Abstract

The Īśvara Gītā, translated by Andrew J. Nicholson in Lord Śiva’s Song: The Īśvara Gītā, is a quintessentially Hindu post-Vedic devotional text. Extolling Lord Śiva as the highest Truth, it sets out to establish its credentials in ways typical of the devotional traditions: it is located in one of the Purāṇas, already considered to be the fifth Veda by the time of the Chandogya Upaniṣad, thereby appropriating the paramount sacrosanctity of the Śruti tradition. It adopts the setting of Sūta’s address to the sages of Naimiṣāraṇya, made famous by the Bhāgavata Purāṇa for its own outer narrative frame. It engages the great sage Vyāsa as its primary narrator, thereby invoking the cachet of the foremost authority..