 18, received by the sage Usana from Sridevi, and a Parameshvara and a Pushkara among seven secondary scriptures under it.7 The sources used here do not say which one the Cambridge text is.

Dancing with Siva, the catechism of a monistic Shaiva Siddhanta lineage (monistic: the soul emerges from God and returns to him),8 teaches that God revealed the Agamas through seers, that they were memorized before being written, and that many are over 2,000 years old.91011 Neither the Kamika Agama nor Dancing with Siva gives a year for this text.

The historians' view

Alexis Sanderson lists the Cambridge manuscript as the Parameshvara.5 He holds that the Siddhanta emerged from an earlier path of Shaiva ascetics from about the 5th century on, first in the Nisvasa scriptures and then in others, among them the Parameshvara, also called the Pauskaraparameshvara, and, separately, the Matangaparameshvara.5

Dominic Goodall lists the Parameshvara among five surviving early Siddhantas, with the Kirana, the Nisvasa, and two others. He defines these as scriptures known to the tenth-century commentators of Kashmir, so written before the tenth century.12 He holds that a South Indian text called the Pushkara, printed in modern times, is later than Ramakantha, a Kashmir commentator of the tenth century.12 Neither scholar gives a year for the Parameshvara itself in the passages used here. Cambridge's record names no author and gives no composition date for the work; for the work's other names it cites Goodall's 1998 edition of a commentary on the Kiranatantra.1

How it was found

Cambridge's record gives the origin as Nepal and the provenance as a gift from Daniel Wright, acquired on 3 February 1875.1 Bendall, who catalogued the Wright collection in 1883, says how it came to Wright. While Wright, a surgeon at the British Residency (the British envoy's office), was in Kathmandu, an old temple in the durbar, the royal court, went out of use because the family that guarded it had died out.4

Bendall writes that Jung Bahadur ordered the building restored, and that its furniture, including coins, bronze tablets, and a huge pile of manuscripts, was brought out into the temple courtyard, much as a church restorer throws old tombstones into a churchyard. Most of the manuscripts, he writes, were abandoned to rot, and a handful of fragments, this one among them, were given to Wright.4 He does not name the temple or give the year. The sources used here include no account of the clearing from Nepal, whether from the temple's keepers or anyone else.

What it shows, and what it does not

On every reading in the sources used here, it shows that a Shaiva Siddhanta scripture was copied out in Nepal in the 9th century, between 819 and 859 CE.1 Goodall's list of early Siddhantas, which rests on the works being known to commentators in Kashmir, places the work itself before the tenth century.12

It does not show when or where the text was composed, or who wrote it. The leaves are brittle and torn in places, the text is unpublished, and Cambridge treats the folio order as provisional until the whole text is transcribed.1 Nor do the sources used here say which of the Kamika's scriptures of that name this one is, or how it relates to the printed South Indian Pushkara.

See also

Sources

  1. Vincenzo Vergiani (author of the record), Cambridge University Library. Parameshvaratantra (MS Add.1049.1), Sanskrit Manuscripts. Cambridge Digital Library, Cambridge University Library, catalogue record fields: Abstract, Date of Creation, Origin Place, Provenance, Acquisition, Extent, Material, Script, Condition, Excerpts (colophon), Alternative Title(s), Author(s). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Sanjukta Gupta. Hindu Tantric Literature. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  3. Sahapedia (unsigned module overview). Saiva Siddhanta in Tamil and Sanskrit: Resources of History. Sahapedia, in collaboration with the French Institute of Pondicherry, overview paragraph. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. Cecil Bendall. Catalogue of the Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge, with introductory notices and illustrations of the palaeography and chronology of Nepal and Bengal. Cambridge University Press, 1883, Preface p. vii; Excursus on two manuscripts of the ninth century, pp. xxxviii to xlii; entry for Add. 1049, pp. 27 to 28. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Alexis Sanderson. The Saiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Saivism during the Early Medieval Period. In Shingo Einoo (ed.), Genesis and Development of Tantrism, Institute of Oriental Culture Special Series 23 (Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo), 2009, essay pp. 41 to 349; cited: p. 45 (the Siddhanta, the Parameshvara, and the Matangaparameshvara), p. 51 and notes 23 and 24 (the Skandapurana, its manuscript, and its era; note 24 runs onto p. 52), p. 314 (the Cambridge manuscript), p. 322 (the Skandapurana manuscript). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Haraprasad Shastri, with a historical introduction by Cecil Bendall. A Catalogue of Palm-leaf and Selected Paper Mss. belonging to the Durbar Library, Nepal, volume 1. Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, 1905, Preface p. lii (the Skandapurana; the Parameshvaratantra date); Bendall's Historical Introduction p. 1 (the joint expedition of 1898 to 1899). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. Kamika Agama, translated by Dr. S. Sabharatanam (as the page spells the name). Kamika Agama, Part 1 (Saivite Scriptures), Chapter One: Revelation and Transmission of the Agamas. Himalayan Academy (Kauai's Hindu Monastery), Chapter One, verses 1.1 to 1.117. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism, sixth edition: Sloka 148, What Are the Views on God and Soul?. Himalayan Academy (web edition), 2003, Sloka 148, What Are the Views on God and Soul?. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: What Are Hindu Revealed Scriptures?. Himalayan Academy, 2003. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  10. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: What Is the Nature of the Holy Agamas?. Himalayan Academy, 2003. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  11. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: What Is the Source of This Catechism?. Himalayan Academy, 2003. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  12. Dominic Goodall. Introduction: The Parakhyatantra and its place in the Saiddhantika canon (in The Parakhyatantra: A Scripture of the Saiva Siddhanta, critical edition and annotated translation). Institut francais de Pondichery and Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, Pondicherry (2015 reprint of the 2004 edition), 2004, introduction pp. xxxv to cxxv; cited: p. xxxvii and notes 51 and 52, pp. li to lii, p. xlvi, p. lvii note 95, p. lviii. Accessed 2026-11-06.