Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 brill.

com/iij

“Favoured by the Venerable Lord Paśupati”

Tracing the Rise of a New Tutelary
Deity in Epigraphic Expressions
of Power in Early Medieval Nepal

Nina Mirnig
University of Groningen

Abstract
The Paśupatināth temple in Kathmandu, dedicated to the deity Śiva Paśupati, is Nepal’s na-
tional shrine. The existence of this site and local Śaiva religious activities can be traced back to
as early as the fifth century ce, but it was the ruler Amśuvarman (fl. 605–621) who first pub-
˙ by styling himself as “favoured by the
licly declared his allegiance to the god of the main shrine
Venerable Lord Paśupati” in his inscriptions. This allegiance would remain deeply implanted
in the religio-political discourse of Nepal thenceforth. Mainly on the basis of the epigraphical
record, this article investigates some historical and political processes responsible for shaping
the links between Śiva Paśupati as a religious symbol and the ruling elite of Nepal in this early
phase, a period in which powerful ministers gradually supplanted the royal elite. Thus, in the
wake of Amśuvarman’s reign the Paśupatināth shrine had also risen to enough prominence to
be included˙ in the list of sacred Śaiva sites in the Indic religious scripture Skandapurāna.
˙
Keywords
Paśupati; Paśupatināth; Nepal; Śaivism; Licchavi inscriptions; Skandapurāna
˙

Introduction
There has rarely been a tutelary deity so consistently associated with the ruling
class as Śiva Paśupati in Nepal. Rulers here publicly declared their allegiance to

*I would like to thank Diwakar Acharya for his invaluable feedback and comments on an
earlier draft of this article, as well as for all the insights on this topic he shared with me
during our readings and discussions in June 2012. Further, I am grateful to Hans Bakker
for the fruitful discussions and feedback regarding this work on several occasions during my
postdoctoral employment at Groningen University. I would also like to thank Natasja Bosma
for advising me on the iconographical material involved, as well as Adheesh Sathaye for his
helpful comments and feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Any mistakes or omissions are,
of course, my own.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15728536-13560311
326 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

this deity from the beginning of the sixth century up to the recent past and Paśu-
pati’s symbol is still used as an emblem by the Nepalese army.1 Moreover, the
shrine to Paśupati, Paśupatināth located in Deopatan, East of Kathmandu, is still
one of the most famous sacred sites in Nepal, buzzing with religious activity. The
strong symbolic bond between a deity and the ruling class over so many centuries
raises the question as to what kind of processes and power dynamics contributed
to the shaping and maintenance of this link.2 Given that the worship of a deity is
intrinsically linked with a temple site or shrine dedicated to it, in this case Paśu-
patināth, we must also look at the popularization of this institution and religio-
political dynamics related to it for explaining this phenomenon. Unfortunately,
the beginnings of Paśupatināth and its religious activities are largely hidden from
us due to the sparsity of reliable historical documentation and archeological evi-
dence. It is only in the corpus of Nepalese inscriptions of the Licchavi period
(ca. fourth to ninth centuries) that we find our earliest contemporaneous sources
referring to the deity Paśupati as well as his temple site, albeit restricted to the lit-
erary arena of public expressions of power embedded in administrative edicts and
religious donations.
Nevertheless, the range of epigraphical material for the early period of Paśu-
pati’s dominant presence constitutes a rare case in which the introduction and
rise of a tutelary deity of the ruling class is relatively closely recorded. By analyz-
ing these records in the wider historical and socio-religious context, the material
offers us the possibility to look a little further into a series of factors that may have
contributed to the popularization of the deity Paśupati and his temple in Nepal,
especially during the first decades of his appearance in epigraphical records. Thus,
it was famously Amśuvarman, at the beginning of the seventh century, who first
˙
publicly declared allegiance to Paśupati, and it is commonly stated that from then
on all kings of Nepal followed suit. However, a closer look at the inscriptions will
reveal that it is not through the royal line that Paśupati rose to become the tute-
lary deity during the early days of his career, but through the ranks of military
and royal officials, who acted as de facto rulers at the time, just as Amśuvarman
˙
himself. The popularization of Paśupati coincides with a period when the Lic-
chavi kings were temporarily supplanted by their royal officials, and it is through
this role as a symbol of power independent of the royal house that Paśupati may
have been successfully linked to the ruling elite of Nepal. Further, these develop-
ments took place at a time when Northern India saw an increase of Śiva-centred

1) Cf. Michaels 1994, 50–51. Concerning formulaic expressions of devotion and allegiance
to Paśupati throughout the Sanskrit material see Sanderson 2004, 417, fn. 254.
2) For an assessment of the power relations in the modern period see Michaels 1994, in

particular 175–185.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 327

religious culture more generally, a trend that foreshadowed the institutionaliza-

tion of Śaivism as it grew to become a prominent state religion in the medieval
Indic world.3
With these considerations in mind, this article aims to re-examine the epi-
graphical material related to Paśupati—in his role as a tutelary deity and as the
presiding deity of the Paśupatināth temple area—in the context of wider reli-
gious and political dynamics within the Licchavi kingdom as well as outside its
borders. The first part of the article will examine and highlight aspects of the
appearance of the deity Paśupati in the epigraphical material in relation to the
ruler Amśuvarman and his own rise to power, followed by a close examination of
˙
who precisely adopted the formulaic allegiance to Paśupati in the decades follow-
ing his rule. The second part will pursue questions relating to the rise of the Paśu-
patināth temple and the possible role of religious institutions associated with the
site on a religio-political level. The article concludes with some clues towards
placing the shrine on a larger religious map, foremost through its mention in the
list of sacred sites in the religious scripture Skandapurāna.
˙

Amśuvarman and Paśupati

˙
Amśuvarman first appears in the epigraphical material during the reign of the
˙
Licchavi king Śivadeva, in the position of a sāmanta, a feudatory or military
official, the first dated occurrence going back to 594 ce.4 By the time he enters the
scene, the kingdom’s governing structure has seen increasingly more importance
given to royal officials5 who have gradually started to act as de facto rulers, while
the Licchavi royals appear as mere figureheads, as it were.
Amśuvarman’s predecessor in the position of an influential royal official was
˙
Bhaumagupta, who was not a sāmanta but belonged to the powerful family
of Ābhiraguptas, who were heavily involved in the political administration of
the kingdom. This Bhaumagupta had risen to the position of chief minister,
mahāpratihāra, under the Licchavi king Ganadeva (560–565 ce) and remained
˙
so for approximately thirty years until the beginning of Śivadeva’s reign in ca.
590ce. A few years after Bhaumagupta’s last extant mention, Amśuvarman
˙
begins to appear in the records from 594 ce, first with the title of sāmanta

3) A detailed study of the rise of Śaivism in the medieval period has been provided in Sander-
son 2009.
4) See LA 60.
5) Whereas under the 41 years of Mānadeva’s reign (464–505ce), only one royal officer

is recorded (Acharya 2007, 33), the appearance of royal officials in the edicts dramatically
increases under his successor Vasantadeva.
328 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

(feudatory) and later, mahāsāmanta (chief feudatory).6 In his position at the

court he acted as the de facto ruler throughout most of Śivadeva’s reign; by
605ce he eventually took up the sole rule and started to issue inscriptions under
his name alone until at least 621 ce.7 It was at this point, when Amśuvarman
˙
acted as an independent ruler, that he first declared being favoured by Paśupati,
an expression of allegiance which he continued to use throughout all the remain-
ing inscriptions with the following phrase, or close variations thereof:
… bhagavatpaśupatibhattārakapādānudhyāto vappapādānugrhītaśrīmahāsāmantāmśu-
˙˙ ˙ ˙
varmā … (LA 81)
… the Chief Feudatory Śrī Amśuvarman, blessed by his Master, the venerable Lord
˙
Paśupati, and favoured by his father …

This common construction with pādānudhyāta, or alternatively pādānugrhīta,

“favoured by”, has been exhaustively analyzed by Ferrier and Törzsök, who˙ trace
the first occurrences back to the Gupta period, where it was used to signal the
power relationship between the ruler and his feudatory, and commonly also
between the ruler and his chosen son, with both the feudatory and the cho-
sen son deriving their authority from the king’s favour.8 The usage of this con-
struction is also attested in similar contexts in the Nepalese epigraphical material
before Amśuvarman. Thus, Vasantadeva, Ganadeva and Śivadeva use the formula
˙ ˙
to express the father-son relationship.9 There is also evidence that the phrase had
been used, analogous to the Indian material, to express a subservient relation-
ship within the power apparatus. Thus, in 565 ce, a certain Svāmivārtta, when
recording his setting up of a Śaṅkaranārāyana image, uses this wording to express
˙
his being invested by the royal minister Bhaumagupta and not by the current
Licchavi king Ganadeva, even though his reign is alluded to in the same inscrip-
˙
tion.10

6) For a discussion of these terms see below.

7) His independent rulership is also underlined by the fact that he issued his decrees empha-
sizing that they are his “own order”, svayam ājñā (LA 71, 72, 78, 82, 83, 85), another expression
that would become a stock phrase in the Nepalese epigraphical material from then on.
8) Ferrier and Törzsök 2008, 101–102.
9) Vasantadeva uses the phrase paramadaivatabappabhattārakamahārājaśrīpādānudhyāta
˙˙
(LA 25, and LA 22, 23 and 26, though damaged in some parts), while Ganadeva and Śivadeva
˙
use the phrase bappapādānudhyāta (Ganadeva in LA 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and 49 and Śivadeva
˙
LA 55, 61, 62 and 70), an expression that Amśuvarman also adopted.
10) LA 50, line 2–5 (orthographic): samvat ˙487 prathamāsādhaśukladvitīyāyām bhattāraka-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙˙
mahārājaśrīganadeve kālam aparimitam samājñāpayati paramadaivataśrībhaumaguptapā-
˙ ˙
dānudhyāto viditavinayah śaśvatkuśalakarmany upahitaparamānugrahah prakrstakulajanmā
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙˙˙
divam upagatayor mātāpitror ātmanaś ca punyopacitaye svāmivārttah sakalabhuvanasa-
˙ ˙
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 329

The application of this phrase in a religio-political context, the king or father

being replaced by the name of a deity, is, as Ferrier and Törzsök argue, secondary
and less common than the usage in the courtly context, with the king’s religious
affiliation, for what it’s worth, being expressed rather by terms such a parama-
bhāgavata or paramamāheśvara.11 In the light of this, Amśuvarman’s usage of
˙
this formulation in combination with the deity Paśupati as soon as he acted as an
independent ruler is particularly striking, and may be inspired by his background.
There is little information preserved in the records about Amśuvarman’s family
˙
history, but nothing indicates that he had any right to the throne through hered-
itary lines,12 and, in fact, he never styles himself as king in the inscriptions issued
in his own name.13 Rather, his career was associated with his position as first a
sāmanta, or feudatory, and subsequently with the higher office of the mahāsā-
manta, a title he carries in every inscription henceforth.14 If any parallels can be
drawn to the usage of the terms sāmanta and mahāsāmanta in contemporane-
ous epigraphical material from India, the former denotes a vassal or subordinate
king of areas around the kingdom and the latter a chief vassal or minister with a
leading role at the court.15

mbhavasthitipralayakāranam anādinidhanam bhavantam iha śaṅkaranārāyanasvāminam

˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
pratisthāpitavān …
˙˙
11) Ferrier and Törzsök 2008, 103.
12) As Slusser points out (1998, 25), Amśuvarman was most certainly not a Licchavi, even
˙
though the chronicles like to claim that he was Śivadeva’s nephew. Slusser explains further that
“he not only did not claim this relationship, but symbolized by his coin device that he belonged
to the family of the moon (Somavamśa), rather than the solar lineage of the Licchavis.” Further,
˙
Jayadeva II also did not mention Amśuvarman in his Licchavi genealogy a century after his
˙
reign.
13) It is only once that Śivadeva refers to him as king (mahārājādhirāja), as will be discussed

below. Further, Jisnugupta, in his first inscription issued together with Licchavi king Dhru-
˙˙
vadeva, refers (posthumously?) to Amśuvarman as bhattārakamahārājādhirājaśryamśuva-
˙ ˙˙ ˙
rman (LA 105), when he explains that he had built a water conduit for the benefit of some
villages.
14) Thus, Amśuvarman is referred to as śrī sāmanta in two undated inscriptions listed by
˙
Dhanavajra Vajracharya as the first in the series of inscriptions featuring Amśuvarman, i.e. LA
˙
58 and LA 59, where the latter additionally refers to him as mahārājādhirāja. In 594ce, the
first dated inscription in which he appears, he is referred to as śrī sāmanta (LA 60) and later
on in the same year appears to be promoted to the office of mahāsāmanta (LA 61), a title he
keeps from then on.
15) The exact positions that these titles denote within the administrative structure throughout

the different periods are difficult to determine, especially since the terms underwent several
semantic changes (see e.g., Gopal 1963). One of the problematic points is whether these
sāmantas are subdued kings or feudatories that have been placed there by the king as officers.
330 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

Sāmantas are found mentioned in the valley as early as 464 ce, when Licchavi
king Mānadeva issued his famous Cāṅgu Nārayana pillar inscription. It is told
˙
that after the death of Mānadeva’s father, sāmantas to the Eastern and Western
side had grown disobedient, which forced the young Mānadeva to march out in
order to subdue them and even to seek assistance from his uncle.16 Later, dur-
ing Vasantadeva’s rule, we find two references to a mahāsāmanta Kramalīla, who
even held the title mahārāja and appears again thirteen years later in 545 ce dur-
ing the reign of Rāmadeva, after a succession of different kings, namely Manu-
deva and Vāmanadeva.17 After Amśuvarman’s rule, under Dhruvadeva and Jisnu-
˙ ˙˙
gupta, the mahāsāmanta Śrī Jīvadeva is mentioned in connection with the repair
of a canal (LA 107), and in 625 ce a sāmanta named Candravarman is given the
task to repair some water conduit originally built by Amśuvarman.18 Thus, the
˙
presence of these sāmantas and mahāsāmantas is well attested in the Nepalese
epigraphical material from the earliest inscriptions.
If we look across Nepal’s border to Northern India,19 we can observe a pro-
cess in which feudatories acquired increasing power in the history of the Gupta
administration and thereafter. The cooperation and allegiance of the king with
the feudatories on the outer fringes of the empire was initially sought and formal-
ized in order to secure governance over such a large geographical area. However,
with time these sāmantas became increasingly powerful and sometimes rose to be
king-like figures, often also styling themselves as such. The epigraphical material
suggests that similar power dynamics were likely to be in place in Nepal. We have
seen that the mahāsāmanta Kramalīla is also styled as mahārāja,20 and, further, a
dūtaka (envoy) of Amśuvarman, Vipravarman, is also referred to as mahārāja.21
˙
Even Amśuvarman himself, though he does not hold this title in his own inscrip-
˙
tions, is once referred to as king in an inscription allegedly issued by Śivadeva.22

16) See LA 2, side 3, lines 13–26. See also Riccardi (1989, 618) for a translation.
17) Thus, in 532 ce, Kramalīla is mentioned in two inscriptions as one of the persons who
took part in issuing an edict together with the powerful Ābhiragupta Ravigupta, longstanding
minister of Vasantadeva, who was himself a sarvadandanāyaka and mahāpratihāra (LA 31
˙˙
and 32). For his appearance in an inscription dated to 545ce during Rāmadeva’s reign, see
LA 39.
18) See LA 105.
19) Even though we have to be careful about drawing explicit conclusions about the Nepalese

kingdoms from insights about the dynamics and developments of Indic kingdoms, a shared
religious and political culture and vocabulary is undeniable, also attested by the use of Sanskrit
as the language of the Licchavi inscriptions. Thus a comparison to inform our understanding
of concurrent historical processes seems warranted.
20) See fn. 17.
21) See LA 73, l. 14–15.
22) See LA 59, l. 7: mahā⏓⏓dhirājaśrīsāmantām(śuvarmanā).
˙ ˙
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 331

As Kulke discusses in the context of the Guptas in Northern India, one strat-
egy to counteract this increasing independence of these powerful sāmantas while
maintaining close allegiance was to bring them to the court in attractive high
positions, which, in turn, inadvertently further increased their influence and
power, a process that he terms “Samantaisierung”.23 Did Amśuvarman rise to
˙
power through a similar process, starting out as a powerful sāmanta of some area
around the kingdom, perhaps crucial for securing the borders, then taking up
a more influential position at the court, eventually rising to the position of the
mahāsāmanta, from which he emerged as the sole ruler?
Given the original usage of the epigraphic expression constructed with pādā-
nudhyāta/pādānugrhīta to express power relationships, Amśuvarman’s adoption
˙ ˙
of the phrase in connection with Paśupati may have not just been a religious
declaration but also a symbolic way to circumvent the problem of justifying
his position through hereditary lines. Incidentally, there are similar examples of
using the -pādānudhyāta/-pādānugrhīta expression in combination with a deity
found amongst Indic feudatories of˙the Gupta period. Thus, the phrase “favoured
by Mahādeva”, mahādevapādānudhyāta, is used by two feudatories of the Gup-
tas, Hastin and Sarvanātha, and by a Vainyagupta24 in the North East (close
to the Nepalese border).25 Further, the Cālukyas repeatedly use the expression
svāmimahāsenapādānudhyāta, “favoured by Lord Skanda” or svāmimahāsena-
mātrkānudhyāta, “favoured by Lord Skanda and the Mothers”. Ferrier and Törz-
sök˙have pointed out that Śāntivarman, when talking of the genealogy of the
Kadambas, further specifies that the founder of the dynasty, Mayūraśarman, is
not only described as having been favoured by Skanda and the Mothers, but also
as symbolically consecrated by them as general of the army, pointing to a martial
context.26
A military association appears also appropriate in the case of Amśuvarman,
˙
and it may not be a coincidence that this phraseology, particularly in combina-
tion with an epithet of Śiva, was also applied to him as he became an indepen-
dent ruler. Before his reign, when Śivadeva still acted as the figure head, descrip-
tions of Amśuvarman almost exclusively allude to his military prowess: he is
˙
said to have crushed his enemies and won great respect in battle, having all the

23) Kulke 1998, 166–167.

24) This inscription found in Gunaigarh (East Bengal) dates to 597ce; Bakker (forthcom-
ing) points out that this Vainyagupta was probably a different figure than the Visnu devotee
˙˙
Vainyagupta recorded in an incomplete seal found at Nālanda.
25) See Ferrier and Törzsök 2008, 103, in particular fn. 63.
26) Ferrier and Törzsök 2008, 100.
332 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

adjacent feudatories bowing to him in veneration.27 These descriptions, in large

part likely to be hyperbole typical for such panegyrics, are not surprising in the
context of feudatories, or kings for that matter. It is noticeable, however, that
in the Nepalese records they suddenly appear with Amśuvarman and are not
˙
applied to any of the other royal officials, sāmantas or mahāsāmantas. Already
under king Śivadeva, Amśuvarman’s position at the court seems to be much
˙
defined through his military feats and his power as a sāmanta. Further, Acharya
has pointed to Amśuvarman’s epithet śrīkalahābhimāni, which he adopts during
˙
his time as the de facto ruler, where he deliberately styles himself as “fond of
battle”.28
Of course, personal reasons and circumstances leading to his choice to derive
his authority from Paśupati rather than any other god still remain hidden from
us. Any scholar of epigraphy is habitually cautioned against deriving too much
about a king’s religious inclinations from his public declarations as being a wor-
shipper of one god or another, and is instead urged to look out for institutional
incentives that may have nurtured such declarations. Such lines of inquiry will
also be considered below, but first some features particular to Amśuvarman’s
˙
reign concerning Śiva-based symbolism will be highlighted, given that it was with
his reign that this link was first set in stone and appears with some features pre-
viously not found in Nepalese records.

27) For instance, in LA 58 (orthographic): … svayaśomarīcivistāravyāptāśesadiṅmandalena

˙ ˙˙
pranatasāmantaśiromanimayūkha*vichurita(conj. viksurita Ed.)caranāravindadyutinā śrīsā-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
mantāmśuvarmanā …, “[…] by the venerable feudatory (sāmanta) Amśuvarman, who pervades
˙ ˙ ˙
the entire sky with his rays of fame and splendor of his lotus like feet that are inlaid by the rays
from the crown jewels of the feudatories bowing to him[…]”, and similarly in LA 59 and 60;
further, praśastis alluding to his valor and conquering of enemies, such as in LA 64 (ortho-
graphic): anena prthusamarasampātanirjayādhigataśauryapratāpopahatasakalaśatrupaksapra-
˙ ˙
bhāvena samyakprajāpālanapariśramopārjjitaśubha*yaśobhir(em. yaśobhi Ed.) vyāptadiṅma-
ndalena śrīmahāsāmantāmśuvarmanā, “by this venerable chief feudatory Amśuvarman, who
˙˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
crushed the power of all the enemy camps with his heroism and power he obtained through
his victories in many battles, and who pervades all directions with the immaculate fame he
gained through his exertions in protecting all subjects”, similarly expressed in LA 61, 62,
63, 65, 68 and 69; and lastly LA 70, referring to his meritorious lineage (orthograph-
ic): anuparatapunyasantānopacīyamānaviśadakīrtimālāmoditadigantarah śrīmahāsāmantām-
˙ ˙ ˙
śuvarmā, “the venerable chief feudatory Amśuvarman, who pleases all directions with his gar-
˙
land of splendid fame which is increased by an uninterrupted meritorious line of descendants”.
28) See Acharya 1997a. I would like to thank Diwakar Acharya for drawing my attention to

this reference in his Nepalese article. Incidentally, this term has long been misinterpreted as
“proud of dissension with Laksmī”, a translation that has been perpetuated throughout the
˙
secondary literature, being taken as an indication that he preferred knowledge over wealth
(e.g. Slusser 1998, 26 quoting Vajracharya 1973, inscription 71, and Regmi 1983, 140–141.)
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 333

Amśuvarman’s public declaration of devotion to Śiva already starts to appear

˙
during Śivadeva’s rule, in an inscription issued in 598 ce, when he was not yet an
independent ruler. Here, Śiva is referred to as Bhava rather than Paśupati and the
expression constructed with pādānudhyāta/pādānugrhīta is not yet employed:
˙
… bhagavadbhavapādapaṅkajapranāmānusthānatātparyopāyāttāyatihitaśreyasā …
˙ ˙˙
(LA 68)
… [by Amśuvarman] who has obtained goodness, welfare and posterity through means
˙
that are devoted to the performance of prostrations to the lotus feet of Lord Bhava …

Another fact often cited to argue that Amśuvarman was particularly fond of
˙
Śiva is that once he claimed divinely induced authority and inscriptions were
in his name alone, the place of issue shifted from the Licchavi palace Mānagrha
˙
to Kailāsakūtabhavana, the name clearly signaling Śaiva-oriented symbolism by
˙
calling into mind Śiva’s abode. The palace appears here for the first time in epi-
graphical records, largely leading to the speculation that it was Amśuvarman
˙
who built it, though no additional information can hitherto be construed to fur-
ther substantiate this claim, nor can the location be determined.29 However, it is
beyond doubt from the epigrapical material that it is from Amśuvarman’s rule
˙
onwards that Kailāsakūtabhavana served as the administrative centre for over
˙
a century, and not Mānagrha, which remained the seat of the Licchavi puppet
˙
kings.
The appearance of Śiva Paśupati in the allegorical language of power is fur-
ther accompanied by the earliest extant depiction of Śiva in his wrathful form
met in the epigraphical material in Nepal. Until this point, all the references to
Śiva in the inscriptions are in his role as the creator, maintainer and destroyer
of the universe—but without stressing his wrathful aspect, and referring to Śiva
with his epithets Śambhu, Mahādeva, Hara, Śaṅkara (in his manifestation as
Śaṅkaranārāyana), Īśvara, Bhagavant, Bhava or epithets relating to him being the
˙
destroyer of the god of love.30 But in the following praśasti issued by Amśuvar-
˙
man, clearly Śiva’s bloodthirsty aspect is emphasized:
karnālaṅkāraraudraśvasadahipavanavyastaparyasta(ke)śam,
˙ ˙
pratyagracchedatāpā(nvi)tarudhiraśiromālabhā –⏑––|

29) See, for instance, Slusser 1998, 26 and 118–123, who on the whole, following Vajracharya
and others, argues for Kailāsakūtabhavana to be located in Hadigaon. For another interpreta-
˙
tion, which locates it in the South of Kathmandu, see Vajracharya G. (1996).
30) See LA 36 for Śambhu; LA 7 for Bhagavant; LA 20 for Maheśvara and Hara; LA 50 for

Śaṅkaranārāyana, Īśvara, and also the epithet madanaripu, LA 52 for Bhava, and LA 54 for
˙
the epithet smarāri.
334 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

uccairmuktāttahāsam parivigaladasrṅnāgacarmottarī(yam),
˙˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
pāyāt tad rūpam aiśam himagiritanayābhītabhīteksitam vah |
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
(Sanskrit Text from LA 78) The meter is Sragdharā.

May this divine form, whose hair is scattered and disheveled by the ferociously exhaled
breaths of the snakes that are its ear ornaments, […] wearing a garland of human heads
[dripping] with warm blood as they have just recently been cut off, loudly releasing
his bellowing laughter, wearing as an upper garment an elephant hide oozing blood all
around, peered at with extreme fright by [Pārvatī], daughter of the Himālaya, may this
divine form protect you.

This depiction of Śiva in his wrathful manifestation, holding an elephant hide

dripping with blood and accompanied by his wife Pārvatī, frightened at his ap-
pearance, is a well known image by that time. For instance, this praśasti much
echoes the image used in a verse of Kālidāsa in his Meghadūta, which revolves
around the same imagery of the wrathful Śiva (though here without a garland
of human heads) and a frightened Pārvatī. In this verse, the cloud is likened in
appearance to the blood-dripping elephant hide, when, at dusk, reddened by
the twilight, it rests on the tree tops, which are compared to Śiva’s many arms.
With this appearance, the cloud is told to remove Śiva’s desire for the bloody
hide at the beginning of his dance, which, in turn, causes Pārvatī’s agitated gaze
to calm down and remain steady. Incidentally, in this verse Śiva is also referred to
as Paśupati and the term used for elephant is nāga rather than the more common
gaja.31 Though not made explicit in the extant contemporaneous sources, this
imagery used in Amśuvarman’s inscription becomes associated with the myth of
˙
Śiva killing the elephant demon Gajāsura, and also with the mythological theme
of Śiva killing the demon Andhaka, of which the first extant narration is found
in the Nepalese recension of the Skandapurāna, the oldest known recension of
the text.32 That this wrathful image became a ˙popular theme amongst Śiva devo-

31) Meghadūta 36: paścād uccairbhujataruvanam mandalenābhilīnah | sāmdhyam tejah prati-

˙ ˙˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
nivajapāpusparaktam dadhānah || nrttārambhe hara paśupater ārdranāgājinecchām | śānto-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
dvegastimitanayanam drsabhaktir bhavānyā ||. The terms used for elephant hide in such de-
˙ ˙˙
scriptions of Śiva are more frequently constructed with gajacarman or less often gajāja, instead
of nāgacarma or nāgāja. Thus, even Vallabha, in his commentary to the above quoted verse
of the Meghadūta glosses ārdranāgajinecchām with ārdragajājinecchām. Also Kālidāsa him-
self more frequently uses gajāji in this context, as, for example, in Kumārasambhava 5.77
˙
gajājinālambi. Another instance of nāgacarman is found in the Candrehe inscription of Pra-
bodhaśiva, the Kalachuri year 724, amongst epithets of Śiva, namely nāgacarmāvrta. Also in
˙
the Anuśāsanaparva of the Māhabhārata 13.14.84d we find nāgacarmottaracchada amongst
the synonyms for Śiva.
32) As Yokochi discussed in her paper at the 14th World Sanskrit Conference in Kyoto, 2010,

the Andhaka cycle starts with Skandapurāna 73–112 (Bhattarai 1988) and continues with
˙
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 335

tees is attested by the fact that in sites connected to Śiva worship we often find
reliefs that depict Śiva holding an elephant hide, or in the course of killing some
demon, often with Pārvatī seated next to him, her turning away and looking back
at him with an arm lifted to the chest in shock—calling into mind the wording
of Amśuvarman’s praśasti.33
˙
Śiva Paśupati is also, as the name suggests, worshipped by the Pāśupatas, adher-
ents of one of the streams of institutionalized Śaivism present at the time, who
largely invoke Śiva in his aggressive, ferocious form, for instance as the Rudra of
the Śatarudrīya. As Oberlies summarizes:
[…] ein gefürchteter waffenstrotzender Krieger, ein schrecklicher Jaeger, der als paśupati
mit Willkuer ueber sein ‘Vieh’ herrscht, der “die Menschen mit vielfachem Schrecken
heimsucht” (PSBh 57m15–16), mit ihnen “spielt” (PSBh 15.2) und dessen Macht so
groß ist, dass er selbst auf den Wirkemechanismus des karman keinerlei Rücksicht zu
nehmen hat […]. (Oberlies 2000, 182)

Even though evidence from the religious scriptures of the Pāśupatas cannot nec-
essarily be contextualized in the domain of Nepalese kingship and religion, this
reference serves to further emphasize the associations that are perpetuated in
relation to this deity.34 After all, Śiva is situated at the fringe of the orthodox
Vedic pantheon, a characteristic that is enacted in the practices and appearance

chapters 130–157. On the manuscript history of the Skandapurāna, see Adriaensen, Bakker,
˙
Isaacson 1998, 3–4 and 31–38.
33) There is an abundance of images showing Śiva with an elephant hide, the so far earliest

having been identified by Bosma (2010) in Tāla, dating to the end of the fifth century, with the
peculiar arrangement of Pārvatī to Śiva’s left, “looking in awe at her husband”, and a male figure
to the right, which Bosma believes to be Vīrabhadra. Images with Śiva holding an elephant
hide and killing a demon with a frightened Pārvatī next to him are found in Ellora (Caves 14,
15, 16, and 29). Analogously an image in Elephanta that depicts Śiva in a posture of attack
with weapons in his hands is also likely to show a scene related to this theme. Here the lower
right corner is rather damaged but may have contained Pārvatī. Another image located during a
field trip to Mundeśvarī also depicts this scene (the image is very worn but it is easily identified
˙˙
when comparing it with the aforementioned images of Śiva, the elephant hide, and Pārvatī);
right below the image, a pilgrim’s inscription, dated by Salomon (1976, 105) to the seventh
century on paleographical grounds, suggest that the image my also stem from the same or an
earlier period. Though of much younger age, an image of such a kind was located in Kaliñjar,
clearly carrying on this iconographic motif.
In Nepal, however, images of Śiva and Pārvatī follow the popular motif of the Umāma-
heśvara in this period, depicting the divine couple peacefully in embrace. The earliest dated
image of this kind is from 573 ce (Pal 1970, plate 9; for other pre-ninth-century samples see
plates 128 and 130, and a discussion of these images on pp. 87–89).
34) For a helpful summary with bibliographical references concerning mythology and reli-

gious groups associated with Śiva, see Bisschop 2009.

336 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

of Śaiva Pāśupatas. As we have just seen, this position also enables him to act
unaffected by the traditional concepts of karma, a trait here used to glorify his
power as a warrior.
As noted above, there are no means beyond the speculative to reconstruct the
reasons for the choice of one deity over another on a personal level. However, one
may note that the militant wrathful depictions of Śiva Paśupati may have been
particularly appealing to a person whose career appears so closely connected with
military feats. Of course, Śiva Paśupati is not unique in his militant feature, and
any deity that acted as some sort of patron was adopted in its militant aspect, as
for instance the goddess or Skanda,35 as well as Visnu in certain manifestations.
˙˙
However, as, amongst others, Bisschop points out,36 a larger pattern emerged in
the Indic cultural realm: the iconography of power associated with Gupta-type
Vaisnavism was gradually won over by Śaiva-centred iconography, a process that
˙˙
went together with the increasing success of what came to be tantric Śaivism,
a development discussed in detail by Sanderson.37 In fact, during his analysis
of aspects that have led to Śaivism’s success in the medieval period, Sanderson
points out that the close symbolic association between Śiva and the investment
of military strength was one of the aspects appropriated by tantric Śaiva officiants
as a strategy to forge close ties with the king. In this way, the ritual specialists were
able to offer the king Śaiva initiation that would bestow military might upon
him.38

Getting in Line with Power

By the end of Amśuvarman’s rule, Paśupati had become such a significant na-
˙
tional symbol that public declarations of being invested by him became part of
the standard political rhetoric. Even though initiation as described above is not
yet an issue in Nepal in this period, the epigraphical records betray that the link
between Śiva Paśupati and executive power became so deeply embedded that
adopting allegiance to Paśupati proved vital for claiming the seat of power. In this
context, it is often assumed that all Nepalese kings thereafter took up this link.

35) For a detailed study of the emergence of the theme of the warrior goddess in the Sanskrit
culture see Yokochi (2004). For a study of Skanda and the warrior cult see Mann 2012.
36) See Bisschop 2010, 477.
37) See Sanderson 2009.
38) See Sanderson 2009, 258–260. Note that the Śaivas had even come up with modified ver-

sions of the abhiseka, which were performed before going into battle. According to Sanderson,
˙
this ritual domain was particularly associated with the Śākta branch of Śaivism.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 337

But it is crucial to note that in these initial decades of Paśupati’s dominance,

it is, in fact, mainly through the line of royal officials, acting as de facto rulers,
and not through the line of kings that this expression can be traced. Paśupati is
thus constructed as a potent symbol linked to the executive power and not as a
symbolic representation of the royal dynasty.
After Amśuvarman’s long and prosperous reign was over, the Licchavi king
˙
Udayadeva, who appears to have attempted to succeed him, only remains on the
scene for a very short time. In the only inscription available from the time of his
rule (621ce), he is seen to adopt the expression bhagavatpaśupatibhattārakapā-
˙˙
dānugrhīto.39 There is no chief minister mentioned in Udayadeva’s inscription,
and he˙ himself was obviously not able to hold on to power, as shortly after this we
find a new rulership setting the tone. Udayadeva himself, according to Tibetan
and Chinese records, fled to Tibet for protection.40
The ensuing power vacuum was filled by Jisnugupta, the son of the chief min-
˙˙
ister Bhaumagupta, who, in turn, was the powerful voice at the court before
Amśuvarman entered the scene. Jisnugupta rose to the position of the de facto
˙ ˙˙
ruler, installing the Licchavi puppet king Dhruvadeva in the old palace Māna-
grha.41 Along the line of power, it was thus Jisnugupta42 and not the Licchavi
˙ ˙˙
king who styled himself as blessed by Paśupati and resided in Amśuvarman’s
˙
Kailāsakūtabhavana. Jisnugupta remained in this position under the following
˙ ˙˙
Licchavi puppet king Bhīmārjunadeva (whose earliest recorded dates back to
43
631ce), until eventually his son Visnugupta followed in his footsteps and
˙˙
became the ruling chief minister. Visnugupta too took up the allegorical para-
˙˙
phernalia of power, thus, again, styling himself as blessed by Paśupati and taking
up residence in Kailāsakūtabhavana under Bhīmārjunadeva.44
˙
It is only after the de facto reign of these powerful Guptas, that the Lic-
chavi king Narendradeva, son of king Udayadeva, returned to the valley and
re-established Licchavi rule, allegedly with the help of the Tibetans.45 For the

39) See LA 104.

40) See, e.g., Slusser 1982, 29.
41) Further evidence that the chief ministers were the ones in power is also to be found

in the Chattracandeśvara inscription (LA 112), where the reigning ruler mentioned is only
˙˙
Jisnugupta and any reference to a Licchavi king is absent.
˙˙
42) Note that Jisnugupta, like Amśuvarman, also struck coins with his own name, further
˙˙ ˙
affirming that the power remained with the royal officials (Rhodes et al. 1989, 35). However,
it appears that towards the end of his career he did not put his name on the coins anymore,
and his son Visnugupta also did not carry on this practice (ibid. 1989, 36).
43) See LA 110. ˙˙
44) See LA 118.
45) Slusser 1982, 30.
338 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

first time, after his father’s short rule, a Licchavi king declared his allegiance to
Paśupati, and further took up residence in the Kailāsakūtabhavana, without any
˙
overshadowing chief ministers or mahāsāmantas in the picture.46 According to
Rhodes et al, he even issued a large number of coins in the name of the god
Paśupati.47 Further, he named his own son Śivadeva after the god, and Śivadeva’s
son Jayadeva, in turn, became to be a great worshipper of Paśupati and allegedly
the co-author of the long poem eulogizing Śiva, which was inscribed on a stone
slab now situated in the inner compound of the Paśupati temple, originally set
up at the occasion of offering a large silver lotus to the deity. These evidences
indicate that it was Narendradeva’s return to power that gave rise to a succession
of Licchavi kings who ruled in their own right and maintained the allegiance to
Śiva Paśupati.
At the same time, it has to be kept in mind that these symbolic expressions
of power signalling allegiance to Paśupati were not necessarily matched with
personal inclinations throughout the ruling line, analogous to the case of rul-
ing powers declaring devotion to a deity in classical India. In fact, there may
even be some indications that the two powerful royal officers Jisnugupta and
˙˙
Visnugupta, who were in charge after Amśuvarman’s reign, were personally more
˙˙ ˙
inclined to worship Visnu. Thus, Jisnugupta, being named after and naming his
˙˙ ˙˙
own son after Visnu, commissioned a large Jalāśayana Visnu image at Buddhanī-
˙˙ ˙˙
lakantha.48 Even though such establishments may also simply conform to the
˙˙
common practice of rulers setting up a variety of shrines, it is noticeable that his
son Visnugupta reconstructs a water conduit at Cāṅgu Nārāyana, explicitly in
˙˙ ˙
memory of his father,49 and uses a praśasti eulogizing Visnu lying on a bed of ser-
˙ ˙
pents in one of his edicts,50 calling into mind the image that his father set up.51

46) If it is true that Narendradeva was installed with the help of the Tibetans, the impact and
force with which that happened may also have subdued any feudatories around the central
kingdom.
47) Rhodes et al 1989, 30.
48) This event is described in the inscription as a rather long and arduous process, in which a

large stone had been brought to the village from far away. (LA 117).
49) LA 119, line 6: śrījisnuguptaksititalaśaśine […] pitre, “for [my] father Śrī Jisnugupta, who
˙˙ ˙ ˙˙
is the moon of the earth.”
50) LA 118, line 2: toyāśaye bhujagabhogavaraprasupto visnu, “Visnu, fast asleep on the excel-
˙˙ ˙˙
lent snake coils on the bed in the water.”
51) As for Visnugupta himself, the Gopālarājavamśāvalī attributes to him the establishment
˙˙ ˙
of a Visnu statue in his own size, which Slusser and Vajracharya (1973, 127–131) would like
˙˙
to correlate to the Visnu statue in the Rāma temple on the East side of the river Bāgmatī in
˙˙
the Paśupatināth temple area. However, unfortunately there is no epigraphical evidence to
corroborate this hypothesis.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 339

Paśupati Shrine: Power and Patronage

Given the constant association of Paśupati with the executive ruling power, the
question remains as to which factors contributed to forging such close ties. There
are likely to be many components, most of which are hidden from us. Never-
theless, we may investigate if there are any indications that a network of power-
ful religious officiants had formed and became associated with the Paśupatināth
temple site and if there is any scope that such groups started to have more influ-
ence in actual policy making, similar to the institution of the Church in early
medieval Europe. This is precisely the premise that has led one scholar to hypoth-
esize that Amśuvarman’s rise to power was in the first place aided by powerful
˙
priests at the Paśupati temple.52
However, as we have just seen, the reverse scenario seems even more likely—
namely that it was Amśuvarman who played a crucial role in popularizing the site
˙
through initializing this link between Paśupati and the ruling class. The shrine of
Paśupati was certainly an active place of worship before Amśuvarman’s time, but
˙
it was his success and influence, notably as a non-royal, that appears to have given
momentum to the site’s becoming more prominent in the religio-political land-
scape. Corroborating with the material discussed so far, we will see that religious
activities and patronage at Paśupatināth initially show no particular affinity to
the royal palace but rather more broadly revolve around religious donative prac-
tices of merchants, royal officials and women from high ranking backgrounds, as
well as more indigenous forms of religious worship centered around goddesses.
We will thus turn to a closer examination of the socio-religious landscape we can
glean from the epigraphical material before and at the time of Amśuvarman.
˙

Religious Activities and Patronage Recorded in the Licchavi Inscriptions

By the time of Amśuvarman’s rule, a site dedicated to Paśupati had already been
˙
in existence for at least seven decades as we learn from an often cited inscrip-
tion dated to 533ce, which records the establishment of a Śivaliṅga in the

52) Pal 1970, 3. See also Slusser (1998, 228, especially fn. 52), quoting Pal (ibid) and elaborat-
ing further on this by pointing to the fact how Yaksamalla (ca. 1428–1482) prohibited local
˙
Brahmans from officiating in the temple and employed Indian Brahmans instead, a custom
still in place. Further, she elaborates that “the Indian priests were forbidden to marry locally
and thus engender family ties that might have prejudicial repercussions in national politics.”
All this certainly points to an influential position of the officiants associated with the Paśu-
pati shrine. However, this evidence dates from nearly a millenium after the first epigraphical
evidence at the site.
340 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

paśupatiksetra, together with land donations for its upkeep and worship.53 In
the same˙terrain, now all belonging to the Paśupatināth temple area, there are a
number of inscribed Śivaliṅga pedestals, recording the setting up of these shrines
together with land grants donated for their maintenance. These Śivaliṅgas were
set up and named after the donee or a beneficiary according to the common
Indic practice of combining part of the individual’s name followed by the deity’s
designation, in this case -īśvara.54 The extant epigraphical material at the site
reveals that the pattern of donative activities is not particularly linked to the
royal line but rather revolves around the meritorious religious activities of mer-
chants, royal officials and women of high-ranking families.55 Thus, female rel-
atives of Amśuvarman also established shrines located at Paśupati, for which
˙
Amśuvarman issued protective orders during his reign. Of the three mentioned
˙
shrines, the two established by women of his family were the shrine Surabhoge-
śvara set up by his sister Bhogadevī for the merit of her husband, and the shrine
Laditamaheśvara set up by his niece Bhāgyadevī, daughter of Bhogadevī.56
˙
These recorded religious activities of merchants, royal officials and women
seemed to have constituted a large part of the socio-religious landscape in which
the temple site rose to prominence, but, as we have seen, it was not until Amśuvar-
˙
man that the site became a national shrine. In fact, the first extant record of
patronage appears under Amśuvarman, who issued an edict regulating the dis-
˙
tribution of revenue to religious institutions, mentioning Paśupati as a recipient
in the first place, followed by the Visnu deity Cāṅgu Nārayana and three Bud-
˙˙ ˙
dhist monasteries, all receiving the same amount of money in concordance with
patterns of multiple patronage.57
Of course, this does not preclude that royals themselves may have performed
religious activities there. However, in the Licchavi epigraphical corpus we only
have concrete evidence of such a royal ceremony from many centuries later, when
in 733ce king Jayadeva issued an inscription at the occasion of the king’s worship
of Paśupati. A relatively recent discovery of an inscription fragment inside the

53) LA 34, line 1: bhagavatah paśupateh ksetre, “in the area of the venerable Paśupati”.
54) ˙ ˙ ˙
See Sanderson 2003, 415.
55) A study of the Śivaliṅga base inscriptions is in preparation.
56) The third shrine, Daksineśvara is recorded to have been set up by their ancestors. See LA
˙˙
85, lines 8–13: … paśupatau bhagavāñ cchūrabhogeśvaro ’smadbhaginyā śrībhogavarmajananyā
bhogadevyā svabhartū rājaputraśūrasenasya punyopacayāya pratisthāpito yaś ca *tad(corr. tada
˙ ˙˙
Ed.)duhittrāsmadbhāginyeyyā bhāgyadevyā pratisthāpito laditamaheśvaro yaś caitat pūrvajaih
˙˙ ˙ ˙
pratisthāpi(to)daksineśvaras …
˙˙
57) See ˙˙
LA 77. These patterns of multiple patronage were common across the contemporane-
ous Indic world. See, for instance, Salomon 1998, 238.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 341

Paśupatināth temple compound may point to an earlier royal inscription of king

Mānadeva. However, most of the inscription is lost and the remaining portions
are rather damaged so that too little remains to reconstruct the context in which
it was set up.58 Nevertheless, even if the authority of Mānadeva as a ruler in the
country was celebrated there at the time—a fact corroborated with his appraisal
in the introductions of the contemporaneous donative inscriptions found in the
Paśupatināth temple area—it is noticeable that after Mānadeva’s reign it is the
authority of feudatories or ministers, thus referred to, for instance, as mahāsā-
manta, mahārāja or sarvadandanāyaka, that is frequently invoked in donative
˙ ˙ to their authority or administrative power over
inscriptions. This may be related
the area in which these land donations are located, suggesting a far reaching net-
work.59
Overall, the extant epigraphical material thus attests to religious activities of
a broader lay community that engaged in the practice of establishing shrines in
order to increase merit rather than to acts of royal patronage.

Officiants
Given the numerous extant inscriptions recording the donation of land grants
that became attached with these shrines, much land or produce of land must have
become attached to the area around Paśupatināth. Accumulating these assets, it
is conceivable that the religious institution(s) around the Paśupatināth shrine
grew increasingly powerful and prominent, suggesting that they became more
engaged in the administrative negotiations and handling of assets that would
go together with such transactions.60 Further, the shrines also required mainte-
nance, a task for which Śaiva-oriented officiants would have been the likeliest
candidates, given that the objects of worship are Śivaliṅgas. In fact, a few decades
later, in the wake of Amśuvarman’s reign, we find first references to Śaiva reli-
˙
gious officiants at the site in inscriptions located in the Paśupatināth temple area,

58) See Rājavamśī (1989/1990). The inscription is dated to Mānadeva’s reign on paleographi-
˙
cal grounds. The fragments include the mention of king Vrsadeva as part of a Licchavi geneal-
˙˙
ogy that appears to be congruent with that recorded in Mānadeva’s Cāṅgu Nārāyana pillar
˙
inscription. Unfortunately the remaining record is too damaged to properly reconstruct the
context and the original length of the inscription, though better images of the rubbings that I
have recently acquired may bring more insight on the matter. I would like to express my thanks
to Dr. Rājavamśī, who so generously shared his material with me and discussed the matter.
˙
59) This hypothesis regarding the appearance of these figures in the donative inscriptions was
kindly suggested to me by Diwakar Acharya, commenting on an earlier draft of this paper in
an email communication from January 20, 2013.
60) A detailed study of these inscriptions will appear in Mirnig (forthcoming).
342 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

all attesting to the presence of Pāśupata Śaivas. Thus, one group of Pāśupatas
appears in charge of the assets for maintaining the Chattracandeśvara shrine,
˙˙
located to the northeast of the Paśupati shrine, while another is recorded to be
in charge of donations given for establishing a kind of infirmary.61

Paśupatināth—Part of a Larger Indic Religious Network?

As for the place of the Paśupatināth temple in the wider religious landscape of the
subcontinent, references to it in Indian premodern lists of sacred sites are curi-
ously absent, despite the shrine’s obvious popularity within the Nepalese king-
dom.62 In this respect, the oldest extant recension of the Skandapurāna,63 which
˙
is the earliest known systematization of Śiva mythology, is a helpful starting point
for examining if and how Paśupatināth was linked to a larger religious network.
The editors of the text note that the group of composers and those responsible
for its transmissions belonged to the Pāśupata Śaiva world, which also accounts
for the technical passages concerning Śaiva practices.64 In this scripture, a Paśu-
patīśvara is listed as one of the Śivaliṅgas which are said to enter Benares on
parvan days in the Vārānasīmāhātmya of the Skandapurāna (29.82d).65 Later
on in the text, the site of˙ Paśupati is explicitly located in Nepal
˙ and mentioned
as one of the sacred sites in a list of abodes of Śiva.66 This passage is preserved
in a list of sacred places that is only found in the Nepalese recension. Accord-
ing to Yokochi’s new insights on the manuscript history, the revision of the text

61) References to Pāśupata officiants in the Licchavi corpus are listed and discussed by Acharya
1998, as well as more recently by Acharya 2005, 209–210, who even argues for a possible con-
nection between Pāśupatas and the worship of Śiva in the form of Canda (ibid 211ff.). See also
˙˙
Bakker 2007, 12, fn. 12. This evidence will also be further examined in Mirnig (forthcoming).
62) Michaels 1990, 131 and Bisschop 2006, 21–22.
63) Cf. fn. 32.
64) Adriaensen, Bakker, Isaacson 1998, 5. Also a section on Pāśupatayoga is found.
65) See Bisschop 2006, 15. Some centuries later, we learn of ties between the Nepalese king-

dom and Benares in the so-called Thākurī period (dating from the end of the Licchavi period,
˙
around the time of the last extant record in 737 ce, to the reign of the Malla kings, who ruled
from 1200–1768 ce). An inscription issued in 1143/4ce records that “king Ānanadadeva,
while he was the heir apparent (Yuvarāja), received Śaiva initiation from the Saiddhāntika
Guru Rudraśiva of Benares, together with the princes Vasantadeva, Someśvara, Yaśomalla, and
Arjunadeva.” (Sanderson 2009, 79) See also the edition of this inscription in Acharya, 1997.
66) Skandapurāna 167.186 (Edition Bisschop 2006, 110): nepālesu ca deveśam drstvā paśupa-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙˙˙
tim prabhum | daśāśvamedhān āpnoti rudralokam ca gacchati | dehabhedam ca samprāpya
˙ ˙ ˙
paśutvād vipram ucyate ||.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 343

that led to the inclusion of the Nepalese shrine had taken place in Eastern India,
perhaps Magadha.67 This would mean that by the eight century, Paśupatināth
in Nepal was known and recognized as an important Śaiva sacred site outside
the kingdom’s borders, at least to the Pāśupata redactors of the Skandapurāna.
Thus, the officiants at the shrine were likely to have been part of a Pāśupata ˙
network, which stretched across Northern and Western India, where other Śaiva
centres emerged at the time. Incidentally, close cultural ties with Magadha appear
particularly likely in the light of the marriage of Licchavi king Narendradeva’s son
Śivadeva to the Late-Gupta princess Vatsaladevī from Magadha.68
Another contributing factor for the popularization of Paśupatināth may have
been the favourable political conditions under Amśuvarman. This period was
˙
marked by political stability in the region, due to the establishment of the Tibet-
an empire under Songtsaen Gampo in the North and the success of King Harsa
˙
in establishing a larger kingdom after the decline of the Guptas and the subse-
quent segmentation of the empire. The resulting tranquility in the surrounding
territories was certainly favorable for trade and cultural relations and caused an
increase of the importance of the Nepalese route in the early seventh century,69
probably also easing the path for religious pilgrims and officiants.

Paśupatināth and Goddess Shrines

Visiting the Paśupatināth temple area, one cannot help but note the large variety
of goddess shrines present in and around the site, which are discussed in detail
by Michaels.70 It should be noted that goddess worship is also closely related to
the religious tradition of the indigenous Newar culture.71 If such shrines already
existed there as far back as the fifth/sixth century, Pāśupata Ācāryas may well
have been suitable officiants for attending to these shrine, given their religious
orientation and origins as practitioners outside the brahmanical mainstream.72
Early epigraphical examples from India for precisely such a practice are found in

67) See Yokochi (forthcoming). This is contrary to an earlier working hypothesis, in which
the addition of Paśupati was ascribed to a localization of the text once it had reached Nepal
(Bisschop 2006, 15ff.).
68) Slusser 1998, 32. See also Bakker (2007, 11–12), who explores this link between the

Licchavis and Late Guptas further in order to identify the cultural ties that may have played a
role in the transmission history of the Skandapurāna to Nepal around this period.
69) See Slusser 1998, 6. ˙
70) Cf. Michaels 1994, in particular pp. 91–100.
71) ibid.
72) See also p. 335.
344 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347

the Valkha plate inscriptions, where Pāśupatācāryas acted as officiants in the

worship of a shrine dedicated to the mother goddesses (saptamātrkas), amongst
the worship of other deities besides Śiva, perhaps even including ˙ an originally
tribal kind of deity. 73

Given that the socio-religious history of Nepal is also defined by the presence
of a large variety of ethnic groups, including the Newars, one may thus won-
der whether Paśupati’s success in becoming a symbol of nation building may
also be related to an ability of the ritual specialists of the site to appeal to a
wide range of social and religious strata. Discovering concrete linkages between
the rise of Paśupatināth and local traditions of goddess worship would require
closer scrutiny of the epigraphical records and local religious literature, which
lies beyond the scope of the present study.

Conclusion
In summary, Amśuvarman’s move to make Paśupati the tutelary deity constituted
˙
a pivotal moment in the popularization of Paśupatināth in Nepal and initiated
a link to the ruling class that would remain set in stone for centuries through-
out different dynasties. Patterns of patronage and religious activities in Paśupa-
tināth that can be detected from the epigraphical material suggest that the tem-
ple area became a locus of lay religious activities that included the establishment
of Śivaliṅga shrines in the name of the donee or beneficiaries. Our epigraphi-
cal material does not suggest that these activities were particularly linked to the
royal line, but rather represents the religious activities of wealthy merchants, royal
officials and women from high-ranking families. The land donations generated
from these activities are likely to have substantially contributed to the increasing
wealth and importance of the Paśupati shrine, and may therewith have initiated
the institutionalization of Śaiva religious officiants. By the time of the seventh
century, Pāśupata officiants first feature in the epigraphical material and Paśu-
patināth became to be included as a sacred Śaiva site in the Indian religious scrip-
ture Skandapurāna, suggesting that religious officiants of the Paśupati temple
may have been in ˙ contact with a wider network of Pāśupatas, especially those

73) See Ramesh and Tewari 1990, No. X for the worship of the mother goddesses. Further,
see No. III for the worship of Nārāyanadeva, and No. V, VI, XII, XIII for the worship of a
˙
certain Bappapiśācadeva, who the editors hypothesize to represent the soul of the father of a
certain lady Bandhulā who installed the image, and whose worship, they speculate, points to
the worship of devils or evil spirits in that tribal region (Ramesh and Tewari 1990, xiii–xiv).
Note that also the Skandapurāna had incorporated Goddess-centered mythology, as Yokochi
˙
(2004) discusses in her doctoral thesis.
 Nina Mirnig / Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013) 325–347 345

in Northeast India. That Paśupati was known in these parts outside the Licchavi
kingdom was likely to have been facilitated by the increasing number of mer-
chants and pilgrims traveling along the trade route from Northern India to Tibet
and China in the seventh century as well as by close political and cultural ties with
India, which even manifested in the close marital alliance between the Licchavis
and the Maukharis in the eighth century.

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