| It
is "one of the four oldest and most famous seats of the worship of Shiva" and is
situated in the district which used to be called Lata. The words Lakulisha and Nakulisha
are two vicarious forms of which the former is possibly the older one [reasons for
considering Lakulisha as the older form are (1) that the change of La to na is more common
than that of na to la; (2) Lakulisha can be easily explained as a compound of lakulinil
lakulina and isho, i.e., the Lord wearing the staff (i.e. the khatvanga), though the
latter one is that commonly used in Sanskrit literature]. The doctrines of the Nakulisha Pashupatas are explained at length in Sayana's
Sarvadarshanasangraha (p. 108, Cowell & Gough), but nothing is known regarding
their history. It is, therefore, very interesting to learn that in the 13th century A.D.,
Gujarat was considered to be the country where the seat arose and that
Karshana-Karvan--claimed the honour of being the place where its founder was born and
where his school was divided into four branches. |
