Extract
Le Tantra de Svayambhu, vidyapada, avec le commentaire de Sadyojyoti: Edition et traduction.
The Svayambhuvasutrasamgraha (SvSS) is an alternative title for a text elsewhere known as Svayambhuvagama. It is listed as one of the 28 "classical" agamas of Saivism, but so far it has been little noticed by scholars, despite the increased effort of recent years to study and interpret the authoritative literature of Saivism. The present book is, to my knowledge, the first modern scholarly study on (part of) this text. The SvSS, at least the part edited here, is a text of good quality written in correct Sanskrit and good style. It has exerted some influence, as appears from the commentary devoted to it by Sadyojyoti, who is one of the earliest Saiva theoreticians known by name.
The book contains an introduction, a critical edition of chapters i-iii and iv. 1-7 of the vidyapada (the only part commented upon by Sadyojyoti) and the commentary, and a French translation of both text and commentary. In the introduction, Filliozat (henceforth: "the author") emphasizes that the SvSS is a piece of tantric literature. Tantric is here taken in a broad sense as opposed to vedic; like some other agamas, the text indeed calls itself a tantra. In the author's view, tantra analyzes the spontaneous process of ritual worship, just as grammar analyzes human speech. Religion, especially its ritual expression, and language are both held to be eternal, not man-made, only reproduced by human beings in repetitive succession. Both tantra and grammar reflect on these eternal processes and thus lead the adept to higher wisdom; tantra does so by insight into the "deep structure" of religious activity. This emphasis upon the "analytic" nature of tantra is, in my view, not in conformity with tantric literature as a whole, and I even doubt whether such a characterization is fitting for the vidyapadas which treat of the ideology behind Saiva ritual. Their analysis, if one may call it thus, does not so much concern the ritual itself, as rather its raison d'etre; it is presented dogmatically and vindicates theological preconceptions. Thus, the relation of vidya "wisdom; theory" and kriya "practice" is not as intimate as that between grammar and linguistic facts. As has recently been pointed out by Helene Brunner, there are many inconsistencies between Saiva ritual and the theoretical expositions by agamic authorities ("Jnana and Kriya: Relation between Theory and Practice in the Saivagamas," In Ritual and Speculation in Early Tantrism: Studies in Honor of Andre Padoux, ed. T. Goudriaan, pp. 1-59 [Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1992!). The author's interest in Sanskrit grammar (of which he is a recognized authority) appears in several notes to the translation which are sensible and thought-provoking but not always directly clear to the non-initiate. Sadyo...See the full content of this document
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