Śaiva Rites of Fasting and the Gift of Cattle. A Study in Purāṇic and Tantric Appropriation

Peter C. Bisschop is a Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia at Leiden University. He specializes in the dynamics of textual production, Sanskrit narrative literature, and early Brahmanical Hinduism. His primary publications focus on the history of Śaivism and include Early Śaivism and the Skandapurāṇa (2006), Universal Śaivism (2018), The Vārāṇasīmāhātmya of the Bhairavaprādurbhāva (2021), A Śaiva Utopia (2021), Primary Sources and Asian Pasts (2021), and several volumes of the critical edition of the Skandapurāṇa (2014, 2018, 2021). He currently leads the ERC PURANA Project (2022–2027).

Nirajan Kafle is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit at Ashoka University (2022–present). From 2019 to 2022, he was a research associate at the University of Naples L’Orientale, working within the ERC SHIVADHARMA Project. Prior to this, he was part of the NWO project From Universe of Viṣṇu to Universe of Śiva at Leiden University. His research focuses on lay religious practices in Early Medieval India, particularly the historical development and exchanges between the main branches of Hinduism, Śaivism, and Vaiṣṇavism. His key publications include Niśvāsamukhatattvasaṃhitā (2020), A Śaiva Utopia (2021), and Paṇḍitarājaśataka (2024).

Csaba Kiss is a research associate at the University of Naples L'Orientale, where he has worked on the ERC SHIVADHARMA (2022–2023) and DHARMA (2019–2022; 2023–2024) projects. His research focuses on religious practices in early medieval India, with particular attention to the historical development of Hinduism, Śaivism, and especially Śaiva Tantra. He also studies other Sanskrit textual traditions, such as Yoga, as well as the history of the caste system, problems of textual criticism, and digital humanities.