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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
www.kobatirth.org
( xxi)
by Mr. P. K. Gode who believes that the work is associated with the State of Vijayanagara, a picture of which, Mr. Gode thinks, is reflected in the work.
The Rādhā-tantra (6002-3) is an interesting work which seeks to demonstrate the supremacy of Śakti worship through the life and achievements of Krşņa, who is represented as an ardent worshipper of the Divine Mother. It is definitely stated that devotion to Sakti was at the root of all the superhuman achievements of Krsna (ch. 22). Krsna performed various Kaula rites in the company of Rādhā, an incarnation of Padmini who was an attendant of Tripurā (ch. 6). Vļdāvana was the proper place for the ritualistic practices of Krsna, as the Divine Mother always resided here and the two principal trees of the place, e.g., tamāla and kadamba, were nothing but different forms of Kāli and Tripura (ch. 21). The work, however, seems to be a comparatively late one. Though no definite date can be assigned to it, one limit of its age is supplied by the Syāmāsa paryā-vidhi (6303) of Kāšīnātha composed in 1699 S.E. (or 1777 A.D.), which refers to the Rādhā-tantra as one of the source books utilised by it. That the work was regarded as authoritative is testified to by the large number of manuscripts and printed editions that the work possesses as well as by references made to it in later digests like the Sakti-ratnākara (6216) of Rājakiśora of unknown date and the Syāmāsaparyā-vidhi already referred to. The existence of a work called Brhad-Rādhātantra (Cat. Cat., I. 504) may not unlikely be an indirect evidence of the popularity of the work which led to a longer version' (Brhat) of it. The work may have originated or at least was more popular in Bengal. Manuscripts of it are mostly known to be in Bengali characters and all the known editions are published in Bengal and in the Bengali script 1.
The Society possesses only one MS. of the Mahānirvāna-tantra (6039) which has been published several times by different scholars 2. But curiously enough the number of known MSS. of the work is quite disproportionate and very small. Only two MSS. are noticed in the Catalogus Catalogorum (I. 298 under Nirvana-tantra). It
1 For a detailed account of the contents of the work cf. Sāhitya Parişat Patrikā, vol. 46, pp. 296–300.
2 A list of the various editions of the work is given by Arthur Avalon in the Introduction (pp. viii-ix) to his edition of it published in the Tantrik Texts Series (Vol. 13).
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