VISHNUPRIYA SRINIVASAN
EFEO, Pondicherry svpriya91@gmail.com
CANDRAKAṆṬHA VIṢṆU BETWEEN MANUSCRIPT, PRINT, AND MYTHIC RECOMPOSITION: A CASE STUDY FROM THE KĀMĀKṢĪVILĀSA
This paper examines the episode of Candrakaṇṭha Viṣṇu in the Kāmākṣīvilāsa, a South Indian temple legend centered on Kāmākṣī of Kāñcīpuram, in order to explore broader questions of textual transmission, multilingual composition, and mythic recomposition in Purāṇic traditions. The text survives in a single known manuscript and a later printed edition, whose relationship raises important methodological questions regarding the editing of temple legends. The surviving manuscript is marked by highly unstable Sanskrit, irregular grammar, and difficult syntax. Yet these apparent defects often conceal a coherent narrative logic that seems rooted in Tamil expressive habits, especially through chains of non-finite constructions comparable to Tamil viṉaiyeccam. The printed edition, by contrast, frequently regularizes the language, but in certain passages appears to alter the narrative itself. The Candrakaṇṭha episode offers a striking example. In the manuscript version, Viṣṇu assumes a vast form reaching the clouds and, through lunar signs perceived in flood waters, recognizes that the flood itself is Śiva in disguise. In the printed edition, however, the episode is reshaped into a scene in which Pārvatī mistakes Viṣṇu’s reflected form for Śiva and becomes frightened, prompting Viṣṇu to reassure her. I argue that despite its rough Sanskrit, the manuscript preserves a more coherent dramatic conception, whereas the printed version reflects editorial reinterpretation. The paper further situates both versions against Vaiṣṇava Kāñcī traditions in which Vāmana-Trivikrama aids Pārvatī and assumes the form of Candrakhaṇḍa. The shared motif of Viṣṇu’s immense sky-reaching body suggests that both manuscript and print are reworking inherited mythic material rather than transmitting a fixed source text. By focusing on one local narrative unit, this study argues that temple legends resist conventional philological models centered on recovering an original text. Instead, they are better understood as fluid narrative traditions shaped through ongoing recomposition across languages, sectarian communities, and media. The Candrakaṇṭha episode thus offers a microhistory of how Purāṇic myth continues to evolve in regional textual cultures.