The Attaining of the Void—a Review of some Recent Contributions in English to the Study of Vīraśaivism

Abstract

The historian of Indian religion is confronted with a baffling array of textual materials spanning three or more millennia and written in a perplexing number of languages. It is scarcely surprising that when the attentions of European scholars first focused on this material they should have singled out three main languages and their literatures for study. The three were Vedic, the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit with its vast and wellnigh universal coverage of every aspect of ancient and medieval India, and Pāli, the language of the early Buddhist canon. The lead these three gained has since been maintained, while other languages and literatures have remained comparatively less known to the outside world. One may cite the comparative neglect of the Apabhramśa language and massive Jaina literature. In particular the Dravidian languages have been neglected and their literatures have remained almost unknown even in north India, accessible only to a tiny handful of students.