Traditional accounts of the Shiva Purana describe it as being arranged into seven major sections, known as saṃhitās or aṃśas/amhās. These seven are often named as Vidyeśvara, Rudra, Śatarudra, Koṭirudra, Umā, Kailāsa, and Vāyavīya, presenting a comprehensive vision of Shiva’s manifold aspects. Within this framework, the text is said to comprise 24,000 verses, a number that itself has come to symbolize the Purana’s fullness and sacred scope. This sevenfold division is the structure most consistently associated with the Purana in traditional descriptions.

When one turns from this ideal structure to the manuscripts and editions actually encountered, a more complex picture emerges. Many extant versions preserve only six of these saṃhitās, with the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā often absent, suggesting a history of loss, redaction, or regional variation. Likewise, while the verses are traditionally said to be 24,000 in number, the precise count of chapters (adhyāyas) is not fixed across all recensions. Different traditions and editions report varying totals, and the chapters are simply described as being “numerous,” with commonly cited figures for their overall count differing from one recension to another.

For the spiritual seeker, this fluidity in chapter enumeration can itself be contemplatively suggestive. The core vision remains stable: seven great sections in the traditional reckoning, containing 24,000 verses that sing of Shiva’s nature, deeds, and grace. Around this core, the shifting chapter counts in different versions may be seen less as a defect and more as a sign of a living tradition, transmitted, adapted, and sometimes fragmented over time. What abides through these variations is the Purana’s own self-understanding as a sevenfold corpus of sacred teaching centered on Shiva, articulated through thousands of verses and organized into many chapters whose exact tally is not uniformly fixed.