This Sanskrit work may be the earliest scripture of Tantric Śaivism to survive complete. It is certainly the oldest Saiddhāntika one (dating perhaps to between 450 and 550 AD.) The Niśvāsa also contains unparalleled́ information about more archaic (proto-tantric) forms of Śaivism (see Alexis Sanderson, ‘The Lākulas…’, 2006), and thus is a particularly important source for our knowledge of the origins and early history of tantra. Now transmitted to us in a beautiful Nepalese manuscript of the 9th Century, this work was once widely known across the Indian subcontinent and beyond, for it is mentioned in tenth-century inscriptions in Cambodia.
A volume focusing on the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā will contain the first critical edition of the three oldest of its five major sections, prefaced by studies of the text-corpus that attempt to contextualise the work within the religious milieu from which it was produced. A second volume, editing and translating selected chapters from the other parts of the Niśvāsa, will be prepared as doctoral research, supervised by Dominic Goodall.
• This research forms part of the Early Tantra project.