Abstract
The primary purpose of the present research was to find an account of the Śivarātri story in India similar to that contained in the Old Javanese kakawin. Before the discussion can commence, however, two things must be pointed out. In the first place the present research can in no way be described as complete. What is found below is simply what has come to light as the result of brief and incomplete searching in both Sanskrit texts and in secondary works about India. In the second place, the nature of the material collected for comparison must be made clear. The Sanskrit texts are taken from the Purānas, works of diverse and sometimes vast content whose origins and distribution throughout India are still obscure. In the case of both the Sanskrit texts and the secondary sources the stories are presented sometimes in great detail, sometimes only the briefest summary is given, and in the case of the secondary sources there is perhaps the added hazard of wrong or partially understood information having been passed on, which only a detailed and thorough investigation could bring to light. In view of this, it was thought best to give a more or less detailed account of the material contained in the Sanskrit texts which have been read, mentioning the secondary material in footnotes only, and, keeping the purpose of the exercise in mind, to devote most attention to that Sanskrit account which was closest to the Old Javanese kakawin.
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References
Another early missionary and critic of Baldaeus, the German Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, Malabarisches Heidenthums, 1711, pp. 88-89, writes about a yearly “Fastnacht, welche in Februario Monat einfält und Tschiwarátri genant wird”. Another early account is to be found on p. 152 of Dr. Olfert Dapper’s Asia, of naukeurige beschryving van het Rijk des Grooten Mogols en een groot gedeelte van Indiën, published in 1672. A story which involved a tiger was known to H. H. Wilson when he wrote an account of “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus” in 1846 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society; this story appears also to be known in Bali, see pp. 261, 288 below. A Bengali student of Professor Galestin, Miss M. Khatun, presented him with a number of pamphlets, written in Bengali, which contained information on the festival of Śivarātri. In one of these was the story of the experiences of a hunter on the Night of Śiva, similar to the story recorded by the Abbé J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, pp. 706-708, and which he claimed to have taken from the Skandapurāṅa. This concerned a hunter who lived in Benares, a man of short stature, dark complexion and of violent temper. One day, when out hunting, he caught so many birds that he could hardly carry them and as the night was coming on, fearing he might lose his catch and perhaps be eaten himself by wild animals, he took refuge in a vepu (bilva ed.) or margosa tree. Cold, hungry and terrified he spent a miserable night (in the month Phālguna). During the night he moved about in the tree and in doing so shook the branches of the tree; dew together with leaves, flowers and fruit fell down on to a liṇga which happened to be underneath. The hunter returned home in the morning only to die a few days later. Yama sent his emissaries to collect him, but Śiva, when he heard what was happening, sent his own messengers off to rescue the hunter. A violent quarrel ensued which soon turned into a battle which Śiva’s messengers finally won. When Yama heard what had happened, he went to Kailāsa to complain to Śiva in person. When he arrived at the gate of Śiva’s palace he met Nandi to whom he explained what had happened. Nandi then explained to him how the hunter came to be allowed to reach the Kailāsa. P. V. Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. V, part I, pp. 225-236, gives the most comprehensive account of the Night of Śiva of all secondary sources to my knowledge. Other accounts in secondary sources are M. M. Underhill, The Hindu Religious Year, pp. 93-94; R. E. Enthoven, Folklore Notes, Vol. I, pp. 23-24; C. H. Buck, Faiths, Fairs and Festivals of India, pp. 83-85; W. J. Wilkins, Modem Hinduism, Being an Account of the Religion and Life of the Hindus in Northern India, pp. 295-296; H. von Glassenapp, Der Hinduismus, Religion und Gesellschaft im heutigen Indien, p. 64; Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ed. J. Hastings, s.v. śivarātri.
Pp. 180-182, “Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen”.
“Oh terrible chains of darkness, with which these miserable ones are fettered and bound to Satan’s will! (2 Tim. 2, 26) One marvels in the extreme how such thick, threefold Egyptian darkness can arise in the heart of a reasoning human being …”
…“sensible and so conscientious tiger” or “that tigers also go to Heaven”?
Adhyāyas 71-73. A similar story to this is contained in a small book written in Kannada, Śrī Śivalīlāmṛta, which quotes it from the Skandapurāṇa. This was translated for Professor Galestin by a former student, S. V. Raghavendra Char. Rai Bahadur, B.A. and Gupte, F.Z.S., Hindu Holidays and Ceremonials, pp. 214-222, cite the “Shivarātri-Vratkatha” from the Li ṇgapurāṅa as their source for a variant of this theme. S. M. Natesa Sastri, Hindu Feasts, Fasts and Ceremonies, pp. 89-96, describes a similar story simply as a “Puranic legend”. P. Thomas, Epics, Myths and Legends of India, pp. 94-95, mentions this version of the story too.
Adhyāyas 32, 92-96 — 33. Kane, ibid., pp. 226-7, gives a summary of this story. In the Brāhmottarakhaṇḍa of the Brāhmakhaṇḍa in the Skandapurāṇa, adhyāya 4, there is told the story of a king Vimardana from the land of the Kirātas, who at one and the same time was intent on wickedness and devoted to Śiva. Once, when they were alone, his wife, Kumudvatī, asked him why this was so. The king told her about his own previous existence. Once on the Night of Śiva during a great pūjā at a Śiva temple in the town, Pampā, a dog, performed a number of pradakṣiṇas of the temple; he was then beaten to death by the people standing near the doorway of the temple but because of the nearness of Śiva he was reborn as a king. His wickedness, his cruel devouring of all, stemmed from an unrestrained greed for food. The king then told his wife of her own previous existence as a pigeon. She had met her death when one day a vulture had thrown her down from a pinnacle on a Śiva temple where she had alighted to eat a piece of meat. Because this had occurred in the presence of Śiva she was reborn a queen. There follows an account of the following seven existences of this royal couple and their attainment of Śiva’s heaven because of the power obtained from the worship of Śiva.
Adhyāya 124. Kane, ibid., pp. 225-226, 230-231, gives a fuller account of this version. He makes explicit mention of a bilva tree, but the edition of Khemarāja makes no such mention of this tree. Agnipurāṇa 193 gives a very short account of the Night of Śiva only six ślokas in total. Agni explains what the devotee should do to observe the Night of Śiva, how he should pray and what rewards he expects, mentioning that a wicked hunter Sundarasenaka once attained the merit resulting from the observance of this rite. H. B. Sarkar, Indian Influence on the Literature of Java and Bali, pp. 316-318, mentions that the story of the hunter also appears in the śāntiparvan of the Mahābhārata; a quick search, however, has not brought it to light.
Adhyāyas 239-241.
Pp. 7-12.
Pp. 6, 33.
P. 187.
For the Sanskrit see note 1 on the translation.
The niṣāda is referred to in the Padmapurāṇa with the word lubdhaka [240, 37, 42], but there is no reason to suggest that it is his name and it has been translated with the word “hunter”.
Both texts mention the word mṛga.
He set out carrying a bow and arrow!
Canto 14, 5 pamigraha rikaṅ niṣāda could presumably be an indirect reference to “fetters”, as later on (Canto 15, 6) they bind him up.
Canto 11, 2-12.
The Sanskrit text is ambiguous here, mentioning Śiva’s wife twice. Deveśī (= Durgā) arrives and sees Śiva seated on the Kailāsa with Umā (?)
The Old Javanese refers to the seventh month; see Introduction p. 55. Māgha is the seventh month of the Old Javanese calendar.
Cf. 240, 30, where it is said that those who fast on the Night of Śiva “na te yamapuraṁ yānti…”, which is also similar to Canto 34, 4c quoted above. In other parts of the puranic text the Night of Śiva is referred to as the destroyer of sins (240, 25) and the bestower of pleasure (240,24).
The purāṇa makes no reference to his being equal to the gods, but Yama (240,92) says that the hunter had “utterly vanquished all worlds and become a Lord Gaṇa”, thus becoming equal not with the gods but with Śiva’s servants.
See also Introduction, p. 56.
Monier Williams, under nāga, and nāgapuṣpa, gives the same botanical name.
Hooykaas, Agama Tirtha, pp. 212-213, discusses the list of flowers to be used in this ritual in another text concerning the Śivarātri; he gives there the botanical equivalents of the Balinese and Old Javanese names.
The naivedya offering contains cooked rice amongst other things. See Hooykaas, 1964, p. 224.
Cf. also 240, 5; 241, 65-66.
Pp. 19-22 of the Introduction.
Cf. p. 21 of the Introduction.
Chenchiah and Rao, p. 63.
Op. cit. p. 65.
Op. cit. p. 66-67.
Transliteration of the text published in Vol. IV of the edition of Rao Saheb Vishwanāth Nārāyaṇa Manḍlic, Ānandāśrama Press, Poona, 1893–4. In this text the editor has made use of different sorts of brackets; round brackets () appear to be his own emendations, viz. 240, 38; 54(?); 75(?) and 241, 9(?); 20; 21; 24; 32; 39; 47; 56; 60; 61; 69; 70; and in the indication of the speaker between 69 and 70 in 241. There are square brackets [ ] in 240, 81; 241, 59-60 to which the note, dhanuśahnārtargataḥ pāṭhaḥ, ṭha pustakasthaḥ, ‘the reading in brackets is in MS. ṭha (?)’ has been attached, indicating a varia lectio. Square brackets occur in two other places, 240, 27; 95; the purpose of which escapes me. The reading within the brackets is needed if the lines in question are to have the correct number of syllables. There is no note attached to say that they are variant readings. Could they be the editor’s own emendations to the text?
239, 81 is a mixture of Indravajra () and Upendravajra (), and appears to be an Upajāti, but the pattern is not the usual ab ab but a a ab.
240, 103 appears to be an Upajāti containing (a) Indravajra, and (b) Upendravajra, but in the second line the sequence is altered, the Upendravajra coming before the Indravajra. Thus in place of the normal pattern a b a b, we have abba.
241, 9. Atho’ nyair is described in a footnote as saṁdhir ārṣaṭ, ‘archaic saṁdhi’.
Pulinda, Niṣāda and Śabara are used in the course of the text to refer to the hunter and indicate his low social standing. While each of these is the name of a mountain tribe, in epic and later Sanskrit they all have the general meaning of outcaste, or person of a low social standing. Compare the words bhilla, puṣkasa and kirāta (which are used to refer to the hunter in other Sanskrit texts; see above, pp. 164, 166).
The text here appears to contain a description of the Umāsahitamūrti of Śiva. Another possibility is the Umāmaheśvaramūrti. See T.A. Gopinata Rao, Elements of Hindu Iconography, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 129-130, 132-133.
See Gopinata Rao, ibid., Vol. II, Part I, pp. 80-82.
Monier Williams, 1956, quotes Śivadharmopapurāṇa as the name of a work.
A fast regulated by the phases of the moon; as the moon waxes and wanes food is decreased or increased every day for the period of a month. See Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. IV, pp. 134-138.
According to Kane, ibid., Vol. IV, p. 145-146, this fast is also known by the name of Kṛccha. There is a progressive reduction of food over a period of twelve days.
The text here is inconsistent. The account of the Śivarātri is presented as part of a conversation between the king Dilīpa and the sage Vasiṣṭha. In ślokas 56, 58, 60, 61, 70 it appears, however, from the nouns in the vocative case, that the conversation is between Vasistha and a number of sages. Attention must also be drawn to the vocative singular vipra in śloka 61 (one sage!), which further complicates the matter.
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Teeuw, A., Galestin, T.P., Robson, S.O., Worsley, P.J., Zoetmulder, P.J. (1969). Indian Source of the Kakawin. In: Śiwarātrikalpa of MPU Tanakuṅ. Bibliotheca Indonesica, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9429-7_2
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