The extention of the Parvati image in the early Puranic Shaiva mythology

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1. A provisional edition and English synopsis of the Myth Cycle of Vindhyavasini in the Ur-Skandapurana, the representative work of the early Shaiva Puranas, was made and their two-thirds constituted my doctoral thesis submitted in Dec. 2004. (their final version was completed in March 2009 and is to be published in 2010). The historical process leading to the rise of the Warrior Goddess (upto the seventh cent.) was studied and its result is contained in the Study part of the doctoral thesis. This myth cycle is the oldest full account of the Vindhyavasini myth and has not yet well known. My doctoral thesis aims at the reconstruction of the early history of the worship of the Goddess, based on this valuable material.2. The goddesses who feature in the Ur-Skandapurana can be classified mainly in the three groups : (1) Siva's consort Parvati, who is the highest among all the goddesses in the Shaiva mythology, (2) the Warrior Goddess such as Vindhyavasini, and (3) terrifying goddesses call … More ed the Mothers, some of whom have animal or bird heads. How the goddesses of these three groups are systematized in hierarchical layers in the Ur-Skandapurana was studied, using the Vindhyavasini myth-cycle, the Daksa myth in chapter 32, and the Kotivarsa-Mahatmya in the second half of chapter 171. As a result it was made clear that all the goddesses are integrated into Parvati in the hierarchy having her on top through mythological accounts in which the goddesses of the second and third groups come forth from Parvati's body directly or indirectly. This was an effective strategy of the Shaiva Puranic redactors in incorporating the goddess worship of various types into the Shaivism.3. Kotivarsa is well known as an early Shaiva centre in Mediaeval period from the Shaiva textual sources. The Kotivarsa-Mahatmya in the Ur-Skandapurana was analysed, compared to the relevant material in the Mahabharata and Harivamsa, and the epigraphical and archaeological sourses. As a result the following historical process of integrating the local goddess worship into Shaivism can be sketched out ; The goddess who is the daughter of the Brahmaputra river was the object of worship in the North Bengal ; this goddess was gradually associated with Shiva and/or Parvati as a terrifying local goddess ; in the Pala period the focus of devotion is shifted from the local goddess to Hetuka, the local orm of Shiva/Bhairava. Less