The research project that I will carry out at the IIAS is focused on the study of the abundant Nepalese manuscript tradition of the Śivadharmottara, a Śaiva work that, in spite of its popularity, has not been critically edited yet. Aim of this study will be attaining a better knowledge of the manuscript tradition and completing the critical edition of Śivadharmottara's second chapter, the vidyādānādhyāya (‘Chapter on the Gift of Knowledge’).
This chapter presents one of the longest and most detailed accounts of a practice chiefly consisting in the ritual transcription, veneration and donation of manuscripts. This practice is testified by many other purāṇic works, some of them clearly connected to the Śivadharmottara, and a number of epigraphs.