Shaiva Siddhanta

What Shaiva Siddhanta is

“Siddhanta” means an established, proven doctrine. Shaiva Siddhanta is the philosophy and ritual order of the Shaivas who hold the Shaiva Agamas, alongside the Vedas, to be Shiva’s word. Dasgupta writes that Agamic Shaivism belongs principally to the Tamil country, as the Pashupata belongs to Gujarat, the Pratyabhijna to Kashmir and the Virashaiva to the Kannada lands. Tradition counts 28 Shaiva Agamas, the Kamika foremost among them.

The scriptures of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta come from four streams: the Vedas, the Shaiva Agamas, the Tamil hymns of the Nayanar saints (the Tirumurai) and the 14 philosophical works of Meykandar and his successors, called the Siddhanta Shastras or Meykanda Shastras. According to Bhandarkar, Tamil Shaivas hold these as their sacred literature, and in processions the Devaram hymns are sung on one side as the Vedas are recited on the other.

History in brief

According to Wikipedia, the theology of the Siddhanta was set out in Sanskrit by teachers such as Sadyojyoti (placed around the 7th century by Alexis Sanderson), and in the 10th century Narayanakantha and Ramakantha of Kashmir wrote its most searching commentaries. King Bhoja’s Tattvaprakasha is a short summary of it. In the 12th century Aghorashiva, head of a monastery at Chidambaram, wrote manuals for worship, initiation, festivals and funeral rites which, according to Wikipedia, most hereditary temple priests (Shivacharyas) of the South still follow.

In the Tamil country the Nayanar saints of the 7th to 9th centuries sang hymns to Shiva. According to Bhandarkar, Tirujnanasambandar lived in the 7th century, and an inscription in the Rajarajeshvara temple at Thanjavur shows that King Rajaraja (crowned 984–85) made a daily allowance for the singers of his padigams before the twenty-ninth year of his reign, that is, before 1013. These hymns were later arranged in collections by Nambi Andar Nambi, and later Sekkizhar’s Periya Puranam, the lives of the Nayanars, was added to them.

As a philosophical school, Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta took shape in the 13th century with Meykandar and his disciples Arulnandi and Umapati. According to Dasgupta, Meykandar’s real name was Shvetavana and he belonged to Tiruvennainallur in South Arcot; an inscription of the sixteenth year of the Chola king Rajaraja III (1216–48) records a gift of land to an image set up by him. Umapati, his third successor, lived in 1313. In the 16th and 17th centuries the adheenams of Thiruvavaduthurai, Dharmapuram and Thiruppanandal were founded, and they remain major centres of the tradition.

Beliefs and practice

In Bhandarkar’s account the system has three principles: pati, the Lord (Shiva); pashu, the soul; and pasha, the bonds. The soul is covered by three impurities (malas): anava (the ignorance by which the soul takes itself to be limited), karma and maya. Shiva creates according to the deeds of souls, and his body is held to be made not of matter but of powers; he performs five acts: creation, preservation, destruction, concealment and grace. According to Wikipedia, ritual and practice remove the impurities, but liberation itself comes only by Shiva’s grace.

According to Bhandarkar the system has four padas (parts): knowledge (vidya), kriya (the rites of initiation and worship), yoga (meditation) and charya (conduct). Initiation (diksha) from a guru is held to be necessary for the highest goal. In the Sanskrit text of the Shivajnanabodham, the ninth sutra directs the wise seeker to meditate on the five syllables (Namah Shivaya).

Temples are at the heart of the tradition. Dasgupta writes that this “Tamil Veda” of hymns is still recited in the Shiva temples of the South, and according to Bhandarkar an image of Sambandar is worshipped in every Shaiva temple.

Main centres

The Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu, above all those sung by the Nayanars, are the tradition’s centres; Aghorashiva’s monastery was at Chidambaram. According to Wikipedia the adheenams of Thiruvavaduthurai, Dharmapuram and Thiruppanandal were founded in the 16th–17th centuries to spread Shaiva Siddhanta; the Dharmapuram adheenam publishes the Devaram and the Tiruvachakam and looks after a number of Shiva temples. According to Wikipedia the tradition is found across South India, in Sri Lanka and among Tamils abroad.

Where the sources differ

• The nature of the philosophy: Bhandarkar and Wikipedia call it dualist, and Wikipedia calls Meykandar’s line a pluralistic realism (God, souls and world all real); Wikipedia also notes that some hold it was monist at first. Dasgupta points out that Shrikantha, the Shaiva commentator on the Brahma Sutra, differs markedly from Meykandar.
• Meykandar’s date: from the inscription of Rajaraja III, Dasgupta places him around the middle of the 13th century, and, counting back from Umapati (1313), in its first third; he also gives Hayavadana Rao’s view that he lived about 1235 or a little earlier.
• The count of the Tirumurai: Bhandarkar and Dasgupta count eleven collections, with the Periya Puranam as a further work beside them; Wikipedia counts the Periya Puranam as the twelfth volume, making the Tirumurai twelve.
• Tirumular’s date: Dasgupta thinks he probably lived in the 1st century CE; Wikipedia gives the 8th century with a query.

Frequently asked questions