The Shiva Purana is best understood as a layered scripture that took shape over many centuries rather than as a single composition fixed at one historical moment. Scholars generally place the emergence of its core in the early to middle medieval period, with estimates ranging roughly from about the 6th to the 10th century of the common era. The language, theological orientation, and intertextual echoes suggest that it belongs to a phase when Shaivism was already well developed and influential, later than some of the earliest Purāṇas. Its present form, therefore, reflects a long process of growth, refinement, and reorganization, rather than a sudden act of authorship.

Over time, the text clearly underwent substantial redaction and restructuring. Traditional accounts speak of a Shiva Purana consisting of twelve saṃhitās and one hundred thousand verses, whereas the principal surviving Sanskrit recension now consists of seven saṃhitās and roughly twenty‑four thousand verses. This discrepancy points to either loss, condensation, or deliberate reconfiguration of material. The seven saṃhitās commonly named—such as the Vidyeśvara, Rudra, Śatarudra, Koṭirudra, Umā, Kailāsa, and Vāyavīya—do not always appear in the same order or with identical content in all manuscripts, which further indicates a history of editorial activity and regional shaping.

The internal texture of the Shiva Purana also reveals its gradual evolution. Older mythological and cosmological narratives stand side by side with more developed bhakti (devotional) passages and elements resonant with later Śaiva ritual and theology. Some portions reflect an attempt to present a broad sacred cosmology, while others are explicitly sectarian, exalting Shiva as the supreme reality and elaborating his worship in detail. As Shaivism grew in prestige and spread across regions, additional episodes, hymns, and ritual instructions were likely attached to the existing body of lore, strengthening the portrayal of Shiva’s supremacy and sanctifying particular sacred places.

Regional recensions and manuscript traditions contributed further to the text’s evolution. Different areas preserved slightly different arrangements of chapters, emphasized distinct pilgrimage sites, or highlighted particular ritual practices, all within the overarching Shaiva framework. Over the centuries, as these traditions were copied, transmitted, and eventually printed, a relatively stable North Indian recension came to dominate, forming the basis of most modern editions and translations. What is encountered today, therefore, is a crystallized but still traceably composite scripture: a devotional Purana that bears within its structure the marks of centuries of spiritual reflection, sectarian affirmation, and living transmission centered on the glorification of Lord Shiva.