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Shiva, Lord of the Dance (Nataraja). Tamil Nadu, Chola dynasty (11th CCE)

Main article: Shaivism

Shaiva (or Saiva) Siddhanta is a Shaivaite Hindu school that encompasses tens of millions of adherents, predominantly in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka (see Hinduism in Sri Lanka). Today it has thousands of active temples there and dozens of monastic/ascetic traditions: twenty-five Brahmin families, the Adisaivas, are qualified to perform its rituals.

The culmination of a long period of systematisation of its theology appears to have taken place in Kashmir in the tenth century, the exegetical works of the Kashmirian authors Bhatta Narayanakantha and Bhatta Ramakantha being the most sophisticated expressions of this school of thought.¹ Their works were quoted and emulated in the works of twelfth-century South Indian authors, such as Aghorasiva and Trilocanasiva.² The theology they expound is based on a canon of Tantric scriptures called Siddhantatantras or Shaiva Agamas. This canon is traditionally held to contain twenty-eight scriptures, but the lists vary,³ and several doctrinally significant scriptures, such as the Mrgendra,⁴ are not listed. In the systematisation of the liturgy of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kashmirian thinkers appear to have exercised less influence: the treatise that had the greatest impact on Shaiva ritual, and indeed on ritual outside the Shaiva sectarian domain, for we find traces of it in such works as the Agnipurana, is a ritual manual composed in North India in the late eleventh century by a certain Somasambhu.⁵ After the twelfth century, North Indian evidence for the presence of the Shaiva Siddhanta grows rarer. The school appears to have died out in other parts of India even as it grew in importance in the Tamil-speaking south. There its original emphasis on ritual fused with an intense devotional (bhakti) tradition. The Tamil compendium of devotional songs known as Tirumurai, along with the Vedas, the Shaiva Agamas and "Meykanda" or "Siddhanta" Sastras⁶, form the scriptural canon of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta. Tirumurai is a twelve-volume anthology of the works of few among sixty-three poets, the Nayanars,⁷⁸,Manikkavacakar, Sekkizhar and Others.The Meykanda sastras are fourteen in number, authored by St. Meykandar and his disciples.

History

Early Siddhanta

The Siddhanta tradition, like Kashmir Shaivism and Kaula, differs from the Vedic and Puranic cult of Shiva and also from the ancient Pasupati tradition by its adherence to texts called Agamas or Tantras, which lay down rites that may be performed by any able man in his prime and describe a progressive, four-fold spiritual path of virtuous and moral living (charya), ritual (kriya), individual practice (yoga) and knowledge (jnana, vidya). Flood and Sanderson refer to these traditions as the "mantra way" (mantramārga).

Saiva Siddhanta's original form is uncertain. Some hold that it originated as a monistic doctrine, espoused by Rishi Tirumular in approx. 2,200 bce. This Monistic Saiva Siddhanta, or Advaita Isvaravada Saiva Siddhanta, teaches that Siva is both Creator and creation, all pervasive and transcendent. In Tamil, this idea is encapsulated in the phrase "Anbe Sivamayam Sathiyame Parasivam," which means "Siva is immanent love and transcendental reality." The Tamil Saiva saint Meykandar formulated a dualistic school of Saiva Siddhanta in approx. 900 ce. Meykandar and the dualists content that the world and soul are eternal, were never created, and are inherently flawed. These views are completely counter to the monistic school.

It seems likely to others, however, that the early Śaiva Siddhānta may have developed somewhere in Northern India, as a religion built around the notion of a ritual initiation that conferred liberation. Such a notion of liberatory initiation appears to have been borrowed from a Pashupata (pāśupata) tradition.⁹ At the time of the early development of the theology of the school, the question of monism or dualism, which became so central to later theological debates, had not yet emerged as an important issue. The demonstrably pre-twelfth-century Sanskrit works are almost all dualist. The one major exception is the monist scripture called the Sarvajñānottaratantra.this also shows that tamil is older than sanskrit

Sanskrit Siddhanta

The name of the school could be translated as "the settled view (siddhānta) of Shaiva doctrine". There are of course many other Shaiva doctrines, and so it may seem odd that this particular one should have been known by a name that makes such a large claim, but widespread epigraphical and literary evidence suggests that this is because it simply was the dominant school of Shaiva liturgy and theology for a long period and across a wide area. Early works of the school do not appear to use the label Śaivasiddhānta:¹⁰ one the earliest datable attestations of the label is probably that in the eighth-century Sanskrit inscription carved around the central shrine in the Kailasanatha temple in Kancheepuram.

Siddhas such as Sadyojyoti (ca seventh century¹¹) are credited with the systematization of the Siddhanta theology in Sanskrit. Sadyojyoti, initiated by the guru Ugrajyoti, propounded the Siddhanta philosophical views as found in the Rauravatantra and Svāyambhuvasūtrasaṅgraha. He may or may not have been from Kashmir, but the next thinkers whose works survive were those of a Kashmirian lineage active in the tenth century: Ramakantha I, Vidyākaṇṭha I, Śrīkaṇṭha, Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha, Rāmakaṇṭha II, Vidyākaṇṭha II. Treatises by the last four of these survive. King Bhoja of Gujarat (ca 1018) condensed the massive body of Siddhanta scriptural texts into one concise metaphysical treatise called the Tattvaprakāśa.

Three monastic orders were instrumental in Shaiva Siddhanta’s diffusion through India; the Åmardaka order, identified with one of Shaivism’s holiest cities, Ujjain, the Mattamayura Order, in the capital of the Chalukya dynasty near the Punjab, and the Madhumateya order of Central India. Each developed numerous sub-orders. (see Nandinatha Sampradaya)

Tamil bhakti

From the fifth to the eighth CCE Buddhism and Jainism had spread in Tamilnadu before a forceful Shaiva bhakti movement arose. Between the seventh and ninth centuries, pilgrim saints such as Campantar, Appar and Cuntarar used songs (bhajan) of Shiva’s greatness to refute concepts of Buddhism and Jainism. Manikkavacakar's heart-melting verses, called Tiruvacakam, are full of visionary experience, divine love and urgent striving for Truth. The songs of these four saints are part of the compendium known as Tirumurai which, along with the Vedas, Siddhanta Shastras and Shaiva Agamas, are now considered to form the scriptural basis of the Śaiva Siddhānta in Tamil Nadu. It seems probable that the devotional literature was not, however, considered to belong to the Śaiva Siddhānta canon at the time when it was first composed:¹² the hymns themselves appear to make no such claim for themselves.

The bhakti movement, which both parallels and was an influence upon northern Vaishnava bhakti, asserted a positive and devotional quality missing in Buddhist and Jain asceticism, yet still inherited from those religions a certain antinomianism, particularly a rebellion against caste and privilege.⁷

Siddhanta monastics used the influence of royal patrons to propagate the teachings in neighboring kingdoms, particularly in South India. From Mattamayura, they established monasteries in the regions now in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra and Kerala.

Integration

In the twelfth century Aghorasiva, the head of a branch monastery of the Åmardaka Order in Chidambaram, took up the task of amalgamating Sanskrit and Tamil Siddhanta. Strongly refuting monist interpretations of Siddhanta, Aghorasiva brought a change in the understanding of the Godhead by reclassifying the first five principles, or tattvas (Nada, Bindu, Sadasiva, Èsvara and Suddhavidya), into the category of pasa (bonds), stating they were effects of a cause and inherently unconscious substances, a departure from the traditional teaching in which these five were part of the divine nature of God.

Aghorasiva was successful in preserving the Sanskrit rituals of the ancient Ågamic tradition. To this day, Aghorasiva’s Siddhanta philosophy is followed by almost all of the hereditary temple priests (Sivacharya), and his texts on the Ågamas have become the standard puja manuals. His Kriyakramadyotika is a vast work covering nearly all aspects of Shaiva Siddhanta ritual, including dîksha, saMskaras, atmartha puja and installation of Deities.

In the thirteenth century Meykandar and his disciple Sivagnana Sithiar further spread Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta. Meykandar wrote 'Sivagnana Botham' and Sivagnana Sithiar wrote 'Sivagnana Sithiar'. The twelve-verse Sivajñanabodham and subsequent works by other writers laid the foundation of the Meykandar Sampradaya, which propounds a pluralistic realism wherein God, souls and world are coexistent and without beginning. Siva is an efficient but not material cause. They view the soul’s merging in Siva as salt in water, an eternal oneness that is also twoness.

Shaiva Siddhanta today

There a number of Aadheenams which are involved in maintaining and propagating Shaiva Siddhanta in Tamil Nadu. The most prominent are

1. Dharumai Aadheenam (Dharmapuram) 2. Tiruvaavadudurai Aadheenam (Tiruvaavadudurai) 3. Turupanandal Adheenam (Turupanandal) 4. Madurai Aadheenam (Madurai) and 5. Perur Adheenam (Perur)

These Aadheenams are headed by Acharyas. They are also the hereditary trustees of almost all the Siva/Sakthi/Subramanya temples of Tamil Nadu. The rituals in these temples are conducted as per the Agama Sasthras.

Prominent Siddhanta societies, temples and monasteries also exist in a number of other countries. The United States island of Kauai, a part of Hawaii, is home to the Saiva Siddhanta Church, an organization that promotes the union of worldwide Hindus, Shaivites and others, through a publication called Hinduism Today. This was founded by Maharishi Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001).

Notes

1. ^ Alexis Sanderson, The Saiva Exegesis of Kashmir, pp.242-248 (in Tantric Studies in Memory of Hélène Brunner, edited by Dominic Goodall and André Padoux, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 2007.
2. ^ Dominic Goodall, Problems of Name and Lineage: Relationships between South Indian Authors of the Shaiva Siddhanta, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 10.2 (2000).
3. ^ Extant lists are presented by Dominic Goodall in Appendix III of Bhatta Ramakantha's Commentary on the Kiranatantra, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1998, pp.402-417.
4. ^ This is one of the few demonstrably pre-tenth-century scriptures of the Shaiva Siddhanta to have been completely translated into a European language: Michel Hulin, Mrgendragama. Sections de la doctrine et du yoga, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry, 1980, and Hélène Brunner-Lachaux, Mrgendragama. Section des rites et sections du comportement, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondichery, 1985.
5. ^ This manual, called the Kriyakandakramavali or Somasambhupaddhati, has been edited, translated and richly annotated by Hélène Brunner and published in 4 volumes from the French Institute of Pondicherry in 1963, 1968, 1977 and 1998.
6. ^ S.Arulsamy, Saivism - A Perspective of Grace, Sterling Publishers Private Limited, New Delhi, 1987, pp.1
7. ^ ^{a b} Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge UP, 1996, chapter seven.
8. ^ A. K. Ramanujan (trans. and intro) Speaking of Siva, Penguin Books, 1973.
9. ^ See Alexis Sanderson's The Lākulas: New evidence of a system intermediate between Pāñcārthika Pāśupatism and Āgamic Śaivism. Ramalinga Reddy Memorial Lectures, 1997. In: The Indian Philosophical Annual 24 (2006), pp.143-217.
10. ^ See, for instance, Dominic Goodall and Harunaga Isaacson, « Workshop on the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā : the Earliest Surviving Saiva Tantra? », in the Newsletter of the Nepal-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project No.3 (2007), p.4–6.
11. ^ See Alexis Sanderson, “The Date of Sadyojyotis and Brhaspati.” In Cracow Indological Studies 8 (2006), pp.39–91. (Actual publication date 2007.)
12. ^ Dominic Goodall, The Parākhyatantra. A Scripture of the Śaiva Siddhānta, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2004, pp.xxix-xxxiv.

References

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