Hindu idea of "hidden" verses in heaven

[Andrew Ollett]

Olivelle wrote that ‘[t]he motif of a large treatise composed in illo
tempore and subsequently abridged for the use of humans is a recurrent one
in Indian literature’ (in his ed. of the Mānavadharmaśāstra, p. 19 fn. 24).
He adduces the Kāmasūtra and the Suśrutasaṃhitā as parallels to this motif
in the Mānavadharmaśāstra.

The Nāṭyaśāstra is also structured around this motif (the text was composed
by Brahma before it devolved to Bharata and then Kohala, and then Bharata's
sons, to promulgate on earth). Śāradātanaya's Bhāvaprakāśana also has a
similar story: Brahma asks Śiva to teach him drama, Śiva delegates this
task to Nandikeśvara, and the tradition is given to a sage and his five
students (Bharatas) to take to earth and perform for Manu. Then there's a
process of summarization: the Bharatas condense the original Nāṭyaveda into
a half-length epitome of 6,000 verses (p. 287 of the GOS edition, lines 7
ff.).

andrew

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Dean Michael Anderson <
eastwestcultural at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I first ran across this idea when reading the Kathasaritsagara of Somadeva
> .
>
> It says that the number of verses in the extant text are only a subset of
> a larger text that exists in heaven. Depending on the situation on earth a
> different number of verses might manifest.
>
> I've since run across it in passing in some tantric writings as well.
>
> Does anyone know the origin of this idea of a large heavenly corpus in
> contrast to a smaller earthly one? Or have any citations for texts that
> mention it?
>
> Best,
>
> Dean
>


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