Siva Panchastavi - a cursory glance

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Dear Ramakrishna,

 

Here is a cursory glance at the Siva panchastavi:

 

There are 5 stavAs for Siva namely 1) kAtyAyana vararuchi (puShpadantAchArya)

Sivamahimnah Stavah 2) Acharya DanDi virachita AnAmaya stavah 3) halAyudha kavi

virachita siva stavah 4) malhaNa virachita siva stuti 5) malayarAja virachita

siva stuti.

 

1) PUSHPADANTACHARYA (KATYAYANA VARARUCHI) VIRACHITA SIVA MAHIMNAH STAVAH

 

// already mentioned //

 

2) DANDI KAVI VIRACHITA ANAMAYA STAVAH

 

AnAmaya means " without any diseases " . Since, Siva is a great doctor (as

described in Shatarudriya), this hymn removes all the samsara tapatraya and

disorders. Authorship is ascribed to Dandi.

 

Dandi kavi belonged to 9-10 th century. Originally from Kashmir but settled in

South. Composed this hymn probably in 9th century.

 

3) HALAYUDHA KAVI VIRACHITA SIVA STUTI

 

The author is Halayudha who hails from Hossur of Karnataka.

 

Probably lived during 1063 AD as the Halayudha Stotra was engraved on the walls

of Amareshwara Temple of Omkareshwara on kartika bahula trayodasi in 1963 AD.

 

Among the 16 Works of halAyudha kavi, these 3 are the major works.

 

1. Abhinava RatnamAla : It is a nighantu

2. Kavi Rahasya : A work on Alankara Sastra

3. A gloss on Chandas Sastra based on the work of Pingalacharya

 

A great aghorasivopasaka who composed Halayudha Stotra (of Siva Panchastavi

fame). Patronised by Rashtrakutas. A certain branch of rashtrakutas ruled

" mAnyakhEta " which was their capital (now Mankhed). King Krishna III of

Rashtrakutas based at Mankhed patronised Halayudha Kavi.

 

4) MALHANA VIRACHITA SIVA STUTHI

 

Malhana is the contemporary of Bilhana Kavi. Malhana in the begining had a lose

character who fell in love with a prostitute. Later, it is the same prostitute

who admonished Malhana saying being a siva bhakta how can he still cling to

kamini and kanchana. The next moment gushes forth this hymn.

 

5) MALAYARAJA KAVI VIRACHITA SIVA STUTI

 

Authorship is ascribed to MalayarAja which lived between 1150-1160 AD. Hailed

from Pampa kshetra of Anegondi and gotra is Atreyasa gotra. Original name seems

to be Mallikarjuna. Was encouraged by the Hoyasala kings.

 

This hymn is the essence of some of the shatarudriya mantras and the same fruits

are ordained if recited by uninitiates in Veda.

 

For academic interest, i would post the Rahasya Siva Panchadasi Mantra that is

encoded in Siva Mahimnah Stavah. But for japa & anushtana, prior initiation

from able guru who is well versed in Srividya is required.

 

With regards,

sriram

 

 

advaitin , " uramakrsna " <uramakrishna wrote:

>

>

>

> Dear Sriram-ji,

>

> advaitin , " babi " <sriram_sapthasathi@> wrote:

> >

> > Narendra kapre under whom i learnt some portions of Rg Veda and some of

> > the esoteric secrets of Asyavamiya Sukta of Rg Veda.

>

> > Shri Kapre-ji stands apart in Chandi Anushtana and was approved as

> > foremost among Rgvedic Scholars during Ganapati Vakyartha Sadas by Shri

> > Bharati Tirtha Swamigal at Sringeri.

>

> He is my Vedic Guruji, and I too feel that I have been blessed by meeting

> him! (In fact, the story of me meeting him, in California of all places,

> makes me believe the oft repeated story of bee and flower!)

>

> > Siva Mahimnah Stotra of Pushpadantacharya forms one of the 5 hymns from

> > Siva Panchastavi. A great sroutha saiva scholar Shri VishWArAdhya of 11

> > century wrote a wonderful commentary on Siva Panchastavi.

>

> Can you please let us know about these other four?

>

> > Apart from Shri VishwArAdhya, Shri Madhusudhana Saraswati, a great

> > advaitic scholar of " advaita siddhi " fame also wrote a wonderful gloss on

> > the 1st hymn ie., PushpadantAchArya krita Siva Mahimnah Stavah.

>

> I have recently been presented the commentary of Madhusudhana Sarasvati from

> the revered Chokhambha Press of Varanasi: as suggested by Shri Sastri-ji.

> I am slowly reading it, and it is indeed a beautiful commentary. It is a

> dual commentary, in hara-paxa and hari-paxa (making Hara ahd Hari the

> subject of the stotra) truly exposing the non-dual nature of Shiva, the

> subject of this stotram.

>

> I would post some notes on it as I complete it.

>

> > This Siva Mahimnah Stavah was first observed as the " engravings " on the

> > temple walls in the garbhAlaya of Amareshwara Jyotirliga at Omkareshwar of

> > Madhya Pradesh which dates back to 985 AD. The mUla slokas on the temple

> > walls are from 1 - 31 slokas only and the rest of the slokas were

> > incorporated later.

>

> This is perhaps why Madhusudhana Sarasvati chose to write the commentary

> only for these shlokas.

>

> > This hymn was probably composed in the year 548 - 513 BC and the author is

> > KatyAyana Vararuchi alias PushpadantAchArya.

>

> So, this stotra preceds Adi Shankara? Because of the close similarity of

> shloka #7 of devii-aparAdha-xamapana stotra (chitaabhasmalepo) and shloka

> #24 of this stotra (shmashaaneShvAkrIDA ...) I thought otherwise.

>

> Incidentally, M.S writes the hari-paxa commentary to this shloka, with the

> 'amaN^galatva' referred to jIvatva itself, interpretig the 'putra-bhAryadayaH'

> as 'pishaachaaH' for a jn~Ani (viveki)!

>

> > A profile of KatyAyana Vararuchi

> ..

> > So, if we carefully observe the Mahimnah Stavah, kAtyAyana vararuchi

> > belonged to this class of upasakas of srividya. This hymn is a masterpiece

> > and a feat that demonstrates the grammatical knowledge of

> > Vararuchi alias Pushpadantacharya. This hymn encodes a great mantra of 15

> > bija aksharas which is called " Siva Panchadashakshari Mahamantra "

> >

> > Katyayana Vararuchi stotra composed by my gurunatha:

>

> Thanks for sharing this. It is a really beautiful stotra. My namaskaarams to

your

> guru parampara

>

> praNAmaH to all advaitinaH!

> Ramakrishna

>