Early Vaisnava Texts from Nepal

Exploring early palm-leaf manuscripts from the NGMPP collection, I came across some rare Vai·π£·πáava Tantras which were hardly known from any other source. In this lecture, I will talk about four of such texts: the SvƒÅyambhuvapañcarƒÅtra, DevƒÅm·πõta-pañcarƒÅtra, Jayottaratantra, and the VƒÅsudevakalpa of the MahƒÅlak·π£m·πÉhitƒÅ, which are preserved in palm-leaf manuscripts of the 11–14th centuries.

The first three texts are earlier than the texts which are regarded until now as the earliest PƒÅñcarƒÅtra texts. The fourth text, the VƒÅsudevakalpa, is exclusively concerned with the composite form of Lak·π£mƒ´ and VƒÅsudeva, and is comparable to early ≈öƒÅktatantras in certain aspects in its structure and contents.

These texts together provide a broader picture of Vai·π£·πáava Tantricism, and suggest that what was happening in the ≈öaiva fold was very similar to what was happening in the Vai·π£·πáava fold. I will briefly present the contents of all these texts and discuss specific features of them.