Pancaratra Samhitas and Early Vaisnava Theology

As many have regretfully pointed out, the strict research of theoretical Hinduism has made little progress. This is particularly true in the case of Pāñcaratra, which was critically pioneered and summarized by F. Otto Schrader as long as 1916. In the present work much of what the author has said is, as per his own confession, still tentative and serves only as a stepping stone for future students of Hinduism with similar interests, hopefully to stimulate and promote their further research work.

The work is divided into two parts. Part One concerns the earliest phases of theoretical Pāñcarātra in Vaisnavism, especaily from the point of view of the original text, while Part Two contains, as a direct example of a more or less fully developed form of the doctrinal theology, a full and critical annotated translation of the first seven chapters from the Ahirbudhnya Samhita, one important earlier text of the Pāñcarātra Sect.