When Lachmann's Method Meets the Dharma of Śiva. Common Errors, Scribal Interventions, and the Transmission of the Śivadharma Corpus

The tradition of the so-called Śivadharma corpus is still largely unexplored. Scholars have so far identified a large number of manuscripts, including some very early specimens, but the relationships between them, as well as the possibility of classifying these manuscripts into groups and families, still need to be systematically assessed. However, recent critical studies of some texts of the corpus have sparked interest in the topic of their transmission. On the basis of two case studies selected from the Śivadharmaśāstra and the Umāmaheśvarasaṃvāda, this article aims at presenting some of the advantages and limits of applying the genealogical-reconstructive method to the study of the manuscripts of the Śivadharma corpus.