The Sraddhasagara of Kulluka Bhatta

This study investigates the authenticity of a rare Sanskrit text titled ‘Sraddhasagara’. Scholars had cited it as an authoritative treatise on funeral rites, but the author discovered that the manuscript at the Calcutta Sanskrit College is a modern transcript written on paper watermarked Ruse & Turners 1824, implying it was produced around 1828. The supposed author, Kulluka Bhatta, lived in the late thirteenth century. The article shows that more than half of the ‘Sraddhasagara’ is copied verbatim from Silapani’s ‘Sraddhaviveka’ and that the rest contains errors and inconsistent readings. It criticises scholars who accepted the work at face value and notes that Kulluka’s genuine writings never mention such a treatise. By analysing watermarks, comparing textual sources and reviewing catalogues, the author demonstrates that the manuscript is a deliberate forgery meant to deceive collectors. The exposure of this fraud has implications for the study of Hindu law: citations from the ‘Sraddhasagara’ should be disregarded and the date of Kulluka Bhatta reassessed using genuine evidence.

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