Decorative manuscript

Saiva Manuscript in Pondicherry.

This decorative manuscript transmits a poem in Oriya, the Bandhodaya Citrakāvya. The “pictures” are in fact displays of the letters of verses that are to be read in patterned sequences. Verses written employing these figures, which look not unlike calligrammes, are known as citrakāvya, a Sanskrit term meaning “picture poetry”. The last leaf records, in uninked lettering, that a certain Raghunātha Praharāja from Baunsia (Nayagarh Dist.) donated this manuscript in the year 1963, on 22nd December.

The Saiva Manuscript in Pondicherry refers to the largest collection in the world of manuscripts of the Saiva Siddhanta, within a collection of 11,000 manuscripts that mainly concern the religion and worship of the Hindu God Siva. This was a major current of Hinduism, was spread across the Indian subcontinent and beyond, as far as Cambodia in the East in the 10th century. It long represented the mainstream of Tantric doctrine and worship and appears to have influenced every Indian theistic tradition. This collection provides much of the dwindling evidence remaining today for scholars to reconstruct a chapter in the religious annals of humanity.