The Shiva Purana
The Shiva Purana is one of eighteen Purana genre of Sanskrit texts in Hinduism, and part of the Shaivism literature corpus. It primarily centers around the Hindu god Shiva and goddess Parvati, but references and reveres all gods. The Shiva Purana asserts that it once consisted of 100,000 verses set out in twelve samhitas (books), however the Purana adds that it was abridged by sage Vyasa before being taught to Romaharshana. The surviving manuscripts exist in many different versions and content,with one major version with seven books (traced to South India), another with six books, while the third version traced to the medieval Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent with no books but two large sections called Purva-khanda (previous section) and Uttara-khanda (later section). The two versions that include books, title some of the books same and others differently.The Shiva Purana, like other Puranas in Hindu literature, was likely a living text, which was routinely edi...