Saiva Siddhanta

Section on the Śivadharmaśāstra now published in the Introduction to "A Śaiva Utopia" (Bisschop/Kafle/Lubin, Napoli, 2021), available here:
https://www.academia.edu/67886226/A_%C5%9Aaiva_Utopia_The_%C5%9Aivadharma_s_Revision_of_Brahmanical_Var%E1%B9%87%C4%81%C5%9Bramadharma |

Dharmaśāstra codes prescribed rules for other strata of society, including Śūdras and mixed-caste groups, circumscribing their legitimate social and religious agency. Later religious traditions, under the influence of more egalitarian devotional sentiments, modified Smārta caste policies. This paper focuses on three neglected examples, the Śivadharmaśāstra, the “Varṇāśramakāṇḍa” of the unpublished Kāśyapottarasaṃhitā, and the Varṇāśramacandrikā. These works are considered in light of their socio-historical context, and in relation to the late-medieval Śmārta works on Śūdradharma (examined in recent dissertations by Benke and Vajpeyi). These three works exemplify efforts by devotional movements to extend and adapt older Brahmanical categories in such a way that putatively Śūdra castes can partake of the ritual entitlements otherwise identified with Brahmanical status. Thus the Brahmanical birth-based status is subordinated to a ritually mediated spiritual kinship, which implies a conceptual reconfiguration of the Dharmaśāstric genre itself
The Śivadharmaśāstra (ca. 6th c.), the oldest part of the “Śivadharma corpus,” which teaches a Pāśupata-influenced bhakti religion for married householders steeped in Smārta religious practice, redefines varṇa and āśrama categories in light of an emergent lay Śaivism. Based on my provisional edition of adhyāya 11, I present its delineation of a śiva-āśrama analogous to the āśramas of classical Dharmaśāstra, but open to women and Śūdras. This is compared to the “Varṇāśramakāṇḍa” of the Kāśyapottarasaṃhitā, an unpublished late-medieval work outlining a Śrīvaiṣṇava version of varṇāśramadharma, with rules for performing the “purification of Śūdras” (śūdra-śuddhi) and special saṃskāras for Śūdras. Finally, I offer observations on the ultimate subversion of Brahmin prerogative: a Dharmaśāstra by a Śūdra. The Varṇāśramacandrikā (late 17th c.), composed by a member of the Dharmapuram maṭam, a non-Brahmin (Vēḷāḷa) Śaivasiddhānta institution in Tamil Nadu, argues that traditional Smārta literature in fact supports the notion that certain Śūdras are eligible for all levels of dīkṣā and abhiṣeka in Śaivasiddhānta.

В статье дается описание психических состояний «турия» и «туриятита» согласно средневековому тамильскому тексту «Тирумантирам» (прибл. VIII в.н.э.) религиозно-философской системы шайва-сиддханты, которые восходят к базовым состояниям психики, описанным еще в упанишадах. Проводится текстологический анализ восьмой главы трактата, где представлена их сложная структура. Предлагается сравнительный анализ некоторых стадий представленных психических состояний со стадиями самадхи Патанджали. // The paper focuses on the turīya and turīyātita mental states, presented in the medieval Tamil text of śaiva-siddhānta "Tirumantiram", ascended to the four basic states of consciousness in the Upanishads.  The textual analysis of the eighth chapter of the treatise with the developed structure of these states and their stages is made.  The comparative analysis between several stages and some Patañjali's samādhi stages is presented.

Transmitted to us in a well-preserved ninth-century Nepalese manuscript, the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā has come in recent years to be recognised as probably the oldest surviving complete scripture of the Mantramārga.  Although its historical importance has been hinted at by a range of scholars across the twentieth century, this is the first time its text appears in print.

This volume presents a critical edition and annotated translation of the three earliest layers of the text: the Mūlasūtra, Uttarasūtra and Nayasūtra. The topics dealt with include cosmology, rituals of worship and initiation, and forms of yoga. A lengthy introduction sets these sūtras in context, in particular by examining the evidence for dating them. There follow a summary of their contents, an account of the early manuscript and its three twentieth-century apographs, and a treatment of the various ways in which the language of the Niśvāsa deviates from Pāṇinian norms.

In order to prepare for the publication of a more comprehensive work on pre-Tamil dualistic Śaiva Siddhānta, I have made a third revision of a former publication covering of the Tamil school. Its primary object is to analyse the Tamil scripture Śivajñānabhodam by Śaiva Saint Meykandadevar with the commentary Sivajñānamāpādiyam by Śivagñānamunivar. An important secondary purpose was to criticize some salient features of the Western philosophical tradition, in particular a dependence on special sciences/fields of knowledge (sociology, psychology, neurology, mathematics, AI, media, communication, etc.) - and an absence of reflection on metaphysics. This criticism is incorporated in an existential interpretation of an Indian metaphysical philosophy, which highlights what is absence in Western tradition; an absence which is seen through the concept of ignorance (avidyā), which, within an Indian philosophy, shows ignorance as a metaphysical category, as opposed to epistemological.
On the way to this concept we briefly touches upon the metaphysics of Kant, Husserl and Heidegger, to arrive at an implementation of a concept of ignorance, incorporated in modern Western philosophy, which in turn reflects the current Western cultural context.
The later shorter paper "Existential Interpretation of Śaiva Siddhānta" is drawn from this study.

The aim of this exam is to provide a strong foundation and overview of the academic study of Śaivism and tantric traditions. The exam draws upon a variety of disciplinary approaches including philology, art history, philosophy, and religious studies, and considers how they may be brought together most fruitfully. The exam has been heuristically divided into six sections. The first four provide a broad overview of: 1) general and early Śaivism; 2) general studies of tantra, including Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions; 3) tantric Śaivism; and 4) the tantric body. The final two sections of the exam provide surveys of particular Śaiva/tantric orders or religious movements: 5) Nātha, Siddha, and Mahāsiddha traditions; and 6) Vīraśaiva or Liṅgāyata traditions.

Śaiva Advaita, or Śivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, who is said to have single-handedly revived Śrīkaṇṭha's commentary on the Brahmasūtra's from obscurity. And yet, the theological rapprochement between south Indian Śaivism and Advaita Vedānta philosophy has a much richer history, and one that left few south Indian Śaiva communities untouched by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The present essay is an attempt to trace the outlines of what we can call a " Greater Śaiva Advaita, " defined as the interpenetration of non-dualist Vedānta and a number of discrete south Indian Śaiva lineages, including the Śaiva Siddhānta in present-day Tamil Nadu (both Sanskritic and Tamil), the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas (writing in both Sanskrit and Kannada) based in heartlands of Vijayanagar, and the Brahminical Smārta Śaivas. I argue, specifically, that Appayya Dīkṣita did not coin the term " Śivādvaita " but drew on an entire discursive sphere known variously as Śivādvaita or Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita, a school of Vīraśaiva theology that provides a crucial missing link in the transmission of Śrīkaṇṭha's Śaiva Vedānta across regions and language communities in early modern south India.

Schröder, Ulrike. "Meeting Siva, Vishnu and the Mother Goddesses." In Chatsworth: The Making of a South African Township, edited by Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, 403-13. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2013.

Portrait of Hindu communities in Chatsworth (South Africa)

This article considers the evolution of ideas that led to the classical Śaiva doctrine that the universe is to be divided up into thirty-six tattvas, ranging from the coarsest, that of earth, at the bottom, to the subtlest, namely that of Śiva, at the top, thus forming an ontological catalogue of what the universe contains and also a map of the levels of the Śaiva cosmos. The article points out that the earliest tantric work accessible to us, namely the Mūlasūtra, contains no trace of this distinctive tantric doctrine and that subsequent layers of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā reflect various stages in its evolution. The article proceeds to consider how the tattvas that the Śaivas added to extend the Sāṅkhyas’ ontological ladder might originally have been conceived.

In this introductory paper, we attempt to set down concisely what we have learned about the shared ritual features of the early tantric traditions in the course of the ‘Early Tantra Project’, as well as remarking on some that are not shared, and speculating a little from time to time about why they might not be shared. The paper focusses particularly on features shared between the Śaiva Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā and the Buddhist Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa. No doubt there is still much to discover in the way of similarities, and much that we have not yet noticed in the way of significant differences; but we hope that this may prove a useful beginning and a stimulus to others. A detailed table of contents appears at the beginning of the article.

The study of ritual in India is indissociable from the study of prescriptive texts. Now the Śaiva scriptures of the Śaivasiddhānta purport to lay down every aspect of the Śaiva religion, from doctrine to comportment, but they are for various reasons typically not straightforward guides to the performance of rituals and, in spite of their presenting themselves as revealed literature, they do not teach one body of ritual activity that is coherent and free from internal contradictions, as Śaiva exegetes have long freely acknowledged. One way of helping practitioners to perform rites ‘according to the rules’ was to write commentaries on particular scriptures.  The tenth-century Kashmirian theologian Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha, a back-to-the-texts fundamentalist at least in the matter of ritual correctness, clearly advocated this strategy and has left us commentaries on the ritual portions of the Mataṅgapārameśvaratantra and the Sārdhatriśatikālottara.  Another strategy was to craft ritual handbooks, paddhatis, that clearly set out ritual practice step-by-step.  Almost all surviving paddhatis, as Sanderson has observed (2004:358), are notionally based upon a single scripture, the Dviśatikālottara; but in practice this strategy gave ample room for innovation, typically by eclectic blending of ritual elements from different sources. A large number of Śaiva ritual manuals composed from the tenth century onwards survive (the best known are listed by Sanderson in his fn 24 on p. 358 of Sanderson 2004), only a few of which have been published to date.  Because these manuals acknowledge themselves to be the works of human authors rooted in time and place, they can be of particular interest to the religious historian partly because they allow us to map the spread of different currents of Śaivism in time and place.  Like the scriptures, they borrow generously from each other, thus demonstrating  how they are mutually related. This article, to be followed by a few others on the same general theme, is intended as a small contribution to the history of Saiddhāntika paddhati literature.

The article explores the changes in the role and meaning of pañcākṣara (five-syllable mantra) «Na-Ma-Si-Vā-Ya» in the Tamil tradition of Śaiva Siddhānta and its component Śaiva bhakti poetry. The author shows how gradually pañcākṣara gets the value of the sound expressions of the totality of the homologous series Śi-va – the Universe thus allowing the adept to achieve a darśan of Śiva and then mukti or to fulfil his other desires (e.g., obtain siddhi) through its correct recitation provided by the teacher. This japa yoga is an important part of the Hindu psy-chotechnics of daily God worship in the modern Śaivism, allowing and guaranteer-ing the adept to achieve the desired state of consciousness quickly, transporting him to another reality in any actual location, thereby interiorizing the sacred space in his mind.
Keywords: mantra, pañcākṣara, Śaiva Siddhanta, Śaiva bhakti.

Saiva liturgy is performed in a world that oscillates: a world permeated by the presence of Siva, where humans live in a condition of bondage and where the highest aim of the soul is to attain liberation from its fetters. In this account of Indian temple ritual, Richard Davis uses medieval Hindu texts to describe the world as it is envisioned by Saiva siddhanta and the way daily worship reflects and acts within that world. He argues that this worship is not simply a set of ritualized gestures, but rather a daily catechism in which the worshiper puts into action all the major themes of Saiva philosophy: the cyclic pattern of cosmic emission and reabsorption, the human path of attaining liberation, the manifestation of divinity in the world, and the proper interrelationship of humanity and god. In re-creating the convictions and intentions of a well-versed worshiper of the twelfth century, Davis moves back and forth between philosophical and ritual texts, demonstrating the fundamental Saiva belief that the capacities of humans to know about the world and to act within it are two inter-related modalities of the unitary power of consciousness.

Forthcoming, South Asian History and Culture 6(1), January 2015.

By the sixteenth and sevententh centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianization of its religious landscape.  We observe a growing polarization among religious institutions, the social and economic networks they mediated, and religious discourse across genres, whether Sanskrit or vernacular, whether devotional poetry or systematic theology.  The present essay examines the textual culture that emerged from the intersectarian discourse of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tamil country. In particular, I focus on a definitive but overlooked dimension of this discourse that I refer to as ‘public philology’: text criticism that serves as public theology.  During the early modern centuries, sectarian theologians across community boundaries increasingly challenged their rivals specifically on philological grounds, combing the scriptures of their rivals for textual corruptions and unstable recensions.  Focusing on one particular case of public philology in practice—the debate concerning the scriptural justification for bearing the sectarian tilaka on the forehead—I argue that the philological ventures of these early modern theologians served simultaneously as public theology.  This trans-sectarian public theology, far from being a strictly academic enterprise, served to solidify the boundaries between sectarian communities.  By adjudicating public standards for orthodox religious belonging, ‘public philologians’ left a lasting impression on the religious landscape of south India up through the present day.

The principal works that have emerged from our stimulating project on ‘Early Tantra’ are critical editions and translations of previously unpublished primary material, which have begun to appear in this new series. This volume complements those publications by gathering together some of the fruits, direct and indirect, of the wide-ranging discussions that took place during the project’s workshops.  By way of introduction, the volume opens with an attempt by the editors to draw together our findings about the “shared ritual syntax” of some of the earliest known works of the tantric traditions, with a particular emphasis on the Buddhist Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa and the Śaiva Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā. Seven further contributions, by Dominic Goodall, Peter Bisschop, Judit Törzsök, Diwakar Acharya, Anna A. Ślączka, Libbie Mills and Péter-Dániel Szántó, throw light on a wide range of topics : the Śaiva tattvas and their evolution, yoginī-temples, alphabet-deities, an early treatise of snake-related magic, iconographic prescriptions in early pratiṣṭhātantras, the implications of the use of the bhūtasaṅkhyā system, and a fragment of a Buddhist tantric sādhana.

Depictions of dancing Śiva are common all over India. The area in the northeast of the Indian Subcontinent, however, produced a number of images of a distinct iconographic type that occur almost exclusively there and, occasionally, in a few adjacent regions: Śiva dancing on the back of his 'vehicle', the bull (vṛṣa or vṛṣabha). Several such images were already listed by Bhattasali in his important and still consulted Iconography of Buddhist and Brahmanical Sculptures in the Dacca Museum
(1929). Since then several more images came to light and a number of them have been included in new monographs and articles on the subject. The publications, however, vary considerably among each other as far as the descriptions of the sculptures are concerned, giving at times different find
location, attributes, and even a different number of arms for one and the same image. A new attempt to catalogue these fascinating sculptures seemed therefore necessary.

Interreligious relationships are often hindered by epistemic disparity caused by the nexus between religions and state powers. To solve this problem, David Muthukumar Sivasubramanian develops a postfoundationalist epistemological framework to affirm the epistemic parity and plurality of religions while upholding their particularity and universality. Building on this postfoundationalist epistemology, a comparative Christology paradigm that uses insights from the extant comparative theology method is reformulated with a Christological focus. This model seeks to affirm the exclusive faith assertions of Christianity and the corresponding universal claims for Christ. It also sustains the particular religious identity of a comparative theologian over against any compulsion to assume hybrid identity in the interreligious cross-learning. This comparative Christology framework is exhibited through cross-learning with the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition. This method is shown to affirm not only the particularity and universality of Christianity but also of the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition by defining each religion’s attempt at their revealed truth as a parallel quest for truth. Thus, it facilitates dialogue across religions by securing one’s self-identity and the other’s alterity.

This book by Dr. David Muthukumar S. takes Christian-Hindu engagement to the next level. The study has an ambitious two-fold goal. First, it seeks to develop a proper methodology for comparative theological study for the third millennium, in a critical and sympathetic dialogue with earlier approaches. Second, it applies successfully this methodological template to some pertinent theological issues between Christian faith and Tamil Saiva Siddhantham. Not only that, alongside theological issues, this study also delves deeply into the complicated network of power and its influence on interfaith relations, not least with regard to marginalization. Highly recommended for academicians, pastors, and interested lay persons.

-- Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Fuller Theological Seminary

Dr. David Muthukumar presents an imaginative and carefully constructed approach to Christian interreligious relations. Mindful of the strengths and weaknesses of the main models of recent years, he skillfully balances one against another to develop his own unique approach as he engages with the Tamil Saiva Siddhantham philosophical tradition. A tour de force!

-- Kirsteen Kim, Fuller Theological Seminary

Boldly and adeptly furthering the postfoundational quest to affirm epistemic parity between science, philosophy, and religion, and building on the work of gurus in the field of comparative theology like Thomas Thangaraj and Francis Clooney, the author of this significant and substantial work resourcefully and creatively offers the outcomes of what it means to traverse deep into the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition, without arrogant assumptions or superficial comparisons, but rather with the resolve to be unsettled and refined by this quest and return to one’s own tradition empowered and enriched in furthering our commitment to interfaith dialogue and praxis.

-- J. Jayakiran Sebastian, United Lutheran Seminary

A Postfoundationalist Comparative Christology is a significant contribution that embarks on constructing a model for inter-religious engagement in a pluralistic context. The unique postfoundationalist epistemology that it propounds at once affirms the fact of plurality (often compromised by the inter-religious dialogue model) and one’s identity essential in a Christian witness (often compromised by comparative theology model). Endowed with unique proximity and in-depth knowledge of Saiva Siddhanta and Christian theology, the author combines meticulous theory, methodological thoroughness, and an eye on praxis. This work ushers in new frontiers in the field of interreligious engagement.

-- Varughese John, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS)

This book is a welcome addition in the field of comparative theology as it invites Christian theologians to dialogue with Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition. Set in the context of religious majoritarianism in India and the ensuing conflicts in the name of religions that poses significant challenges for religious minorities—sections of Indian Christians being closed to other faiths, and the struggles of a theologian in preserving one’s Indian-Christian identity while engaging other religions from the milieu of Christian particularity—this book joins the ongoing efforts for bridging religions and building relations between adherents of different faiths.

-- Muthuraj Swamy, Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide

Every theologian and religionist concerned with becoming compassionately interreligious while being passionately Christian needs to read this book. Honoring his Hindu roots while celebrating his embrace of Christianity, Muthukumar imaginatively mines multiple disciplines to dexterously construct a postfoundational interreligious approach for incorporating the particularity and universality of religions by means of a spacious Christology. Weaving together the personal and political, religion and science, and Hindu philosophy and Christian theology, the author opens a pathway that harmonizes the confessional with the comparative for interreligious truth to enrich everyday life.

-- Sathianathan Clarke, Wesley Theological Seminary

Muthukumar's project presses into one of the fundamental axioms of the new comparative theology: that its comparative categories are sufficiently vague so as not to impose alien values across traditions being compared. So while the Christological lenses he proposes are absolutely needed for distinctively Christian comparative theological efforts, does his work facilitate understanding of Tamil Saiva Siddhanta commitments rather than distort them? Read this book to see how his carefully constructed postfoundationalist approach charts a third way that allows for the particularities of both traditions to function as coordinates along humanity's cosmic journey into the divine mystery!

-- Amos Yong, Fuller Theological Seminary

https://www.amazon.com/Postfoundationalist-Comparative-Christology-Particularity-Interreligious/dp/1978713835

The primary concern in this paper is to examine the nature of Ś iva's aruḷ —his generative and salvific energy—as portrayed in Tiruvācakam, Māṇikkavācakar's important but understudied text of medieval bhakti poems. Close attention is paid to the poet's description of Śiva's aruḷ as inducing seemingly incongruous ontological states of being—one of ecstatic possession that results in rapturous dance and one of spiritual bondage. In doing so, this paper posits that Māṇikkavācakar is using aruḷ as śakti is used in the philosophy of the Sanskrit Śaiva Siddhānta tradition and argues that this is an early attempt to localize the Śaiva Siddhānta in a Tamil milieu, as Tiruvācakam appears several centuries prior to the initial Tamil Śaiva Siddhānta text. In doing so, this paper also highlights the ways in which poetic narratives can embody a broader philosophical debate rather than serving merely as a vehicle for philosophical ideas.

Tirumūlar yoga reveals the yoga practices through which one may achieve longevity and immortality. Prolonging life is designed to aid the yogi in accomplishing yoga’s final transcendent state, samādhi, in which the yogi's consciousness is absorbed into god Śiva. Although a person’s life span is determined by the time of conception, birth, and later actions, life expectancy can be prolonged by certain yogic techniques. This is attested to in Tirumūlar’s seminal text, Tirumantiram, in which he claims to have reached samādhi and to have lived for thousands of years.
Tirumūlar details four different systems of yoga, namely Aṣṭāṅga, Khecarī, Candra, and Paryaṅga, that are meant to preserve life energy. These systems that are explained in detail in this paper include various practices, such as body postures, breathing techniques, mantra chanting and concentration, as well as sexual practices. These techniques are designed to retain vital energies, such as prāṇa and bindu, awaken and elevate the kuṇḍalinī, and lead to immortality. Interestingly, yoga's final immortal state of samādhi resembles a death-like state, which is said to be the ultimate blissful state of living.

Bṛhaspati is one of the earliest historical figures of the Śaiva Siddhānta. Although his works have not survived to us, fragments of textual evidence are found as quotations scattered over the Śaiva commentarial literature. These fragments have been gathered and thoroughly discussed in a recent article by Alexis Sanderson (2006), who has tentatively dated Bṛhaspati to the period between 650 and 750 AD. Drawing upon the data presented by Sanderson, I will compare some doctrinal themes ascribed to Bṛhaspati with similar ones found in the Sanskrit-Old Javanese Śaiva text Vṛhaspatitattva and argue that Bṛhaspati’s works might have been known in the pre-Islamic Indonesian Archipelago.