Saiva Siddhantam - II

S AI V A ^IDDH ANT AM

VOLUME TWO

Edited by

Sekkbhni Adi-D-Podi 1. 1 RAMACHANDRAH

International Institute of
Saiva Siddhanta Research

first Edition 1988 1,000 Copies,

Copies can ba had of:

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Saiva Siddhanta Research,

DHARMAPURAM

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Price Rs. 16-50.

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iii

love, The whole movement Is an impassioned cry
against the ossified ceremonial religion of the Brahmans
and the ideal of f passionlessness j that they shared with
the Buddhists and Jains. It was against these last
that they launched their passionate crusade in the name
of the one True God, Siva. In the following stanzas
Appar, perhaps the most moving singer of them ail,
denounces the hollowness of purely mechanical religion
in terms that bring to mind the much later reformer
Kabir.

Why bathe in Ganges' stream, or Kaviri ?
Why go to Comorin in Kongu's land ?

Why seek the waters of sounding sea ?

Release is theirs, and theirs alone who call
In every place upon the Lord of all.

Why chant the Vedas, hear the Sastras'i lore ?
Why daily teach the- books of righteousness? 8

Why the Vedangas 3 six say o'er and o'er ?

Re-lease is theirs and theirs alone, whose heart
From thinking of its Lord shall ne'er depart.

Why roam the jungle, wander cities through ?
Why plague life with unstinting penance hard ?

Why eat no flesh, and gaze into the blue ?

Release is theirs, and theirs alone, who cry
Unceasing to the Lord of Wisdom high.

Why fast and starve, why suffer pains austere ?
Why climb the mountains doing penance harsh?

1. Sacred texts 2. Law-books.

3. Subsidiary disciplines connected with the study
of the Vedas.

112

Why go to bathe in waters far and near ?

Release is theirsj and theirs alone, who call
At every time upon the Lord of a!!.

The Bhagavad Gita had taught that the love of God
is open to all^ irrespective of caste and set, but it
had also taught that each man should peform the
duties dictated to him by his station in life. For
Appar, however., who was himself a vellalsr all
distinctions between man and man were done away
with in the worship of Siva, and once one had
confessed oneself Siva's slave, al! sins, even the
slaying of a Brahman cr a cow, would be wiped out

Though they give me the jewels from Indra's abode,

Though they grant me dominion o'er earth, yea,

o'er heaven^
If they be not the friends of our Lord Mahadev, 1

What care I for wealth by such ruined hands

given ?
But if they love Siva, who hides in his hair

The river of Ganges, then whoe'er they be,
Foul lepers., or outcasts, yea, slayers of kine,

To then, is my homage, gods are they to me.

What however, distinguishes the Tamil Saivite
saints from almost al! the other bhakti cults is their
intense sense of personal guilt; man, as he exists apart
from God, is evil and horribly corrupt, he is the slave
ot his anava, his egoism.

c The Great God'.- Siva.

its

Evil, all evil, my race, evil my qualities all,
Great am 1 only in sin, evil is even my good.
Evil my innermost self, foolish., avoiding the pure,
Beast am I not, yet the ways of the beast I can

never forsake.
I can exhort with strong words, telling men

what they should hate^

Yet I can never give gifts, only to beg them 1 know.
Ah! wretched man that I anr^ whereunto came I

to birth?

The realization of one's abjectness makes the
freely given grace of God seem all the more wonderful,
for what has the wholly self-sufficient to gain from
association with one so foul? This wondrous self-
giving of God is the theme of this stanza of Manikka
Vasagar :

Thou gav-'st thyself, thou gained'st me ;

Which did the better bargain drive ?
Bliss found I in infinity ;

But what didst thou from me derive ?
Siva, Perundurai's God,

My mind thou tookest for thy shrine :
My very body's thine abode ;

What can I give thee, Lord, of mine ?

The Tamil Saivite saints even more than the Alvars
see in Nature the reflected glory of God, and the
mating of animals brings to their minds the inseparable
unity of all apparent opposites in the transcendental

union of Siva and Sakti. This does not mean
the sexual principle was arbitrarily introduced
the divine but that sex itself is seen as holy beca
it reflects an essential polarity in God which is
source of his creativity and joy.

Pli follow those who going to the shrine their prai

sou

With bfooms and water for the God who wears

moon so nr

All lovely in his locks, a gar/and wreathed his n<

arou

And with him sing they Parvati, the mountain got

fair chi

Qnce as I went to Aiyaru, with light and rever

tre<

I saw come two young elephants., male by lov

female I

And in that sight 1 saw God's foot, saw sec

things unsa

Siva has his terrible and his gentle aspect : ,
dances m sheer joy and creation comes to bQj and
dirges in maniacal frenzy and all the worlds crumb
into rum. Even though he appears as a raving madma
n* devotee sees in him nothing but love and graee.

madman with the moon-crowned hair
Thou lord of men, thou fount of grace,

How to forget thee could I bear ?

My soul hath aye for thee a place.

Venny-nallur, in 'Graced shrine'

South of the stream of Pennai, there,

My father, 1 became all thine ;

How could 1 now myself forswear ?

The soul loses its reason in the divine marines*
and surrenders itself totally to the 'foolishness of God*
'as St. Paul puts it. God becomes all in all and man
sees himself as nothing. All thoughts of liberation are
put aside in a passion of adoration for the dancing God.
In the words of Manikka Vasagar t

I ask not kin, nor name, nor place.

Nor learned men's society.
Men j s fore for me no value has ;

KuttalanVs lord, I come to thee.
Wilt thou one boon on me bestow,

A heart to melt in longing sweet,
As yearns o-'er new-born calf the cow,

In vearning for thy sacred feet?

I had no virtue, penance, knowledge, self-control.

A doll to turn

At another's will I danced, whirled, fell. But me

he filled in every limb.

With love's mad longing, and that I might climb

there whence is no return,
He showed his beauty, made me his. Ah me, when

shall I go to him ?

116

Pool's friend was I, none such may know

The way of freedom ; yet to me
He shew'd the path of love, that so

Fruit of past deeds might ended be.
Cleansing my mind so foul, ha made me Ilk. *

Ah who could win that which the Fatharjjh

Thinking it right, sin j s path I trod j

But, so that I such paths might leave,

And find his grace, the dancing God,

Who far beyond our thought doth live,

O wonder passing great ! to me his dancing

H shewed.

Ah who couid win that which the Father hath

bestowed ?

it was the Bhagavad-Gita that set in motion the

transformation of Hinduism from a mystical technique j

bastd on the ascetic virtues of renunciation and self- j

lorgetfulness into the impassioned religion of self- ,

abandonment to God, but the strictly religious impulse t

which gave momentum to the whole bhakti movement ,

tttmmed irom the Tamil lands of South India. From \

th* tenth century on all that is most vital in Hinduism \

manifests Itself in the form of bhakti. \

VI. Vishnu and Rudra - Siva

[Jan Gonda (b. 1905) was Professor of Sanskrit and Indology,
Utrecht University, The Netherlands. It is from his pen, the
article here printed, issued.

Gonda is a prolific writer. ASPECTS of EARLY VISHNUISM,
SANSKRIT IN INDONESIA, DIE RELIGIONEN INDIENS
(two volumes), THE DUAL DEITIES IN THE RELIGION OF
THE VEDA, TRIADS IN THE VEDA, THE WISDOM OF THE
VEDIC POETS, VEDIC LITERATURE, VISHNUISM AND
SIVAISM, THE RITUAL SUTRAS and MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS
LITERATURE IN SANSKRIT are some of his more famous books

He is an honorary member of the Bhandarkar Oriental
Reseach Institute and under his directions Indian scholars have
indited theses. Ed.]

ONE OF THE ARGUMENTS which could be
adduced in favour of the usual division of Indian
culture into an older period, Vedism., and a later
period, called Hinduism, would be that the former, at
least at first sight, presents itself as a unity, whereas
the latter is a varied and, already in the Mahabharata,
a confused spectacle of beliefs and practices. On
closer inspection it becomes clear however, first that
many features of Hinduism have their roots in the
Vedic past, and in the second place that it has been
a few main currents which, from the very beginning
up to the present day, have come into prominence and
)-ave largely determined the character of that many,
sided and all-enfolding culture which we in the West
have chosen to call Hinduism. There can pe no

doubt whatever that these currents must, wh
viewed from their doctrinal and philosophical aspec
be considered first and foremost soteriologies, and tf
they also present many aspects which make them wot
studying from the angles of philosophy a
sociology. This does not however prevent us frc
calling Vishnuism and Sivaism as they present*
and still present, themselves to their adherents, religiot
It will, in this series of lectures, be my endeavour
institute a comparison between these two lnd ; an religior
Sivaism and Vishnuism. That is not to say that I sh<
overlook the fact that .neither current is in itself
unity There is, within Vishnuism, a considerabl
difference between, for instance, the theories and t
ritualism of the Vaikhanasas in the South and t
devotionalism of the followers of Caitanya in Beng
and Virasaivism, iiourishing in Karnataka, has reject
the traditional brahmanical rites which the Saiv<
Siddhanta has in many respects, retained. Neverthete
there is a Sivaism and there is a Vishnuism and it v\
be part of my task -while comparing these religio
and drawing attention to parallel or divergent develo
mentSj to the common heritage and interrelations
to bring out what is common to all forms of ea
of the two great religious currents

Considering myself absolved from the obligation
give a regular account of the main relevant facts su
as those relating to the history of Vishnu and Siva worsr
from the earliest times, the mythological concepts
which their figures have given rise, their iconograp
in plastic arts and the philosophical and theolog'u
doctrines developed in the communities of tlv

si's, I would like to make an attempt at
3, in a series of more or less condensed studies,
iat detailed comparison between those aspects
eligious currents which in the last years have
my special attention. Since it cannot even be
)se to treat all important questions or to deal
y with all periods of the religious history of
itend to dwell especially upon some significant
hich have perhaps not been sufficiently stressed
ublications of my predecessors. I hope that a
ersonal preference for definite problems and
eriods or phases in the development of Saivism
hnavism will not be beyond forgiveness.

ay be true in our oldest document, the Rgveda,
occupies but a subordinate position, his
ty to use this term in this connection is
ime time not only more important there than
ppear from the number of the occurrences of

* in this text., but is also in its striking features
tly clean-cut and, moreover, in remarkable

with the god's image as given by the later
Rudra also has from the very beginning a

and even a position of his own and some
t features in the later Siva can likewise be
emerge from the Vedic texts with all clearness

s therefore interesting to compare the most
it traits of character of both gods as far as they
rom the Vedic samhitas. It has long ago been
i that the only anthropomorphic traits of Vishnu
often-mentioned three strides and his being

120

youth (RV. I, 155,6) These essential features of his
character, to which he owes epithets such as 'swift'
and 'wide-striding', make him known to us as the
immense (RV. 7, 99, ' ; 2) god of far-extending motion
who for man in distress, to make his existence
possible penetrates and traverses the spaces whereas
his highest step or abode is beyond mortal ken, in his
dear and highest resort, the bright realm of heaven.
While ail beings c'weH in these three strides or footsteps
fRV l, '54,2), the highest is the place of a well of
honey, where rejoice the gods and those men who turn
to the gods. Of Rudra, the terrible, dreadful one, on the
other hand, quite a number of physical features are
recorded: arms, hand, limbs, lip, eyes, mouth, tongue,
ate ; he wears braided hair (I, ]!4, 1 ; 5J his colour
'* t'rown (e g. 2, 33, 5\ his belly black and his back
id. Frequent mention is made of his weapons, and
lese are weapons of offence. On Vishnu's disk and
c ud the oldest texts are, however, sifent. Rudra is
ciothed in askm and haunts and dwells in mountains, an
tfcode also attributed to Vishnu. But while the passage
T- jndi'r "i-" 1 Wh ' Ch th ' S feature fs emphasized tries
rr*"*nt h- f t0 ShoW his aus P f 'cious aspect and to
T inJUf/ng men ' and whi/e forests,
- Wilderness e the sphere .of his
w a hl <V!tle h S> VJShnU ' S assocla ^n with the
eh e f^th JS S8id t0 have been born 3nd
hum.n mtert J. e th rU !f r ; impresses us as beneficial
"aid t n'h 6featof Vrta 's^or instance,
hov, eenTtn ? ken Pf3C9 /n the mountains,

urif. an eleme nt of the scenery

Vishnu is benevolent, never inimical (RV. 1, 186, 10),
and a friend and ally of Indra whom he assists in
slaying the great fiend and antagonist Vrtra, the
representative of chaos and in spreading out the spaces
between heaven and earth <,RV. 6, 69, 5). Both gods
are sometimes so intimately associated as to form a
sort of dual deity, Indravishnu and to participate in each
other's qualities and activities Rudra, on the other
hand, has no special friend among the gods Only once
he appears associated with Soma (RV. 6, 14} 3 not
directly because of his formidable nature but because
he is supposed to be able to avert illness, destruction
and other manifestations of evil. And he enjoys this
reputation owing to his dreadful power of sending and
causing fever,, evil and disaster, to his fierceness,
malevolence and destructiveness. However much the
poets try to deprecate his wrath -impending also when
there is no offence- they do not hesitate to mention
his bad points : he is a cheat, deceiver and lord of
robbers, and most statements of his power occur in
appeals for mercy.

Their relation to the demomac powers and the
Maruts is in this connection of special interest. Wh*ras
Vishnu is engaged in vanquishing the demons, Rudra
does not come into conflict with them. As to the
not-individualized group of the Maruts., as Indra's
brilliant allies and attendants they enter into association
with Vishnu., but Rudra, who is repeatedly said to be their
father, is never drawn into the warlike activties of these
deities who, though occasionally showing the malevolent
traits of their father, are on the whole benefactors of man

world Rudra is, on the contrary, the chief of an

V. Saivism of the Tamils

[Hercinbelow is printed a Note written by R. C. Zaehncr. He
was Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions in the University of
Oxford from 1952 to 1975. His translation of The Bhagavad-Gita
is hailed as a classic. He is also the editor of HINDU
SCRIPTURES, an excellent anthology on Hinduism. It is under
his direction Mariasusai Dhavamony wrote his famous work :
"Love of God according to Saiva Siddhanta."

Like A. L. Basham he is interested in Tamil and Tamil Culture
and has done much for its propagation. Ed.]

It was in the Tamil lands that Saivism developed

its characteristic devotional form. This was the work

of a series of saints who spread the gospel that

salvation could only be won by a total self-surrender

to Siva. By the end of the eleventh century the

hymns of these saints had been collected together

and given the title of Devaram, and this together with

the Tiruvacakam or 'Sacred Utterance'' of Manikka

Vasagar and ancillary writings came to be known as

the "Tamil Veda'. These Saivite hymns are distinguished

from their Vaishnavite counterparts by the extreme

sense of unworthiness that the devotee feels in the

face of the all-holiness of God. Ths philosophy of

the Saiva-Siddhanta, which we have had occasion to

refer to, is based as much on the Svetasvatara

Upanishad as it is on the writings of the Tamil saints

but it was the influence of the latter that made

the writers of the Saiva -Siddhanta attach such

enormous importance to ths doctrine of grace freely

given and the impossibility of spiritual progress without

This Volume is blessed by

His Holiness

Shanmokba Desika
Pararoaeharya

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Life of St. Gurugnanasambanda Desika

Paramacharya Swamigal v

Preface x

1. The Key of Knowledge

By Sir P, Ramanathan -J

2. Siva Bhakti

By Nicoi Macnicol 28

3. Tamil Saints

By J. Estlin Carpenter 54

4. Bronzes And Sivaworship

By Sir P. Arunaehalam 84

5. Saivism of the Tamils

By A. L. Basham 110

6. Vishnu And Rudra-Siva

By J. Gonda 117

7. The Nenju Vidu Thoothu

By Mariasusai Dhavamony 144

8. Nenju Vidu Thoothu in Translation

By T. N. Ramachandran 160

9. The Souls : Their Relation to Brahman

By L. D. Dikshit 172

10. The Role of Saiva-Agamas

By Jean Filliozat 193

11. The Puraanam of Rudra Pasupati

Nayanaar By T. N. R.

12. Rudra As an Embodiement of Divine

Ambivalenc in the Satarudriya Stotram 207

GURU GNANASAMBANDHA DESIKA
PARAMAACHAARYA SWAMIKAL

During the later half of the sixteenth century,
there flourished at Srivilliputthur, a celebrated town of
the Pandiya Realm, a couple-Sub ramania Pillai and
Minaakshi - of the Kaarkaattha Vellala Clan, devoted
to Lord Siva. Unto them a aon was born. Wise mea
discerned in the child the God-touch. By his sixteenth
year, the boy came by learning and wisdom, all unsought
and untaught.

While yet a boy, he was taken by his parents to
the shrine of Lord Ghockanaatha, at Madurai. The
very first darshan of Lord Sundareswara and His
Consort Minaakshi stirred him to the very depths of
his soul. The all-mereciful Siva then enacted one of
His purposive lilas. The sojourn of the boy and his
parents, was extended. The boy Gnanasambandha
spent long hours in the shrine. He was undergoing a
supreme spiritual transformation. When his parents
wanted to return to Srivilliputthur, the boy would not
join them. All parental persuasion was of no avail.
They then felt convinced that the Father of the Universe
had claimed him and that he had to be left at the
shrine.

Gnanasambandha, now the ward of the Lord
Himself, continued to stay on at Madurai, hailing the
Lord, practically round the clock. One day when he
fared forth in the small hours to "The Tank of The
Golden Lotus" for his ablutions, he beheld on its banks

holy devotees adorned with sacred ashes and rudraksha
beads, perform pooja, each of them., to his idol before
him. He was profoundly touched by this sight and he
longed for .a similar beatitude. That night Si-va appeared
in his dream and spake thus : "Your wish shall be
fulfilled. Secure Our idol for your adoration from the
north-east corner of the tank.'-' The lad has had his
mystical tremendum.

Before the first rays of the sun would empurple the
orient, he rushed to the temple tank and plunged into it*
Seconds later he surfaced up with the idol vouchsafed to
him by Siva. He could not contain his ecstasy. He burst
into hymn and song and solemn strain. "The eyes are
ravished." Thus he melodized, hymned and concluded
his first decad. He fervently prayed to Siva to establish
him in Himself.

After a short spell, Siva appeared to him for a second
time in his dream and bade him to proceed to Tiruvaaroor,
thither to be blessed with the ritual-initiation at the hands
of Kamalai Gnanaprakaasar, a spiritual preceptor par
excellence. To him also the Lord appeared in somno and
directed him to receive the disciple.

Tradition has it that Gnanasambandha arrived at
Tiruvaarcor on a Monday and had his first darshan of
saintly nanaprakaasar, seated as it were in his lotus -
posture of meditation, in Siddhiswaram - the shrine of
Dakshinamoorthij situate within the Poong-Koil of Lord
Thiagaraja. Gnanasambandha waited for the opportune
moment and fell prostrate at the feet of his God-appointed,
guru who conferred on him Gnana-Diksha. The disciple
thereupon hailed,h]s, Quru. in. wondrous yerse t JXQW.

as Pandaara-k-Kalitthurai. He also hymned the praise of
his Ishta-raoorthi, in what is to-day hailed by Saivitesj as
Chockanaatha Venpa.

Now commenced the servitorship of Gnanasambandha.
Supreme was his obedience to his Master's behests. One
dark night, the meditation of the Master in Siddhiswaram
continued beyond the usual hour. The torch-bearer
slipped into slumber. Gnanasambandha bore the torch
himself, waited for his Guru to emerge from his meditation,
and led the way. As the Guru entered his house he bade
his disciple to abide without^ and locked himself in. The
moment the Master moved into the house j he lost himself
in the contemplation of Siva. With a burning torch the
servitor stood outside. Clouds rumbled and began
to pour. Ceaseless was the shower throughout the night.
However it pleased Lord Siva to perform a miracle
which can be said to be the very reverse of Gideon's.
While all round, the earth was drenched the ground
on which Gnanasambandha stood^ was dry, Not a
drop of rain had fallen on him who stood there with
a Casabiancan steadfastness.

At the pre-dawn hour, the Guru-pathni opened
the door and witnessed before her the chela standing
firm, trch-in-hand, and undrencbed. She went into
the house and reported the miracle to her sage-husband.
The Master came out and sensed at once the spiritual
perfection of his disciple. He directed him to settle at
Dharmapuram which was not far off. It was here,
the Guru said, that he should propagate the great tenets
of Saiva Siddhantara.

Who can ever essay to describe the pangs which
Gnanasambandha underwent when he had to part from

his Guru ? The feelings of the devoted disciple, can,
to an extent be thus rendered in first person :

"It is not a garment that I cast off this day, but
a skin that I tear with my own hands.

"Nor is it a thought I leave behind, but a heart
made sweet with (spiritual) hunger and thirst.

"Yet I cannot tarry longer.

"A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips
that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.-"

Gnanasambandha settled down at Dharmapuram.
In due time, it pleased Siva to make him Guru
Gnanasambandha Desika Paramaachaarya Swamikal.
To enable mankind tread the divine way leading to
Siva, our Paramaachaarya composed, inter alia, Siva-Bhoga
Saara and Tripadaartha Rupaathi Dasakarya Akaval-

During this time, a well-read scholar called
Maraignana Pandaram flourished at Chidambaram.
For all his scholarship, his exposition was but faulty.
He preached to the world at large that Aananda (Bliss)
was characteristic of Aanma (Soul). He posited that
the soul too was Sacchidaanandarupi, thereby implying
equality between pasu (soul) and Pati (Siva). His wide
knowledge and powerful exposition drew to him numerous
men. This scholar was also kaovva as ''Kan-Katti"
(The Hoodwinked). Oar Paramaachaarya felt that he
really hoodwinked gullible msn. Our Paramaachaarya
mercifully refuted the fallacious theory set afloat by the
m isguided, scholar. . Thus came to be indited the classical

work of our Paramaachaarya, called "Mutthi
Nichohayam'' which established that Aananda is not
inherent in the soul and that the soul purified by the
Lord is made a fit participant of Aananda which is
Siva's own. This beatitude is indeed mutthi (Mukti>

Ripe souls seeking enlightenment were drawn to our
Paramaachaarya and among them, mention should be
made of Aananda Paravasa, Sacchidananda, and
Maruthur Aapath-uddharana. Our Paramaachaarya
appointed Aananda Paravasa as his successor to The
Throne of Wisdom. However as he was for ever
immersed in the beatitude of Samadhi, at the intervention
of holy men, our Paramaachaarya caused the mantle to
fall on Sacchidananda.

From the Copper- plates of Dharmapuram, preserved
in the archives of the Aadhinam, it is now known that
the spiritual reign of our Paramaachaarya commences
in 1561 A. D. The contents of the thirteen Tamil
Copper - plates are now published in a book form. His
spiritual reign appears to have lasted for four decades
and our Paramaachaarya entered Jiva Samadhi on
Aparapaksha saptami, in Vaikasi. By the blessings of
Lord Siva and our Paramaachaarya, the Holy Line of
gurus, more famously known as Tirukkayilaaya
paramparai flourishes., as ever. Esto Perpetua. The
26th in the Holy Line is Guru Mahasannidhanam
Sri-la-Sri Shanmukha Desika Gnanasambandha
Paramaachaarya Swamikal.

PREFACE

The first volume of this series was published in
'1984 in connection with the First International
Seminar on Saiva Siddhantam which was held in
Dharmapuram. In our Editor's Note to that volume
we made it clear that the Anthology, though published
by the Dharmapura Adhinam., should yet not be
construed as one which bore on it the Adhinam's
seal of approval. The Note also contained a caution
to the effect that the writings of Christians, in particular
the missionaries, on Saivism., had to be studied against
the background which was adumbrated in our Note.
At the same time we did not refrain from showering
well-merited encomia on the Christian writers who
wrestled through the tangled maze of utterly alien
material and managed to come out with commendable
success., in such circumstances which would have
daunted the ablest. For this volume also, the
admonition holds good, and the concerned writers, we
concede with joy, have earned our gratitude.

Readers who studied the first volume in depth felt
that they were richly rewarded in that they came to know
of standpoints and viewpoints of which they would have
continued to be nescient if they had not encountered the
articles in English. Like Oliver Twist they asked for
f more'. Hence the command from His Holiness to
compile and publish this volume.

Ten articles^ a translation in English of St. UmapatPs
''Nenju Vidu Thoothu" which is one of the fourteen
Saiva Siddhanta Sastras and a translation of the
Puraanam of Rudra Pasupatiyaar constitute this volume.

Rudra Pasupatiyaar is a Naayanaar who lived the
SatarudriyaStotram-a much misinterpreted and misunder-
stood work. It is so as this work is divinely ambivalent.
The near-perfect interpretation of the stotram, we
daresay, is achieved for the first time by the astute
scholar J Bruce Long to whom the world of Saivism
owes an immense and undischargable debt of gratitude.
His article at the end of this volume is its crown.

Most of the articles are from the original sources.
Our aim is propagation of knowledge. No infringe-
ment of copyright is intended at all. We profusely
thank the earlier publishers of these articles. They
have done a signal service to the cause of Saivism.
The International Institute of Saiva Siddhanta Reserach
is Indebted to the various writers whose articles adorn
this volume. It is not our intention to make any
profit out of this publication. This volume is sold
almost at cost price. As stated supra., the accent is
on the dissemination of knowledge. Cicero affirmed :

"Sapientiaest rerum divinarum et humanarum

causarumque quibus eae res continenter, scientia"
(Wisdom is the knowledge of things human and divine
end of the causes by which those things are controlled.)
Truly Saiva Siddhantam is that Wisdom.

The foot-notes appended by us to some of the
articles serve two purposes, namely, clarification or
amplification and rectification.

We are grateful to Dr. Krishna Sivaraman, truly a
theandric incarnation of Saiva Siddhantarrb for his
guidance in the selection of articles.

Xll

Our colleague Siva Sri P. Arul Namachivayan,
B. A., B. L., as usual, stood by u* totally identifying
himself with this work. The onerous and thankless
job of proof-reading was cheerfully borne by him.
Escaping his lynx-eyed scrutiny^ if a few errors still
appear in this work, the reader will have to bear with
us Errors like barnacles are difficult to shake of.

This compilation could be done in record time as
we had free access to T.R.N. Memorial Library, Thanjavur.
To the curator Dr. T. R. Suresh, we convey our special
thanks.

We know not how we can requite th loving
kindness bestowed on us by His Holiness, the 26th
Pontiff of the Dharmapura Adhinam. It is this which
sustains us in the true sense of the word.

Thanjavur . Sekkizhaar Adi-p-Podi

15-111988 T. N. Ramachandran

The Key of Knowledge
OR

The Fundamental Experiences

of The Sanctified in

Spirit

[ The article printed hereunder is from the lectures delivered by
Sir P. Ramanathan, K. C, C. M. G., (Solicitor-General of Ceylon)
in America during the opening decade of this century. The lectures
pertained to the Holy Bible. However the interpretation thereof
was by the light of Eastern Gnaana Yoga. Siva Sri Ramanathan
was a born spiritual teacher. He was at home in Saiva Siddhantam
as well as Sankara Vedantam. His words would for ever carry
far and wide the fruits of his profound insight into spiritual
realities/The present essay formed Chapter IV of THE CULTURE
OF THE SOUL AMONG WESTERN NATIONS, G.P. Putnam's
Sons, New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Ed.

In India those who have the "Key" called' Knowledge
of God" 3 are known asJnan/s, or Knowers of the Truth or
Wisdom 2 ; and the Light, Wisdom, or Knowledge they
possess is Jnanam. They are also called Jivanmuktas,
or the .Freed Ones, freed from bondage to fofiyor
corruption or ignorance. Other men are not of the Truth.
Being attached to the false shows and pleasures of the
world they are a-Jnanis, unwise men, men in darkness,
whose knowledge is foolishness (a-Jnanam), because
it makes them to think that the Body is the ' Self or Ego

1. Called Pati-Gnaanam (Gnosis)

2. ' "Cf. "TfiOT/s/sireb 6)isir(ip6uirjf

2

that knows; to believe that the only happiness available
to man is through seeing, hearing, smellingi tastingi
tnd touching^ or through thinking and speaking of
things past^ present, or yet to come ; to mistake the
world for the goal to which it is the appointed way;
and to rest assured that nothing exists beyond the plane
of thought and the senses. In their ignorance they
esteem as folly the long-suffering humility of the
Jnante', their love of all beings, great and small., good
or bad ; their inability to hate, and unwillingness to
exact satisfaction for wrong done ; their sense of
thankfulness under all conditions; their refusal to judge
others ; their want of concern for the morrow, and their
disregard for things deeply valued by the multitude.
But the more enlightened of the a-Jnanis of India, who
form a small fraction of the two hundred and fifty
millions of Hindus who inhabit the country, feel drawn
to the Jnanis, and it is to them they have always gone,
from the remotest times to the present day, when
craving for Light

Europeans in India know something of the exoteric
or outer side of spiritual India, as exemplified in the
symbolic worship carried on in the temples, but almost
nothing of its esoteric or inner side. The vast majority
of the natives themselves are ignorant of its existence,
though many an exegesis is to be found, especially in
Sanskrit and Tamil. Such works, however, are difficult
to understand ; and devotees who have been initiated
into the subjective (esoteric) form of worship,
"worship in truth and in spirit" are unobtrusive
and far from communicative. But yet earnest seekers,
who fail to find satisfaction in the objective (exoteric)
method, soon discover that this system, which no

longer appeals to them, is really intended as a
stepping-stone to the subjective (esoteric), and that
the key of the latter is in the hands of the Jnana-quru
or Teacher of Godly Wisdom, otherwise called
Knowledge of God. Tired of the so-called enjoyments
of the world and thirsting for the sanctification of
the spirit, they go in quest of him, crying to him now,
as in days of yore, "O saint, teach thou, for thou,
art the way, and there is no other for us ;" "0 saint,
thou art my way, thou art my way" (Maftrayana
Btahmana Upanishacf, translated by Max Muller, in the
fifteenth volume of "The Sacred Books of the East."
pp. 290, 299). Occasionallyjthe saint comes to the
very door of the seeker-

Of all teachers, the Jnana-guru is acknowledged to
be the greatest Unlike the Vidva guru,, who imparts
knowledge on any given secular subject; unlike the
Samaya-guru,who imparts knowledge on any given relig-
ion, the Jnana-guru is concerned with the very founda-
tion of knowledge., with Truth eternal, unchangeable.
He is therefore a teacher of teachers, a guru in the
real sense of the term, and hence called a Jagat-guru, or
Loka-guru. a Preceptor or Light of the world.

He isfound mostly in secluded places from Cashmere
(Kashmir) to Cape Comorin (Kumari) living in the
utmost simplicity. Some are so dead to the world as to
go wholly unclad, seeing nothing but the reign of God
everywhere.To them (and indeed every other Jnan/,) men,
women, and children are all alike without any distinction
whatever of sexj age, color, creed, or race. Some
Jnanis are often mighty in attainments (Siddhis), but
power by itself is not considered their distinguishing

4

characteristic What are called miracles are often
performed by men who are not in fellowship with God,
and who therefore misuse the powers entrusted to them,
The truth is that God is the author of all forms of
power, and He alone is the worker of all
miracles, from the making of a mineral cell and the
growing of a blade of grass to the suspension of myriads
of stellar systems In space, Jesus always declared miracles
to be God's works and not his own,and he condemned
the display of the girts of prophecy and miracle on the
part of those who did not know God as works of
iniquity (.Matt, vii : 22), Knowledge of God and the
consequent restfulness of spirit, called the Peace that
transcends all thought, is indeed the only characteristic of
Jnan/s. Many of them are well known and much resorted
to for instruction and advice ; others, undiscovered,
perform worldly duties in different walks of life, like
ordinary folk ; but ripe souls are drawn to them and learn
of them in secret the way to God. These Jnan/s in
domestic life make the kindliest and best of fathers,
husbands, brothers, and citizens, though never so
entangled in those relations as to forget for a moment
the grace of God, which assigned to them and others
their respective spheres in life for freedom.

It is such masters, who have attained fulness in love
and Godly knowledge, that demonstrate to seekers in
India that God can be known by man> while on earth
and in the body. Sound doctrine is necessary to
disestablish the mind from sensuous objects and establish
it in the spirit, and then many an arduous work,having in
view the development of righteousness and perfect love,
should be undertaken. For mere study of the principles

relating to God, soul, and the world will not and cannot
secure for the student actual knowledge of God. What
he reads in books or hears form living lips is, so far as
he is concerned, only hearsay knowledge. What is
needed is personal knowledge.

According to the Jnanis, beings and states of
beings complete the range of the knowable. The
knower of all these is the soul. It knows some of
them throuqh the senses, and some through the
mind which draws inferences ; and some it knows
directly without the aid of either the senses or the
mind. The first and second kinds of knowledge are
knowledge of objects of sense, and of mind, and
together constitute worldly experience ; but the third
kind of knowledge is knowledge of the soul or spirit and
God, and is spiritual experience. The Jnanis teach that
the sensible and thinkable things are all of nature
(prakriti) or ''flesh" or cosmic stuff, but that God.
who is the evolver of nature., mental and material, is not
graspable by the senses or mind, but knowable only
by the Soul, which is itself spirit, like God. Their
expressive saying is, God is vedyam (Bhag.
Gita, xi:17) the knowable, but avanmanasa gocaram.
inexpressible and unthinkable. Just as the milk of the
cow, which pervades her lymphatic system, is drawable
only at the teat, Jnanis say that God^ who is Spirit,
Love, and Light, though existent everywhere, is
knowable only in that part of his temple called the
Spirit or Soul ; that souls in bondage to Folly or
Corruption (Avidya) are like pure water mixed with
ink, unable to see itsslf as something different from
the corruption it is in ; that th.3 Soul is th,3 being which

With the .possible exception of Varuna, ftudra* is
the only god in the entire company of Vedic deities
who is conceived to be a radically ambivalent deity.
He is wrathful, terrifying and unpredictable, yet a god
who also possesses the capacity to act benevolently
toward mankind and other creatures in granting
remedies for diseases and providing other boons basic
to human welfare 6 . From Vedic times to the present
Rudra's character has been distinguished by a multifarious
nature reflected in an impressive variety of epithets,
powers and deeds ; these attributes are often expressed
in- bipolar terms, becoming manifest in patterns of
dynamic ambiguity. 7

Even in the Rg-veda (I. 114 ; II. 33 ; VI. 46), Rudra
is represented by a far greater number of physical
features and character traits than one might expect of
a deity who was supposed to occupy a subordinate
position among the gods at that time. 8 The practice
of representing Rudra as a divinity with a multifarious
personality had become an established convention by
the time of the Atharva-veda 9 where every part of
his body is venerated ad seriatum : his face, eyes, skin,
form, appearance, belly, tongue^ teeth and even the
odor emanating from his body. Further, his multiformity
is represented by parts of the cosmic, animal and
human realms over which he exercises divine sover-
eignty : the five creatures (pancaphsu : cows, horses,
men, sheep and goats) ; the four cardinal directions ;
heaven, earth, and atmosphere ; all creatures that are
living (atman} and breathing (am/) upon the earth; and,
finally, the beasts of the forest, wild animals of the
woods, birds, cattle and marine monsters. As if

compelled to provide complete certification of Rudra's
'omniform" and "omnipresent" nature the po t
addresses him as the "All-formed one" (v/svatupa),
and as that divine power which, "at a single glance
[can] scan the entire earth; from the eastern you strike
the northern ocean, "

,The practice of depicting Rudra's character as a
manifold, composite of divine traits and of identifying
each aapect of his nature with a particular segment of
the universe, served as the model for the composition
of the Satarudriya-stotra and, perhaps, for the composition
of numerous other hymns at later stages of the Indian
tradition. It is because the Satarudrtya expresses
djvine multivalence so well and because we believe
the hymn and the ritual to have influenced the
development of liturgies later, that they deserve a
more extensive scholarly investigation than they have
received

Form end Function of the Satarudriya Litany
in the Vedic Tradition

One of the most effective modes of sacred eulogy

developed by the Vedic poets is the hymn 'stotra),

composed of a lengthy series of declarations of

'homage" or "obeisance" to a god-'s many names, traits,

abodes, attendants and famous deeds. 10 The most ancient

persistent and revered example of this genre of hyrr.n in

the Indian religious tradition^, is the Satarudriya-stotra

( w 'The Hymn of Praise to the Hundred Rudras'' or

"...Rudra in his Hundred Aspects" . n (See pp 1T3 for

a riew English translation of the hymn by this author.)

^ The Satarudriya - stotra 1 * is a litany in prats* df
Rudra* the multifarious deity represented in Vedic
literature as the divine embodiment of the powers of
nature and society in both their terrible and benevolent
phases. The hymn is recited in accompaniment to the
425 oblations presented to the one hundred Rudras (or
to Rudra in his one hundred aspects)^ at the conclusion

of the rittal ccrstructicn of the tire-tlter (agnicayana).
The hymn is composed of a series of magico-religious
formulae (sixty - six mantra-s or s/oka-s of variable
lengths) which, taken as a whole, presents a vivid arid
varied picture of the popular conception of Rudra
at that time.

The Satarudriya - stotra 13 constitutes a complete
chapter (kancfa-\6) of the Va/asaneyi-samhita anb! is
considered traditionally to form an independent Upanisad,
Although only a small number of the formulae from this
hymn are quoted or cited in the Brahmana-s, the hymn
was undoubtedly one of the most popular and widely,
used liturgical hymns in ancient Brahmanical tradition.
Even today it is considered by Saivas throughout the
subcontinent of India to be the most sacred and
efficacious of hymns. Saiva priests chant the litany
in its entirety twenty-seven times during the twenty-
four hour, celebration of the Great Night of Siva
(Mahasivaratr?), from Kedarnath in India's far north to
Cape Comorin in the south. 14

The sanctity of the Satarudriya hymn for Siva's
devotees is greatly augmented by the fact that the
five-syllabled invocation to S\va(\.e.,pancaksara'mantra
or simply pancaksari], namah sivaya- makes its first

loves and knows ; and Folly the false being which
hates and works lawless deeds through the instruments
of the Soul, namely, the mind, the senses, and the
faculties of speech and action : and that if measures
be taken to separate the Soul from Folly, the Soul
will first know itself and then God who is in it.
Knowledge of God is impossible till the Soul renounces
all its impurities aid stands in the likeness or "Image"
of God fit for fellowship with God. The Doctrine of
Renunciation, and the practices necessary for forsaking
co'ruption, form the sum and substance of the
teach.'ng of the Jnanis- This work of renunciation of
impurity on the part of the disciple must be carried on
from day to day, it may be for years together, before
G'-d manifests Himself to the seeking Soul.

When it awakens to a sense of its bondage to
c-:ri;ption and gradually releases itself from its carna
attachments, it is said to "ascend" towards God, who
is n th? soul.a That part of the Vedas which is called
Upanlshad treats of this ''ascent" or "rise" from
o-rjunt.'on to incorruotion. "He who in perfeot rest
rw 'rom worldly attachments and attains the highest
' -bt conies forth in his own proper form. This is the
-r:r?af soul" (Ma/tr Brah Up, 11-12) Numberless
v the books written by Jnanis to expound this doctrine
<\ Giclncss<Brahmlstrtiti) contained in the Vedas and
ArMT-as. The eldest cf these books are in Sanskrit and
Tern I. Somo in Sanskrit are known to Western scholars
fc;.t net any m Tamil. Their works in Tamil deserve to
t>v studied, especially those in the form of hymns. One

. ; Cf. ff Ta

213

appearance in this sacred text Like the Purusa Sukta
(PV X. 90), the Satarudriya Stotram (or simply the
Rudram, as it is popularly known) is chanted in the
course of both domestic and public rituals., and on all
other occasions when Rudra is given a ritual ablution
(abhisekam)^

The primary characteristic of the hymn is its
portrayal of the "pantheistic" form of Siva 16 as the highly
Volatile embodiment 'of Divinity within every form of
life in nature and society. The recitation of this hymn
is considered by Saivas to be one of the most
efficacious modes of meditation (sadhana] upon God in
his many manifestations n

The oblations which are accompanied by the recita-
tion of this litany are familiar to the Brahmanas. Even
some of the minor Upanisads (i.e., the Jabala and the
Atfyarvas/ras) extol the spiritual virtues of the Satarudriya
Stotram.^ The profound veneration with which the
devotees of Siva regard this litanv is illustrated further
by the claim of the 7th century South Indian Saiva
singer-saint, Appar, that, "just as the Vedas and their
six angas (branches) were the precious jewel to the
(ancient) Brahmanas, so was namah sivaya to himself
.{Appar, and his followers". 50

The Satarudriy* Stotram as a Paradigm of

Namsfapa

In the Mahabharata, there appeared for the first
time a mode of religious worship consisting of the
recitation f the divine names [nama/apg) of God. 21

214

Namajapa could be performed either within the context

of a sacred rite or as an independent propitiatory act.

This type of hymnody is most fully exemplified in the

Hymn of a Thousand Names" (sahasra-nama-stotram)

addressed to Siva, to Visnu and to the goddess Durga,

in the Mahabharata. 12 In the Mahabharata* as In the

Vedas, the Divine names are recited primarily in order

to persuade the deity being addressed to provide the

devotee with some desired boon e.g , numerous

progeny, victory in battle, safety from misfortune, the

promotion of prosperity and health, the acquisition of

religious merit and the entrance into close personal

communion with the deity himself. In addition, each

of the epithets in the hymn served as a mnemonic

device to aid the worshipper in recalling the virtues,

powers. exploits and offices of the deity for purposes

of meditation and worship. In post-Vedic times, with

fie emergence of pouplar sectarian religion^ these

strings of names were recited ad seriatum, while

counting the beads on a rosary (japamala, aksarnola}.

While the first bona fide example of this genre of
hymn mekes its appearance in epic literature,, there are
nunr-rous selections in the Vedas where rs/'-s and
sacrficial priests (p^0/?//a_s. invoke various deities by
reciting hymns composed of strings of epithets which
c*fj.n ea te the manv attributes of the particular deity

,? 8 addressed - Glven the relatively close structural
p*lkl between the Satarudr/ye and the Sahasa-nama

' S a baS/ ' S f that the

dlrectl ^ or ^directly,

^ m P sition of the latter. Although

t cannot be sure that the composers of these epic

215

hymns consciously utilized the Vedic hymn as a model,
they must have been acquainted with the Vedic example
(given the fact that the Satarudriya appears as a
sub - parvan in the Mahabharata') and may have
employed the earlier hymn as a working model

The religious ideology behind the composition and
recitation of the Satarudriya might be described as
the -'mystique of the Sacred Utterance" The Vedic
priests believed that the hymns and ritual formulae
were oral embodiments of cosmic forces- Not only
couplets s/oka-s), lines (mantra-s) and quarter - lines
(pacfa-s\ but words and even individual syllables
(aksara-s\ are homologized with particular parts of the
cosmos and with various deities who are believed to
be in control of the many departments of the natural
and social orders. On this basis, the recitation of the
formulae on the appropriate occasion serves to coax
the divinities so addressed to intervene in the world
process on behalf of the sacrifice!' and his kinsmen.
Along with this belief in the efficacy of the Sacred
Word is the conviction that the Divine Names serve
not merely as figurative cr symbolic representations
of the god so-named, but as concrete and highly
efficacious embodiments of the spiritual essence of
the deity himself. In brief, sacred words of invocation
and the divine power(si designated by the terms, are
thought to be one and the same within the context of
the sacrifice. >3

In the course of the Satarudriya rite, the primary
concern of the yajamana was focused at the point
where each recitation should ogcur and upon the proper

216

order of the various chants The Vedic priests seem to
have been less concerned with the religious or
theological meanings of the formulae, prayers and
hymns, than with the actual words recited and the
ritual actions performed in the mannar prescribed by
the ritual manuals. This meticulous concern for ths
correct placing of each item in the ritual and for the
careful adherence to every injunction in the ritual texts
grew out of a conviction that arranging words and
deeds in right correlation would produce the desired
results automatically. :4 The gods were believed to be
willing and able to grant the boons provided the eulogies
were correctly formulated and the oblations sufficiently
generous. The more elaborate the panegyrics and
the more generous the offerings, the greater the likelihood
that the desired objectives would be realized.

Furthermore, the text pertaining to the Satarudr/ya-
homam (SBIX. l.l) contains numerous examples of one
of the more prominent developments in liturgical and
literary form during the period of the Brahmanas :
namely, the formulation of arcane or mystical connections
between en entity 'e.g., a religious functionary, human
virtue efficacious deed, animal or some other object) and
one or more entities within the divine sphere (eg, a
specific deity, planetary body, or divine power)
believed to share either a common nature or similar
properties and powers These mystical links were
established by means of what might be described as a
''theological pun". JS The priests or liturgical composers
sought to augment the pleasure of the gods in the
sacrificial offering by fashioning increasingly fanciful
and ingenious examples of such puns. It was their

\

217

belief that the gods would reward the devotees in
proportion to the quantity and quality of such eulogies
and the degree of ingenuity displayed by these
linguistic associations. The priests certified the religious
validity of such practices by declaring that "the gods
adore the esoteric''. It should be noted, of course,
that the procedures employed in identifying two objects,
the names of which are composed of similar phonemes,
in most instances, transgress all the rules of grammar
and linguistic analysis- But, in such cases, adherence
to the laws of proper linguistic derivation gave place to
the need to articulate certain deep theological
meanings that could be expressed in ro other way.

Analysis of Rudra 8 Character in the

Satsrudriys Stotram

The Rudra of the sataruclriya is essentially the
same deity who appears under that name in the
Rg-\teda, except that in the former text his personality
has been impressively augmented and he appears
under essentially different images. H is still the same
ambivalent and unpredictable god -an archar deity
whose arrows inflict both men and animals with
disease, misfortune and death but, at the same time,
a god in whom there is a great capacity for
benevolence. He lives in faraway places, in the clouds
or on the mountains and hills, on lofty perches from
which he shoots his arrows of ambivalent qualities,
but, by and large, at a significant distance from
civilized places. Like any ordinary woodsman, he
wanders about (primarily at night) through woods
nd fields, along paths or near places where the

218

unwary traveller may be victimized by ominous
powers and horrifying creatures.

The Satarudr/ya Stotram represents Rudra's physical
appearance in such graphic and various terms that one
wonders why he was never represented in iconographic
form during the Vedic period. In spita of an abundance
of ferocious and grotesque qualities in his character,
he is said to be of benign (aghora) and auspicious
(s/Va) form, "not dreadful or vile-looking". Long
golden locks flow down his blue colored neck onto a
body that is described as brown, copper, ruddy and
bluish-red or purple. His two arms are invoked
apprehensively as the wielders of the bow and arrows
which are sources of both disease and health He is
both tall and dwarfish 26 With his one-thousand eyes
he views the entire world at all points on the compass
at a single glance. Clad in an anima! skin, he leads
the life of a rude uncultured woodsman or mountaineer
(giritra, girisanta. girisa}. In this state, in wild areas
Rudra is the fearless generalissimo of countless bands
of spirit-troops tsatvana), ' innumerable Rudras dwelling
in the sky in the atmosphere and on the earth ..." These
attendants of Rudra are imagined to take the form of
ghosts, goblins and "grotesque and ferocious spirits" who
roam about the countryside in the dead of night
(naktamcarabdhyas}. As extensions or external
manifestations of the spiritual essence of Rudra, these
beings are fierce (krura) and deformed (vfrupa) in
appearance, with blue necks (nilagriva) and white
throats (sitikantha). By extension of this same role.
Rudra is the Master of animals (pasupati). He lives
.with the spirnajs cf the forests end deserts, knows

2(9

their life-patterns and controls their destinies. While
he is also said to abide with cattle in the shelter of
cattle-pens, Rudra's role as Pasupsti seems, during the
Vedic period, to place him primarily in the company
of wild and untamed beasts that haunt uncultivated
areas in forests and deserts and threaten both men and
animals with injury and death

He prefers isolated places frequented by wild
beasts, goblins, and malicious spirits for he is
characteristically identified with paths (srutyaya], roads
(pathyaya}, mountain slopes \.nfpyaya] and rugged areas
<katyay) } with forests (vanyaya), woods (aranyaya) and
crossroads (catuspathyaya).

Further, Rudra is the patron deity of various
classes of artisans, including blacksmiths, carpenters
and huntsmen. Like Pusan, with whom he shares a
number of other traits in common, he is the divine
pathfinder who guides and protects travellers through
areas that are fraught with ominous dangers. As an
Inhabitant of the wilderness areas he is the god of
tribal peoples, both Aryan and non-Aryan, who inhabit
the hills and forests of northern India : the Nisadas
(wild aboriginal tribes of non-Aryan ancestry, probably
hunters, robbers and fishermen and possibly identifiable
with the present-day Bhils who live in western and
north-central India, renowned in the past for brigandage
and lawlessness^; and the Punjisthas (fishermen and
according to Mahidhara, fowlers) He manifests himself
to f 'female water-bearers'', "in sprouting grass", in
cfessicated things", "in the dust and the mist"; "among

220

herds 1 ',, and in cattle-pens". He exists "in mind, th e
cloud and the lightning", "in incantations, punishments
and prosperity".

His devotees invoke him on his ferocious side
and attempt to placate his wrath by reciting epithets
and character traits which reflect his capacity to visit
misfortune upon whomever he wilfs. Among his many
terrifying (ghora] aspects, are these: fierce tugraya)
and terrific (bhimaya], master of animals .pasunampataye)
whose shafts inflict animals with diease and disaster,
"the bellowing lord of combat-troops'^ "lord of the
cheater, the arch-deceiver, brigands... murderers and
stealers" 'lord of the deformed [virupebhya] and the
omniform (visvawpebhyai*.

Thus far, this survey of the conception of th 9
character and roles of Rudra in the Satarudriya Siotram
has focused entirely upon the terrifying and destructive
side of his nature. Howerer, inasmuch as this litany
is a hymn of praise recited primarily to gratify Rudra
and to cultivate his benevolent grace, the number of
benign epithets attributed to him far exceed the
malignant As benevolent provider and protector from
misfortune ; Rudra is addressed as "advocate" or
"deliverer" (adhyavocad) $ "first divine healer
(prathamcdaivyo bhesak)" "he whose medicines bring
continual healing" ; ""most benevolent one (sumangalah/'
"bountiful <midhuse(" ; and more than that, ''most
bountiful midhustama)" ; "lord of the prosperous-
(pustanam pataye /' ; "lord of food and of all moving
things" ; "he who extended the earth bhuvanteyej" ;
"bestower of welfare (sangaye " -, and "source of

21

(sambhavayaV '. Finally, a few of the
epithets which will become his most prominent names
in the epics and puranas appear in this hymn ; i.e.,
Auspicious One (sfvaya) and cause of prosperity
(sankaraya}) as well as Divine Lord (isano bhagavah).

Most of the western interpreters of this hymn
(among whom we might mention Arbman, Hilleforandt,
Weber, Macdoneli, and Barth) have tended to adopt
an overly simplified view of Rudra in this text, by
stressing his fierce and destructive aspects to the
almost total neglect of his benevofent and auspicious
features." True, many of the epithets and attributes
assigned to Rudra in this hymn reflect a deity who
manifests himself to mankind in the form of a formidable,
frightening and even destructive power. But Rudra must
be viewed as a deity whose nature is quintessentially bi-
polar and ambivalent. 28 He is the god from whom all
the opposites spring into dynamic manifestation (life and
death, good and evil, pleasure and pain, beauty and
ugliness). He is the divine agent of both procreation
and dissolution, throughout the natural and social
spheres He is the divine source and cause of both
illness and health, poverty and wealth, terror and bliss-
When he manifests himself by means of his auspicious
and sublime form (siva-, aghora-tanu;, he provides all
the energies required by living beings for survival and
growth. When, on the other hand, he operates by
means of his terrible and demonic aspects(bhfma-,ghora-
?a/w),he removes living creatures by withholding those
same life-supports. Hence., he must be viewed, even at
this early period of Indian religious history, as a

222

deity who encompasses a wealth of traits, powers and
activities, a complex network of features that resists,
every attempt to derive a univocal pattern.

The Character of Rndra in the Satarudriy*
Oblation

Our understanding of the precise nature of Rudra
and of the type of "religious consciousness" which
he provokes in his devotees can be brought into
sharper focus by surveying his various modes of
manifestation and activity recorded in the Brahmanical
texts periaining to the Satarudriya-homam. Like the
Psalms in the Old Testa merit, * plainsong chants in the
Catholic Missal * and congregational hymns in Protestant
hymna.ls the hyrnns in the Vedas were not intended to
serve as mere "musical accompaniment to the visible
actions of the liturgy. Rather, like the Hebrew and
Christian counterparts, theVedic hymns were composed
and recited as canticle equivalents to the outward
activities of worship. As stated earlier, the hymns of
praise, the visible movements of the rituals and the
sacrificial oblations are three different aspects, of a
single mode of religous veneration.

According to the Satapatha Srahmana (IX. 1.1 ff.):

where the prescriptions for the performance of the

Satarudriya homam rre given in greatest detail, the

rite is said to be composed of 425 oblations offered

into the sacrifical fire at the completion of the piling up

of the fire-altar (agnfcayana) when Agni, 31 the divine

personification of the sacred fire, has come to be

identified with Ruc'ra. 33 The homologization of Agnf

of the ancient psalms of Manikka-vasakar, daily chanted
by hundreds of thousands of Tamils in South India and
Ceylon, is as follows;-

"0 Siva, abiding in the limitless region of holiness
who, darkness dispelled, has granted me grace this
day ;

To abate thoughts, I thought of Thy way of rising
from the bosom of the soul in the glory of the
sun;

I thought of the non-existence of everything but
Thyself;

I thought of Thee and Thee only, having worn
off thought, atom by atom and drawing closer for
union with Thee as one;

Nothing art Thou, yet nothing is without Thee.
Who, then, can think of Thee ?"

T/ruvasakam, Koyil Tiruppadikam, 7

God as Absolute Being, or Being Unconditioned by
quality or quantity, is indeed unthinkable, nor is
he to be perceived by the senses, as Immaculate, Infinite
Spirit, but yet, as such, he is knowable. He is to be
known by the soul only when the mind runs down
to a calm and lies quite still. When in spiritual
communion thoughts are wholly abated and sleep does
not intervene^ the soul stands by itself like a steady
flame, unobscured by sleep and unagitated by thought.
In this state of isolation or aloneness, called kaivalya t
the soul knows itself and God who is in it. The gradual
elimination of thought "atom by atom", as the Master

23

and Rudra symbolizes the fact that the sacrtd i.rt
which has received great quantities of ghea (clinfi^j
butter) at regular intervals during the construction of th?
altar, has begun to flare up and crackle with .rrpr M ,vi
and terrifying (raucfra) force. "The altar fire is the- Owl .
ward and visible manifestation of the dual divmitv. R-.tJr*.
Agni in his most awesome and terrifying for?- -ghtra-
tew). 34 Or, in more metaphysical terms, th altar !;ft
has been transmuted into a symbol for the d.vsre fore*
which courses through plants, rren, animals ard
bodies with a powerful thrust that threatens tc
the very forms of life it sustains.

After the gods have bestowed upon R^d's
"that highest form" (rupamuttamam) that is, j- w ^
(amrta) 35 He stands upon the altar in the frr-r: cf t
sacrificial flame "longing for food" (annamiccrs-n^a $
Knowing of Rudra's voracious appetite, even :
are fearful that he might do them harm M ,r.
placate His wrath and evoke his pleasure. :
determine to provide Him with food, in the kr
that, "thereby we shall appease *samay^i
soothe,) Him".

At this stage, the officiating priest ^3*105
containing a "theological pun r on the -ars*T :
for "appeased^' (santa , and "one-huniKG
This "play .on words" provides the necessar*
connection between the name of the homa^t
primary objective of the ritual itself. The !-'
that ihey gathered the food called Sar.tedt^
satisfied (stmayams) with it Inasrn-cr 3
satisfied (sam) the god (deva) by means o. ^ *

t>

51*1

:**

424

it is known as Santadevatya (i.e., that which satisfies
the god) and Santadevatya is the esoteric ; equivalent
of Satarudriya, "for the gods adore the esoteric"
(paro 'ksa kamahide vati] .

The officiating priest (adhvaryu), then offers an

oblation of wild sesame seeds (jartilair), which

represent both cultivated (gramyam) and wild-growirig

(aranyam) foods, 37 in order to satisfy Rudra-AgnPs

hunger and to provide him with the nourishment which

he demands for the successful performance of his

divine function. The priest then places these sesame

seeds upon an arka-leaf (arkaparnena) 38 and deposits

that offering upon three enclosing-stones (par/srftsu)

which represent the three Agnis (the earthly,

atmospheric and celestial fires., respectively). 3 By

offering the obfation to Rudra-Agni, the mystical

homoiogization between these two gods is ritually

completed. In verse 9 of Adhyaya 1. the Brahmana

provides an 'esoteric' rationale for presenting the

arka leaf to Rudra-Agni. "He offers with an srfa-leaf; for

the tree arose from the resting place of that deity

(devasyasayad) s he thus satisfies (prinath him with

his own portion (bhagena), with his own life-sap

Following this presentation the officiant offers an
oblation composed of flour made from Gavedhuka
grass (Co/x Barbata). The offering is laid upon the
stones on the altar, for "the Gavedhuka plants sprang
forth (stmabhavan) in that spot where the deity lies
exhausted (visrastasay*)" . In this manner, the
deity is remvigorated -and gratified by 'his

ovvn

I

225

life-blood (rasena) and by his own portion (i. e., the
substance which constitutes his own being or essence).

The priest is enjoined by the Brahmana to place-
the oblation upon each one of the three enclosing
stones (parisritsu] situated to the rear of the sacrificial
area (i. e., the west corner of the left wing of the-
bird-shaped altar). Beginning at the southernmost tip
of the area and moving toward the north, 4Z each of
these stones is taller than the preceding one : the first
is knee - high, the next navel-high, and the last head -
-high. Each stone represents one of the three
levels of the universe. The offering presented al a
particular level of the body of the sacrificer gratifies
the Rudras who abide at the corresponding level of the
cosmos. By means of these three offerings of food
and ritua! invocation (svaha\, all the Rudras throughout
the universe are nourished and soothed- * The officiant
presents this offering while standing on the north sid&
of the altar and facing the north. 44 He thereby
satisfies Rudra "in his own region" for "in that region
Hes the abode of this deity" (ha disyetasya devasy*
grhah). Once the hunger of the Rudras has been
satiated and their wrath tranquillized, they depart from
the sacrificial area in the house of the sacrificer to the
regions to the north and, henceforth, cease to threaten
the health and welfare of the sacrificer and his
family. 45

The myth which the Brahmana (SB. IX I.! .6-7)
provides as a symbolic rationale for the performance
of -the Satarudriya-homam, states that when Praj'apati
(the Creator and Lord of the Creatures) had become

226

Impotent in the course of the year, the gods abandoned
him for lack of support and sustenance all the gods,
that \s 3 except one, Wrath (manyu). For wrath always
remains and asserts itself when a creature has become
hungry and weak. Wrath expanded and remained
steadfastly attached to Prajapati. This state of fury
drove Prajapati to tears (rodlt) 46 and his tears fell
down upon Wrath. The water of Prajapati's tears
mixed with the fire of Wrath and from that compound
sprang up the divine embodiment of Wrath and Terror
(i. e. Rudra , possessing one hundred heads, one thousand
eyes, and one hundred quivers.The remaining drops of tha
mixture spread over the entire world in countless numbers
{asamkhyata} . Because these multitudinous creatures
sprznQistimabhavam > from the crying (ruditas), they came
to be csHed "rudras" (i.e., the cryers or howlers). 47
Meanwhile, this multicephalus, multi-eyed and multi-
quivered creature, Rudra, who is the unified embodiment
cf al! the Rudra-powers, stood before the gods., with
bow and arrow prepared, in his quest for food
(annamicchmanas), striking them with fear (bhisaya-
mano). And, as a result cf the continuing presence
of this offspring of the wrath-filled tears of Prajapati.,
""the gods were afraid of him".

The gods then appealed to Prajapati to aid them in
acquiring an antidote to their terror. In response to
the gods' plea, Prajapati replied, "Gather food
(snnamasnai sambharata) for him and you will gratify
(samayata) him, thereby".

One* the priest has completed the nourishing of
Rudra with the oblations of sesame seeds and the

227

gruel of gavedhuka flour, he procseds to gratify the
deity further by muttering the various formulae of the
Satarudriya Stotram. In the course of these he recites
that most salutary of invocations, Svaha, (sv-aha or
su-adha, lit. "saluations, hail") between each set of
30 formulae (SB IX 1.1.21). The mystical identification
of the oblations with the formulae and the power of
both to gratify the deity is affirmed by the ritual
association of "the eight! e$ } > (asityam, i.e , the 9
sections or anuvakas of the litany.) and the
sacrificial food (asita, food, : "eighties means
f JQd, for by means food (and formulae) he
gratifies him, thus" (verse 21). The priest offers
obeisance to Rudra's wrath, his two mighty arms that
wield the bow and arrows, to the bands of clansmen
which sprang from Prajapati's tears of wrath, and to
Prajapati himself, who, in completion of the mystical
identification of all the gods and all the elements of
the sacrifice, is linked with Agni and the

Year. The Adhvaryu continues to gratify Rudra by
"invoking him by his names" and identifying Rudra-
Agni with the Year, the seasons, the three realms and
the layers of the altar.

The official performance of the rite is concluded
with a recitation of the "unstringing formulae". 49 These
mantra-s are recited for the purpose of "unstringing"
the bows of the countless Rudras "at a thousand
leagues 4 ' and, thereby^ rendering them powerless to
harm the sacrificer and his relatives. This series of
oblations is presented in reverse order to those
described in vss. 11-13; that is, in a descending
pattern from the mouth, to the navel, and, finally, to

228

the knee. In this manner, the circuit of ritual oblations
13 completed and, at the cosmic level, the entire world-
order is rendered secure from all the disruptive effects
of Rudra's wrath.

With the completion of the "descending-" rites
(pratyavarohan), along with the final propitiations of
the Rudras at the three levels of the universe, the
yajamana casts the ar/ra-leaf and a/^a-stick into the
"pit" (catva/e), which the composer of this Brahmana
takes to mean the depositing of implements into the
sacred fire to be consumed. The Satarudriya is then
identified symbolically with the aitar, the Year and
Agni all of which are composed of 360 components-
and with the Great Litany (mahad uktam), with which
the rite shares in common the possession of twenty-
five parts (i.e., formulae) on either side of the
'eighties" (again, formulae.) The yajamana brings the
rite to a close with a series of circumambulations of
the vedi while sprinkling it on all sides with water
(in order to drive all evil and pain into the region
of Nirnl located in the south-western direction). This
act is accompanied by the formulation of numerous
mystical connections between constitutive parts of
the altar and corresponding realities within the
cosmos. The final resolution of the homa is realized
by symbolically identifying the many facets of the
rite with various natural phenomena and the divine
powers that rule over them. This is done with a
rather complex formula equating Rudra-Agni, Prajapati
the altar, the Gayatn-mantra, the Sa/??a/7-hymns, the three
levels of the universe the two cosmic luminaries and
Agni's "highest form, immortality*'.

M9

. The Relationship between Concepts of Divinity
and Religious Experience in the Satarudriya

While the most obvious goal of this homa seems
to be the appeasement of Agni-Rudra's wrath and the
acquisition of his benevolent grace on behalf of the
sacrificer and the family, other, secondary objectives
are sought as wed. The series of mystical corres-
pondences which stand out most prominently in this
rite (e.g., the identification of the bricks of the
altar with Prajapati, of Prajapati with Agni-Rudra, of
the rasa of the oblations with the rasa of both the
deities and the universe) suggest that the rite is
believed to serve as a means of assembling and
reintegrating the various powers in the universe which
have become fragmented and dispersed during
the course of a year and by reintegrating
such powers to infuse the entire cosmos with
new life. So conceived, the sacrifice is to be
understood as that single most efficacious mechanism
for the establishment and maintenance of a proper
equilibrium among the various centers of power (.i.e.,
gods, men and the natural world) and for the
promotion of the uninterrupted flow of the life-forces
throughout the world. In the same way> the sacrificial
arena is that privileged place within the finite world
where gods and men meet in spiritual communion and
where each receives irom the other necessary
life-supports.

We have argued that previous interpretations of
Rudra as a wholly "demonic deity' 1 who provokes
only fear and dread ore simplistic and one-sided. 56

IBO

But even if such were the case, those responses to a
deity like Rudra which take the form of fear, awe, and
dread should not be interpreted in purely ''negative"
terms. 51 On the contrary we could argue that, when
properly understood., those experiences which threaten
man's sense of self-confidence and well-being (whether
by divine,human, or animal agencies) have "positive"
as well as "negative" consequences.

This ambivalent nature of the religious experience
has .been observed by a variety of scholars of religion*
Richard R.Niebuhrjfor one, explores the nature of religious
experience. sz While Niebuhr's analysis is general and
does not regard all the varieties of religious experience
and response to it, his analysis is appropriate for a
consideration of the relationship between the concept
of divinity and the religious experience expressed in
the Satarudriya. He contends that fear, especially that
type of fear which occurs within the context of an
encounter with an extraordinary power, should be
viewed as an "ambiguous" experience, a dual state of
mind in which feelings of buoyant joy and benumbing
awe are co. mingled. That is, fear is not merely a
highly restricted and specialized emotional response to
particular objects or situations. Rather, fear is that
all-pervasive and inescapable sense of living in a state
of finitude and mortality. Suffering, as he defines it.,
is the ambivalent sense of both "being diminished and
being enlarged". Both suffering and the concomitant
experience of faith form "a boundary of existence, an
ever-present element of consciousness" in a world that
appears to us to be a "field of energies, converging on
us, shaping us, distending us, shattering us and sending

231

j* on paths we have not chosen for ourselves". 53 So

Conceived, suffering is the "determinant of all existence",

{he basis of man's sense of creature-hood- Faith or

faithfulness, which both complements and incorporates

{he element of anxiety, Niebuhr defines as "the

fnanner in which human being comports itself within

its world of power"j the "way in which he accepts

and addresses himself to his situation as a suffering

being". Because of the paradoxical nature of human

existence, the experience of faith necessarily occurs

within a state of suffering and contains elements of

conflict and strife, coupled with joy and harmony.

Fear, whether viewed primarily as a religious,

existential or psychological category, must be

interpreted against the background of the dynamic,

ever-changing field of human existence in a world of

power.

Rudra, more than any other deity in the Vedic
pantheon^ manifests himself to mankind as this
"infinite energy and environing, shaping power that
approaches us on alien terms", of which Niebuhr
speaks in a later portion of this same work. **. It is
the alien or "wholly other" quality of Rudra's
appearances and activities within the finite world
that gives rise to the responses of awe and terror in
his devotees.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we argue that, in the Satatudfiya
hymn and rite, Rudra is represented as a deity who uses
his divine power to create multiple manifestations
with ambivalent qualities. 55 In part, the fluidity of his

232

nature (i.e., his capacity to divide his one divine
nature into numerous facets and, at the same time,
to integrate within himself many disparate and antithetical
phenomena in nature and society), served as a pre-
condition for his elevation to the status of High God
in the Svetasvatera Upan/sad and The Mahabharata.
Unlike most of the other Vedic gods, who lacked
either the degree of concreteness (e.g., Varuna) or
the proper level of generality (e.g., Pusan) required
for the development of a High God status, Rudra
commanded a sufficient degree of both universality
and particularity to fulfil the spiritual needs of a
wide variety of people over an extensive geographical
area and through a lengthy expanse- of time.

Even as early as the time of the Satarudriya
(ca. 1000 B.C), Rudra's character is marked by a
configuration of traits, powers and deeds that are^
at once, antithetical and complementary. Though One
in essence, he is indentified as the divine power which
both creates and destroys, energizes and dissolves
a!! forms of life. His ambivalent nature made
possible the multiplication of his manifestations
(murtis], during the epic and post - epic periods,
in such a way that he can appear to be either
malevolent (ghora, bhairava] or benevolent (aghora, siva~]
on different occasions or both simultaneously.

When these observations concerning Rudra's character
in the Satarudriya are considered together with our under-
standing of fear / dread as an ambiguous experience,
the conclusion is hard to resist that Rudra must be
seen as a deity whose nature is far more complex,.

8

quoted above says, draws the sou/ out from the dust
heap of thought and enables it to see itself more and
more, till at length, when the last trace of thought
is "worn off/' the soul appears, as declared in the
Maftrayana Upanishad, in its ''own proper form" as
Unconditioned Being, in unspeakable repose. This is
called by the Agamic Jnanis atma-darsana, or knowledge
of the soul, corresponding to the "manifestation" or
"appearance^ 4 of Christ within man ''John xiv: 2lj
Matt, xxiv: 30). Then is realised Siva-darsana, or
knowledge of God, who manifests himself only within the
Spirit though He pervades all the Universe. This is "His
way,'' His usual method, of manifesting Himself to
those men who worship Him spiritually, " in truth and
in spirit' " as Jesus said. The Vecfanta Jnanis speak
of these two experiences as Vikalpa Samadhi and
Nirvlkalpa SamadhL

Just as the soul enshrined in the body ''rises" from
the bodyj God enshrined in the Sou! "rises" from the
Soul. These are the two fundamental experiences of
human nature^ the one leading necessarily to the other ;
and this is the goal of lifethe knowledge of God After
attaining it, there is nothing more to attain here or else-
where. Progress with all its toils ends.The long sought for
Rest has come. No longer do pure and impure thoughts
strive against each other for mastery; no longer do kind
and unkind words flow alternately from the lips ; no
longer does the flesh strive against the Spirit,
nor the Spirit against the flesh. DHferentiation between
oneself and others has ceased. Peace reigns. In the

4. Cf.

233

exalted and multivalent than a majority of Indologists
have recognized. Because he is revered as the divine
source of wealth and poverty, health and illness,
life and death, joy and grief, his presence provokes
responses from his devotees that range from veneration
and affection, to fear and dread religious feelings that
are in perfect harmony with the multifarious character
of his divine nature. Even in this early period of the
history of Indian religion, Rudra is recognized as 3
multivalent manifestation of divine power, whose
activities serve both to delimit and expand, threaten
and sustain the world and all the creatures that abide
therein. In the religious terminology popularized by
Rudolf Otta, Rudra is the numinous par excellence, the
deity in whom The Sacred is revealed in its full
multiplicity and ambiguity. As such, Rudra is the
Divine reflection of man's perception of the nature of
Life itself.

Notes

In the following notes, abbreviations for basic texts
will be used, as follows : Mbh Mahabharata; IS
Taittiriya Samhita; SB Satapatha Brahmana; VS
Vajasaneya Samhitd; RVRg. Veda; AVAtharva Veda;
SBESacred Books of the East; IB- Taittirlya Brahmana;
Sankh. Br. Sankhyayana Brahmana', Ap. SS
Apastambha Srauta Sutra.

1. Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897; p. 3.

2. Sri Aurobindo, On the Veda, (Pondicherry,
1956), pp. 49-50

3. Consult E. Arbman Rudra. Untersuchungen
zum altindischen Glauben und Kultus, (Uppsala, 1922),
asp. chap. I.

234

4. J. Gonda, Visnuism an d Stvaism: A Comparison,
(London, 1970), p. 5.

5. A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p 74 ff. ;
A B. Keith, Tha Religion and Philosophy of the Veda
and the Upanish ads, (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), pp. 142-50;
J- Gonda, Epithets in the Rgveda, (The Hague. 1959),
P. 126 ff.

6 See J. Gonda, Visnuism and S/vaism, p. 3, 20-21.

7. R, G Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism and M/nor
Religious systems, (Strassburg, i9l3) 3 p. 102 ff.

8. See R. N. Dandekar, "Rudra in the Veda",
Journal of the University of Pcona, [Humanities section],
1.1 (1953): p. 94 ff.

9. Atharvaveda, XI. 2.

10. A Weber, Indisehe Stud/en (Berlin, 1853),
II, p.-13ff

11. Vajasaneya Samhita XVI and Taittir/ya Samhita,
IV 5. i-M.

12. Among the numerous translations of the
Satarudriya Stotram into western languages, see the
following : for a German translation of the Taitttriya
rescension (of the Black Yajus School) of the text, with
various readings of the Kathaka and the Vajasaneyi
versions, consult A. Weber, Indische Studien 11, 13-47:
the Sukla Yajurveda (also known as the Vajasaneya}
text has been translated and transliterated by J. Muir.
Original Sanskrit Texts, (London, 1873), IV. pp. 322-31;
also J. Eggelmg, The Satapatha Brahmana, Part IV,
(Sf Vol. XLHI}, 150-55; and the Taittiriya text by

235

A. B. Keith, The Veda of the Black Yajus School
entitled the Taittiriya Samhita. [Harvard Oriental Series,
XIX], Cambridge, Mass., (1914),, pp. 353-62.

13. Consult the following scholarly studies of the
Satarudriya Stotram; E. Arbman, Rudra, pp. 221-53;
R. G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Sa/v/sm and Minor
Religious Systems, pp. 103-04; S. Bhattacharji, "Rudra
from the Vedas to the Mahabharata", Annals of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, pp. 4', (1960),
86.89; R. W. Frazer^ "Saivism", Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, XI, p. 91 ff. Concerning the Satarudriya-
homam, see D. J. Hoens, Santi. A Contribution to
Ancient Indian Religious Terminology, (The Hague,
1951), pp. 128-33.

14. See my article, "Festival of Repentance : A
Study of Mahasivaratri'-, Journal of the Oriental Institute,
Baroda, 2i (1972), pp. 15-38.

15. V. Raghavan, The Indian Heritage - An
Anthology of Sanskrit Literature, '.Bangalore.. India, 1956),
p. ?0 ff.

16. Raghavan, ibid., p. 21.

17. Consult esp. Yajnavalkya Smni, (v. 303-04),
308 for an assertion of its efficacy as an expiatory
prayer

18. Cf. SB iX 1 1.1-2 42 where specifications of the
ritual performance, together with the appropriate
recitations, are presented in elaborate detail.

19. See T. R. Srinivasa Ayyangar, trans- Saiva
Upam'satfs. (The Adyar Librar/. '953),

236

20, Appar, II. 5, cited in K A. Nilakantha Sastri,
"An Historical Sketch of Saivism' J , in The Cultural
Heritage of India, (Calcutta, 1956;. Vol. IV p. 70.

2?. Consult J. Gonda, Notes on Names and the
Name of God in Ancient India [Verhandelingen der
Koninklijke Nederlandse, Akademie van Wetenschappen,
Letter-kunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Vo! 75, no. 4] (Amsterdam,
1970), pp. 57.76.

22. A hymn composed of a thousand names is
addressed to Siva in the Mbh. (XII :85 and XII! 17)
and to Vishnu (XIII H9) and a briefer hymn to Uma-
Durga, the malevolent aspects of Siva's consort Parvatj,
(IV 6. pp. l-!8-T03). Cf. the Hymn to the Greatness of
the Goddess (Devi-mahatmya-stotram or the Sridurga-
saptasati), from the Markandeya-purana, [Sibliotheca
Indica], trans. F. E. Pargiter, (Calcutta, 1904), Cantos
LXXX/-XC//J.

23. See J. Gonda, Notes on Names, p. 2 Off

24. L. Renou formulates this principle in most
succinct terms as follows: "The duty of the rsi-s was
to ensure the ordered functioning of the world and of
religious ceremonial by reproducing the succession of
cosmic events, the ordo-rerum in their acts and in the
imagery they conceived. Seen in this light; the
Veda is a vast magical synthesis expressed in
symbolic terms. The images of the Vedas have
ritual significance in themselves ; they bring
about the ordered functioning of a universe which is
itself conceived as the scene of a vast sacrifice, the
proto-type of the man- made sacrifice". Religions of
Ancient India, (London^ 1953^ pp, .17-18,

237

25. E. C. Dimock, The Literatures of India. An
Introduction, (Chicago : The University of Chicago
Press, 1974), p. 47ff.

26. TS IV 5 5. h, i

27. Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism : An
Historical Sketch, CLondon&New York, 1954), II p. 142 ;
and Julius Eggeling, The Sacapatha Brahmana (Sacred
Books of ths East, Vol. XUils p. 150 ff

28. Wendy D. O'Flahsrtyj Asceticism and Eroticism
in the Mythology of Siva. (London,, 5973), p 83ff.

29. See S. Mowinckel The Psalms in Israel's
Worship. Trans. T. M. Homer, (Philadelphia, 1967).

30. Dom Gregory Dix. The Shape vf the Liturgy,
(London, 1945).

31. See SB (17.3.8; where it is said that ""Agni
is the god known among the eastern peoples as Sarva
(the archerj., among the Sahikas as Bhava (source of
Being", as Pasupati (lord of beasts or cattle), as Rudra
and as Agni " And the commentator, Sayana (Weber^s
edition* p. \ .4) adds., "Although, based upon the
distinction of courtries, there is a distinction of names...
but the god (so-named) is One''. Cf Sankh. Brh.
VI 1 1-9. Again, at S3 I" ?.S it is said that ''the name
Agni is the most auspicious \agnir it\ eva santsm] and
all the others are inauspicious-.

32 The 75 (!! .7 10; presents a legendary account
of the identity betv.een Ruc'ra and Agni. according to
which Agni stole the store of wealth which the gods
had retrieved from the demons and on being forced to
return it, wept (arod/t). From that time Agni came

238

to be known as Rudra (derived from the root,
VTud ~ "to weep"). Cf. TS I 5.1.

33. 5f?e E. W Hopkin's remarks in Epic Mythology*
p 218, n. >, to the effect that Rudra is of the nature
of fire (agnimaya) and Vishnu of the moon (Somatmaka)
and together they constitute the entire world. This
claim is rejected by J. Gonda in his Aspects of Early
V/snu/sm, p. 95f Cf. SB III 6.3 19.

34. Cf. Mbh. VII! 202.41 where the body of Siva
is said to be composed of the dual elements of Agni
and Soma (i.e., fire and nectar); urubhyam ardham
'agneyam somardham ca siva tanuh

35. The precise meaning of this statement is
uncertain because of the multivalence of the term for
"immortal ity' ! (a-mr- fa -"not dead") in Sanskrit literature.
From the time of the Brahmana-s (SB X 4.1.22) the
juice of the Soma plant is identified with the moon,
which itself is conceived as the cup containing the
beverage of immortality. See J Gonda, Change and
Continuity in Indian Religion, (The Hague r
Mouton & Co., 1965), p 58ff. ; G. Dumezil, Le Festin
d'Jmmorta/ite, (Par!?, 1924) p HOff. Since the offering
of Soma plays no role in the Satarudriya - homam, it
would, perhaps, be unjustified to link amrta in this
passage with the Soma offering. Amrta is also identified
by the Vedic poets with ths waters (RV I 23, 19, apsv
antar amrlam] which served as food (VI 49.16 ; III 26 7)
and medicines Cbhesajam] for the gods. The gods are
distinguished from the demons and from human beings
by their possession of amrfe (AV XXX 19.10). the c food
pf life' i$B I 2J.20). The statement that the gods

239

"bestowed upon Agni the ultimate form of immortality"
seems to mean that they provided him with a sacred
abode upon the seven-layered altar and kindled him to
such great heights by means of the sacrificial oblations
that he came to be mystically identified with Rudra.

36. Deva tbibharyuyadhai no yamnahinsyadlti.

37. By presenting Rudra with a cereal grain
representing both cultivated and uncultivated lands,
all areas are protected from the III. effects of his
wrath.

38. Arkaparna Is the name of the leaf of the plant

CaJotrop/cGfgantea 3 \nh\ch was believed to possess sacred

powers and was associated primarily with the rituals

dedicated to the Maruts or Rudras. the offspring and

"doubles- 3 ' of Rudra. Th root-bark was used in

ancient times for medicinal purposes. The ancient

Arabs also held the plant in great reverence and

used it in numerous rites dedicated to the worship

of the sun. It is the Ushar of the Arabs and the

Khark of the Persians- both terms used to designate

milk-yielding plants. Abu Hanifeh was perhaps the

first Arab writer to give an explicit account of the

plant but much more detailed information will be

found in the writings of Ebn Baithar (trans, by

Southeinier^ li. 193>. Arka, a term derived from the

root V arc ' c to shine or blaze r , and by extension,

"to praise, honor or worship", obviously stands in

close symbolic relationship with fire, lightning and

other sources of luminosity (esp. the Sun, to which

arka refers in many instances). The rationale for

employing the arkapama in this rite must rest upon

.the connections in the oblation between the altar-firs
(agni) and Rudra, the representative of Agni in his
sinister aspect. The blazing fire itself is an expression
of the awe-inspiring wrath (krodha, manyu) of Rudra.
Concerning the botanical and medicinal properties of the
e/'/ra-ieaf, consult the following sources : Economic
Botany, Vol 13, pp. 205-42; P. Maheshwari and
S. L. Tandon. Agriculture and Economic Development
in India, 232 ff ; Kew Bulletin, (1900), pp 8-12 ; Revue
horticole. Ser 2, Vol. 3, April. 1844 March !845 a
pp. 1-2.

39. Cf. TB (i T.i.2) where it is related that the
Devas and Asuras were engaged in conflict, whereupon
the gods said to Agni, *,We shall prevail with you as
our champion" to which Agni replied, "I will transform
myself into three aspects. He did so to the end that
Agni became the first part, Rudra, the second and
Varuna, the third.'-'

40. According to J Eggeling (SBE 43, p. 157, n.l)
the arAra-leaf is substituted for the customary sacrificial
ladle perhaps, another feature of this rite that sets it
apart from the rites customarily offered to deities other
than Rudra According to the scholiast on the VS y
Mahidhara, in his gloss on XVI. I, the priest offers
oblations on each of the three fire-stones, holding the
a/Ara-Ieaf in his right hand and a piece of arka-wood in
his left hand

41. I have thus far been unable to discover any
modern botanical studies of this species of grass.

42. The Mbh. iXlll 97. 12) also dictates that
offerings to Soma be presented in the north which is

241

the. location of somaloka (Cf. XII! 102.29) in agreement
with SB Vili 6.1.8.

43. Cf. Ap. SS XVII 11, 4 : i.e.

44. Those lines with double invocations are
presented to the Rudras who are most ferocious and
difficult to appease.

45. By this means the evil effects of Rudra's
presence are expelled from the three levels of the
universe. See Katha Samhlta 21.6 and Kapisthata Katha
Samnita, which uses the verb avayafate, ''he expels by
sacrifice".

46 Consult SB (Vll.37ff.) which relates the
story of the birth or Rudra from the union of
Prajapati and his wife's sister, Usas. See also Sankh.
Br. VI. 1

47. See Say ana's commentary on Rg-veda I 114 1
where he provides six different etymologies for the
word "rudra". He himself prefers the meaning
derived from the Sanskrit root \j7ud - 'to weep'* and
this interpretation has been adopted traditionally by
Indian pandits as the most authoritative derivation.

48. Svaha, the oblation personified, is the
daughter of Daksa uituai dexterity) and the spouse
of Agni (sacrificial fire) but in other contexts the
wife of Rudra-Pasupati as well. See Monier-Williams^
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, (Oxford University Press,
1899), p. 1284.

49. The ^'unstringing formulae" CVS XVI. 54-63)
are recited as verbal counterparts to the corresponding
oblation. See SB (IX 1.1.27 ffj.

50. Notably, the studies of E. Arbman, A.B. Keitht
A. A. Macdonell, et a/.

51. Consult R C. Zaehner, Hinduism, (London,
8962), p. 43. Even a scholar of the erudition and
reputation of J. Gonda failed to stress the implications
of the assertion that Rudra is an ambivalent and
unpredictable deity. See Vishnuism and Sfvaism, p. 4

52. See Richard R. Niebhur, Experiential Religion,
(New York: Harper and Row, 1972;, pp. 77-106, from
which I have drawn much of this interpretation of the
concept of fear.

53. Compare Gautama, the Buddha's doctrine of
dukkha ( = 111, imperfection disease)' which presents
the same sense of ambiguity between fear and hope,
anxiety and confidence as is expressed in Niebuhr's
statement.

54. Ibid., p 94.

55. A highly suggestive paper regarding "the use
of multiple bodily parts to denote the divine", has
just come to my attention, but regrettably too late to
be incorporated in the present study. For an elabora-
tion of the same basic principle discussed in this
paper, consult, Doris Srinivasan, "The Religious
Significance of Multiple Bodily Parts to Denote the
Divine : Finds from the Rig Veda", Asiatische Stud/en /
Etudes Asiatrques XXIX. 2, (1975), pp. 137-79.

consuming fire of Truth f Jnanagn/^ 3 all the beggarly
elements of egotism and desire have been burnt, and
infinite Bliss (ananda} survives, bearing witness to the
Godly nature of man's consciousness (atma).

Thou art the indestructible Bliss, which appears
the instant all the world (Jagat) of thought and the
senses, like nuggets of gold, is dissolved into an
ocean without waves or current.

To this day I have not thus realised Thee/

Can I attain this happiness by only singing Thy
praises in verse ?

When, Lord, wilt Thou establish me in the region
of holiness and grant me, a sinner., the bliss of the
state resulting from non - differentiation ?

Tayurranavar, Panmalai. 9.

The "dissolution" of the "world" (Jagat ', which
occurs to each man as soon as his mind ceases to
differentiate, as soon as all thoughts have run down
to a perfect calm, is also known as the "death" of the
much mistaken Jiva-ahankara (or worldly spirit) which
veils the true Ego (parama-ahankara^, which alone knows
itself and is the basis of all knowledge, temporal and spir-
itual. 5 Another great Sage of South India, who lived
about two thousand years ago, and whose psalms are on
the lips of every cultured Tamil of the present day, well
said,

5. Cf. ''icdwrurr <3560iiLj .35(35 LOT)*! b

10

I became like the dead :
Of all thought was I void ;
None but I remained
1 knew no further change.

Venkadar, Arut putambal, 49.

The Master means to say that when the Jiva-ahankara
for worldly-minded I) dissolved itself by non-differentiation,
the parama -ahankara (or Divine I) stood forth
unchangeable liberated from nescience or worldliness>
and hence known as Jivanmukta. Another Sage sang
as follows,

My heart has hardly throbbed for thee ;
But little have my thoughts dissolved ;
Divorced I am not from the body, so hard to

separate.
I have not died : I am still in a whirl.

The "|" that ought to die is the earth-bound or
worldly Ij that knows not its true status and is therefore
led captive by worldly thoughts. The true Ego (or Atma)
can never die It is eternal.

The death of the worldly or sinning I (Jiva-ahankara}
is the "crucifixion" of the sinner. -the "old Adam.^ 6
When old Adam is crucified, the heaven-born Adam,
the Son of God, the true Ego (parama -ahankara) appears
(I Cor xv. 45, 47).

The words ' world'' (Jagat) and "worldly I" denote
differentiated existence. The sum of human affairs and
interests, or, in a restricted sense, that portion of them

<5f Cf,

which is known to any one, is popularly understood to

be the "world^, which in truth consists of names and

forms onlyj and worldly I exists only when one is

conscious of differentiated names and forms., that is, of

thoughts. The ''end or dissolution of the world"

(nama rupa-nasa)\s thus another expression for the"death"

of the worfdly I. The ''world' dissolving or ending is the

same as the worldly I "dying ; " and the "death"

of the "worldly I" is the same as the "end" of the

"world." These expressions denote cessation from,

differentiation in spiritual communion. When sitting

for worship one is alive to the reports of the senses or is

thinking of the things of flesh or worldly life, he is

in the state of differentiation, which is the opposite of

i/nification, or Peace, or Rest.

The ''world," in the language of Sages, means
everything except pure consciousness ; means not only
the material universe, but also mind and its products
called thoughts, and the senses and objects perceived
by them And God, as Eeing True or Unchangeable,
and the Being who pervades this everchangtng and
therefore untrue "world," cannot be found in the face
of the world Since He is its substrate He will not
reveal Himself, in His own true character as Absolute
Being, if looked for in the "world." We'l has a Master
sung,

O Thou who in all things dost vibrate !

O Thou stainless consumer and container of the
World !

O Thou king of the celestial hosts !
Q Thou the only one, without second !

Though, appealing to Thee aloud. I have sought for
Thee throughout the world <7o/ra),

Yet I have not found Thee there.

Tiruvasakam, Arutpattu, ?.

In His own true nature, as He was before the
beginning of the "world," and will be after its end, He
is to be "seen" (that is, known) only where the "world"
is not, that is, only in the reign of pure consciousness.
Therefore the Master, who declared that God was not
to be found in the "world," proclaimed also that he
found Him elsewhere, in "resplendent Tillai" or the
region of pure consciousness or atma- 1

I found Thee, immaculate and blissful, in resplen-

dent Tillai,

Having overcome the darkness of desire,
The perception of forms, and the thoughts of f 'l'*

and "Mine;"
I, who had been drawn into the vortex of caste,

family and birth, who was worse than a help-

less dog ;
I saw Thee, who had cut away my bonds of misery

and held me to Thy service.
-ib. Kancfapattu, 5. (The ten hymns attesting

knowledge.)

7. Atma here means Paramaatma.
Cf

Jb <$6uijO/r u

The immaculate and formless being of the Deity
"seen-*' beyond the veil of thought, in the region of
pure consciousness, is His unthinkable form, n/shkal*
svarupa- His sakala svarupa or thought-form, assumed
for purposes of grace, is according to the form in which
He has been thought of by the earnest devotee.

The separation of the soul from thought and sensa
impression is known in spiritual communion as
separation from the body or the flash, as attested by
the words of the great Sendanar:

Meditating on the peerless ways in which He led
me captive.

Having separated me from the Body

Which knows not what it is to be established;

Meditating also on the gracious manner in which
He cherishes the faithful 5

Let me sing in praise of Him only who took me
unto Himself, etc.

Sendanar, T/ru-pa/landu, 3-

Another Master sings,

Hear, O Bird, dwelling in groves laden with
luscious fruit!

Raise thy notes to the Giver of all things.,

Who, spurning the celestial regions, appeared
on earth for the purpose of claiming man as
His subject.

14

Pray that the King may come, who spurning the
the fresh entered my soul, made it like Himself
and stood forth the only One.

Tiruvasakam, Kuyilpattu, 4.

"The flesh" or "body" includes not only the
tangible body (sthula sar/ra), but also the subtle body
(sukshma sarira). consisting of those invisible instruments
of knowledge and action which a re -found to function
in various parts of the tangible body. The complete
''spurning of the flesh," therefore, means complete
isolation from the flesh 3 which state is also spoken
of as being wholly "dead to the world" (of thought
and the senses^ When this occurs, the soul becomes
nishkala, immaculate (unspotted by the least rudiments
of the flesh), godlike. Drawing the soul from the
mind-sheath (kosha)orwomb(garbha) in which it has been
encased, God ''frees" or "separates" it from its carnal
bonds and causes it to fce "as Himself." Compare the
wrds of St. Paul, "When it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb, to reveal the Son in
me," etc., Gal. i: 15. This separation from the limitations
of the mind is essential to the spiritual birth of the
Son or Soul (atma). Then only does He, who from
eternity lay hidden in the Soul, become manifest 3 and
manifested, He absorbs the soul by His sun-like glory
and remains "the Only One."

AM the doctrines and practices which are calculated
to lead to the knowledge of the soul, and through that
knowledge to the knowledge of God, are locked up in
the mystic formula atmanam atmena pasya (know the

soul through the soul) 8 , which in the language of Jesus
is represented by the expression, "I (the Spirit) bear
witness of myself (the Spirit)" (John viii: 18.)

It is necessary to try and undesstand in modem
modes of thought the truths that lie embedded in these
most holy formulas' In the darkness of deep sleep
Consciousness is so obscured that it knows nothing,
not even its own existence. When it first awakes
it knows nothing in particular till a vague desire
to know arises within it, and sets the rnind to think,
or the senses to perceive, something. Then begins a
knowledge of some definite thing. But so rapidly
do the senses strike on the Consciousness, and so
constantly do thoughts present themselves from the
moment it wakes to the moment it falls asleep, "that
Consciousness is ''cheated with the blear illusion"
that it is identical with the body. The truth, however,
as experienced by Jnanis is that Consciousness (or the
Knower, or the Soul) is wholly distinct from the mind
(which thinks) and the senses, just as the latter are
distinct from the body. "Separate from the mind
and the senses, yet reflecting the qualities of all of
them, the atma (soul) is the Lord and Ruler
of all" (Svetasvatara Upanishad. iii : 17).
Consciousness or the Soul knows the senses and the
mind, but they are not subtle enough to know the Soul^
their " Lord and Ruler ." It knows itself. Nothing else
can know it. Hence the mandate^, f 'know the soul
through the soul." The soul is a witness (sakshi) unto
itself. The mind (including the reason) and the senses,

8.

being constructed of cosmic stuff or" flesh/' cannot
know the soul 1

It is difficult to establish these truths by reasoning,
for the basis of reasoning is comparison of one thing with
another and drawing inferences therefrom, and there is
nothing in the world without us which may be compared
with the soul within. The only proof possible in these
circumstances is an appeal to the spiritual experience or
actual knowledge of the Spirit of the class of people
called Jnanfs. Their experience declares (I) that the
body is the tabernacle of the Soul and its instruments;
(2^that the mind(or the subtle organs of thought) and the
senses are the instruments of the Soul, whereby
the Soul is brought into relation with the objective
world ; (3) that the mind is not subtle enough
to know the Soul ; (4) that the Soul may be
freed from its primeval taint 9 of evil or worldliness;
(5)that when freed from evil or worldliness the soul
knows itself as naturally as the bound soul knows
the mind and the world without ; and (6) that peace
(or infinte love, irrespective of objects of love)
and knowledge of (or power of knowing., irrespective of
objects of knowledge) are the fundmental features of the
freed soul.

How few among us recognise even the first named
of these truths! Metaphysicians of repute have argued
that the rnind, so far from using the body as its
instrument, is only a property, power, or function of the
body. Professor Bain, desiring to follow a middle
course, defines man to be "an extended and material

9, This .Is Aanava-mala.

17

mass, attached to which is the power of becoming alive
to feeling and thought, the extreme remove from all
that is material" (Mind and Body <p. 137); and
observes that the contention that the mind
uses the body as its instrument "assumes
for mind a separate existence, a power of fiving apart,
an option of working with or without a body. Actuated
by the desire of making itself known, and of playing
a part in the sphere of matter, the mind uses its
bodily ally to gratify this desire ; but if it chose to be
self-contained, to live satisfied with its own
contemplations, like the gods as conceived by Aristotle,
it need not enter into cooperation with any physical
process, with brain, senses, or muscular organs. I wilf hot
reiterate the groundlessness of this supposition. The
physical alliance is the very law of our mental being ;
it is not contrived purely for the purpose of making our
mental states known ; without it we should not have
mental states at all" (ib., p. 132).

The learned Professor's criticisms abound with
difficulties of his own creation, which however do not
affect the truths of spiritual experience. By the light
of this experience, the Soul (or the I that knows)
is found to be very different from the mind
whose function is to think. It will be readily admitted
that it is not the senses 'Jnanendr/yas) but
the internal faculties of thought (antahkaranas) that think. o
The Jr.anis declare that the invisible organ of thought and
the other invisible organs of breath, nutrition,
and action, which in co- relation form the subtle body
(sukshma sarira] of the soul and function in di-fferent
parts of the tangible body, are in the nature of a

.Covering or sheath (kosha) of the soul, being "bound"
to it by the "worldliness" or folly inherent in the
soul (J/vatma). From olden times, they say,the soul
(Jivatma) was permeated with this feeling of want and
craving and lay in a stifled condition. For the merciful
purpose of liberating the soui from this pitifully
obscured condition. God evolved the world out of
worldly rudiments and endowed the soul, firstly,
with the "mind-and-breath mechanism" called the
subtle body, and secondly, with the tangible body
as the mud-home of the subtle body, and so
brought it into relation with the outer world.
The craving or greed for gratification thus became
(through the "subtle body") the desires of touch, taste,
hearing, sight, and smell, and the desires of the intellect.
The mind-and-breath organism has, therefore, been called
a 'lamp," or instrument of illumination to the obscured
sou!. When the light of true knowledge, let into the soul
through the channels of the mind and the senses, dispels
by degrees the density of the worldly taint or ignorance
inherent in the soul, the mind and the senses find Jess
and less enjoyment in the field of carnality. It is within
our every-day experience that, with the gradual decline
of desire for anything, our thoughts on that subject
become fewer and less active, and it is only natural
that when all desires are eschewed, thoughts should
run down to a complete calm. This truth is expressed
in the formula nirasa (or non desire) is samadhi (peace).
All "enlightened" men, that is men consciously admitting'
light and thus actively wearing off, atom by atom, the
density of their cravings, are on the high road to samadhi
They are destined to speedily enter the spiritual kingdom'
the holy and blissful region of pure consciousness. '

The converse proposition, that the practice of th*
art of pacifying thoughts leads to attainment of n/rasa,
that is, emancipation from desire, is found to be equally
true. Without tarrying on this part of the subject it is
needful only to say thati as the effacement of all
desire causes thought to disappear, leaving the soul
serene and limitlessly conscious. Mr. Bain's question
whether the mind may have a separate existence,
and in that state of independence possess an option
of working with or without the body, admits of
a ready answer. If all desires have been permanently
expunged from the soul, tha mind be:omes quite
inactive and has no power over the body.

Such a contingency occurs only in the case of that
class of Jnanis known as Brahma-varishta, who by
unceasing spiritual communion have isolated themselves
from desire so completely that it never rises from
the expanse of consciousness in any form whatever.
The only indications that they are not dead are warmth
in the body and growth of hair and nails, if clipped.
The senses do not perceive, the mind does not think,
in this state. Though daad in the worldly sense, they
are not dead spiritually. They live on from year to year
without food or drink.

A less advanced Jnani is the Brahma Varyan, in
whom desire is not completely annihilated. Therefore
he is able to rest in Samadhi only for limited periods,
emerging therefrom for a short while, during which
devotees revive his recollection of earthly affairs and
pray for blessings Granting them, he again relapses
into the peaceful state. The late Raja Rajendralalt

20

Mitra, one of the most distinguished sons of India, c
said that in 1842 he saw a Jnani whom some wood- e
choppers had brought up to Calcutta from the forests of i
.the Sunderbunds. The saint was found sitting cross- \
legged under a lofty banian tree, admidst a wild profusion c
of heavy roots, which in course of growth had entwined t
themselves round his limbs. The "fools and blind" $
cleared the wood and carried the Sage, dead as he d

was to the worldt to Calcutta, where he was taken s

possession of by two men even more ignorant than the ^

wood-choppers., for unable to rouse him "by shouting., n

pushing, and beating, they put fire into his hand and
plunged him into deep water in the Ganges with a rope
about his neck, as though he were a ship's anchor,
and twice kept him there all night. They pried his
tetanus jaws apart, put beef into his mouth/ and poured
brandy down his throat. Finally, to prove their own
shamelessnessj and to make their memory hateful for \

ever, this Hindu Raja and this Englishman set upon. the
poor saint an abandoned creature of the other sex to
pollute him with her unholy touch.'" (Colonel Olcott's .

Lecture at the Town Hall of Calcutta in 1882 on
'Theosophy,the Scientific Basis of Religion"JAt last by

violent methods they awoke him, and ail he said was, in

"0 Sirs, why did you disturb me? I have done you no f

harm." Shortly after, he attained Vldeha Mukti or in

liberation from the sthula and sukshma bodies. ^

A third class of Jnanis is represented by the Brahma *

Varan, who suspends mind and breath for a few days at a J

time, returning to the ways of life readily at the close of ti
the Samacfhf

By far the largest number of Jnanis, however, belong .*

to the class of the Brahma Vid, who isolates himself

_ few hours each day, not necessarily
These are the saints who are most
world, because all their thoughts run
fruitfulness in the groove of paropakaram
others. Jesus is a brilliant example of this
-Edition to knowledge of God, he possessed
i ritual powers) of a very high order. When
,-y-iuch into the vortex of worldly life he
Lj de for the purpose of reestablishing
tn e fulness of peace. He went up into a

art to pray He was there alone"

23) is often said of Jesus. He is also said
last asleep on board a ship when a great
blowing and covering the craft with
Matt, viii r '4). Even a drunken man
returned to his sober senses in such rolling
ig r creaking and roaring, -'but Jesus was
e was really in Samadhf, "dead to the world"
and the senses. His disciples were able to
out of that peaceful state, only because his
'I lurking in the soul, stirred and set the
reath mechanism in motion, as demonstrated
of the ill-treated saint of the Sunderbunds.lt is
th realising that even the best of desires are.,
on to Peace, a burden. The blissfulness
nfi nltely superior to un-rest, however refined,
ol utely good, and all forms of Un-rest, from
. a re bad in relation to Rest. Therefore did
m a memorable occasion, feeling the desecra-
'est, "Why callest thou me good? There is no
but one, that is God" (Mptt* xix : T6).
also do men who have tasted of -that: Rest
clfned to go back to it, as to a haven, from,

w - , ._.. r-'-'

22

the agitations of thought, the troubles and turmoils of
lift, and to stand alone quite isolated from all that is
worldly.

This "alone becoming" of the soul, known in India
as Kaivalya, is what is indicated by the Greek phrase
monogenes huios in John i : 18, rendered inappropriately
in English as ! 'the only-begotten son." How can Jesus
Christ be considered the only son of God, when
he himself taught the doctrine that others also could
be as perfect as God in love (Matt, v : 48), and as
gifted as himself in miraculous powers (ib. xvii : 20A
It will also be borne in mind that St. Paul said
that it was possible for all men by due culture to
attain the fulness of Christ. (Eph iv : 13). Nor
must it be forgotten that Jesus took pains to expose
the popular fallacy that Christ was the son of David
(Matt, xxii : 42). "What think ye of Christ ?' he
asked of the Pharisees. They said, ''He is the son
of David." If he be the son of David, said Jesus,
how is it that David addresses him as Lord in
Ps. cxi ? Is it customary for a father to call his son
Lord ? They answered not a word, and verse 46 records
"neither durst any man from that day forward ask
him any more questions." Jesus meant to say that,
though flesh was necessary to produce flesh, Christ
was not flesh, and Christ, being pure Spirit, did not
need a fleshly father like David to beget him.
He expressly said that Christ was "before Abraham*'
(John viii : 58). who lived many centuries before
David. Christ is the Sou! that has been freed from
its bondage to worldliness, and blesstd with the
knowledge of God. "Truth (or grace of God) shalf

23

you free/' said Jesus (John viii : 32). '"Sanctify
through thy Truth,' he cried fJohn xvii i 17',
ds ne himself was sanctified (John x : 36).
stand alone, quite isolated from all that is worldly,
Santi'm Sanskrit, from which Sanctification comes.

The experiences of Jnanfs of the different degrees
Rest or "death unto the world," as above described,
to make it clear to "learned philosophers" that
mind and the senses are but instruments of the
and that, if desire were wholly eliminated from
soul, the mind and the sense organs would fall
on the bosom of the soul, even as a spinning
top falls on the ground as soon as its force is exhausted.
-ffiis is one of th most certain facts known in Samadhi,

When the mind, ceasing to whirl, falls like a top
which has spent its force,

Just then, the gloom of ignorance dispelled,

Did I know myself, independent, like unto space,
devoid of light and shade?

Did I then, joining myself with the Infinite Peace
which lies within me^pass into the trans.
cendingly blissful state?

Tayumanavar, Tejomayananditmj, 4.

A few more words may be added in explanation
of atmanam, atmana pasya. We knowj as a fact,, that
we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell ; and we know
also that we think. The expressions, '! know that I
f eel, " " I know that I desire,""! know that I think,"
mean only that one is cpnsc : Q-js of those states of be ing.-

24

-namely, the states of feeling, of desiring, of thinking.
Consciousness, therefore, is the Be-ing which knows,
and must not be confounded with the states or
sensibilities induced in consciousness through the
excitation of the senses and thoughts. When such
sensibilities are discarded what remains is consciousness
pure, which soon overflows in all directions, boundlessly,
like the rays of the sun through space. This experience
is known as atma purana* meaning literally, in the words
of St. Paul, the fulness of the spirit. This is the liberated
soul <atm& in moksha\ the Be-ing, the "I am, " which
partakes of the "glory of God : known as Saccidananda,
that is, sat, eternal unchangeable existence; eft, pure
consciousness, infinitely- expanded ; ananda, bliss or
absolute peace. In plain words when consciousness is
purified to the requisite degree, it is found as matter of
fact (I) to survive all phenomena and remain unchange-
able ; (2) to possess the knowledge that is not limited
by time or place ; and (3) to overflow with an unspeak-
able repose and love for all living beings, the like of
which is unknown in any other state

European science admits the world of the senses
(the 'sensible" world, as it is called), and the world
of thought {the '"extra-sensible" world), and is quite
familiar with their laws and conditions ; but it refuses
to acknowledge the worldI would rather say, the
region -of pure consciousness (the "supra-sensible''
world). "We cannot say," wrote the late Mr G. H. Lewes,
"that a supra-sensible world is impossible ; we can
only say that, if it exists, it is to us inaccessible''
(Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I, p. 270.) And
Professor Bain declares that in the senses and thoughts

23

"we have an alphabet of the knowable.-but we cannot
by any effort pass out of the compass of the primitive
sensibilities" (Sec. 19 of the chapter on the Physio-
logical Data of Logic). The denial of the region of
pure consciousness the (Jnana Bhumi , because of its
fancied inaccessibility to experience, is a notoriously
false argument. Mr. Lewes himself having pointed out
elsewhere that, "before a fact could be discredited by
its variance from one's notion, the absolute accuracy of
the notion itself needed demonstration'' (rob!ems,
etc . i 353).

No further emphasis is now required to bring home
the fact that the existence of the region of pure
consciousness is not a matter of theory or speculation.
This state of "godliness" is indeed a 'mystery" fas
attested by St Paul In I Tim. iii : V 6), in the sense of
being beyond human comprehension until it is explained
and realised, it is within the actual experience
(Svanubhava] ofJnan/s, and is known to them as Brahmi
sthiti. or Siva-loka, or chitambara, or chitakasa, the
blessed state, the spiritual kingdom. 10 the Kingdom of God,
the reign of infinite consciousness or light. It is the most
real cf all regions, because when it is reached it is found
to be further irresolvable, hence unchangeable, that is,
everlasting. It is, moreover, strictly verifiable in
experience that is, attainable by others, provided that
by native disposition and previous culture, one is
sympathetic enough to persevere in all earnestness
and faith in the way marked by the Master.

When this state is attained, then will be realised
in actual experience the truth that God is in the soul,

-J.Q, AJso known as pakaraakaasa.

26

Upon this spiritual experience is founded the doctrine
of "God In me, and / in God "

Both the Vedas and Agamas teach this doctrine in
those parts of them which are called Jnana Khwda
(the section that relates to spiritual enlightenment).

The Agamas sre a graduated elaboration of the
four Vedas' and are known as the fifth Veda. The
final or eternal truths re/atirig to God. having been
revealed to the Jnanis the way of attaining God has
been worked out in the Agamas under four principal
stages known as charya (good conduct), kriya
(symbolical worship), yoga \ subjective union
through sense control, breath control, and thought
control), and Jnana (hearing and understanding
the principles of eternal life.). The charya stage
is called san-marga, or the good way of lawful or
ethical conduct, in which God is distantly or vaguely
conceivedj the kriya stage is dasa marga, or the way
of the servant, in which God is conceived as Master
or King ; the yoga stage is putra marga, or the way of
the son, in which God is viewed as Father ; and the
jnana stage is saha marga, or the way of the friend
and equal, in which Soul is considered to be strivina
for fellowship with God.

The final or eternal truths are known in the Vedas
and

bean given them, marked by some one or more of the
features of the stages above named- Some religions
do not carry their votaries beyond the stage of ethical
conduct;others not beyond ritual worship; very few
teach subjective union; and only one at the present
day is able to impart a full knowledge of those principles
and practices which result- in the actual attainment of
God. Xs spiritual thought gets mixed with error in the
progress of years, owing to the imperfections of the
minds of those who receive and give out such thought,
religions become materialised and intolerant of each
other Hence come diversities and conflicts. Such
religions parish with the people who hive perverted
the original germs of truth

It matters not in what land or sphere of society a man
is born if in humble spirit he acts up to the faith he was
born in. In due time he will be moved to a higher form
of faith, and so onward from one life to another, till all
his thoughts get centred in God. Life and death are
like waking and sleeping. As the same being that is
awake sleeps and wakes again, so he that lives dies/
to live again on earth till full knowledge of God is

II Siva Bhakti

[The following essay formed part of a thesis written by Nicol-
Macnicol for the the Degree of Doctor of Letters of the University
of Glasgow. The enlarged version of that thesis appeared in the
form of a book entitled "Indian Thesism From TheVedicTo The
Muhammadan Period" in 1915. The author would have revised his
work thoroughly if he had had the opportunity of perusing
R. G. Bhandarkar's Vaishnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious
Systems (1913). In fact the author had expressed his regret for
not having done so. Even in 1913, Nicol Macnicol had sent his work
to the press.

The author had endeavoured to grasp the tenets of Saivism.
He could have succeeded substantially if only he had shed his
prejudices. The work, is therefore marred by errors and misinter-
pretations. These notwithstanding, the work is jiot without its
value.

Nicol Macnicol, the author of a number of treatises on
Hinduism, was a Protestant Missionary. Ed.]

Of all the deities of the Hindu pantheon, Siva seems
the one least likely, to attract a theistic devotion. A
large portion of the materials that have gone to his
making has its source in the darkest fears and supersti-
tions of the savage. The fact that even about this
ghoulish god, more devil than deity, who battens upon
corpses, and smears himself with a<--hes from the
burning-ground, has gathered a gracious affection that
has been able to remould an object so repulsive nearer
to its heart's desire, is in itself a remarkable testimony
to the strength in the Indian peoples of the theistic
instinct That Vishnu and Krishna have attracted to them.
selyes a spiritual worship, and that they have been th

means of awakening such a worship in those who
gather to their temples, does not seem so surprising.
There is comparatively little to repel in them They were
bright gods, gods of light and life and hope, deliverers,
if not yet fully moralized., yet capable of moralization.
But the human spirit has surely seldom found material
harder to sub-due to its purpose of devotion than was
Siva. It is one of the most amazing facts in Indian
religion a religion full of strangeness that out of the
dry ground of Saivism has sprung a root that has borne
the blossom of the devotion of the South Indian Saivite
saints. Though Theism in India has in the end proved
so ineffectual, though adverse influences in soil and
spiritual climate have rendered it on the whole an abor-
tive growth., yetj with the evidence of its transforming
power that these poet saints afford us. we cannot
question its depth and its reality within the Indian spirit,
nor refuse to hope for it, under more favourable circum-
stances, results greater and more enduring.

There can be no question that Siva is in the main
not Aryan but aboriginal. That name is nowhere a proper
name in the Rig or the Atharva Veda, but is applied as an
epithet^ f the auspicious' to Rudra, the nearest of kin
to him among the Vedic deities. From this god of the
storm Siva inherited many characteristics which helped
to exalt the malignant demon to something less
unworthy of an Aryans worship. 1 The adoption of this
euphemistic name is itself an indication of an attempt

1 With the development of the Rudra-Siva god-idea
compare the development of Enlil in Babylonian religion,
Jastrow's Religious Belief In Babylonia and Assyria,

30

to civilize a deity always terrible/ but not always worthy
of reverence. His aboriginal name may have been
Bhairava 'the fearful' or some similar designation. Siva^
as a matter of fact.like most of the Indian gods, is a very
composite product,but one which more than most is made
up of widely diverse, and even irreconcilable elements-
It need not indeed, surprise us greatly to find that
pantheistic speculation was able to make use of this
deity even more, perhaps than of Vishnu as the symbo
of the ultimate Brahman* Moral attributes, or the lack
of them, in its god, mattered neither more nor less to a
doctrine in which the god was after all only a label and
a superfluity. Siva by his very force and fury was
fitted^ not inaptly^ to represent that power in the
universe which causelessly destroys and causelessly
creates. When the conflict arose in South India between
Buddhists and Jains, on the one hand, and the adherents
of Siva, on the other, the arguments against the
existence of this god that the unbelievers urged were
much the same as those which, when we consider
the character attributed to him, appear to us to. day so
powerful. The Jains and Buddhists represent the claims
of the moral sense, and they ask, 'How can this demon
be the life of the soul of all?' 1 But these arguments made
little impression on the Saivite philosophers. Their
doctrine, as we find it in the polemic carried on in the
South against those opposing systems, was a philosophy
closely approximating to the Advaita Vedanta, and In
consequence those objections carried little weight which
were based upon the character of a deity that was to
them secondary and, indeed, superfluous. After all, Siva
was like enough to the wild moods nd unmoral

I Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 177.

activitie$ of nature. It may quite possibly be the case
that Sankaracarya beloged, as is alleged, to this sect.
To the schools of the philosophers Siva was as good
a name for an otiose deity, as good a label for the
deceiving world processes as any other.

It is far more surprising to find the name of Siva,
even in the period of the Upanisads, associated with
other and more ethical streams of tendency. We have
el ready seen how theistic currents that we discover
moving with scanty and uncertain flow through th
speculations and intuitions of these books precipitate
themselves at last in richer volume into the religion
of the Bagavadgita. There these doctrines gather
about the names of Vishnu and of Krishna. A similar
place to that of the Gita in Vaishnavism is held in
Saivism by the Svetasvatara Upanisacf. In this Upanisad
along with much that, just as in the Gita, seems
irreconcilable with an ethical Theism, there are certain
elements which indicate that the influences at work in
that direction in Vaishnavism were not absent from
the doctrine and the worship of the rival cult. If
we find in this Upanisad the names maya and
mayin they have not yet their Advaita significance. 1
Always in Saivism, even more than in Vaishnavism.,
there is implied a sense of the world's unreality in
comparison with the reality of spirit, a feeling which
is indeed, universal in Indian thought while at
the same time to a still greater degree there is
implied a sense of the divine transcendence. Already.,
indeed, in the Rig Veda, Rudra is the 'great Asura

1, Svet.Up.\\I.9.

32

of heaven, * and, as such, he is the 'possessor of
occult power' (maya}* In the Svetasvatara he has
definitely assigned to him the role, which, in later times,,
was generally associated with the name of Siva,
of the deity of agnosticism. 'No one has grasped
him above or across^ or in the middle. There is no
image of him whose name is Great Glory.' 4 This, as
well as other things in this Upanisad, reminds us of
the attitude of Buddhism As in the case of Buddhism
the state of deliverance, 'when the light has risen', is a
state alike 'beyond existence and non-existence'. 5 At
the same time the theistic note is distinctly struck
in the designation of the all-pervading Atman as not
only Siva, but Bhagavat/ and in the emphasis
that is placed, on the one hand, upon his perception
by the heart as well as by the mind, 7 and on the othe^
upon man's need, if he would preceive him, of the grace
of the Creator 8 . But especially significant is the
explicit declaraiton in the final verse of this Upanisad
that, in order that the truths there enunciated may 'shine
forth indeed", they must be told 'to a high-minded man
who feels the highest devotion (bhaktf) for his guru as
for God J . Here for the first time in conneAion with
Saivism the claims of bhaktf-and implicitly the claims of
theistic religion are authoritatively affirmed. However
indistinguishable in its phraseology the teaching of this
Upanisad may seem at times to be from that of those that

2. R. V. II. 1.6.

3. Macdonell's Vedfc Mythology, p. 156.

4. Svel. Up. |V.i9 5. Ibid , IV. 18

6 ' lbid ' ' n 7. Ibid., III. 13; IV. 20.

8. Ibid., 111. ;o 9. Ibid, VI 23

present a pure Advaita doctrine 3 this affirmation
definitely demonstrates that its face is turned to another
direction. We may not have here the fully articulated
bhakt! pf the later theologians^ but we have
enough to indicate that the supreme spirit is for
it a personal Being who wins the worship of
the heart. l This Upanisad, it is true, like the Gita, speaks
with a double tongue, and its philosophy is really at
variance with its religion ; but, with whatever inconsis-
tency, the glow of the heart which it demands of the
disciple, ard which it prescribes as necessary for his
attainment of immortality, proclaims it as a theistic
scripture.

In the Mahabharata there is little to indicate the
place that Siva was to obtain in the worship of South
Indian saints of a later day. We find his name extolled
by the sectary in opposition to that of Vishnu ; we find
him claimed as the manifestation of the All-god, in echo
of a like claim made by the adherents of the rival deity
But there is little that is of religious value or interest in.
such conflicts of the sects. These things are the doings
of the priest or of the philosopher^ and may have little
enough of faith behind them. Two passages of the Epic
may, however, be referred to as indicating the character
of Siva-worship in its more inward aspect, apart from
its more philosophic doctrines on the one hand, and its
orgiastic ritual on the other. In one passage Siva, in
agreement with the view suggested already in the
Svetasvatara, and referred to above, is described as the
inconceivable one, who is 'beyond the comprehension of
all gods'. J The fact that this agnostic attitude has

1. S. B. E. XV, p. xxxiv. ~ '

2. Mbh. VII. 202: 79,71.

34

persisted down to modern times among the worshippers
of Siva is indicated by the existence of those Saivite
sects that are called Alakhnamis or Alakhgirs, as those
who 'call upon the name of the Unseeable' . l Such a
conception would at once help to exalt the god, and at
the same time would hinderthe development of his worship
into a truly ethical Theism. It would be easier to
associate so vague a deity with the Advaita doctrine, as
indeed Siva frequently was associated., than with a
worship which requires love and obedience. To love
God and to trust Him it is necesssary that one in some
measure at least should know Him, Further on, in the
same passage of the Mahabharata, which designates
Siva as the Unknowable his 'form' is said to be the
linga. 1 Perhaps the adoption of this symbol, which
may be much more ancient than this passage for
a god of whom 'there is no image' 3 may have been
due to an attempt to express the inexpressible. Repulsive
as the phallic emblem may appear to us., and as it no
doubt was in its religious origin, it is possible that
we have it here made use of as the medium of a
protest -which we see later repeating itself in the case
of the Lingayats against idolatry, 4 But the half may prove
the enemy of the whole. The symbol was unworthy
enough at best, and was too easily adopted as a mere
fetish by the ignorant.

1. See E. R. E. \ } p. 276, s. v. Alakhnamis.

2. Mbh. VII. 202: 94, 97. 3. Svet. Up. IV. 19.
4. Compare the worship of Ashur in Assyrian

religion under the form of a winged disk and the advance
that this implied towards a more spiritual religion.
Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria*

But it '
fully into '
itself at its
this shoulcJ
the most I
larger abor
than in ar
worship, W m
to demon*
thrown,
vanquished
those old
Brahmanic
this part o
that this c
If the conj
not Krishna
well found
fourth ce
throughout
the same <
dynasty w
dynasty \A/J
Buddhism '
while Jai r
widely spi
the Pandy;
century /X
Buddhism
especially
this regior
these rival
victory res

But it was in South India that Saivism entered most
fully into its own, and it is there that it has disclosed
itself at its best, and also, perhaps, at its worst. That
this should be the case is not surprising, if Saivism is
the most largely aboriginal of the Indian cults, since a
larger aboriginal element has survived in the South
than in any other part of India. The old Dravidian
worship, which was probably for the most part offered
to demonic powers, was never here completely over-
thrown. The Aryan victor was, indeed, ultimately
vanquished and his bright gods driven from the field by
those old deities or demons of the underworld. When
Brahmanic influences began to make themselves felt in
this part of India it was with the name of Rudra-Siva
that this demonolatry could most easily ba assimilated.
If the conjecture that the Heracles of Megasthenes was,
not Krishna, as has been generally supposed, but ?iva, be
well founded, then it would appear that already in the
fourth century B. C. this religion was established
throughout South India. It is possible that we have in
the same connexion an indication that the Pandyan
dynasty was originally Saivite, as certainly the Chola
dynasty was at a later date. In the third century B. C.
Buddhism was also introduced by Buddhist missionaries,
while Jainism appears early in the Christian era already
widely spread throughout the South, and later numbered
the Pandya kings among its adherents. By the seventh
century A- D , when Hiuen Tsang travelled in India,
Buddhism was rapidly disappearing, while Saivism, and
especially Jainism, were the popular faiths in
this region. In the struggle for predominance between
these rivals, which continued for several centuries, the
victory rested with Saivism. It was, in fact^ a conflict

between the religious and the non-religious spirit, and.
however able and erudite the Jain champions might be,
the strength of religion in the Hindu heart was too
great for them. Whether it was Vaishnavism, now also
established among the South Indian cults, or Saivism.
that championed the cause of faith, the wordly wisdom '
of the Jain was sure to be ultimately worsted. This
was made the more certain in the case of Saivism by
two reinforcements that came to it, and strengthened it
in different and complementary ways. These were, on
the one hand, the formulation of its doctrines in the
system of the Saiva Siddhanta, and,, on the other, a
great revival of devotion within its borders due to a
remarkable group of saints and apostles.

At times of controversy, especially, it is a great
strength to any faith to have the support of an articulated
system. It is then able, in opposition to its rivals, to
appeal to reason. A philosophy or a formulated theology
brings along with it to any religion an immense
enhancement of prestige. Its emergence generally implies
besides that the cult in question, which may have begun
as a movement in the hearts of the common people,
perhaps as an effort of revolt from the established
Church, has now won a place among the more cautious
and the more reflective. Saivism, indeed, as the
existence of the. Svetasvatara reminds us, had long ago
found an entrance among the thinkers. But that was
in more northern regions. In South india it had to
begin anew from the beginning purifying itself as best
it might from gross superstition, building itself up to
better things upon the foundation of a sincere devetion.
When it was able to appropriate to itself a doctrinal
system rt obtained it, in the opinion of some schola rs

from Saivite thinkers whose home was in the far north
of India. Just as, later, Ramananda was to bear from
the South a torch of devotion that was to spread its
heat and light far and wide throughout the North, so it
may be that at this earlier period by a gift from the north
to the south this debt was by anticipation repaid It was
a different gift one of the intellect, whereas the other
was of the heart -but its effect was similar, for It
helped to secure for theistic religion the victory in the
struggle with Jainism.

If this view is well founded it was from Kashmir that
South Indian Theism received this reinforcement. The
links in the connexion of the Saivite theology of that
far northern province with the religion that was
struggling for its life in the south it is impossible now
to discover. The founder of the Kashmir school of Saivism,
which, in all probability, owed much to the Svetasvattra,
is said to have been Vasugupta. Between the ninth and
the eleventh centuries of the Christian era various teachers
of Saivite doctrine arose, representing, no doubt, different
shades of approximation to the orthodox Advaita. Of these
one of the most famous is Abhinavagupta, who flourished
at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh
centuries, and whose teaching is said to be 'in all
essentials identical with the orthodox Siddhantam of
the Dravidian South.' 1 In the opinion of Dr. L D Barnett
those theological ideas of the north 'following the natural
geographical route, filtered down southwards' till they
reached Kanara where, thus reinforced, the old Saivite
religion rose in revolt against the dominant Jainism, and
in the middle of the twelfth century brought its supremacy

l f t.D. Barnett in L$ Museon, X, p. Ill,

38

to an end. This is supposed to have taken place in the
time of Basava, minister about 1160-70 to the Kalachuri
king, Bijjala of Kalyanpura. The effect of this revolt
was the establishment in Kanara of the Lingayat faith 5
but the influence of the Kashmir doctrine did not end
here. The new energy that it awakened in Saivism in
Kanara spread still further south, and produced in the
Tamil country that Saiva Siddhanta. which is claimed
by Dr. Pope, even as Vaishnavism is claimed by other
students, 'as the most elaborate, influential and
undoubtedly the most intrinsically valuable of all the
religions of india-^ 1

We need not suppose, even if this very doubtfut
debt were proved., that this religious philesophy was
altogether borrowed from those northern theologians.
There are said to have been twenty-eight Agamas, which
contained the principles of Saivismj 2 and if, this tradition
is at all reliable, the inference is that., however the Saiva
Siddhanta may have been reinforced from the north, it
had already arisen independently in the south, and had
for some generations been engaging the minds of
Dravidian thinkers. Of these Agamas, which are said
by Manikka-vasagar, who lived in the tenth or eleventh
century, to have been caused to appear by the grace
of Siva, little or nothing is known. The systematic account
of the Saiva Siddhanta, which Meykandar gives in his

1. Pope's T/ruvasagam, p.lxxiv.

2. We need not, however, accept the tradition that
the total number of verses in them was 20, iOO, 010,
193, 884, 000, as Nija-guna-siva-yogin is said to
.allege. The Search after God (Brahma Mimasa], p. 10-

Siva-nana-bodham *, composed about the begining of,
the thirteenth century, is however a paraphrase of a
dozen Sanskrit stanzas alleged to form part of the
Rauragama.'* From these documents, as well as from
the works of Arunandi and Umapati, who belong to
the fourteenth century, and from the commentary on
the Brahma Sutras, by Srikantha, who is said to have
been Sri Sankaracarya's 'senior and contemporary', 8 we
can judge of the theistic character of this doctrine, and
how far it was able to free itself from the Advaita
influences so strong in the north

Whether in Kashmir, or in the Tamil south, the Saiva
system centres round a trinity of names, Pat/, the Lord, pasu
the flock, and pasa, the bond. These names carry us back
to the ancient sources of the religion, reminding us that
Rudra in the Vedic Hymns is pasupati, and reminding us
also of what is of better promise for an ethical Theism
that in the same poems Varuna, as the moral Governor,
is said to lay fetters (pasa} upon the sinner. Siva is the
Lord, 'exalted above the Abyss' that is, above all that
partakes of maya and yet 'abiding in all that moves and
all that moves not' 4 That souls may reach his state,
his Sakti gathers them in. Our Lord is, nevertheless, one
and indivisible.' 5 The Supreme Divinity manifests him-

1. Or SNa-Jnana-bodha.

2. LD. Barnett in Le Museon, X, p 272.

3. The Search after God (Brahma Mfmamsa^, p. 24.
This is a translation of part of a commentary on
Nilkantha's Bhashya on the Vedanta Sutras.

4. Abhinavagupta's Paramarthasara. translated by
L. D. Barnett in J. /?. A. S., July 1910.

5. Umapati in Pope's Tiruvasagam, p, Ixxvij,

40

self and operates in the universe through his energy,

which is to Siva as fight is to the sun. Thus, as so

often in other systems, it is sought by a doctrine of

emanation to bridge the gulf between the infinite and

the finite. The 'flock' consists of innumerable souls, who

are under the bondage of a three-fold fetter ahavam or

darkness, maya, which to the southern Saivite, at least,

is generally not illusion but matter, 'the material of all

embodiment*, 1 and forma- 'As an earthen vessel has the

potter as its first cause, the clay as its material cause,

and as its instrumental cause the potter's staff and wheel,

so the universe has mays for its material cause, the sakti

of Siva for its instrumental cause, and the Lord Siva

himself as its first cause.' 1 This Siva is the f sole,

Redeemer of souls'. 3 According to the teaching of

Abhinavagupta there are three classes of those who

have obtained deliverance, the para muktas, who are

'assimilated to the supreme Siva- 5 , the apara muktas>

united to him in his manifested phase, and the //van

muktas, who are still in the body. 4 'Redemption

(moksha'f, says this teacher, 'is the revelation of the

powers of Self when the bond of ignorance is burst.- 5

'There is nothing distinct from the redeemed to which

he should offer praise or oblation ' 'He worships with

the pure substance of reflection on the Self the blessed

deity who is the supreme reality.' 5 In its formulation in tne

South more emphasis seems to have been laid uppn the

fact that in the state of emancipation there is 'conscious

1. Pope's Naladiyar, chap. xi.

2. Pope's Tiruvasagam, p Ixvi.

3. The Sear/7 after God (Brahma Mimamsa)> p. 4,

4. Le Museon, X, p. 276.
$. J.H.A* S. t July 1910.

full enjoyment of Siva's presence' 1 than in the northern
doctrine. 'In supreme felicity', says Umapati, 'thou shalt
be one with the Lord.' But, he goes on, 'the soul is not
merged in the Supreme, for if they become one^ both
disappear ; if they remain two there is no fruition ; there-
fore there is union and non-union. 1 '

The difference between the doctrine of the Kashmir
thinkers and that of the Saivite philosophers of the south
seems to be similar to that which we find to separate the
colder thought of the Upanisads from later theistic
speculation. This difference is due in both cases, no
doubt, to the atmosphere in which the philosophy tdok
shape. In the midst of the fervour of devotion of the
southern saints the speculations of the thinkers found a
new warmth and colour. More emphasis was laid on the
personality of the Supreme Deity and on the conscious
bliss of those who attain to deliverance. This is
especially seen in the large place that is given in the
southern religion, and in its theology to the thought of
the grace of Siva. 'In the Siddhanta', says Dr. Pope,
'very great stress is laid upon the idea that all embodiment,
while it is painful and to be got rid of as soon as possible
is yet a gracious appointment of Siva, wrought out
through sakti for the salvation of the human soul, through
the destruction of deeds, which are the root of all evil to
mankind ' 3 In this system, as, we have seen, he is else-
where also, Siva is the Unknowable, 'whom the heavenly
ones see not'. 4 But he mainfests himself in his gracious,

1. Pope's Ttruvasagam, p. xliv.

2. Op. cit., p. Ivii.

3. Op. cit, p. 254.

4 Mrnapati In op. cit. f p. Ixxjx,

emancipating sakti. Only by the grace of the great Guru
does the sou! see and seeing, 'hide itself in the mystic
light of wisdom.' The fainting soul will resort to
the shadow of Grace of its own accord.' 1 'To
those who draw not nigh, he gives no boon ; to
those who draw nigh, all good ; the great
Sankara knows no dislike,' 2 This doctrine of grace
supplies the chief incentive to devotion in this
system, and corresponding to it is the response of
bhakti on the part of the worshipping soul. We have
seen that in the Svetasvatara Upanisad the attitude of
bhakti is prescribed as necessary to a right under-
standing of its teaching, and still more is this recognized
as necessary in this later system. The soul gives sight
to the eyes ; he who gives sight to the soul is Sfva ;
therefore one should worship in supreme love him who
does kindness to the soul.' 3

But the doctrine of the Saiva Siddhanta alone could
hardly have obtained for southern Saivism so complete
a victory over Buddhism and Jainism. Alongside of this
intellectual reinforcement there sprang up about this time
a remarkable spirit of devotion which, through the great
saints and poets of this period, gave to Saivism^ one
cannot doubt, more than anything else did, the strength
by which it prevailed over its cold and sterile rivals 'No
cult in the world', says Dr. Barnett, 'has produced a
richer devotional literature or one more instinct with
brilliance of imagination, fervour of feeling, and grace
of expression/* Th^exBct^peno^of_this efflorescence

! Op. cit , liii. ""

2. Op. cit., p. Ixxix.

3. Meykandar in Barnett's Heart of India, p. 80,
?. Heart of India t p, 2, r

43

of the South Indian religious spirit is extrerrely doubtful.
It cannot be determined within more definite limits than
the seventh to the eleventh centuries. This was a timet
not only of Saivite, but of Vaishnavite revival. The sixty-
three Saiva saints of tradition had as contemporaries, it is
probable, some of the Vaishnavite Alvars, and that,
apparently, without any keen antagonism being aroused
between them. That antagonism came later when their
common enemy, the Jain, had been overcome. The
greatest of the poet-saints who have exercised so
enduring an influence upon this South Indian faith is
Manikka-vasagar,whos Tiruvasagam or'Sacred Utterances'
is full of the most intense religious feeling. Here we have
the doctrinels of the Saiva Siddhanta fused into passionate
experience in the heart of a worshipper of Siva. Their author
is said to have been prime minister to a Pandyan king,
and probably flourished in the tenth or eleventh century
of the Christian era, though Dr. Pope seems sometimes
inclined to place him as early as the seventh or eighth
century. He went,the story goes, like Saul, to seek, not
his father's asses, but horses for the king, but, like Saul,
he found instead a kingdom, though in his case a
kingdom of the spirit. Siva himself, surrounded by a
great company of his saints, revealed himself to him in
the form of a venerable guru, and his errand was
forgotten, and the world renounced. f He has gone
from the Council, arnd put on the shroud', and he
journeys in pilgrimage from town to town, worshipping
at every shrine, and composing songs in celebration of
the various seats of Siva worship and their god. 'The
success of Manikka-vasagar in reviving Saivism', says
Dr. Pope, 1 'which seems to have been then almost
extinct, was immediate, and we may say permanent ...

4? Pope's F/ruvasagam f p. xxxjij.

44

From his time dates the foundation of that vast multitude
of Saiva shrines which constitute a peculiar feature of
the Tamil country.'

In the legend of Manikka-vasagar's conversion, the
divine Guru, it is said, held in his hand a book which
proves to be the Siva-nana-bodham of Meykandar. As
a matter of fact, this manual of the Saiva Siddhanta
did net come into existence for at least two centuries
after the time of the Saivite saint and poet. The period
of inspiration precedes the period of reflection; the
experience of the saint furnishes the material for the
doctrinal system of the theologian. Already in his
poems we find expressed in the language of the heart
those views of the relation of the soul to God and to the
world that the schoolmen formulated later into a religious
philosophy. For Manikka-vasagar, as for so many saints.,
the central point in his religious life to which he
continually returns for a renewal of his inspiration
is his conversion. It is a continually recurring theme
for praise throughout his hymns, a constantly recurring
source of encouragement when he falls into despair.
Throughout his poems there is such an accent of
humility and adoration, such a sense of his unworthiness
and of the divine grace, as seems to bring him very
near indeed to the spirit of the Christian saints. No doubt
there are, at the same time, deep differences, which the
common ardour of expression hides. How far the sense
of his unworthiness springs solely from a moral root,
how far the greatness of his god is a purely moral
supremacy, how far the sense of the divine presence is
spiritual or largely sensuous these questions need not
here be considered, nor can tfpir answers, whatever they

may be, detract greatly from the deep affinity of saints,
apparently so alien from each other in many respects.
Again and again we find Manikka-vasagar giving
utterance to such experiences as are common to all
devout souls who have sought God sincerely and have
in some measure fognd Him

'These gods are gods indeed', These others are
the gods,' men wrangling say; and thus

False gods they talk about and rant and rave upon
this earthly stage. And 1

No piety could boast: that earthly bonds might
cease to cling, to him I clung.

To him, the god of all true gods, go thou, and
breathe his praise, humming-bee. 1

Dr Pope in his translation of the Tiruvasagam, by the
headings he places to paragraphs of the poem indicates
how close he finds the affinity to be between thtse
utterances of a sincere devotion, and those of the
Christian religious experience. 'Longing for grace
alone', 'Without thy presence I pine', 'Deadness of soul'.
'G$d all in all', 'I am thine, save me', 'His love demands
my all' these are a few taken at random, and they are
sufficient by themselves to indicate that with all the
strange mythology that weaves its fantastic forms across
the poems, and that perplexes and repels a Western
reader, we have here tha essential note of a deeply
devout and a truly ethical Theism.

We have seen that a note of Saivism has always been
the unknowableness of God. The Vaishnavite followers

1. Pope's T/ruvasagam, pp. 143, 144*

of the bhakti marga often affirm this no (ess strongly, bul
like Tulsi Das they argue that, just because God is beyond
the reach of thought and act and speech, the one way
of salvation for men is in the worship of such an Incarna-
tion of the Supreme Deity as Rama. Similarly, though
Saivism has had no place for such incarnations as we
find within the rival system, Manikkavasagar Is never
weary of claiming that Siva has come near to him in his
grace as theory and revealed himself.

Mai (Vishnu), Ayan, all the gods and sciences divine

His essence cannot pierce. This Being rare drew

near to me :
In love he thrilled my soul. 1

Ayan

Again,

The 'Mount' (Siva: that Mai knew not and

saw not - we can know.*
There is no limit to the ecstasy with which he describes
the effect of this revelation of grace.

Sire, as in union strict, thou mad'st me thine ; on
me didst look, didst draw me near ;

And when it seemed I ne^er could be with thee
made ons-when naught of thine was mine

And naught of mine was thine-me to thy feet
thy love

in mystic union joined, Lord of the heavenly
land.-'Tis height of blessedness.'

*~~ > ~~~~~ ~ __-________

1- Pope's Tiruvasagam, p 157.

2. Op. cit., p. 106.

3. Op. cit., p. 72.

It is hardly necessary to multiply illustrations of
th fervent spirit of this worshipper of Siva. It is a
constant marvel to note how the heat of his devotion is
able to transmute to its purposes of adoration even the
repellent aspects of the god. His descriptions of him
seem at times to touch the very brink of al! we hate.
This is he who 'wears the chaplet of skulls' ; he Is the
'maniac' ;

A dancing snake his jewel, tiger-skin his robe,
A form with ashes smeared he wears. 1

A favourite epithet is 'the black-throated one'. But
this epithet, as a matter of fact, strange as it seems to
us, is what especially suggests to his devotee the grace
of Siva, and it constantly recurs in his poems as a
motive to praise and worship. What to the Vaishnavite
are the 'three steps' of Vishnu, that to the Saivite is the
story of how this god drank the ha/aha/a poison and
so made his throat for ever black. In both cases the
story has been laid hold of by the instinct of the
devout heart as a symbol of the divine grace that saves.
In order that he might deliver the gods, when a stream
of black and deadly poison flowed forth at the churning
of the Sea of Milk, Siva of his own will drank it up
and gave to them instead the ambrosia that followed.
Thus the Saivite worships with gratitude and adoration
a god who has suffered for others, and the blaok throat
is for him a constant reminder of his grace.

Thou mad'st me thine ; didst fiery poison eat,

pitying poor souls.
That I might thine ambrosia taste I, meanest one.

1. Op. cit,p. 195.

ft y the help of such a thought as that the South Indian
worshipper has been able to transform the strange
appearance of this pre-Aryan divinity, so demoniacal in
many ef his aspects, into a gracious being whom his
heart can love. It is at least a testimony to the
amazing power of the religious passion surging up
within these southern saints, a passion impossible to
content with less in God than the grace that
condescends and suffers, with (ess than a love corres-
pondent to the love that moves itself. When 'the Brahman'
represented to this seeker that 'the way of penance is
supreme', or when the 'haughty Vedant creed unreal
came', he turned away unsatisfied. Then, he says, 'Lest
! should go astray he laid his hand on me'. 8 This
testimony to a real spiritual experience, a real movement
of the divine love to meet the human, is expressed
agein and again throughout these lyrics with a mani-
fest sincerity. The 'law of trusting love' 3 finds its
fulfilment and 'this love that fails not day by day still
burgeons forth' < Certainly these poems, with all that
as strange and repellent in the symbols that are employed
tn them to represent the deity, seem to echo a thefstic
experience as genuine as it is intense.

of Saivism over both Buddhism and
thus mainly to be attributed to two
of reinforcement, one intellectual ,
ultimately from the Kashmir Saivite

1- Pope's Tiruvasagam, p. 195.

2- Op cit., p. 34
* Op cit , p. 33.

4 p P e 's Trruvasagam, p. 35.

philosophers., the other indigenous, issuing from the sense
of their own religious needs. Another influence in 'the
'same direction which the Saivite shared with 'the
Vaishhavite is that of the Bhagavadgita. 'The influence
of theG/Ya',says pr.Pope., 'upon South India as a doctrinal
manual and as a great and inspiring poem has been
and is incalculably great.'* He finds traces of this
influence in every part of Manikka-vasagar's poems.
We even find in one of the philosophical books of
Saivism a quotation from the Gfta so linked on to one
from a Saivite scripture that the teaching of the former
as to the Paramatman Vaishnavite as it in reality is is
directly associated with the name of Siva. 2 Thus the
G/ta, even in this alien environment, vindicates itself as
the greatest and most influential of all Indian theistic
scriptures.

Manikka-vasagar was an orthodox Saivite and
represents at its highest the Saivite bhakti of Southern
India. There were othersj however, who, outside the
dominant Church, cherished and proclaimed an inward
and monotheistic faith. In the Siva-vakyam } a collection
of 'Siva speeches' by various poets, there are some
'remarkable expressions of such a religious experience.
In one of these the poet turns away from idofs and
from' temples to another shrine, 'the mind within 'his
breast'. 'And thus,' he says, 'where'er I go, I ever
worship God.' 3 Another example may be quoted of

1. Op. cit., p Ixvi, note.

2. Appaya's commentary in The Search after God,
pp. 49, 50

3. L. 0. Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92.

50

this devotion that revolts from ritual tradition $n
orthodoxy and finds its way by its own fervour to th
feet of God.

When thou didst make me thou didst know my all
But I knew not of thee. ' Twas not till light
From thee brought understanding of thy ways
That I could know. But now where'er I sit,
Or walk; or stand, thou art for ever near.
Can I forget thee ? Thou art mine, and I
Am only thine. E'en with these eyes I see,
And with my heart perceive, that thou art come
To me as lightning from the lowering sky.
If thy poor heart but choose the better part,
And in this path doth worship only God
His heart will stoop to thine, will take it up
And make it his. One heart shall serve for both. 1

As one reads these stanzas, as has been remarked
by Dr. Barnett 'one is tempted to wonder whether
"Siva-vakyar" was not a worshipper at the local
Christian church'.

Along with these more spiritual movements there
occurred in the northern, district of Kanara a religious
revolt, less pure probably in the motives that inspired it,
certainly less worthy in its results. Mention has already
been made of Basava, minister of King Bijjala of Kalyana,
who was the leader in a Saivite revival which did much
te overthrow the power of Jainism, hitherto dominant in
that region. He flourished in the latter part of the
twelfth century. Associated with him in this religious

1 Barnett's Heart of India, p. 92.

> reformation there seems to have been another & rahman

called Ramayya who, in an inscription dated about

J200, is called 'Ekantada Ramayya', 'because he was an

ardent and devoted worshipper of Siva'. 1 'Basava^was

the Luther, Ramayya the Erasmus' of the new cult. . It

is not easy to form any certain estimate of the religious

character of this Vira Saivite or Lingayat movement, as it

was called. It was, no doubt, in its inception something

worthier than it appears to-day. Its followers now

form only another among the many Hindu castes, with

little to distinguish them from the rest except

their strong opposition to Brahman privilege. They

also permit widow-remarriage and are opposed to

child-marriage. Lingayats acknowledge Siva alone : and

place upon the linga, his symboij a faith that in the

case of the most of the modern adherents of the sect

leaves little room for spiritual worship. One can see,

'however, in their ejection of the efficacy of sacrifices,

penances, pilgrimages, and fasts, indications that in ; its

origin this may have been a movement towards a purer

and more inward faith. If it is the case that the Vira

Saivites were a 'peaceful race of Hindu Puritans', they

probably in the spirituality of their worship and its

ethical character representedto begin with at least a

theistic religion, such as was the Siva bhakti of the

further south, but less emotional and devout. It was

as such, no doubt, that this sect contended with and

overcame the dominant Jainism. At the same time it

was the more likely to become corrupt and to fair to

the common level of Hindu formalism and superstition

1. Thurston and Rangachari's Castes and Tribes of
South India, s. v. Lmgayet.

of fls lack of the fervour of bhakti which*
such warmth and energy to the faith of
vasagar. To the Lingayat salvation seems to
meant absorption into, or attainment of an
union with., the deity. In th/s respect this
seems to have been even from the beginning
theistic, and a theist may discover in that 'fact
secret of its religious barrenness in contrast with tf"* e
Saivism of the Tamil land, as well as the explanati<^ n
of the rapidity and completeness with which it
to have fallen into decay.

In this sect and to a less extent in the religion
the Saivite saints of the Tamil land we find
spiritual and ethical instincts which are generally
associated with Theism engaged in a conflict
anti-theistic influence everywhere powerful in India
always in the end victorious. Of these one is that
tendency to formalism and superstition., which every-
where, as soon as the first fervour of a move-
ment of religious revival has begun to fail, bears
down to earth again the human spiritand which
seems to press upon the religious life of Indi*
especially with a weight heavy as frost and deep*
we may say, even as death. Another antagonist is the
influence, peculiar to India, of a philosophy invincibly
hostile to personal religion and to moral ardour, and
extraordinarily tenacious of its grasp upon the Indian
spirit. It is evident that the Lingayat reform movement
made little headway against the?e adverse forces and
soon succumbed to them. The tides of Vedantism
and of superstition soon reduced this region too to the
normal level of Indian religious life, and only a point
of rock projecting here and there above the waste of

waters -its spirit of antagonism to Brahman claims, for
example remains to mark the place where once, there
was a real insurgence of the conscience and the heart.
Its work was done when it helped in the overthrow of
Buddhism and of Jainism. The devotion of the Tamil
saints has had a more abiding influence, for the. reason
that its roots went deeper into the heart, and that, as
a result, it found expression in poetry which continues
to. bear its witness to later generations and to find a
response in other, hearts. But here too the subtle
Vedanta doctrine in the end prevails. The fervour of
devotion is able for an ardent moment to preserve the
equilibrium of being and non-being in mukti, of
absorption and bliss. It can rejoice in 'the way whieh
is neither single nor two-fold'. 1 But. when the emotion,
passes, the logic of the understanding makes its claims.
Then, as regards its goal at least, the doctrine of the
Saiva Siddhanta becomes indistinguishable from
that of the Vedanta. The grace of Siva remains
and . the. Great, Lord is still a personal deity,
but the individual self attains deliverance by
being a:sorbed into the Supreme and Selfless One.
'Where the soul stood before, Siva stands there in aiJ
his glory, the soul's individuality being destroyed' 2
Thus here as everywhere in India the 'haughty Vedant
creed' 3 seems, in the end to triumph and the Theism
that was once so ardent pales to an ineffectual spectra.

1. Sivan Seyal, translated by Clayton in Madras
Christian College Magazine, vol. xvii, p. 308.

2. T/ruvunth/ar (Commentary) in. Siddhanta Deep/ka,
vol. VIII, p. 190.

3?. Pope's T/ruvasagam, p. 33,

Ill Tamil Saints

[M/s Williams and Norgate, London published in 1921, the
Hibbert Lectures of J. Estlin Carpenter, in the form of a book
entitled "-Theism In Medieval India," and the article here
printed is from Lecture VI dealing with 'Philosophy and Religion
in Saivism ' .

The author's knowledge of Sanskrit and Pali, his capacity for
analysis and assimilation coupled with his sympathy for the
Indian Religions had enabled him to indite this work of considerable
significance.

The author had studied in depth the Tamil scholars like
M. S. Aiyangar (Tamil Studies), G. U. Pops (The Thiruvachakam),
J. M. Nallaswami Pillai (Siddhanta Dipika Volumes), P, Sundaram
Pillai (Some Milestones in the History of Tamil Literature)
S. Purnalingam Pillai (Primer of Tamil Literature), Schomerus
(Dec Caiva Siddhauta), V. V. Ramana Sastrin (Siddhanta Dipika.
Volumes) and G. Sabharatnam of Ceylon.

We have in our foot-notes pointed out the major errors of
the author. Ed.]

Meanwhile the most remarkable product of Caiva
religion presents itself among the Tamils of South
India- By what means and at what date the Brahman
culture was carried among the Dravidian peoples it is
no longer possible to determine. l Legend has its own
version, and the Tamil chroniclers boldly assigned an
enormous antiquity to the famous Academies which

' 1. Mr. V. A. Smith, Early History of India (1904),
proposes 500 B.C. as a mean date. Cp. the Lectures
on the Ancient History of India, by Prof P' ? R. Bhandarkar
(Calcutta, 1919), p. 13ft

were supposed to have developed the art of literary
composition after the Brahman Agastya had provided
the language with an alphabet and grammar. * There
arej unfortunately, no clear historical data, in spite of.
very active poetical production, until about the sixth
century of our era. The early forms of the cults of
Civa and Vishnu beside the Buddhists and the Jains
are shrouded in obscurity. * But it is recognised by
the best Tamil scholarship that "as late as the third r
fourth century A. D. there was no Civaism or
Vishnuism as understood now. " 3 Yet in the sixth
century Caivism is firmly established in Dravidian

1. A learned lawyer and judge, editor also of
important Tamil texts, recently assigned a period of ten
thousand years (10, 150-150 B. C ) to the three traditional
Academies. Mr. M. S- Aiyangar, M A., in his interestin
volume of Tamil Studies (Madras, 1914), conceived the
first and second 'to have existed occasionally some
time between 500 B. C and A. D. 200," p 244 The
really distinctive work seems to have been done at
Madura, the capital of the Pandyan kings, by the
so -called Trrrd Academy.

2. In an important article on the Dravidians of
S. India, ERE, v p 11, Mr. R. W. Frazer suggests that
as Civa in Tamil means "red," an original Dravidian
deity of that name may have been amalgamated with
the Rudra Civa of the Vedic hymns, Rudra having often
the same meaning. Cp. ante, Lect. V., p. 2:6*, and
Linguistic Survey, Iv. p. 279. Cp. Pope, T/ruvacagam 3
p. Ixiv, 2 on a probable S. Indian demonic element in
in the Caiva cult.

3 f Tamil Studies , p 251. .

56

countries with its characteristic piet/. 1 An inscriptior
from Mysore (500-550) celebrates him as the Eternal
Sthanu (the ''Steadfast") "whose one body is formed ty
the coalescene of all the gods, and whose grace
(prasada] constantly guards the three worlds from tht
fear of evil." 2 Plates from the Nasik district (Bombay) in
the year 595 commemorate the military success, the
learning, the charities, the aids to the afflicted, the
blind, and the poor, of King Cankaragana, a worshippe'
of Civa under the name of ucupati, "the Lord of Souls." 3
A little later the Gurjaras of Broach (Bombay), who
were originally sun-worshippers, all became Caivas 4 .
When Yuan Chwang in 640 made hisr way down the
eastern coast to the Pallava kingdom, and stayed at its
capital Kanchipura, 5 he found ten thousand Buddhists in

1. Seethe poems of Appar (or S f . Vagica), 573.
below ; Venkayya in Epigr. Ind. iii p. 277. Mr. J. M.
Nallaswami .Pillai claims Narkirar, chief of the Academy
poets, as the earliest exponent of the Caiva-Siddhanta,
but he does not venture to fix his date Siddh. Olp.,
xii iO ('April 1912), p. 407.

2. Epigr. Ind., viii. p 33

3. This title already appears in the Gupta inscrip-
tions about A. D. 350 at Allahabad, Corpus (nscrr. Ind ,
M p. I. Or Rest translates it simply "Lord of Animals,"
following the mythological description of the Ganges
flowing through his braided hair. On its religious meaning
in Kashmir Caivism, cp. p. 347. '

4 1 Epigr, ind., xii. p. 20 i.

5. Commonly identified with Conjeveram, but $90
Watters. On YIM Chwang. ii. p 2:6 f ,

the country, with a hundred monasteries and eighty
Deva temples, of which the majority were Jain; Thai
Caivas, therefore, were not yet powerful. But the Tamil,
poets of Caivism were already at work. Tha struggle with
the dominant Jains was severe, and the religion which,
was established in conflict generated a new energy of
emotion. Bands of Brahman theologians came down
from Upper India. 1 The afr was full of debates and
disputations. In the seventh century Tiru-NanasambandhaF
converted the Pandyan king from Jainism. and later
tradition affirmed that with the fierce wrath of an
Elijah he celebrated his victory in controversy
by the massacre of eight thousand Jains. A Like
his earlier contemporar/ Appar, he was a
copious hymn-writer, 384 compositions being ascribed
to him. So powerful was the impress of his
work and character, that "there, is scarcely a Civa
temple in the Tamil country where his image is.
not daily worshipped" 2 From this time an impassioned
stream of sacred verse flows on for centuries- The
power of Caivism and of Vaishnavism by its side;
continually grows. Hundreds of temples rise through.

1. Tamil Studies, p 21 7.

2. P. Sundaram Piilai, Some Milestones in the Hist
of Tamil Lit- (i895\ p 9. Annual feasts are held in his
name, with dramatic representations of events in his
life As an illustration of the chronological difficulties
attending literary investigation, it may be mentioned
that while one English scholar (Taylor^ placed him
about 13 B.C., another (Bishop Caldwell) assigned him
to A. 0. 1292/ Cp.S. Purnalingam Piilai, Primer of Tamil
Liter fftOfe (1904), p. 8\

A An obvious misinterpretation. Ed?

58

South India to the two great Gods.' Ea f
its line of saints, its poets, its teachers. The first
collection of Caiva hymns, the Oey^iB^^oui
1025 and others follow.' By the year HOC* sixty,three
Caiva saints are commemorated in. the P*r/ya Parana
Here is no systematic theology, but a record of
vivid persona! experience. Its fundamental motive is
most briefly expressed by one of the later poets, Tiru-
Muiar, in a single verse:

"The ignorant say that Love and God are different;
None know that Love and God are the same.

When they know that Love and God are the same,

They rest in God j s Love.-"
And the further lesson ran:

"They have no love for God, who have no love for all
mankind. *' 4

f

The Caiva hyrnns are one long series of
variations on these themes. Mingled sometimes

\. On the Civa temples at Pattadakal (Bijapur
district of Bombay) and Ellora (Hyderabad), see Havelfj
Ancient and Mediaeval Architecture in India (1915),
pp. 177 if., 193 ff

?. Tamil Studies, p.220; Frazer, ERE, vp 2\ The
Vaishnavites about the same time gathered a "Book of
Four Thousand Psalms. ' J See Lect. VII., p,383.

3. South Indian Inscrr., II ii. p. 152.

4. Siddhlar, xii. 2, quoted in Siddhant*
xi! 1 5 (Nov. 1912), p 239 . .

* The year is t!39 A. 0, Ed

with strange mythological allusions and unexpected
metaphors, they tell of raptures and ecstasies, of
fears and falls. There are periods of gloom when
the heavens are shrouded and the face of God is hid.
There are splendours of light when the world is
transfigured in the radiance of love. At the outset of
the great chorus the first voices are calm and. gentle;
and even Appar, who tells how he had been bound by
heretics to a granite pillar and flung into the sea, and
was saved by repeating the sacred name. 1 can muse
tranquilly on the "fellowship of the Spirit'* in contrast
with conventional practice or even ethical endeavour .

"The grace of God is as pacifying as the soft

music of the lute, Or the tender moon in the

evening sky.
All learning and wisdom are for doing reverence

to God.
God should be worshipped out of pure love as

the Great Benefactor,
Who gave us the instruments of knowledge,

speech, and action, For escape from destructive
- desires.

Such desires are hard to conquer without the

grace of God.
God rescues from the onsets of sensuous desires

those whose hearts melt for him;

'f. Siddhanta Dipika, xiii 2 (Aug. 1912), p: 6'. The
five sacred letters of ''Nama Civaya," or "Praise
to Civa," were believed to possess a certain
saerod or mystical power, -

60

He reveals himself to those who.fove him- above,

all. things,
When the [churn of the] heart is moved hard ,by

[the staff of] fove,

Rolled, on the cord of pure intelligence,
They who would be free from sin and corruption*
Should think of God deeply and continuously

with joy.
Then he will be at one with them and grant

them his grace.
Freedom from sin and corruption is to those only

who see him in all things,

And not to those who see him only in particular
places,

Nor to those who merely chant the Vedas or

hear the Castras expounded.
It is to those only who crave for at-one ment

With the omnipresent and all-powerful Lord,
And not to those who bathe at dawn.

Nor to those who have at all times striven

to be just.

Nor to those who make daily offerings to the
Devas

It is to those only who know the Lord to be
boundless in love and light,

And not to those who roam in search of ho|V
shrines,

Nor to those who practise severe austerities, or
abstain from meat.

No gain of spiritual: freedom is there to those
who display the ,robe.. .

61

And other insignia of Yogins and Sannyasins, or

who mortify the flesh.
That gain is only for those who glorify him. a*

the Being Who vibrates throughout the

universe and in every soul." 1

Very different are the confessions of Manikka
Vacagar * in the ninth century, whose fifty-o.ne hymns
depict the progress of a soul out of the bondage, pf
ignorance and passion into the liberty of light.ar)d
love 8 Their devotional idiom may .often sound strange
to Western ears; their mythological "allusions, will, some
times repel readers accustomed to a different imaginative
outlook. But their sincerity is indisputable. The ' poofs
theme is the wonder of divine Grace shown forth Jn
his own life, and he tells without reserve the maryei
of his first conversion, his joy and exaltation, His
subsequent waywardness, his despondencies, his falls, His
shame and his final recovery and triumph. Dr. Pope
compares the influence of these verses in shaping the
religious life of the Tamils of South India to that of the
Psalms in the Christian Church. They are daily sung
throughout the country with tears of rapture 4

'. S/ddhanta Dipika, xi. 1 . (July I91QJ, p 15, tr.
P. Ramanathan. I have taken the liberty to print the
successive sentences so as to show a certain rnythm of
thought where verse is unattainable -

2. Sanskr. Manikya Vachaka, "he whose utterancess

are rubies."

3. See The Tiruvacagam, or "Sacred Utterances/'

tr. G. U. Pope (Oxford, 1900).

4. Pp. xxxii - *xxiv.

62

The story of the poefs life is enveloped in legend.
Born iri a Brahman family on the river Vaigai near to
Madura, he attracted the notice of the king, and was
early called to the royal service. A student of the Vedas,
Tie sought wisdom from many masters, but was satisfied
with none. 1 The world had woven its bonds around him,
Court favour, wealth, dignity, the charms of women
alt were at his command, he was "caught in the
circling sea of joyous life.^ 1 The ancient Scriptures
faffed to hold him; "busied in earth,! acted many a lie";he
gave no thought to birth and death, sunk in the flood .of
'lust end the illusion of "1" and ''mine". Suddenly,
es he was on a mission for the king, 3 he was arrested, in
'.mid-career by a power that he could not resist, "He .laid
his .hand on me." The experience could only be
described by saying that "the One most precious Infinite
to earth came down" ; but what he saw could not be
' told..'

*'My inmost self in strong desire dissolved,

I yearned ;

Love's river overflowed its banks ;
My senses all in him were centred ; 'Lord,' I cried,
With stammering speech and quivering frame
.7 I clasped adoring hands ; my heart expanding like

a flower." 4

1. iv. I!. 42-51, p.33. '

---: -?2. xli. i; p. 309,

3. This may be the historical nucleus of the
romantic legend, p.xx ff.

4. iv. II. 80-84 p. 35.

63

"All sorts of emotion^ 'struggled within hint loathing
for past sin, amazement at the divine condescension^ a
bounding sense of assurance and freedom;

"I know thee, I, lowest of men that live,
I know, and see myself a very cur,

Yet Lord, I'll say I am thy loving one ! .
Though such I was, thou took'st me for thine own.
The wonder this .' Say, is there aught like this?.

He made me servant of his loving saints ;
Dispelled my fear: ambrosia pouring forth,he came,
And while my soul dissolved in love made me

his own.

Hence forth I'm no one's vassal/ none I fear,

We've reached the goal." 1

But his triumph was premature. He will hide nothingrhe
will confess all

"Faithless I strayed, I left
Thy saints, a reprobate was I. How did I watch the

one beloved,

The quiverings of the lip, the folds of circling
robe, the timid bashful look.

To read love's symptoms there." 1

It is a familiar story, but rarely told with such truth-
fulness. Out of his falls he is once more lifted into
"mystic union." With a tender familiarity he explains it,
"There was in thee desire for me, in me for thee." He
. was, then, worth . something even to God. It suggests
a . still profo.under thought : .. r -.

1. v. 23, 29, 30.(condensed), p.53 ff. Cp.xxx. I, p. 264,

"The tongue Itself that cries to theeall other powers
Of my whole being that cry out -all are Thyself.
Thou art my way of strength ! the trembling thrill .

that runs
Through me is Thee ! Th\ self the whole bf ill

and weal." 1

So through the storms of emotion he makes his way to
jieaee. to a security so profound that he can truthfully
exclaim

''Though hell's abyss

.(enter, I unmurmuring go, if grace divine appoint
my lot. "*

From the tranquillity of the sage's path, as he with-
draws from the world and wanders from shrine
..to shrine (tradition tells of his encounters with Buddhists
from Ceylon), he looks back over his life in the world:

"Glory I ask not, nor desire I wealth ; not ea'rth

or heaven I crave ; .

I seek no birth nor death j those that desire not

Civa nevermore
I touch ; I've reached the foot of sacred Rerun-

turrai's king.
And crown'd myself j I go not forth , I know no

going hence again. 1 ' 3

1. xxxiii. 5, p. 275.

'2. v. 2, p. 45.

3. xxxiv. 7, p. : 2&0 Cp. xxii. 2, 3, 7 r p 218 3 and Tor

^geneial retrospect, li.-p. 351. Perun-turrai is "great

harbour," now called Avudaiyar Koyil (p. xx>. It -was on

his way thither that the saint's conversion took place,

and he is still worshipped there.

In a quieter mood Tiru Mular summed up a less
varied experience:

" 1 learnt the object of my union with the body,
I learnt of my union with the God of gods.
He entered my heart without leaving me,
I learnt the knowledge that knows no sin.

Seek ye the true support, hold to the Supreme,
Your desires will be satisfied when his Grace is

gained j

With humility of heart the learned will secure
The bliss enjoyed by the bright immortals. " l

Among the strange legends of the saints in the
Periya Purana is the story of Karaikal Ammaiyar, a
merchant's wife, whose beauty so distressed her -that
she prayed for the form of a demoness who could stand
by God for ever in prayer. Amid ' a'^shower of divine
flowers and applauding music from ths skies she shed her
flesh, and after wandering through the world in her bones
approached the dwelling ot Civa upon Mount Kailasa.
There, as she humbly drew nigh to the God upon her
head, it was vouchsafed to her to behold him. She loved
to sing afterwards of the "God of gods with throat of
shining blue," 2 to tell of his braided hair and necklace

1. From the Siddhanta Dipika, xi. 7 (Jan. 1911),
p. 289. His Tirun\3ntra is translated by J. M. Nallaswami
Piliai in vol. vii.

2. This dark-blue colour was the result of his,
self-sacrificing act in swallowing the poison which
issued from the churning of the ocean of milk to
produce the drink of immortality, cp Mbh., i. 18, 43ff.,
ante, p. 147,

66

6f skulls. These were the accepted conventions
mythology. As she entered the Presence, the Lord call'
out to her "Mother," and she fell prostrate at his f*
murmuring "Father.'' That one good word was utter f
by the Lord, says the poet St. Sekkilar, "so that the who
world may be saved" 3 for the motner's love that wou
free from all harm and redeem from all sin is Indet
divine. And Karaikal sang :

"If one desires the path that leads to God
And wishes to deserve his grace, and asks
Where he dwells sure- Even in the heart ofthos
Like my poor self, it easy is to find." l

Here are significant forms of religious experience
What could philosopy make of them?

The Caiva Siddhanta 3 the "Accomplished End,'
the fixed or established truth, is but one amont
several branches of Tamil Caivism, and itsei
includes as many as sixteen different schools. 1 1'

1. Siddhanta Dipika, xiii. 4 (Oct. 1912), p. 152ff.

2. Cp. Schomerus, Der Caiva Siddhanta (19123,
Leipzig, p. 3. Besides this comprehensive exposition,
the subject may be studied m the light of modern Tamil
scholarship in the pages of the Siddhanta Dipika (extinct
some years ago), and in the essays of Mr. J. M. Nalla-
swami, Studies in Caiva Siddhanta (1911), Madras.
Among the principal documents available for English
readers are the following : Nilakantha's Commentary on
the Sutras of Badarayana in the early vols. of Siddh. Dip> ;
the Civa-Jnana-Botha of Meykanda (1223), tr. Hoisington,
in the Journal of the Amercian Oriental Soc., iv. (1854) ;

67

rests upon a twofold Scriptural authority, the Vedas
and the Agamas, "both of them true, both being the
Word of the Lord/' 1 but not of equal value. The Vedas
are the more general, a common basis provided by
Civa for all religions; the Agamas are the more special,
suitable for advanced believers and maturer experience.
Revelation is thus recognised as progressive. The
Agamas are twenty- eight in number, ten of which
are reckoned as ''Root-Agamas," and as such are ''God-
taught"; the rest, though divine in origin, are only "man-
realised." 1 Composed in Sanskrit, they were already

and Nallaswami (1895); the T/ru Arut Payan ("Fruit of
Divine Grace")^ by Umapatij, tr. Pope in his Tiruvacagam,
and the Clva-Prakaca ("Light of Give"), tr. Hoisington,
JAOS, iv, (1854) and assigned by him to the seventeenth
century^ but now attributed to Urnapati, 1313. For a
summary of five leading forms of present-day Caivism,
cp. an Address by Mr K. P. Puttar.na Chettiyar (Senior
Counsellor to H. H. the Maharaja of Mysore), Siddh.
Dip., xi. 6 i.Dec. 1910), p 256. On the significance of
Caivic religion in Nepal, Kashmir, and Mysore, "to this
day the head centres of Agamic lore," cp. V. V. Ramana,
ibid 3 p. 246. For the special significance of Vira-Caivism,
ib/d, p. 269, and xi. 7 (Jan. ,911), p. 315. "The entire
religion is a vindication of the principle of the brother-
hood of man, and its necessary concomitant, universal
love". Cp. Bhandarkar, Vafshnavfsm, etc , p. 131.

1. Tiru Mular, in Siddh. Dip., xii. 5 (Nov. 1911),
p. 205.

2. V. V. Ramana, Siddh. Dip., xi. 5 (Nov. 1901),
p. 210. In x. 12 (June 19iO), p. 476, the same
writer places them before the first Buddhist
Council* 480 B. C.; cp. x. 4 (Oct. 1909), p. 119.

68

maarded as products of grey antiquity by the autho,
of the Suta Samhita (in the Skanda Purana of the fjf th
or sixth century A. D-)- 1 They supplied the material foi
Tlru Mufar's treatise Tirumant/ra, * and their main
teachings were afterwards expounded on the basis o(
twelve Sanskrit verses in the C/va-Jnana-Botk
{"Enlightenment in Civa-Knowledge"; by Meykanda
Dsva ("the Divine Seer of the Truth") in 1223.3 This
brief work was the foundation of Caiva scholasticism,
and acquired a canonical character as a revelation
from above; Paranjoti - Muni having been sent
down from heaven to instruct Meykanda on the
bank of the Lower Pennar in the South Arcot
district. * The work was designed to supply answers

1. Schomerusj op* cit , p. !0.

2. The Tamil equivalent of Cr/-Mantra, "the Sacred
Word" (Frazer). Tamil writers place Tiru Mular
in the f/ist century A. D.; Western scholars
bring him down much later.

3. A few years before the birth of Thomas
Aquinas, 1225 or 1227.

4. Schomerus, op, cit., p. 24. For the view of
Dr. Barnett, that this development was due to the
infiltration of Kashmir Caivism by a southward
movement through the Kanarese country into the Tamil
lands sbout the twelfth century, see his note j n
LiMuseon (I909>, p. 27?, and S/ddh. Dip xi 3

3> n Kan3reSe Vlra-Cafvlsm ' in J

P H E< p * Rice - A Histof y of K

69

to such questions as inquiring disciples might be
expected to ask, such as " Is the world eternal, or
had it a beginning ? Is it self-existent or produced ?
If produced^ was the cause Time^ or Karma, or
Intelligent? If Intelligent, what was Nature? " and
so on through a series of cosmological and ontological
puzzles, many of them of venerable descent. * The
earlier Caivism had its own solutions of such problems,
supplied by Nilakantha in th first extant commentary
on the Vedanta Sutras. Cankara had not yet given its
definite form to the Advaita doctrine, but its advocates
vvere already in the field with their passages from
Revelation. Nilakantha parries objections by citing
others which proved the superiority of Brahman (Civa)
alike to the universe and to the soul. He would admit
neither an absolute identity nor an absolute distinction,
and he called in the conception of Cakti to assist him in
explaining their relation. 2 To this Cankara does not
refer, though he criticises the doctrine of the Caivas

Kashmir^ and much common terminology may be
traced (or centuries before Meykanda wrote. Cankara
argued against Caivism, with which he must have been
acquainted in South India ; and his visit to Kashmir (if
tradition may be trusted) apparently coincides with
the first beginnings of the northern scholastic philosophy.
Cp. ante, p. 309.

1. Cp- the opening of the Cvatacvat Up., ante,
p. 228.

2. Cp. the long passage quoted by Nallaswami
Pilfai in Studies in Caivn Siddhanta, p. 260 ff. This
doctrine was known technically as bhefabhed.

"distinction-nondistinction. "

who regarded the Lord as only the operative and nc

a!o the material cause of the world. l The late
scholastics marshalled a row of arguments against tfe
monistic Vedanta, which they regarded as ther
most dangerous foe. St. Aruinandi wound up a lonj
series with the plea that -'If you say that all knowledge
is illusion, what you call Brahman is Illusion 5 and i!
Brahman is Illusion, the assumption of intelligence fails
to the ground." 1

Like other philosophies of religion, the Caiva-
Siddhanta sought to determine the relations of thres
orders of beings, God, the world, and the soul. In
agreement with the Vedanta of Cankara, it viewed thi
Samsara as without beginning, but instead of attributing
to it only a relative reality, it declared that matter and
souls were, like God; eternal. But the world as we know
it passes through a series of phases. It is for evei
undergoing a process of evolution, of maintenance,
and dissolution. Its form continually changes but its
substance remains the same- Its material cause is Mayai
the primeval stuff whence the universe is organised,
like the clay converted into the shapely jar. And it
requires an efficient cause ; it cannot have produced
itself spontaneously. How should the undifferentiated
mass in silence and darkness set about to change ? The

1. i. 2, 37 : SBE, xxxiv. p. 435.

1. See Schomerus' translation from the Civa-Jnana-
Siddfiiyar, p. 37. A leading modern Caiva is said to have
declared that he would rather see India Christian than
Monist.

sments have no intelligence and cannot be the agents
the great development. Time.. Karma, Atoms, all are
thout mind. Time is in reality changeless in its nature,
cept (says Meykanda shrewdly) to the observer who
jws it as past, present, or future : l but it is no energy,
;an produce no effects. It supplies a condition for
id's action, it is impotent to take its place. The efficient
use must be eternal, like Maya itself; it must be
elligent, for the universe is an ordered whole. True,
>d's immutability preserves the divine nature in sublime
iependence of viciss'tude. "All things are to him on*
srnal consentaneous whole." He operates through his
kt? as the instrumental cause, as the potter uses his
leel and moulding-stick.

The cosmologic argument is reinforced from the
>ral side by the necessity of providing for the action of
rma. This also is eternal, but its sphere was in matter,
d was lodged in the soul's bodily environment. It could
t itself originate the distinction between good and evil,
could only register their issues. None but an
iniscient Mind could have ordained the principles of
>rality, and none but omnipotent Power could have
arranged the world that the proper "fruit" should be
ached to every act, and souls should everywhere
d always get the rightful deserts of their virtue or
fir guilt. Once more the aid of the Cakti (which
s various modes of activity) is invoked. The "sport"
jory of the production of the world is vigorously
)udiated. s There is a purpose in its endles,

1 . Civa-Jnana-Bodha, \. 4, in JAOS, iv. p 53.

2. Schomerus, p. 151, quoting Arulnandi's Sitfdhfyar.
Cp. ante, p. 331,

'., .Md,,^ *' ~' rtWrn 01 5

Who*
w natever

.

f '" ite srace ,

73

yment or bliss^Such a Being is -'neither male, female,

neuter/' says the sage Civavakkiyar, ''neither Brah-

,, nor Vishnu, nor Rudra, but is spirit" ; and the

jmi Tayumanavar (eighteenth century) could

[aim

"All space is thine, O thou far and near, immanent
thou art,

And thou well'st up as a honied fountain of bliss
in my heart". 2

This dual presence in the world and in the soul was

iressed by the doctrine of 'distinction without distinc-

i" (bhedabhecfa}. The old Upanishad formula, "One

hout a second," must be In some way received and

lained. "God is not different (abhada} from the

rid/" argued Meykanda, "but as the world is not

itual, and God is a spiritual form, he is different 1 '

<eda). Similarly, "the sou! is not God, for if it were

: distinct it would have no power of motion or

ion." 3 All kinds of analogies were pressed into the

vice of illustration. Just as sound filled all the notes

3 tune, cr flavour pervaded a fruit, so did God by his

cti pervade the world so intimately that they do not

Dear to be two, yet this divine energy is essentially

ferent from unconscious matter. The Sanskrit letters

J. R. R. Gunaratnam in Siddh. D/p , xii. 7 (Jan
191 i), p. 321. Cp. Nallaswami Pillai, Studies,
p. 233, where "omnipotence^' is accidentally
omitted.

2 Siddh. Dip., xii. 4 (Oct. 1911), pp. 155, 161.

3. Civa-Jnans-Botha, ii.. JAOS, jv. p. 57 f.

74

were all regarded as containing the short vowel a. Ka
could not be resolved into /r + a-SOj, pleads Meykanda,
is it with the soul. Without its vowel the letter would
be mutejwithout God's Grace the soul would be helpless.
As body and mind together form a unity, so God is
the soul whose body is the universe of nature and of
man. He is not identical with either, he is not their
substance, but he dwells in them and they in him.
Adva/ta is not oneness but inseparability. To realise
this union in diversity is the high calling of the soul.
So Arulnandi Civacharya wrote: -

"Say 'I am not the world, and separate from it,'
Sayalso/lam not the unknowable Supreme One'
Then unite with him indissolubly by loving him

in all humility,

and practise so' It a lies ham ('I am he'),
Then he will appear to you as your Self, your mala

wi!! all cease, and you will become pure.
So it is the old Vedas teach us to practise this

mantra, Aham Brahmasmi </l am BrahmaV-" 1

How was this consummation to Be reached ?

The doctrine of the soul was elaborated on the
one hand against the materialists who only recognised
the body and its organs, and on the other against the
Vedantist identification of it with Brahman. The
materialist was asked how the action of the five
organs of sense, each independent and ignorant of the
others, could be combined in acts of cognition without
a knowing subject. Accepting much of the traditional

i, Slddh. Dip, viii, 2 (March 19J8), p, 45,

75

physiological psychology, Meykanda presented the
soul in the midst of the senses, the manas and other
faculties that rose above them, as a king attended by
his primeminister and councillors. l But that was not
its primeval condition. In the unbeginning eternity
it was plunged in a strange stuoor due to th& defile-
ment known as Anava. * It is a condition of ignorance
and darkness, with many dangerous powers, for it
leads souls unwittingly into action. 3 It is not, indeed,
a constituent of their being, but it is for the time
inseparably connected with them, like salt in the sea
or the husk enveloping the rice. But it does not
exclude the action of God's grace, which is present
even in this antecedent and unexplained mystery of
''original sin." The story of creation and the endless
succession of universes is the story of God j s
purpose to give the infinite number of uncreated souls
the opportunity of extrication from this unhappy blind-
ness. The process involves them in the influence of
two additional "defilements, " maya, or the material
world and its attractions, and karma, the power which
registers the moral issua of ever/ activity and determines

1. Meykanda, iv , JAGS, iv. p. 71.

2. From anu 'atom', applied to the soul as
conditioned by space; Schomerus. p. 104. Dr. Pope,
Tiruvacagam, p.lxxxvi, defines it as "the state or
character of the atom," and points to the use of anu
by the Jains

?. Umapati, in 'The Fruit of Divine Grace," iii.
26, personifies it as " My Lad/ Darkness " with an
infinity of lover?. Pope, Tiruvcigam> p. Ixxxv,

76

the character of successive births. * This is ' %
independent of Civa.lts operation is in a sense con':
by him, for it works through the entry of the r"
creation, and these time-periods are started at Civa
pleasure. But its eternal law was not willed byhirr. -
august coadjutor beside his sovereignty, whose s~:
even Civa himself cannot set aside, and h3 r r - '-
the means of the rescompense for good and the t
for evi! which Karma demands.

But as the soul starts on its long pilgrimage
Grace of Civaj operating in many rr.
is its unfailing companion. Even in the human :r
God's agency is needed to give power to the s -
union with the perceptive organs, as the sun's lie;.' '
needed to enable the observer to preceive objects
mirror. 2 The divine beneficence is like a field v.
yields its stores to those who cultivate it ; w;r
partiality, unmoved by desire or hatred, he carries
the results of Karma, "having no wili or power t
otherwise," 3 Like flowers which shut or open v,'
the sun shines unclouded, God remains unchan-;
while his Cakti assumes different forms to meet *
varying needs of the sou Ms discipline. For the soi ;
no puppet in the grip of fate. The effect of past Ka ?
does not destroy moral responsibility for the fur.,
nor does the action of Grace over-ride the soul's c .:

1. These three "defilemsnts" constitute :
"bonds" of the soul, according to the formula P
paca, pact/. Cp. ante, p. 347.

2. Meykanda, [ii. {j JAOS, iv, p. 67,
3. Ibid , ii. 5, p 60,

n

choice. Beside the sphere of external act there 5 s
the internal sphere of feeling. The act is done,
and its issue for good or ill cannot be altered. But
the feeling may remain, and good dispositions may
carry the soul forward, moralfy and religiously, to a
point at which -though at first belonging to Karma
they ultimately transcend it 1 So the soul is prepared
to make the right choice when Grace is offered to it
As the light arises in darkness will you put it before
you or behind you? There are those who say, ''No
need for Grace to effect these results, the soul can do
its own work.-'-' 2 Twice does Umapati in his cento of
verses fling himself in scorn against such self-
confidence.

"May 1 not say, '1 need not Grace to see by., I will

see myself ?

Easy the way of vision, but' twbct eye and object

light must be.

1. Technically the souPs progress is laid out in
three stages of successive deliverance from the three
Defilements. The process of moral advance is always
conceived as an increasing enlightenment of intelligence,
which brings Civa ever more and more clearly into
view. On the classes of occupants in the several
conditions as one after another of the Impurities is
discarded, cp Adicesha NaidUj in Siddh. Dip , xii. 4
(Oct. 1911), p. 149, The lowest order involved in all
three ma/as ranges from the tiniest insect up to Brahma,
Vishnu and Rudra in "the most exalted Trinity. J>

2. Umapati, viii. 71 ; iv, 33.

78

Without the light of Grace J twixt soul and known.

soul sees not. " *

It is for the Guru or Teacher to let in the light-
He is in reality a manifestation of Civa himself., even
when he comes in human form to souls in the lowest
rank. * " The thinking man, " says a modern Caiva
writer, " who has learned to worship the ideal he
lives [s/c] in spirit and in truth, finds it clothed in the
form he thinks, and meeting and greeting him in person,
to give him the helping hand that he so much needs
and longs after. The Guru appears now and here, it
may be in vision, or it may be in name and form and
flesh as the thinker has been longing after to see, and
seconds his efforts, describing to him the glory of the
ideal that he has been vaguely thinking after. Hitherto
he has been hazily building only with Hope and Faith.
He has yet to learn that Love which endures to th9
endj and transcends ti.ne and space and the limits of
causation For this purpose the Guru describes to him
in the clear light of reason the glory of the Promised
Land, and prepares him therefor by testing his powers,
his constancy, and his moral stamina, by a series of
disciplinary exercises. " 3 This is a form of yoga
practice, rising above the common duties of ritual and
charity, demanding severe concentration, and sometimes
generating ecstatic raptures of song and dance. It is
therefore, only in this life for the few. It requires

1. Umapatij vi. 56.

2. Meykanda, viii. 3 ; JO AS, iv. p. 87.

3. C. V. Svaminatha, in S/ddh. Dip., xi. 2

(Aug. 1910), p. 70.

79

the suppression of all personal regards. "Set not
thyself in the foreground," sings Umapati. ''What
thou beholdestj let it be That. " But however long be
the way, the Caiva believes that the goal will be
reached at last. The divine Love can be satisfied with
nothing less. "Civa desires that all should know him,"
says Meykanda emphatically. l It is an infinite
process,, and we are more conscious of the process
than of the goal , as we see the strange varieties
of human character and conduct. "It is God's
prerogative." says the great medieval theologian, ''to
encourage and save those who resort to him, therefore
he will surely save such as come to him ; and while
he will not save those who do not resort to him, yet
he bears no ill-will towards them. Those servants who
resort to him hs will clothe in his own image, but
others who do not come to htm he will cause to eat
of their own doings." 2 That diet will at last be found
unsatisfying, and the divine Grace which has accom-
pained the soul through all its wanderings will lead
it home-

Such at least is the disciple-'s faith. The theologians
do not, indeed, describe an age of complete attainment
when universes for recompense or retribution are
needed no more. They concentrate their view on the
blessedness of the individuals saved. ''Did the soul
perish," says Meykanda, "on becoming united with
Civa, there would be no eternal being to be associated

1. xii. 3; JAOS, iv. p. 101. "

2. Meykanda, x, 3 ; JAOS. iv. p. 97.

80

with Deity. 1 (f it does not perish, but remains a
dissociated* 1 being, then there would be no union with
God- But the ma/as will cease to affect the soul, and
then the soul, like the union of salt with water, will
become united with Civa as his servant, and exist at his
feet as one with him >' a The consummation may be far
off, but faith unhesitatingly awaits it. ''Will not Civa.
who is not subject the Three Strands nor to the Three
Defilements, who ever exists in his own imperishable
form of happiness wiil not he come as the Under-
standing of the soul, whichj wonderful to say,
wHI never leave it, and in a manner far transcending
the rules of logic reveal himself ? Ha will thus reveal
Himself : y And so the deliverance of all souls is.

Many consequences flowed from a religion thus
spiritually conceived. As the source of all enlighten-
ment, sole Deity of Intelligence and Grace, Civa was
really the true object of all devout aspiration. "Let
me place on my head the feet of Civa," said Arulnandi,

1. The Advaita doctrine of th3 ultimate union of
the soul with Brahman through the dispersion of the
liusion of individuality was often interpreted as
"annihilation.'' Cankara repudiated this view, ante, 242 \

2. xi. 5, JAOS, iv. p. 99. Cp. Umapati, viii 75,
and Pope, Tiruvasagam, note iii. "The Souls's Emanci-
pation," p xlii.

3. Meykanda, ix. 3, JAOS, p. 92.

"who stands as the goal of each of the six forms of
religion, and fills one and all inseparably." 1

''Into the bosom of the one great sea
Flow streams that come from hills on every side.
Their names are various as their springs.
And thus in every land do men bow down
To one great God, though known by many names." 2

The Caiva teachers were confronted by an elaborate
worship of temple and ritual, priesthood and sacrifice.
The sacred images into which the Deity had been
mysteriously brought by the ceremony of avahana* must be
tended and garlanded, fed and bathed and jewelled. They
had been cherished for centuries ; gifts and services had
been lavished upon them ; they were associated with
reverence for saints and sages ; they had become the
media through which the gracious help of Civa had been

1. Quoted by J. M. Nallaswami, Studies, p. 243. Cp.
the inscr. at Khajuraho, in the Chhatarpur State, Central
India, A. D. 100! -2, "Adoration to that Carva who causes
all [gods] to be comprehended in his one person., he
whom those acquainted with the Vedanta call Civa, the
desire of the mind, while people of true knowledge call
him the one Supreme Brahman, the indestructible, ageless,
immortal, others the verily auspicious Buddha, others again
the spotless Vamana, the Jina" ; Epigr. fnd., i. p ISO.

2. ''Written before the advent of Europeans", Cover,
Flok-Songs of Southern India (Madras, 1871), p. 165.

3. Pope, Tiruvacagam, p. xxxv.

82

realised by the piety of generations. 1 On the other hand,
how could the Thought, the Truth, the Light, the Love/ oi
God, be embodied in wood or stone ? So protest
after protest flowed forth against idolatry, and against
an elaborate external cultus arose a demand for a Puritan
simplicity of devotion.

''If thou wouldst worship in the noblest way.
Bring flowers in thy hand. Their names are these,
Contentment, Justice, Wisdom. Offer them
To that great Essence then thou servest God-
No stone can image God, to bow to it
Is not to worship. Outward rites cannot
Avail to compass that reward of bliss
That true devotion gives to those who know." 8

Such a religion was necessarily open to all. It was
independent of birth, rank or sex. From ancient times
Civa had been hospitable to all: "Even if a men is a
Chandala, if he utters the name of Civa, converse with
him, live with him, dine with him." So Nilakantha
quoted from an Upanishad, but the passage cannot
now be found. 8 Tiru Mular laid it down that ''there is
only one caste, and there is only one God' J4 and a

1. Cp. the mystical interpretations of the Linga -
cultus, by A Rangaswami Iyer, in Sfddh. Dip., vii and viii.

2. Tr. Gover, ibid., p 133. Cp. the hymns from
Civavakyar, p. 177 ff.

3. S/ddhantt Dipika, XIII, 5 (Nov. 1912), p. 238.

4. Ibid , p. 239, cp. xi. 10 (April 1911), p. 433.

thousand years ago the poet Partrakiriyar appealed to
an earlier sage Kapila to justify his aspiration :

''When shall our race be one great brotherhood
Unbroken by the tyranny of caste,
Which Kapila in early days withstood
And taught that men once were in times now

passed ?" 1

Will India be more ready under the influences of
the twentieth century to respond to an appeal which
she was unable to answer in the tenth ?

1. Tr. Cover, ibid , p. 159.

IV Bronzes and Siva Worship

article is part of Sir Ponnambalam

essay: "Polonnaruwa Bronzes and Siva
p ArunacSan, the younger brother of Sir P.
f,i,t Ceylonese to join the Civil Service by
,:,nat,on. He was also the first Ceyloflcse President of fl.
ai Asiatic Society (Ceylon Branch) and he wrote on law
rf,-n historv and philosophy. "The significance and value of
^niributions" says Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, arc enhanced
rhe cjrmmstancc that the author was not a cloistered savant nor
r; use hut was one who, as a great lawyer and administrator,
.-: relied in his own life the possibilities of that Icombi nation of
:.j:> an Jotiwr -worldly achievement, the supreme exemplar of
J; -AJS King Janaka of Mithila." .

l:,c aniclc printed here is from "STUDIES AND
. AT IONS, Philosophical and Religious" J 937. JEd.J

S , a.

rs ifi.ages which I shall deal with are those of
the principal member of the Hindu Trinity, of
consort Sivakami or Parvathi, of some of his
pi saints, his favourite charger (the bull Nandi)
he Sun-god (Suriya). The bronzes are characterised
-* precision that comes of long tradition and
ce. But there is Inequality in style and f/nish.
,f the bronzes are heavy, commonpface and
'-i onal. showing the artist struggling with
?i: realization of his ideals, defective knowledge
rr ; nmg and insufficient mastery of the technical
. ?is; others are distinguished by consummate
"a music to the eye." as, for example,
in ptetevm., which Is unsurpassed in the
rapture and Chandeswara in

cf

The most important are the bronzes of the dancing
Siva known as Nata-raja or fin pure Tamil) Ac/a-val/ar-
In design and detail the bronzes do not differ from the
bronzes in the temples of to-day, showing that there
has been little or no change in the ritual and conventions
of worship. The images of Nata-raja are scarcely equal
in execution to the Nata-raja in the Brihad-isvara temple
in Tanjore or that in the 'Madras Museum. *

The principal Nata-raja found in Polonnaruwa is
shown in plate I. and on a smaller scale in plate II.
a and b, the front and back view. Plates III. and IV.
show two smaller figures of Nata-raja -front and back
view), but incomplete, as the halo is wanting, and in
IV. also the braided locks. The dance represents the
cosmic activity, of which Siva is the director and therefore
is called King (or Lord] of the dance (Nats-raja or Natesa).
"Think of our Lcrd, 5 ' says a devotee "as the peerless
dancer and dancing master, who abideth in all bodies
es heat in fuel and maketh all creatures dance. " |

This form is a favourite symbol of Siva worship in
the Tamil land of South India and Ceylon but is not,
as far as I know, found in Northern India except in
temples of Siva established there under Tamil auspices.

* See plates III. and IV. in Gangoly's South Indian
Bronzes.

"J" &!rL-\6li6GTGd (oUfT5p/L_6b &6tit5djH(Sl6& J QiUSOSCHT
LCtTL-(j)lGlLD!r(Tfy rT>LL(jjl6llQ6GriA ID 633T 6S3T Q ffO fflJT

Q 611 633T 6SST IT UJ

Tiruvatavur-adikal Puranam

86

lc is in Tamil land that the traditions of the dance h
rhair origin and still have their yearly celebrations,

No Hindu image is deemed suitable for worsh
until it has been consecrated by elaborate ceremonit
designed "to draw to "it (a-vah-anam Lat. ad-veh-i
the Divine Presence and make it what in Christiai
language might be called "a vehicle of Divine Grace. 1
\\hen an image has been deprived of its daily services
or defiled by contact of unworthy hands, it must be
consecrated anew before worship. The images are
fijil/ robed.jewelfed and garlanded^ and worshippers see
scarcely more than face or hands. The almost nude bronzes
te lrt r you you must imagine to be so robed and adorned
cdff to see them as they are seen in the temples,
r Pope, a great missionary and scholar, who spent
.erhalfa century in Southern India and has edited,
,*, ih an excellent translation and commentary,
i"U'*achakam 3 the ancient and popular Psalms of
T*n if -land daily recited in the temples, says (p. xxxv) ;-

'it is sometimes thought and said that the idols in
'j *, feinples are mere signs, representing as symbols
v-* C-i, n? Being and some of His works and attributes,
"* > -s net altogether an adequate statement of the case.
>ct- ,-ape by a peculiar service, which is called
becomes the abode of an in-dwelling deity and
d ; tf - pe ' Devo "t and enth-usiastic worshippers,
glare of the lamps and the smoke of the incense

'

,

astoen tire/y identify the
* h . eir thou 9 ht with that which is
the.r eyes, ft was certainly so with
remembered that some of these images

87

have been actually worshipped, tended, garlanded and
treated as living beings for a thousand years ; that each
generation has done them service and lavished gifts
upon them ; that they are connected by association with
long lines of saints and sages ; and that it is earnestly
believed that Siva's method of manifestation is by,
through, and in these as what we should call sacraments
of his perpetual presence, we shall understand with
what profound awe and enthusiastic affection even
imagesj, to us unsightly, can be beheld by multiudes of
good and excellent people."'

The orthodox Hindu teaching held it to be irreverent
and illogical to found artistic ideals of the Divine upon
any strictly human or natural prototype, and recognizing
the impossibility of. human art realizing the form of God,
sanctioned only an allegorical representation, "The artist,"
says an ancient Sanskrit writer, f Sukrachariya' in his
Sukra Niti Sara or Sukra's Elements of Polity, a work
translated into the Tibetan language in the 7th
century A. D., "should attain to the image of the
gods by means of spiritual contemplation only. The
spiritual vision is the best and truest standard for him.
He should depend on it and not at all upon the visible
objects perceived by external senses. It is always
commendable for the artist to draw the images of the
gods. To make human figures is bad and even
irreligious. It is far better to present the figure of a
god, though it, is not beautiful, than to reproduce a
remarkably handsome human figure." This of course
is the antithesis pf Greek Art, which glorified physical

beauty and strength and made the beautiful man of
woman the type of God,

"Spiritual contemplation/' says Havell, " is the key
note of Hindu Art, as it was of the art of Fra Angelico
and other great Christian masters : the whole philosophy >
of Indian Art is in these two words., spiritual contemp- ;
lation, and they explain a great deal that often seems
incomprehensible and even offensive to Europeans."
Regarding al! we see in Nature as transitory and illusive
phenomena and the Divine Essence as the only reality,
Indian Art cared little for the scientific study of facts,
for anatomical detail, for the cult of the lay figure or
the nude model. A faithful representation or imitation
of Nature, though attained by him when he liked, was
not to the Indian artist the end or a serious concern
of Art. He strove, however imperfectly, to pierce the
illusive appearance of things and realize something of
the Universal, the Eternal and the Infinite. "What.
soever a thing may be, to gee in it the One Reality is
true Wisdom," says Tiruvalluvar Kural, 355;.*

Ekodevah sarva bhuteshu gudah sarvavyapi

sarvabhutantaratma
Karmadhyakshah, sarvabhutadhivasah sakshi cheta

kevalo nirgunascha.

'The ore, luminous hidden in al! beings, pervading
all the innermost self of all, overseer of all acts, dweller
in all beings, witness, perceiver, alone, free from all
qualities." , Svetasvatara Upanishad, 6. II. )

89

Any attempt to represent in art this Being,
transcerding thought and speech, must necessarily be
futile. How inadequate, for instance, are the representa-
tions by Michael Angelo in the paintings which adorn the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at Rome and which are
generally regarded as the grandest creation of Modern
Art?.

Mr. Laurence Binyon, poet and art-critic, writes thus
of the Indian ideal and its influence in shaping the ideals
and imagery of Chinese and Japanese Art now highly
appreciated in Europe. "The Indian idea! claims every-
where its votaries, and the chosen and recurrent theme is
the beauty of contemplation, not of action. Not the
glory of the naked human form, to Western Art the
noblest and most expressive of symbols ; not the proud
and conscious assertion of Human personality; but instead
of these, all thoughts ihat lead us out from ourselves
into the universal life, hints of the infinite whispers from
secret sources mountains, water, rnists, flowering trees,
whatever tells of powers and presences mightier than
ourselves : these are the themes dwelt on, cherished and
preferred '' (Painting in the Far East )

A correct judgment of nation's art is not possible
unless the critic divests himself of prepossessions
and endeavours to understand the thought of that
people and to place himself in their point of view. As
a great French savant, Taine, has said : ''Quand on
veut comprendre un art, il faut regarder I'ame du
public auquel il s'addressait." As you can only
speak to a person in a language which you both know,.

90

so you can only appeal to his artistic side by

maans of some common tradition, feeling, symbolism.

Art ;s, it is true, in one sense a universal language, but

veiy nation'? art is the outward and visible expression

of, and intimate// associated with, the national culture

nd sentiment, uses the symbols best understood by

ihe people to whom it is addressed., and requires for

its appreciation a familiarity with the national life and

thought. This is especially the case with Indian Art,

which is essentially idealistic, mystic, symboJ/c and

transcendental, and cannot be judged by the canons of

Greek Art, the Renaissance or the Art of modern

Etrnpe, which are all in greater or less degree

n:vifjlistic and realistic.

The symbolism by which Indian Art conveyed its
is to the Westerner, almost an insuperable
n, aesthetic appreciation. He cannot see a
? "" S ^ es5:3 ' n 9 more than the usual complement of
i\thott uttering a groan of pain at this
ralrronitrosity. The question, however, is not
Anaiomy but of Art. The London Times some
-^ ebsea-ed, in a review of Mr. V. A. Smithes

f '''"* *" '"" /nd ' 8 and Ce vlon ? "The four-
Va * r0t a wh!t more anatomically impossible
*' rtJ T ,_ an 9 els or 'he centaurs which have
5V lhe attest artists of the West- not
- cherubs ^ Italian art whose
r. les ' ff m the schoolmaster's point
memcrable opportunity to the
h ^ fact ' t^t no artist
s 6Ver cared a straw about

H

bad , x composed, just

9!

the ordinary number can, but each case must be
judged on its own merits; nor Is it possible, in
dealing with a definitely symbolic work of art, to
separate the symbolism from the art so drastically as
Mr. Vincent Smith is inclined to do. Nor again, can the
symbolism of one section of Hindu mythology be
justly separated from the rest and condemned as the
product of a diseased imagination because it represents
certain terrible aspects of Naturej which undoubtedly
form a part of the whole and have to be taken into
account in any deep and sincere conception of the
universe "

Sukrachariya says in the work from which I have
already quoted : ''In order that the form of an image
may be brought out fully and clearly upon the mind, the
image - maker must meditate and his success will be
in proportion to his meditation. No other way, not even
seeing the object itself will answer this purpose "

Something of this impatient refusal to be limited
by the outward semblance of things and by the conscious
imitation of them, something of this striving after the
inner and informing Spirit by unlocking the treasures of
sub-consciousness, marks the effort of all the new
schools of European Art and especially of the Vorticists.
Their painting and sculpture, crude as they seem to
us, have raised fundamental aesthetic questions, and
caused heart searchings as to the sculpture commonly
regarded as the greatest, that of Greece. That remarkable
Vorticist sculptor. Gaudier Brzeska,* whj died last year,

* Pronounced Jaersh-ka. The organ of the
Vorticists was the Blast

92

i

at the early age of 23, fighting for France, uttered }
regarding Greek sculpture what the Times calls <( a ;
profound piece of criticism." He said: "The fair Greek saw
himself only. He petrified his own semblance/' Comment- :
ing on this the Times says : "}t is the weak point in Greek
sculpture, as compared with Egyptian, that it is entirely |
conscious and sharply limited by the effort to make the j
statue as like some reality as possible. The Egyptian was j
freed from his own egotism by his deeper religious feeling.
His desire to make his gods more like gods than men
delivered him from the thraldom of mere imitation^ and
made him mere the master of the riches of his
own sub-consciousness." The Times adds that
jt is as absurd to condemn the works of the
Vorticists because they are not like any natural thing
as it would be to condemn the fugues of Bach because
they are net like any. natural sounds : it may ce that we
are puzzled by it only because we have the habit of
looking for likeness in sculpture and painting, and if we
could free our minds and eyes of that habit, the musical
meaning of it wouid be clear to us.

According, thsn, to the traditional Hindu view which
Sukracharya has expressed, the sculptor of an image of
Swa should engage in meditation. To help the artist-
devotee in his meditations there exists a body of
contemplative verses (dhyana s/otos), which set forth
thedut.ngu.shing features of the particular manifestation
of God desired and sometimes the spiritual meaning of
the conception. The success of the artist would
correspond to th* extent to which he entered into the
rill coM-er-ticns and realized them in his own

consciousness. The limitations of these conventions

need not, except to the mediocre, be a barrier to -artistic
expression, any more than the high formalism and
convention of Greek tragedy hampered the genius of
Sophokles or Euripides, *

In the Dhyana Ratnava/i ihv devotee thus meditates
on Siva as Nata-raja.

Sayapasmaratorddhva sthitapadavilasad

vamamuddhrityapadam
Jvalamalasamadtye natanaphanisamam vyaghra

padadisevyam
Bhasmoddhulitamangavidrumanibham hastagra-

padagrakam
Vahnim dolakarabhanam damarukam dhyatva

natesambhaje.

* There were also laid down for the apprentice-
student certain canons of proportion in the ancient
technical books on Art, known as the Si/pa Sastra, of
which the chief are Agastiya Sakaladhikara, Kasyapiya,
Sukranitisara, Sarasvatiya,&c. Some account of them
will be found in the recently published work of
Mr. C. Gangoly on ' South Indian Bronzes," a valuable
work (in spite of defects due to ignorance of Tamil and
limited knowledge of Sanskrit) and one which it is not
creditable to the English-educated Tamils of India and
Ceylon to have left to a Bengali gentleman to write.

Since this- paper was printed, I have seen the
valuable work on Hindu Iconography by Mr. Gopinatha
Rao of Travancore.

"Luminous foot on dormant Apasmara (a Titan) j
planted left foot raised, in the midst of a garland ol (
flame, with dancing serpents, by Vyaghrapada and others
worshipped, with ashes daubed, body of coral hue, tip ;
of hand to tip of foot (pointing), fire, pendent hand,
hand of refuge, drum :- (on these) meditating^ I worship <
Natesa (Lord of the Dance)." 1

In another stanza Siva is meditated on together with
his consort thus, and is called Sabhesa, the Lord of the \
(dancing) Hail,

Dhyayet kotiraviprabham trinayanam sitan.

sugangadharam
Dakshanghristhita vamakunchitapadam sardula

charmambaram
Vahnim -dolakarabhayam damarukam vamesivam

syamalam
Kalharam japasraksukam katikaram devim sabhesam

bhaje.

"Meditate on Him, resplendent as a million suns,
three eyed, wearer of the moon and the Ganges (on his
head), right foot planted, left foot bent, in tiger-skin clad
fire pendent hand, hand of refuge, drum, on the teft
the Lady Siva, dark of hue, water lily, rosary, parrot, hand
on hip the lady and the Lord of the Hall (Sabhesa)
\ worship."

Suddhasphatikasamkasarn jatamakutamanditam
Makutamtrigunam nagam prabhamandala manditam
Dikshinamsusthitam padam vamapadan tu kunchitam
Prasritimvamehastan cha, dakshashastabhayapradam

Vamahaste sthitam vahnim dakshine damuram tatha
Sarvabharanasamyuktam apasmaropraristhitam

Vame gaurisamnyukatam trimbh* nchitamj

(bhaje tryambakam ucchritam)

"Like pure crystal, adorned with crown of matted
haircrown of the three gunasj serpent, circle of flame,
right foot planted, left foot bent, left hand stretched,
right hand offering protection, fire in left hand, drum
in the right, adorned with all ornaments, standing on

Apasmara (the Titan!, on the left to Gauri joined.

(I worship the standing Siva'^j-

Such meditations as these are materialized in the
bronzes Nataraja and Sivakami, and for their correct
understanding require some knowledge of Hindu
philosphy, religion and traditions, especially of the
Saiva Siddhanta Schooli the basis of the Siva worship
introduced into Polonnaruwa by the armies of Chola
Kings. The Saiva Siddhanta system is the chief contribu-
tion of the Tamils to philosophy and religion^ and in the
opinion of the learned Dr Pope is "the most influential
and undoubtedly the most intrinsically valuable of the
religions of India." This attempt to solve the problems of
God, the soulj humanity, nature, evil, suffering and the
unseen world is little known to Western scholars.

* The concluding words of the last line are imperfect
in the original MS. and my friend, Dr. Satish Chandra
Vidyabhusana, Principal of the Sanskrit College, Calcutta,
has suggested the words in brackets instead.

t See footnote on gunas. p. 27.

Dr. p 0pe

96

Oxford
ee especially hi

Dualism of such religions as Christianity, Mohammedanism
and Vaishnavism and from the Monism of the Vedanta.
God is often compared by the Saiva Siddhanta philoso-'
phers to the first letter A of the Tamil and Sanskrit
alphabets, which represents the English sound u in but,
the first sound that issues from the mouth when it opens.
The sound underlies and energizes every other sound and
is also a distinct and the first sound. So God pervades
and energizes all souls and nevertheless stands apart,
Himself, of all things, the source and the chief.

The Siva-gnana-bodham, the chief Tamil authority ef
this school, thus explains what the Vedas mean, when
they say c Ekam Sat, 3 'All that is, is one'.

"One" say the Vedas.* Behold, it is said of the One.
The One is the Lord, Thou, who sayest 'One', art the
Soul. Lo, in bondage art thou. If the One were not, .
If vowel A were not, letters there would be none. In
this wise say the Vedas Cc 0r\e. 33

"Like song and its tune, like fruit and its flavour,
the Lord's energy everywhere pervadeth, non-dual.
Therefore say the great Vedas not 'one- 3 but f not

* Ekarn sad vipra bahudha vadanti (Rig- Veda, 1,
164-46). "Ail that is, is one. Poets call it oy many names."

i.^. II. 2

(Su.roOu

II. 3

God thus permeates and vitalizes all things, to
neither name nor form, is beyond speech and thought,
time and space. This conception of the absolute is
well brought out in the ordinary Tamil word for God
i_6i/<srr (Kadavuh, meaning that which transcends
(Kada}t>\\ things and is the heart (ul) of ai! things.When
the Absolute becomes manifest , it is as Force

,

* or ^efr). of which the universe is the product,
being from cycle to cycle evolved by Force from cosmic
susbstance (Maya) and again involved. Hindu philoso-
phers do not admit creation and destruction in the
sense of production out of nothing and reduction to
nothing . Their conception of creation which they cell
projection (sr/shti, ^iliq., (S&irptnu torram,) and ol
destruction which they call contraction, involution or
withdrawal (samhara, ^naa/rjuj, @&&w } ocfukkam)i
is more akin to Huxley's: "All the choir of heaven and
the furniture of the earth are the transitory forms of
parcels of cosmic substance, \\ending along the road of
evolution from nebulous potentiality, through endless
growths of sun and satellite, through all varieties of
matter, through infinite diversities of life and thought,
possibly through modes of being of which we
neither have any conception nor are competent to
form any, back to the indefinite latency from which
they arose '**

Not brute and blind, however, but full of intelligence
and grace is the Power which thus makes and unmakes,
and which by the sages of India is accordingly regarded
as the Universal Mother and, being inseparably inherent
Jn God, is also called the Consort of God.

* Huxley, "Evolution and Ethics."

tSlsor&onqr&i aseareitflQiussr

L0u51(o60.

'Mother of millions of world clusters,
Yet Virgin by the Vedas called."!

This power is addressed by Chidarnbara Swami in
the Panchatikara vilakkam, ^Exposition of the Five
Operations/ in these words :

"My head 1 crown with lily feet of Sivakama Sundari,
Who with the Absolute inseparably is blended
As flower and scent, sun and ray., life and body,
As gem and lustre, form and shadow, word and

meaning,

Who to the manifested Lord as Consort shines,
Who ever cures the life-hungerft of her children,

all living things,
With ceaseless bliss ambrosial feeding and in

Freedom^ mansion establishing."

The various manifestations of this Power are
grouped by the Saiva Siddhanta school under five heads,
which are deemed the principal aspects of the great
Mother and are called the Five Acts (pancha kritya
SBflGlfBir$<to, arn-tofil) of God: 0) Projection or Evolution
(srishti, &<s\L\%. 3 S^rr/D/oii or UOTDLULJ) ; (2) Maintenance

t Tayumanavar,

ft tipsS'LJuJl, the liability of the soul to reincarna-
tion and further development until it becomes ripe for
union with God.

too

or Preservation (sthfti &&, $8$, *rruq)5 O Withdrawal
or Involution (samhara, a=iHirjru), gpawsin) ; (4) Veiling
or Obscuration (tiro-bh&va, UDD/DULJ); (5) Gvace(anugraha
or arul ^ar). The evolving energy (Brahma, the
Creator) evolves for each sou! according to its deserts
out of primordial substance a body (tsnu). organs of
knowledge and action (karana], pains and pleasures
(bhoga) and spheres(6/}uvana)to experience them in.The
maintaining or preserving energy (Vishnu the Preserver)
maintains them for a time for the souPs experience. The
involving or destroying energy (Rudra, the destroyer)
withdraws them and makes them disappear to be
projected again. The obscuring energy (Mahesa)
entangles the soul in them so that, unable to distinguish
the real from the unrea!, it identifies itself with its
transitory envelopments, calling the body and the organs
'I' and the experiences and spheres 'mine.' When
the soul has passed through the discipline of these
experiences in many births, the gracious energy
(Sadasiva) enlightens the ripened soul, delivers it from
its delusion and bondage, establishing it in union with
God, which is Freedom (Moksha, eu, v/du), the final
goal and fulfilment of every soul.

in this union the soul, set free by the Holy Spirit
C^3^36frj, the gracious energy of the Lord, from the
influence of its innate taint and from the fettering
consciousness of the senses, lives eternally in the
conscious full enjoyment of His presence, "thrall to
the Lord- ". (S/va-gnana-bodham, IX., 6.)

101

''Like crystal pillor that absorbeth light (of sun at
zenith) end hath no .-hadow, so no darkness remains
to lay hold of him. 33 (T/ruvarutpayan, 67 )

The earliest manifestations of the Divine Energy
are Vibration (Nada] and the word iVach* which is
the Logos of St. John. Among the later manifestations
the most venerated in India is Umaor Sivakami, beloved
of Siva. According to an sncient tradition she appeared
in respcnse to the prayers of a Himalayan king as an
infant floating in a golden lily lake and was thence
taken and reared by the kirg until claimed by Siva.
From this tradition she is also called Parvati, the Lady
of the Mountain.

She is thus addressed by Tayumanavar in her
esoteric and exoteric aspects :-

"Mansion and wealth, children and friends ground
Spl&ndour ever and throne, the certainty
That Death's dark messengers draw not nigh.
Wisdom's light, purity, wondrous powers ,
Ail these are mine;, so with thy feet my thought

be one.f

Q Mother that hast Thy seat beside the dark"
throated Lcrd /:;:

* Etymological ly the Lstin vox.

f'*Seek y-3 first the Kingdom of God and His right-
eousness and all these things shall be added unto
you." St. Matthew, VII, 33.

% Siva, whose throat is said to have been stained
dark-blue with a dread poison, which would have
destroyed the world if he had., not swallowed it on its
production at the churning of the ocean by the celestials
for the nectar of immortality.

.JP

102

Light and bliss of knowledge supreme, that

swallowest religions as oceans rivers!
Stillness, the Vedas' goal,
Thy form seen where Vibration ends,

Wisdom, consumer of me and thought !**
Lady Uma, beauteous as the moon, Madhu

Sudana's sister,*?
Who lovest mountain haunts and was born dear

to the Mountain -King as the apple of

his eye!

''From the elements to Vibration Thou showedst
To me as false ; myself to me unveildest.
In the core of my intelligence standing,
'Stand still, free, in spirit-space all filling,
Without beginning, without end', Thou saidst,
And skilfully establish'dst me, Mother
Who vouchsafest pure knowledge and bliss.
Yielding all the heart desireth.
Forgetting Thee can I, poor wretch, live?
Darling of the three-eyed Lord*, of all ills
The panacea, beyond the reach of them
That lack the inner eye which illumineth
The Vedas and excellent Agamas,

** The sense of I, and thought with its correlative
sleep or oblivion, have to be consumed by the Holy
Spirit (Saktr), for the union of the soul with God-

1 Vishnu.

Tayumanavar, uc&oojflrrr &tr<6 2.
Siva. See p, 93. '

*

163

Beyond the deaf, who hear not the praise of thy

might

Beyond the stricken with the plague of controversy/
Lady lima, who lovest mountain haunts and wast

born
Dear to the Mountain - king as the apple of his

eye !" f

Though Uma or Sivakami is the female manifestation
of Siva, she, being his inherent energy, is inseparable
part of him and is spoken of exotericafly as the left part.
Siva is thus both male and female, and one of his names
is Ardha-Narisa, 'the half female Lord'. This recalls the
old Orphic Hymn :-

"Zeus was a male, Zeus was a deathless virgin,"

In token of the dual sex, Siva is represented as
wearing in his right ear a man's ear-ring (makara kundala,
gBn_6tfu) or @6JDLp), and on the left a woman's (tatanka
ortodu.G&r!;. In a popular psalm of Manikkavachakar,
he sings .-

"The Lady is in Thee, and Thou art in the Lady ;
Ye both are in me your servant."

The mystic dance of Siva symbolized in the
Nataraja bronzes is said to have been danced in a remote
age in the forest of Darukavana after the overthrow of
a body of heretics who, puffed up with the pride of
learning and of skill in ritual and magic, regarded

f Tayurnanavar, ic&oajanf &Tp6& } 3,

themselves as independent of Siva^s authority and self-
sufficing. The dance was, it is said, repeated for the
benefit of two devotees, Patanjali and Vyaghrspada,
at Chidambaram or Tillai (in the South Arcot District
of the Madras Presidency^, which is therefore held
in the highest reverence by the worshippers of Siva
and :s called Koyil, "The Temple" par excellence

Ths Skai.da Parana relates the legends of the dance
;n DanJ.avdp.a (Daksha Kanda, Chapters XIII, and XIV ;
and in Tamil, Kachchiappa SwamPs Kandapuranam,
Daksha Kardo, 30-1.7;. The Koyil Puranam of Umapati
Sivathativar jwn'tten in the latter part of the 1 3th century)
cafes the lejends of the dance at Chidambaram
and the inauguration by King Hiranyvarma of a
r f tnemoration festival, which continues to be
i.-!et rated there evfry year on the sixth lunar asterism
farur/raj of th* month of Markali (December- January)/
r; i draws immense crowds of pilgrims. It is an
i * p^rfanf festival in every Siva temple in S. India and
Ovlcn,

Ire shrine at Chidambaram is unique in combining
"i- e<c:pM; and er.otoric aspects of Siva worship- The
-a'. *.-j.a rjur,:rg ij-,: cosmic dance is separated from
' "* n ! * r ' h ' ( ? fcs ^y a veil, which is seldom raised
*^ rd f ' s * f ' ' a special boon to favoured individuals,
^'ue $ r-tr. avealcd rrer? space, the ether filling
yjl : :lc ^yn-Loi of God. But even this subtle,
. '^tr* "'" J . <: ' J l ' C: '' ent is rieeni ed an inadequate symbol,
fr .->-r is to the Hindu sages unintelligent

*,"} while God is chid-
teirg (sat : pure ir.telligence

105

(chit), pure bliss (anar,cta). Hence the mystic name of
the shrine, Chid- ambaram, 'Spirit-space/' ambttram
being another word for akasa.

Manikkavachakar, a great Saiva saint and apostle,
whose figure in bronze was found at Poionnaruwa
(Plate Xcf. } and whose spiritual history was largely
linked with the shrine, sings thus in one of his psalms
(Kirtti tifuvakava!} >

"The holy feet, that danced in the ancient city
Of Tillai, dance in all living things,
In beauty of infinite diversity shining.
Making, unmaking, earth and heaven
And worlds celestial and hosts of sciences.
Driving away my darkness and taking up
Loving abode in the hearts of His servants "

(After an enumeration of His gracious manifesta-
tions to them) :

"The mighty Lord of Kailas J echoing peak
Who graciously maketh thrall of each and all
By contrivance meet, bade me, a dog,
Enter blissful Ti'.lai's hall of glory,
Crushing the I in me to make mo His."

The redemption of souls is thus regarded as the
culmination of God's operations in ihe universe; and
the dance, while symbolizing th^se operations, is
believed to have its counterpart in the subjective
experience of saints ;

Thfi silent mystics, rid of the three-fold taint,
Ard rJr'T:l: ; nn deep the bliss that wells
\Vhero sel, hath ceased, they behofd the dance
Of tiT r:r?-.ious Lord in the sacred hall.

ha// is z.?e devotees' heart, and the dance beyond
,eeU? Mid thought.

v f ,j. s Tayurnanavar. /4 O God., Ocean of Mercy,
: rtnrces. the dance of bliss in the Hall of pure

".rs: ^: ; .snof;s ''e,ond the plane of thought ! "

: r, n th-:.' yearly commemorative festival referred

^'-,i, >, ;i tee male devotees dancing in ecstasy

'* ;.!? ?;.'.:o of the Nataraja. Probably in olden

'"^ '- - ?! fi votes-; tco, so danced Here, e. g , is

I ' "" 1: jn tf*e mouth of flower-girls in the

'i -' '-J' <7J .*!'.j,o)j.;t^, 5).

" J vj '" ? weareth on his locks the cassia

' * -"- ^ *' ! ;e hees dance,

' 4|? ' ''" *' n J}1 fl ^ &h - seeking me x and within

:jn

-e and dance and shout before

* > *- rnaJ Career, King of the heavenly

- r -.-. e

o,, 38)

A hymn sung by Saint Manikkavachakar at
Chidambaram and often recited in the temples
((B&>tr\.&p)$([r ) uu$&w') well brings out the view of the
Saiva Siddhanta, that temples and churches, usual y
regarded as Houses of God are but passages to the
true House of God which is in man's heart "made
beauteous by the flood of His Grace/' When he has
taken his abode thera, all distinctions of race, religion,
caste, sex, etc., disappear - ''who here is my kin ?
who is not ?" and there is naught save the splendour
of the Lord.

This experience, not beyond the grave but here in
this life, is the goal of the c'evotee. The methods
employed to gain it are called Yoga, a word etyrr.o-
logically the same as the English Yoke and rreaning
the yoking of oneself to God. Bhakti Yoga, the method
favoured by the Saiva Siddhanta, seeks realization of
God by the way of Love. This Yoga, the worship in
the temples, with their service of song and
prayer and music, sacraments and fasts and works of
mercy, is designed to foster, gradually purifying the
heart and making it fit to be the ''House of God," His
great holy shrine" (Tirupperunturai), "the City of
Siva," or in the language of Jesus, "the Kingdom cf
God," of which he too said s "Behold the Kingdom of
God is within you."

"O Supreme Splendour that rises within mo welling

forth as ambrosia,

Having blocked the ways cf the live traitor senses
that ever delude me,

Graciously show Thyself to me as Thou art,
C'carcst of the clssr, Lord Siva, Dweller in the

great holy shrine,
bliss transcending all states without end, O my

Love J
With Jove Thy servant's body and sou! melting

in bliss,

Sweet f?race. by me not deserved, Thou didst grant.
For this I have naught to give in return.
O King, Father to me that am the servant of

these that love Thee.
Lirht of Truth that, entering body and soul, has

rreited all fau'ts and driven sway the unreal

darkness,
F.,H, vvaveless, clear Ocean of Ambrosia, Siva,

P. AQ'ler in the reat holy shrine,
Krtvv:dcf,+ known there where speech and

J>.r -Aledr/e* are dead,

Vsk fcrv.v.n unto me. how shall I speak of Thee ?
Forfeit FuWcc. flawless Ambrosia* Mountain of

rrless. flaming Light,
*;*- IK-.I c^m-st i;nto me as the Vedas and the

"c:.Tvr- : ! >f the Ve--ras and didst fill my mind'

C*

* " a ! ' ! * s ' '' '- torrent brroking not banks,
t rt .) th r-?uth fif my heart. Dweller

1 " e ?!: h-!v shrine,

f 4 :i "^ CL ^ ^ ir.^c'e thy, abode in my

ALsoiuie, where there is
and object,
consciousness

109

What more can I ask Thee ?

Splendour that rises in my heart as asking,
asking i melt !

Thou whose lotus-feet grace the crowns of celes-
tials, Siva, Dweller in the great holy shrine,

Who art ail-pervading space and water and earth
and fire end air

Who art other than they, Whose form in them is
hidden,

1 rejoice* having seen them this day.

This day in Thy mercy unto me Thou didst drive

away the darkness and stand in my heart as

the rising Sun.
Of this Thy way of rising -there being naught

else, but Thouj I thought without thought
Nearer and nearer to Thee I drew, wearing awa/

atom by atom, till -I was One with Thee,

Siva, Dweller in the great holy shrine.
Thou art not aught in the universe- Naught is

there save Thou
Who can know thee ?
Thou that, sprouting as the earth and a'l the

spheres, spreadest as matchless expanse of

light,
Fire water iaden^ Pure One beyond the reach of

thought,
Sweetness that wells forth in the heart made

beauteous by the flood of Thy grace,
Siva, Dweller in the oreat holy shrine,
Who here is my kin? who is not? Splendour'

that makes me bliss !"

(Tiru- Vachakam,

V. Saivism of the Tamils

.n excellent anthology on Hinduism. It is under
M.riasusai Dlnnamony wrote^ his famous woik .
rding to Saiva Siddhanta."

;tca

! ,,. A 1 . Ba.ham he is interested in Tamil and Tamil Culture

.v : .1 - ,!.-;vj im:ch for its propagation. Ed.]

It v.as in the Tamil lands that Saivism developed

is characteristic devotional form. This was the work

-f a ^-nes of saints who spread the gospel that

aKai^n could only be won by a total self-surrender

!c $;va, By the end of the eleventh century the

hvrs cf these saints had been collected together

and riven the title of Devaram, and this together with

IM* f-^jvacakarn or -Sacred Utterance'' of Manikka

,r*5 t .ar a-d ancillary writings came to be known as

re T- i v.-da'.These Saivite hymns are distinguished

T-CT Va ; shnavite counterparts by the extreme

;tr, fe , .- i r,AG-lhif ess that the devotee feels in the

**;.> " ::: uil ho!jne:-s of God. Ths philosophy of

*. 1 4? 5,-,* S)i.'..'w,to, v.hich we have had occasion to

''V . --T Las^-ci ;,s much on the Svetasvatara

-is . ,.: ;, s ,| :, o, { he writings of the Tamil saints

-" t'. ir.;u:cnce of the latter that made

*' ''!* t; : :hj S&ha -Siddhanta attach such

. ' ', c :* th3 doctrine of grace freely

tt - *r s , ,', .;..';> ;;j!iiy of spiritual progress without

ill

love, The whole movement is an impassioned cry
against the ossified ceremonial religion of the Brahmans
and the ideal of ''passionlessness-' that they shared with
the Buddhists and Jains. It was against these last
that they launched their passionate crusade in the name
of the one True God, Siva. In the following stanzas
Appar^ perhaps the most moving singer of them all,
denounces the hollowness of purely mechanical religion
in terms that bring to mind the much later reformer
Kabir.

Why bathe in Ganges' stream, or Kaviri ?
Why go to Comorin in Kongu's land ?

Why seek the waters of sounding sea ?

Release is theirs, and theirs alone who call
In every place upon the Lord of all.

Why chant the Vedas, hear the Sastras' 1 lore ?
Why daily teach the- books of righteousness? 8

Why the Veclangas 3 six say o'er and o'er ?

Release is theirs and theirs alone, whose heart
From thinking of its Lord shall ne'er depart.

Why roam the jungle, wander cities through ?
Why plague life with unstinting penance hard ?

Why eat no flesh, and gaze into the blue ?

Release is theirs, and theirs alone, who cry
Unceasing to the Lord of Wisdom high.

Why fast and starve, why suffer pains austere ?
Why climb the mountains doing penance harsh?

I. Sacred texts 2. Law-books.

3. Subsidiary disciplines connected with the study
of the Vedas.

Why go to bathe in waters far and near ?

Release is theirs^ and theirs alone, who call
At every time upon the Lord of all.

The Bhagavad Gita had taught that the love of God
is open to all., irrespective of caste and se* f but it
had also taught that each men should peform the
duties dictated to him by his station in life. For
Appar, however, who was himself a velialar all
distinctions between man and man were done away
with in the worship of Siva, and once one had
confessed oneself Siva's slave, al! sins, even the
slaying of a Brahman cr a cow, would be wiped out

Though they give me the jewels from Indra's abode.

Though they grant me dominion o'er earth, yea,

o'er heaven^
If they be not the friends of our Lord Mahadev, 1

What care I for wealth by such ruined hands

given ?
But if they love Siva, who hides in his hair

The river of Ganges, then whoever they be,
Foul lepers, or outcastes, yea, slayers of kine,

To then, is my homage, gods are they to me.

What, however, distinguishes the Tamil Saivite
saints from almost al! the other bhakti cults is their
intense sense of personal guilt ; man, as he exists apart
from God, is evil and horribly corrupt, he is the slave
of his anava, his egoism.

1 c The Great God J .- Siva.

iis

ilj all evil, my race, evil my qualities all,
Great am I only in sin, evil is even my good.
Evil my innermost self, foolish, avoiding the pure,
Beast am I not, yet the ways of the beast I can

never forsake.

I can exhort with strong words, telling men

what they should hate^

Yet I can never give gifts, only to beg them I know.
Ah! wretched man that I anr^ whereunto came I

to birth?

The realization of one's abjectness makes the
freely given grace of God seem all the more wonderful,
for what has the wholly self-sufficient to gain from
association with one so foul? This wondrous self-
giving of God is the theme of this stanza of Manikka
Vasagar :

Thou gav^st thyself, thou gained'st me ;

Which did the better bargain drive ?
Bliss found I in infinity ;

But what didst thou from me derive ?
Siva, Pemndurai's God,

My mind thou tookest for thy shrine
My very body's thine abode ;

What can I give thee, Lord, of mine ?

The Tamil Saivite saints even more than the Alvars
see in Nature the reflected glory of God, and the
mating of animals brings to their minds the inseparable
unity of all apparent opposites in the transcendental

union of Siva and Sakti. This does not mean tha
the sexual principle was arbitrarily introduced int<
the divine but that sex itself is seen as holy becaus<
it reflects an essential polarity in God which is thi
source of his creativity and joy.

P!l follow those who going to the shrine their praises

sound,

With blooms and water for the God who wears the

moon so mild

AH lovely in his focks, a garfand wreathed his neok

around,

And with h/n sing they Pan/ati, the mountain god's

fair child,

Qnce as I went to Aiyaru, with light and reverent

tread.,

I saw come two young elephantSj male by loved

female led,

And in that sight I saw God's foot, saw secret

things unsaid.

Siva has his terrible and his gentle aspect s he

dances -n sheer joy and creation comes to be, and he

dances n maniacal frenzy and all the worlds crumble

nto rum. Even though he appears as a raving madman,

* devotee sees in hirn nothing but love and grace.

O nradman with the moon-crowned hair
Thou lord of men, tfiou fount of grace,
- to forget thee could I bear ?
My soul hath aye for thee a place.

It*

Venny-nallur, in 'Grace-'s shrine*

South of the stream of Pennai, there,

My father, I became all thine ;

How could I now myself forswear ?

The soul loses its reason in the divine madness
and surrenders itself totally to the 'foolishness of God'
as St. Paul puts it. God becomes all in all and man
sees himself as nothing. All thoughts of liberation are
put aside in a passion of adoration for the dancing God.
In the words of Manikka Vasagar i

I ask not kin, nor name, nor place.

Nor learned men's society.
Men's lore for me no value has ;

Kuttalam^s lord, I come to thee.
Wilt thou one boon on me bestow,

A heart to melt in longing sweet,
As yearns o-'er new-born calf the cow,

In vearning for thy sacred feet?

I had no virtue, penance, knowledge, self-control.

A doll to turn

At another's will I danced, whirled, fell. But me

he filled in every limb.

With love's mad longing, and that I might climb

there whence is no return,
He showed his beauty, made me his. Ah me, when

shall I go to him ?

116

Fool's friend was I, none such may know

The way of freedom ; yet to me
He shew'd the path of love, that so

Fruit of past deeds might ended be.
Cleansing my mind so foul, he made me lika a god.

Ah who could win that which the Father hath

bestowed ?

Thinking it right, sin^s path I trod ,

But, so that J such paths might leave,

And find his grace, the dancing God,

Who far beyond our thought doth live,

wonder passing great ! to me his dancing

shewed.

Ah who coujd win that which the Father hath

bestowed ?

It was the Bhagavad-Gita that set in motion the
transformation of Hinduism from a mystical technique
based on the ascetic virtues of renunciation and self"
forgetfulness into the impassioned religion of self-
abandonment to God, but the strictly religious impulse
which gave momentum to the whole bhakti movement
stemmed from the Tamil lands of South India. From
the tenth century on all that is most vital in Hinduism
manifests itself in the form of bhakti.

VI. Vishnu and Rudra-Siva

[Jan Gonda (b. 1905) was Professor of Sanskrit and Indology,
Utrecht University, The Netherlands. It is from his pen, the
article here printed, issued.

Gonda is a prolific writer. ASPECTS of EARLY VISHNUISM,
SANSKRIT IN INDONESIA, DIE RELIGIONEN INDIENS
(two volumes), THE DUAL DEITIES IN THE RELIGION OF
THE VEDA, TRIADS IN THE VEDA, THE WISDOM OF THE
VEDIC POETS, VEDIC LITERATURE, VISHNUISM AND
SIVAISM, THE RITUAL SUTRAS and MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS
LITERATURE IN SANSKRIT are some of his more famous books

He is an honorary member of the Bhaudarkar Oriental
Reseach Institute and under his directions Indian scholars have
indited theses. Ed.]

ONE OF THE ARGUMENTS which could be
adduced in favour of the usual division of Indian
culture into an older period, Vedism., and a later
period, called Hinduism, would be that the former, at
least at first sight, presents itself as a unity, whereas
the latter is a varied and, already in the Mahabharata,
a confused spectacle of beliefs and practices. On
closer inspection it becomes clear however, first that
many features of Hinduism have their roots in the
Vedic past, and in the second place that it has been
a few main currents which, from the very beginning
up to the present day, have come into prominence and
have largely determined the character of that many-
sided and all-enfolding culture which we in the West
have chosen to call Hinduism. There can be no

1)8

doubt whatever that these currents must, when
viewed from their doctrinal and philosophical aspects
be considered first and foremost soteriologies, and that
they also present many aspects which make them worth
studying from the angles of philosophy and
sociology. This does not however prevent us from
calling Vishnuism and Sivaism as they presented,
and still present, themselves to their adherents, religions.
It will, in this series of lectures, be my endeavour to
institute a comparison between these two lnd : an religions,
Sivaism and Vishnuism. That is not to say that I shall
overlook the fact that neither current is in itself a
unity There is, within Vishnuism, a considerable,
difference between, for instance, the theories and the
ritualism of the Vaikhanasas in the South and the
devotionalism of the followers of Caitanya in Bengal,
and Virasaivism, nourishing in Karnataka, has rejected
the traditional brahmanical rites which the Saiva -
Siddhanta has in many respects, retained- Nevertheless
there is a Sivaism and there is a Vishnuism and it will
be part of my task -while comparing these religions
and drawing attention to parallel or divergent develop-
ments,, to the common heritage and Interrelations
to bring out what is common to all forms of each
of the two great religious currents

Considering myself absolved from the obligation to
give a regular account of the main relevant facts such
as those relating to the history of Vishnu and Siva worship
from the earliest times, the mythological concepts to
which their figures have given rise, their iconography
in plastic arts and the philosophical and theological
doctrines developed in the communities of their

119

worshippers, I would like to make an attempt at

lat

my purpose to treat all important questions or to deal

en

, instituting, in a series of more or less condensed studies,

a somewhat detailed comparison between those aspects

. ( . of both religious currents which in the last years have

. attracted my special attention. Since it cannot even be

adequately with all periods of the religious history of
India, I intend to dwell especially upon some significant
i" points which have perhaps not been sufficiently stressed

' in the publications of my predecessors. I hope that a

,.' certain personal preference for definite problems and

definite periods or phases in the development of Saivism

and Veishnavism will not be beyond forgiveness.

j

It may be true in our oldest document, the Rgveda,
Vishnu occupies but a subordinate position, his
j personality to use this term in this connection is

at the same time not only more important there than
would appear from the number of the occurrences of
his name in this text,, but is also in its striking features
sufficiently clean-cut and, moreover, in remarkable
harmony with the god's image as given by the later
sources. Rudra also has from the very beginning a
character and even a position of his own and some

* important features in the later Siva can likewise be

said to emerge from the Vedic texts with all clearness

\ desirable.

i

It is therefore interesting to compare the most

t important traits of character of both gods as far as they

appear from the Vedic samhitas. It has long ago been
observed that the only anthropomorphic traits of Vishnu
are his often-mentioned three strides and his being a

120

youth (RV. 1,155,6) These essential features of his
character, to which he owes epithets such as swm
and 'wide-striding', make him known to us as tne
immense (RV. 1, 99, ' ; 2} god of far-extending motion
who -for man in distress, to make his existence
possible - penetrates and traverses the spaces whereas
his highest step or abode is beyond mortal ken, in his
dear and highest resort, the bright realm of heaven.
While ail beings c'well in these three strides or footsteps
(RV 1. '54,2), the highest is the place of a well of
honey, where rejoice the gods and those men who turn
to the gods. Of Rudra, the terrible, dreadful one, on the
other hand, quite a number of physical features are
recorded: arms, hand, limbs, lip, eyes, mouth, tongue,
etc.; he wears braided hair (1, 114,1; 5,) his colour
Is brown (e g. 2, 33, 5\ his belly black and his back
ied- Frequent mention is made of his weapons^ and
:hese are weapons of offence. On Vishnu's disk and
club the oldest texts arej however^ silent. Rudra Is
clothed in a skin and haunts and dwells In mountains, an
abode also attributed to Vishnu. But while the passage
VS !6, 2-4 in which this feature is emphasized tries
i > induce Siva to show his auspicious aspect and to
t.rvvent him from injuring men, and while forests,
n c.untains and wilderness are the sphere of his
ties ructive activities, Vishnu's association with the
r-funfans. where he is said to have been born and
c! which he is the ruler, impresses us as beneficial
t;> human intortsts: the defeat of Vrta is, for instance,
^rtatec'.U said to have taken place in the mountains,
v.f ..$ however, seem to be an element of the scenery

Vishnu is benevolent, never inimical (RV. 1, 186, 10),
and a friend and ally of Indra whom he assists in
slaying the great fiend and antagonist Vrtra, the
representative of chaos and in spreading out the spaces
between heaven and earth ' V RV. 6, 69, 5). Both gods
are sometimes so intimately associated as to form a
sort of dual deity, Indravishnu and to participate in each
other's qualities and activities Rudra, on the other
hand, has no special friend among the gods Only once
he appears associated with Soma (RV. 6, 74)j not
directly because of his formidable nature but because
he is supposed to be able to avert illness, destruction
and other manifestations of evil. And he enjoys this
reputation owing to his dreadful power of sending and
causing fever^ evil and disaster, to his fierceness,
malevolence and destructiveness. However much the
poets try to deprecate his wrath -impending also when
there is no offence -they do not hesitate to mention
his bad points : he is a cheat, deceiver and lord of
robbers, and most statements of his power occur in
appeals for mercy.

Their relation to the demon ; ac powers and the
Maruts is in this connection of special interest. Wheras
Vishnu is engaged in vanquishing the demons, Rudra
does not come into conflict with them. As to the
not-individualized group of the Maruts^ as Indra's
brilliant allies and attendants they enter into association
with Vishnu., but Rudra,who is repeatedly said to be their
father, is never drawn into the warlike activties of these
deities who, though occasionally showing the malevolent
traits of their father, are on the whole benefactors of man
and world Rudra is, on the contrary, the chief of an

122

indefinite host of partial manifestations of his own nature
which, like this god ,in the singu/ar^ himself may make
their numinous presence felt everywhere and at any
time He moreover maintains intimate relations with
the great mass of demoniac beings. In this connection
it is interesting to notice also that, whereas Vishnu
he may assume various forms -is so to say one single
individual, Rudra has in these ancient texts some
doubles, which are sometimes identical with him -thus
Sarva and Bhava in VS 16, 18j 28 sometimes are
described as distinct from him

There is one god with whom both Rudra. (e.g.A.V.
7, 87, \) and Vishnu (e.g RV. 2, I, 3) are identified. But
here also the difference is obvious. Rudra is said to
be, i e. to manifest himself in, or as, fire: f Agni is
Rudra ; just as a tiger stands in anger, so he also
(stands)' (TS. 5. 5, 7, 4) Vishnu's relations with the
god of fire arj co-operative and complementary in
nature i they are for instance invoked conjointly and
both of them an. in a brahmana.it is true (A/B 1,4,10 3
lords and guardians of the consecration, which they
confer on man. Besides, Agni is the sacrificial fire
and Vishru the sa-rlfico (TS. 2, 29, IX and both gods
rejoice in the sacrificial butter AV. 7, 29;.

Extending our inquiries to the later parts of Vedic
literature we see that Rudra's malevolance still more
prominent. Rehouses in forests and jungles, in places
where man fails a victim to fr'.ght and terror He is the
lord of the wild animals, which are said to be a
manifestation of his cruel nature (SB. 12 1, 3, 20; and
the patnn of ihoss who ho!d aloof from the

123

society and its way of living. In contradistinction to
the other gods who are believed to live in the East,
Rudra dwells in the North, the region of dangerous
mountains. His isolated position is emphasized by the
myth according to which he remained behind when
the other gods succeeded in attaining heaven by ritual
means (SB. 1,7,, 3,1). He is indeed excluded from
the normal soma cult, but receives informal balis
(offerings of food thrown on the ground), often
also the remainders ot oblations, or what is injured
in the sacrifice (SB. 1,7, 4,9); besides, he has soma
sacrificial rites of his own His cult requires precaution
and he is appeased (RV. 1, 33, 5, etc.), that is to say
one gives him offerings in order to get rid of him. The
benevolent or rather merciful aspects of his ambivalent
nature find on the other hand expression in some
epithets such as Sambhu f the beneficent or kind one' and
Siva : (VS 3, 59; 63) 'Siva is thy name; thou art a healing
medicine, forbear to do me harm'. This epithet which
is already given to him at RV. 10, 92, 9 is however
also applied to other gods, without being peculiar to
any particular figure

With regard to Vishnu it is important to notice that
in the brahmanas his relations with the sacrifice are
evident and of special practical consequence for the
Vedic worshipper : he is the sacrifice itself (e. g. SB.
14,1,1,6) and the sacrificer who imitates his great
cosmic act, by which he obtained for the gods the
ability to manifest their power everywhere, viz. his
three strides, gains, whilst identifying himself with the
god, the three provinces of the universe to attain heaven
(SB. I, 9, 3, 9 f. ; 15;.

I shall not repeat here what has in many books
and articles been said on the so-called on gmal
character of these gods, or rathe, what has a bear.ng
on the kernel of the Rudra and Vishnu conceptions
Let it suffice to say that in my opinion the essence or
the iormer was, in the minds of Vedic men, power of
the uncultivated and unconquered, dangerous,unreliablej
unpredictable, hence much to be feared nature
experienced as a divinity. His very character lent itself
admirably to splitting up into partial manifestations as
well as to assimilation or divine ot demoniac powers
of cognate nature, were they Aryan or non-Aryan. It
hardly needs saying that the class poetry ot the Rgveda
does not show us the whole Rudra and that the later
Veda has recorded more popufar traits ; the conclusion
that those features which are foreign to the earliest
corpus did not exiat at the time of its compilation is,
f am convinced,, inadmissible.

The solution of the much debated and often
wrongly posed question as to the so-called origin of
the Vishnu conception we had better inquire after the
cere and essence of the god's nature as understood
by Vedic rr-an has very often on too oneidedly
natuialistic lines of argument been supposed to lie in
art interpretation as a sclar deity. Yaska (Nfr J 2, 19)
cJed ar-;-ady an authority who identified the god's
striding wnh the diurnal course of the sun. I must
confess trot in the c^urss of time my own ideas of this
question ha.'-j considerably evolved. Although I am
i?i inclined to cssi:rr.e that there is much truth in the
t'*tt-hopoure.d interpretation of the god^s character as
rp*eni:n:} pervasiveness and spatial extensiveness,

125

and especially that pervasiveness which is essential
to the establishment and maintenance of our
cosmos and beneficial to the interests of men and
gods, I would now hesitate to add that 'the
general idea originally underlying this central mythical
act seems to have been the eternal phenomenon of
the pervading and omnipresent, mighty and blessing
stream of celestial light, warmth, and energy'. At the
moment I would lay greater emphasis upon the
pervasiveness as such which was believed to manifest
itself in a great variety of phenomena and on the
god's relations to the a? is mundi.

This is not to say that I am convinced by that
interpretation of the function and significance of the
god which was some years ago proposed by my
esteemed colleague and compatriot Kuiper, who,
focussing his readers^ attention almost exclusively on
the Rgveda there to find the truest image of the god's
character and on his supposedly principal cosmogonic
significance^ regards him as the ambiguous mythological
figure which, occupying the central place in the cosmic
classificatory system and thus standing between the
two parties of the Vrtra-fight, nevertheless turned the
scale in favour of Indra. It is true that Vishnu is closely
associated with the dhruva dik- which is not the nadir,
but the fixed or centra! quarter, that is the centra'
place on the earth under the zenith but one does
not see in the texts that the relation between Indra in
the South CAV. 3, 27, 2), Varuna, the great asura who
however plays no part in the Vrtra combat in the
West and Vishnu in the centre is developed into a
coherent system or has any significance in Indra's

great cosmogonic achievement and the ensuing
organisation of our cosmos. I am rather inclined to
suppose that Vishnu's undeniable relations with the
centre may be interpreted otherwise. Although ! am
disposed to admit that the centre represents 'the totality
of the parts distributed over the four quarters', I do
not think that this is its full import. We now know
that from the point of view of archaic religions this
centre or navel (op.fa\o9) is the place in which the
axis mundi, the central pillar or frame of creation, reaches
the earthjputting the cosmic levels into communication
and constituting a means of travelling' to heaven as well
as a canal through which the heavenly blessings may
penetrate into the abode of men. Vishnu may even
be considered as representing this cosmic pillar itself :
he is for instance (RV. 7, 99, 2) explicitly said to sustain
the upper component of the universe, a well-known
function of that pillar. His vertical pervasiveness is
moreover illustrated by the fact that the yupathe
sacrificial post which in definite rites is mounted by
the sacrificer to reach heaven and which may be
considered a representative of this axis belongs to him
and that he lives in the mountains, another manifestation
of the axis and a place where heaven and earth meet.

Nor is it clear to me why Vishnu should be the
f unity 3 of the two antagonistic parties, upper world
and nether worlds', standing in, and being of each

of these two world., and belonging consequently also
to the gods of the nether worlds, whom he could not
fightj as Indra did 'because' 1 quote Kuiper 'these
two were part of his essence'. But even the Rgveda

describes him as destroying demons (7, 99, 4f.) and

127

states (\, 155, 6) that Vishnu goes to war, that
accompanied by Indra he forces open the cattle - shed
of Vala, the mythological duplicate of Vrtra (1, 156, 4).
As far as I am able to see there is no textual evidence
of Vishnu's arising from the nether world and subsequent
standing on the mountain or mountains. I would rather
say that Vedic man considered him to be present in
any part of the cosmic axis ? his is, at the lower end.
the yupa, and the brahmans constantly identify him
with the sacrifice which is located in the navel of the
earth; at the upper end is his high domain or
'protectorate'; as the god of three seats (trisadhastha i
), 156, 5) he manifests himself also in the middle.
Hence also, I would suppose, Vishnu's relations
sometimes even matrimonial relations with Aditi,
whose womb he protects; this womb, which is
explicity identified with the navel of the earth
^VS: 1, l!) 3 but which is more than that, namely the
f place of universal creation', because Aditi whose
name in all probability means 'Freedom manifests
her nature not only in the earth but in any broad and
wide expanse in the generative and life - sustaining
nature, in any expansion of phenomenal life. Vishnu
on the other hand, far from being a static representative
of the axis, creates, while striding widely and traversing
the universe, the room, which is indispensable to
that expansion.

If it be permitted to prolong this digression for a
moment, I would repeat that I am unable to read in
the texts that Vishnu rose up -from the nether world
to which he original!/ belonged at the very moment
when the dual world was, by Indira's great, achievement

128

created. It is Indra who calfed on his companion and
associate for co-operation, asking him to stride, for him,
Indra, over a great distance, or as the Brhaddevata
(6, 122 f.) has it; Going to Vishnu Indira said : "I wish
to slay Vrtra. Stride forth to-day and stand at my side.
Heaven must make room for my outstretched bolt.'.
Saying "Yes", Vishnu did so ...... * So Vishnu's activity

preceded Indra's fight with Vrtra which in its turn
made the organization of our world possible.

It is also in this connection that mention is
(RV. 8, 12, 27) made of three strides, the well-known
and obviously most important feature in Vishnu's
traversing moment. From the Rgvedic references to
this activity it does not however emerge that the first
step or only the first step, was taken in the nether
world or corresponds to it. On the contrary*
the poets do not omit statingthat Vishnu
has taken his strides from the same place as
the Maruts who exert their influence in the higher
etmosphere (RV. 5, 87, 4) and from that place from
which the gods are expected to promote man's
interests (I, 22. 16). Although the poets do not indeed
lay much stress on the exact places where the steps
wert taken, they are quite explicit in describing them
as establishing the broad dimensional actuality of the
earthly space, or in stating that the god strode out on
the earth (AV. 12, 1, 10). There is no doubt much
truth m the explication of the number three as
expressing the idea of totality and therefore referring
to the expansion of the whole earth or even of the

lev. e ntT erSef bUt Jt J ' S V6ry d ubtful whether the
relevant texts may be supposed to point to an

scend.ni movement of the god. Yet one of the

poets (RV. 7, 99, 1) makes a distinction between 'both
terrestrial spaces' of the god known to men which
has been rightly explained as earth and atmosphere
the highest, of which Vishnu himself has knowledge.
The texts do not say that the third step represents all
three movements, they state that there is a highest
step, station or abode of Vishnu the term padam
admits of all these translations which may be seen
for ever by the successful sacrifices (RV, 1, 22, 10;,
and is also called his dear domain or protectorate ;
there is a spring of honey, i. e. the draught of
immortality (1, 154, 5) and there is the god's bandhu 3
which means that the god who is active in the universe
is closely and mysteriously connected with that 'place',
which is practically 'heaven'.There is nothing to prevent
us from assuming that there is the c place beyond space*
(7, lOOj 5\ where the god is said to reside.

As is well known there has been a tendency., even
since the oldest Yajurvedic texts and the pre-Yaska
interpreters of the Rgveda, to connect Vishnu-'s strides
with the triple division of the universe (sky or heaven,
earth and what is between them).lt is however doubtfuj
whether this interpretation can be called a merely
naturalistic one. And it may., on the other hand, be
true that the poets of the Rgveda, in connection with
these strides, never refer to this triple division, it is
dangerous to rely on the argumentum esilentio and
to isolate the Rgveda toe much from the other
Vedic literature. We should moreover always be aware of
the fact that the Rgveda is first and foremost a religious
document and that the cosmograp'hic and cosmogonic
details contained in it are not represented with a view

130

to describe the universe or to explain its origin in a
scientific or philosophical way. What was relevant
was to know if the Great Pervader has really pervaded
the whole universe in which he is worshipped and if
men also were safe in these three steps (VS. 23, 49 f;
cf. RV. I. 154; 2), that is. in this world, as it was
relevant to know for certain that out of the primordial
chaos Indra I do not mention other gods whose names
are sometimes recorded in this connection with
Vishnu's help produced and organized this cosmos.
This fact must always be commemorated and celebrated
because thus man substantially contributes to the
maintenance, renewal and reproduction of the creation
of this god who always remains, hie ttt nunc, 'an active
promoter of positive values and beneficial processes
in this world.

In a similar way Vishnu's activity for the welfare
of gods and men is celebrated in the hope that he will
continue to create safety and room to Jive in for the
latter and to win vikranti, i.e. the power to display
their beneficent activities for the former.Moreover. as the
traversing and pervading god par excellence Vishnu does
not only make room for man^s sacrifice to reach the
powers of heaven (RV. 7, 99, 4), but also helps the
sacrificer (1,156,5), brings him wealth and other
valuables and conducts him along undangerous paths
to a state of safety (6, 69, 1 ; 8, 77, 10). He is also
often allied with that important power of life which
circulates in the universe, is the main element of the

H nd T 3rtS dJVine life ' that is to sav , with the
h, V* re n the ne hand implored to
hands from the sky, the earth and the vast wide

131

atmosphere, and to bestow objects of value from the
right and from the left (AV. 7, 26, 8) his traversing
movement was no doubt supposed to expand also on
the horizontal plane and on the other expected to
lead, as the sacrifice or simply as the traverser 3 man
upwards so as to rescue him from all evil. For last but
not least Vishnu is the god who acquired for the
sacrificer that all - pervading power which is
characteristic of his own nature : by ritually imitating
the god's strides the sacrificer gains the earth, the
aerial expanse, and heaven, to reach f the goal, the safe
foundation (pratistha}, the highest light'. The sacrificer,
duly consecrated and taking these strides, Is Vishnu and
the strides lead him to the highest goal. Although
in 'this connection these three strides may impress
us as symbolizing an analysis for ritual purposes of
the totality expressed by the three strides, they are in my
opinion not exactly coordinated with the three parts
of the visible universe, because the third stride does
not lead to the firmament, but into heaven. That that
highest step or place is a!so described as being
extended like the eye in heaven (RV. 1, 22, 20) is
of course no counter-argument.

As far as I can see now, the power complex
experienced by Vedic man as the presence and the
activity of a personality called Vishnu may to sum up,
best be described as the 'idea' of universal penetration
or pervasiveness, as the axis mundi and otherwise^
of the omnipresence of a mighty and beneficent
energy, in which all beings abide and which essentially
contributes to the maintenance of those conditions and
and those processes in the universe on which man's

132

life and subsistence depend- Among these are also
the processes connected with fertility and procreation
which ! have not stressed in the foregoing.

Let us continue our exposition of the main facts
relating to the development of both divine figures in
the following centuries.

As to Rudra the tendency to adopt this outsider by
emphasizing his benevolent aspetcs and putting him
on a par with other gods continues. Already in the
Rgvcdd a deprecation, a request not to send disease
but to approach kindfy, may combine with the express/on
of his sovereign might, which enables him to come
into contact with the race of the celestial powers
(RV. 7, 46, 2>. Whilst, in the Pravargya ritual, the
formula 'Hail to Rudra' is even without offering,
pronounced, lest the god should do harm' (SB. 14, 2,
.'. 38 >, in the ritual of the royal consecration Rudra
Pasupathi is beside Agni Grhapati, Soma Vanaspati,
Brhaspati Vak, Mitra Satya, etc., one of the recipients
of oblations (SB. 5, 3, 3, 1 ff). The frequent appeal
to him for help in case of disease of which he may
b* the originator ~- may have contributed much to his
gaining access, as the god who grants remedies., to a
circle of honourable deities who preside over other
spheres of human interest : one must, for instance,
sacrifice to Agni, the despJIer, if one finds a forest.
Ire n ones way; to Pusan the pathmaker, if one is to
undertake a journey : to Rudra, if there is a multitude
cf disuses, etc., in the morning litany he should
accrrdmg to the Sankhayana-Srautasutra, 6, 3, 4) be
tti.s.e< together with Soma. as the regent of the

133

North, on an equal footing with Mitra and Varuna. the
regents of the West, indra and Brhaspathi and
other powers who are besought to grant their protection
in the other regions of the univers3. Moreover, as the
leader of a host of minor deities Rudra is, according to the
Satapatha-Brahmana, to be considered a chief ksatrah.
In some important brahrnanas his figure indeed appears
to have acquired special importance and a reality
different from that of many other members of the
pantheon. Later on, the author of the Brhadaranyaka-
Upanisad (i, 4, IS) regards him as one of the ksatrah
among the gods, his colleagues teir.g Indra, Varuna,
Soma, Parjanya, Yarna., Mrtyu ar.d Isana. These gods,
it is said, represent ksairam, ruling power, which is
called ''"an excellent manifestation". Elsewhere in the
same text Parjanya, Aditya and Ir.dra admit him as a
partner (2, ?, 2). An important factor in the process of
Rudra's growth which should not however be one-
sidedly emphasized is his identification with the
mighty god of fire, Agni, and which may, in a sense,
point *to a process analogous to Vishu's appropriating
part of the greatness of Indra. In a later upanisad
(P/U. 2, 9) the god is. together with Indra, Surya

and other gods said to be an aspect of the
universal life or vital power, the most essential of all
powers, on which everything is firmly established (2. 6),
whereas another upanisadic author, discussing the nature
of the Atman - that is the Supreme universal Soul,
identical with Brahman, of which every intelligent being
is a partial individuation equates him with a consider-
able number of divine powers, among whom are not

only Indra and Savitar, but also Isana, Bhava
and Sambhu aspects or partial manifestations of

Rudra's nature Prajapati, Vishnu and Narayana
(MaiU. 6, X; 7, 7). Meanwhile this development had
culminated in those particular circles which produced
the Svetasvatara-Upanisad. This work will claim our
special attentien in the next feature.

At the same period, in which Rudra-Siva was
Gradually reaching the supreme rank, the Vishnu of our
texts had likewise been advanced to a higher position.
His relations, or community of interests, with Prajapati,
which date already from Rgvedic times, are intensified.
Whereas the oldest upanisads added nothing important
to his history, thobe of the second period which possibly
were, roughly speaking, compiled about the same time
as the Bhagavadgita or somewhat later, begin to
recognize him as a supreme monotheistic God. In th
Maittra}aniya - Upanisad he is not only one of the
chief 'bodies' of Prajapati or a manifestation of
ihat one overlord who is the totality (sarvah
kascit prubhuM.but is also called the Supreme Light,
which is unmoving, free from death, unwavering and
sttbte. pure griefless bliss. One place is of special interest,
because it contains a stanza which with slight variation
occurs also in the Srhadaranyaka .- -The face of the
True-and-Real is covered with a golden vesselj uncover
<t. Pusan. en order to see him whose (that of which
thai norma behaviour-and-observance is the True-and-
Reaf Instead of the last words (satyadharmaya drstaye)
sne Maitrayamya reads satyadharmaya vlshnave which
n;ust mean "in order to (establish contact with) Vishnu
TH T nrmsal and fundamental conduct consists in being
Tro.and.Rwl .Satyacharrran.in the Rgvsda an epithet
, Sev.tar, \ 9t m the Mahabharata, among

the thousand names of Vishnu. Nevertheless ft is
quite true that many phases in the long process of
Vishnu's rise to the highest position have completely
disappeared from our sight. That his ancient functions,
known to us from a regrettably limited number of
Deferences in the samhitas, have, in their totality and
as a whole, contributed much to this process seems
indisputable.

There would be little sense in repeating what may
be read in every History of Hinduism on these gods as
they present themselves to us in the epic period.
Suffice it to say that both Vishnu and Siva are,
in the epics^ ambiguous figures, being on the one hand
deities with heroic traits of character and, on the
other, rising to supramundane dignity, representing or.
tending to represent the Supreme Being. Not rarely
it is not at all clear whether they are to be regarded
as devas or as the supreme God, whether, for instance,
Siva's protection is to be sought because he is the
boon-giving Lord, the omnipresent soul and creator
of the universe and the embodiment of its three
divisions or because he is the great deva of frightful
aspects who has now also become a conqueror of
demoniac power- Both gods are now endowed with
all divine qualities imaginable and have become the
central characters in mythical tales which will enthral
the minds of many generations to come. Both are
adored by other gods, Vishnu also by his fellow
Adityas of whom he is the youngest and in accordance
with the well-known 'y ouri 9 est- smartest' motif of
mythical tales also the greatest Neither of them had
however, in the }a$t centuries before and the first

136

centuries after the beginning of our era, ascended
the zenith of his power and dignity- Leaving Krshi
and the other doubles of his personality out ,
consideration Vishnu plays, in his own name, a le<
important part in the epics than his rival who-althoug
mention is still, but rarefy, made of a distinct deit
Rudrais now almost generally known as Siva, notwith
standingjt is true, his 'doubles' or partial manifestation
continue to be distinguished: 'To Pasupati, to Siva, t<
Samkara. Both of them retain striking features which the;
possessed a/ready in the Vedic past, but absorb, ai
supramundane figures, other divine beings. Those wht
adore the Sun are for instance said actually to worshif
Siva and Vishnu has now taken over Indra's task t<
fight demons and perform heroic deeds. Becoming the
typ-cal fighter for the gods it is he who afte
recovering the amrfa from the asufas defeated then
,v-ih his discus. The idea of avataras incarnation!
: order to rehabilitate the world is in coursf
cf development but his benevolence is rareli
sn doubt and he essentially remains actively interastet
n the welfare and prosperity of man and the world
5<v, uncanny, wrathful and incalculable, not rarely
i-fnble. fierce and impetuous, famous for his prepon-
derantly destructive energy, is still a much fearec
uUftcr of mischief. That certain circles continuec
toward him as an outsider standing apart from tru
ct. cr ^ gods may appear from the popular story o;
* sacnfice. But he is a n ambivalent god: the
recosru ' 2 s hlm an ascetic, rapt in the
pieuon of his own unfathomable being who,
-. per,ormin fl terrific austerities, is also often
v t titii iccr.s gr.ti to cc^f^r favcurs upon hi;

137

worshippers. His phallic aspect, attesting to his ability
a for unlimited production, which archaeological finds
,f show us to have existed already in the 1st century
s B. C., is not unknown to the Mahabharata. In the
-j Ramayana references to his divine power and greatness

1 are not wanting, but most of these occur in similes
referring to his destructive activities in battle, etc.j in

. any case they do not indicate that he was regarded

as supreme, in short Vishnu is, generally speaking,
a friend nearer to man, Siva a lord and master,
ambivalent and many sided.

\ The Indians were always inclined to father religious.,

| philosophical or sociological doctrine upon superhuman

authorities. In the great epic it is not only Krshna
who himself preaches his religion and soteriology. but
also Vishnu who, appearing, atter a sacrifice, in The
form of Indra, expounded the dharma of the ksatriyas,
resolving the doubts of the kings about the application
of the dandaniti. Sivaite parallels are not wanting :
Siva is described as promulgating the Pasupata doctrine
and the science of dandaniti, the administration of
justice.

Part of the events narrated in connection with
these gods is to explain epithets cr traits of their
character and these tales are of special interest
because though as a rule etymological! 1 / or historically
wrO ng they are a welcome s-jurce of information on
the beliefs and convictions of those who invented
and divulqed chem. Thus Siva is also called Nilakantha
because he swallowed the poison kalakuta, or, according
to a variant tale explaining the colour of his neck.

138

Sii!fcanfha because Naraya.na seized him by the throe
w':ich became dark. Part of these explanations actually
ar.- ^interpretations : thus his name Sthanu whicl
character zes him as the motion/ess one and is ofter
connected with his ascetic performances is alsc
attributed to his ithyphallic character, and his name
T^a-nbaka to his love for three goddesses, viz the
>>, The waters and the earth.

The names and epithets attributed to these two
f jure*; are indeed especially instructive. We may, to
btgin v.ith. distinguish between those names which
cf ^.rre or fess frequent occurence and those
.-.vrh 4 ve only rarefy given to them. As to the former
it strikes us that only a few names of a very
character and applicable to any d/vine being
cf rao. ar- given to both figures r Aja 'the unborn
e jha Eternal; Ananta 'the infinite One' the
Bhjgavot^ Devasrestha 'the best of the
sara 'the Lord* . mostly, tt is true, of Siva) ;

9rea Lcrd ' ; Yogesvara ; Satya, i. e.
and acts in conformity with the true and
other names which are really distinctive

f " st Pface some that are o/d and
a " Fasupati ' Rudr *' Sankcra, Sarva in
v 8 , Hari, and Vaikuntha in the case of
'7 the T . most P art tnese or/ginaHy
o ' Te ' lweser >-t>*'ten of the gods
o-'sof divine power whfch in the

.;: a ^ e - 0f " se with them. In Siva-s
*^"tnal/y adjectival; names reveaf

"

wt

the Sei*er%

139

but also Midhvas f the Bountiful'. Interestingly enough,
authorities observe that narr-es such as Brahman,
Paramatman and Bhagavan, when applied to Vishnu, do
not refer to three persons but to one divine person in
different aspects. Other names are indicative of their
relations with other gods thus Vishnu is Indranuja
'Indira's younger brother', Siva Bhutapati 'the lord of
divine and demoniac beings of lower rank'; of their
outward appearance : Siva, the ascetic, wears matted
locks, braided or tufted hair and is therefore called
Jatifa, Kapardin, Sikhin ; is naked : Digvasas or clad
in skins : Krttivasas ; he has three eyes : Trayaksa.
Vishnu has four arms : Caturbhuja ; is lotus-eyed :
Padmalocana and from his nave! he produces
the lotus from which arose the creator Brahma:
Padmanabha The names may be related to their weapons
or attributes : Siva is armed with the trident or his
pecufiar weapon called pinaka, hence his being Sulabhrt,
Sulapani, etc., Pinakin, etc. (also Dhanvin 'the one
with the bow'), Vishnu with the discus . Cakrapanl
etc. Siva is also, and frequently, Vrsabhadhvaja 'the
one who has a bull on his banner' or Vrsabhavahana
'the one who has a bull as his vehicle 1 , or Nandisvara
'the master of the bull Nandin'., Vishnu however is
only once called Garudadhvaja. Part of their names
are connected with their deeds or achievements., thus
Siva is the destroyer of Tripura, the triple city of the
asuras, and hence called Tripuraghna etc., and Vishnu
is known as Janardana, because, an epic poet says
(Mbh. 5, 68, 6), he strikes terror into, the demons, or
as the killer of Madhu : Madhuhan Siva is also
called after the divine woman with whom he now has
enterad into a regular alliance * Umapati, Gaurisa, and

140

Vishnu is in his epithets variously associated with
Sri. Interestingly enough Vishnu, not Siva is, in the
grsat epiCj known as Acintya 'the Inconceivable', Anadi
'the Eternal', Vibhu 'the one whose might and sovereignty
extend far and pervade all', a term applied in the
Mundaka-Upanishad (i, 1,6) to the imperishable source
of all existence, the substantive viphuti coming into
use for Vishnu's divine and universal power and dignity
and as Acyuta which characterizes him as the Immovable
and Unwavering One. Siva is on the other hand
often known as the great god or lord : Mahadeva^
Mahesvara, and incidentally, Mahaghora, Mahakarman,
etc., although epic authors give these names sometimes
also to Vishnu Krsna.

A well-known literdry and liturgical form of praise,
adoration and magnification of a god consists in
pronouncing his names and epithets. This is at the
same time a device for meditatively identifying oneself
with aspects of the god's nature ; Vishnu is even
supposed to crant final emancipation to him who
mentally recities his names- Shorter or longer
enumerations are found aiieady in the Veda. The
names may, as in the Vedic Satarudriya hymn, be
embedded in prayers, homage and references to the
god's might or consist, like the largely stereotyped
sahasranamastatras of Hinduism, of a sort of general
description of the god's character or of a mere
enumeration cf rames and epithets. In many circles
this 'prayer of names' came to be one cf the most
characteristic expressions of devotion, its mental
recitation being &n excellent protective against evil
which however easily decene rated into verbal magic.

What strikes us in these enumerations of 'a thousand
names' is that both gods have a comparatively small
numberabout eighty of epithets and surnames in
common. Some of these belong to well-known
ancient deities who are equated to the two represen-
tatives of the Highest (Vayu, Yama, Dhatar), or are
ancient epithets of other exalted beings (Sahasraksa
'with a thousand eyes 5 )., some are divine titles of a
more general character expressing aspects of divinity
or superiority (Ananta. Ugra 3 Bhanu, Bhavana, Santa,
Srestha, Kala, Danda, Dhruva, Guru, Gopati, Guha,
Gambhira, Sarva, Sthira, Sthavira, Varada, Bhu,
Bhutatman, Marqa, Ksobhana. and of course Deva,
Prabhu, Isana^, Isvara) ; there is a honorific epithet
such as Sumukha f fair-faced' or a philosophical term
such as Karana c the one who causes^ both gods are
sometimes equated with brahman, and elsewhere
Vishnu bears the names Rudra, Sarva and Sivs, which
traditionally belong to his colleague, a point worth
investigating in full detail. The other names, those
which are exclusively given to one god, help us again
to understand the ideas fostered by the worshippers
and the qualities attributed by them to the object of
their adoration. Thus the number of negated nouns
assigned in the great epic to Vishnu exceeds that
used in connection with Sivaj as the privative prefix
often serves to emphasize the idea opposite to that
expressed by the second member of the compound the
former god was obviously believed to be firm and
reliable (Acala 'immovable^, happy and one who causes
happiness (Asoka 'free from sorrow' and FO a resort
for those who are unhappy), humble and modest
fAmanin). Other names do not fail to inspire trust

142

and confidence : he Is a physician (Bhisaj), and
medicine (Bhesojaj.

Thus it is not surprising that Asvatthaman in order
to obtain Siva's aid in entering the camp of the enemy
does not find difficulty in combining, in his prayer, a
series of typically Sivaite names and epithets with a
selected variety of appropriate references to the god's
readiness to grant boons, to his protective and
destructive power and irresistibility as well as to his
ability to assume many forms the god will indeed
manifest himself and his being the chief of large
hosts of minor deities who in fact are not long in
appearing. Yudhisthira, on the other hand, whilst
extolling in a hymn of adoration Vishnu - Krshna as the
author of his success, the recovery of his kingdom
which he ascribes to the god's grace, prudence and
force, intelligence and pervasive energy addresses him
not only appositely as 'destroyer of enemies' or Jisnu
the victorious one', but also as Purusa, the Trus-and-
Real (Satya), the universal sovereign (Vibhu Samraj),
and he does not forget to add a considerable number
of the god's traditional epithets and to identify him
with powerful deities and important concepts with
whom he. the origin and dissolution of the universe, in
the course of time has becpme intimately allied.

We must confine ourselves to these instances and
to the remark'' that this nomenclature could suggest
the headings under which to arrange the data relative
to the gods' nature and deeds. Not only the epics
but, to mention only these, also the works of the
great classical authors admit of the conclusion that

the names and attributes which are preferentially
assigned to these gods bring out the main aspects
of their powerful and venerable character. The great
diversity of names and epithets was a welcome means
of throwing light, in a particular context, on some
one or other side of a god's activity or of voicing the
feelings or conceptions of the authors with regard to
his character. The preference of particular Saiva or
Vaishnava schools or communities for one of the many
names of their god for instance, of the Pasupati-Saivas
for Pasupati, reinterpreted as 'Lord of the Ccattle-Mke)
souls',and of many Vaishnavas for Hari, is as illustrative
of important trends of Indian religious life as the
aversion of, for instance, exclusive Vaisnavas to using
the most representative name, Siva, of their God's

VII. THE NENJUVIDO THOOTHU

[The only book which can be called a true compendium of
Tamil Saivism appeared in 197J. It is Mariasusai Dhavamony's
"Love of God according to Saiva Siddhanta." It is a study i* 1
the Mysticism and Theology of Saivism. The work was initially
written as a dissertation for the degree of D.Phil, in the
University of Oxford.

The author has endeavoured to give a proper explication o
all the fourteen Tamil Sastras in this work. Here is printed his
article on The Nenjuvidu Thoothu. Ed.]

A. THE WORK

UMAPATl is the author of the poem-treatise 1
entitled Nencuvitu-tutu, The Message Sent by the
Heart, in which the heart as personified is sent as a
messenger to its beloved 8 . The work narrates the
greatness of God's love, explains the symbolism of
the ten insignia of Gcd as Master and King, andj,
more strikingly, brings out the marvels of God's grace
and love in helping souls who wander away from
him. It also shows the way of attaining blissful
union with God

Astavatanam Puvai Kaliyanacuntaram wrote a
Tamil Commentary on this treatise. 3

!. Composed c.A D. i3il Calivahana (Chahaptam
1233>.

2. Or f tho heart as personified sends a message
to its beloved'.

3 See Maykanta Catt/ram, pp. 745-62.

145

B. THE DOCTRINE

(a) The nature of God

The true nature of God Siva is unknowable (enrum
ariya iyalpman, 2) even by the gods Vishnu and
Brahma, who seek to know him. The former is said
to assume the form of a boar (panrf) to bring back
the earth from the waters 'for the good of ail creatures'
(Mbh. Narayar/iya section, 340. 74), and eventually to
seek to know the secret of Siva's nature ; the latter
is said to assume the form of a bird (annam) which
flies in the sky in search of true knowledge of Siva
(1 2). Other gods of the Hindu pantheon , beginning
with Indra^ and all human beings also cannot by
themselves know the real nature of Siva (3). He is
inaccessible even through the Vedas, mantras^ vedanta
(the Upanishadsj, ar.d cntta mayai 1 like v/ntu and natem
(3-4). For he is infinitely ereat and transcendent
(alavirantu njnra periyan, 5.) He possesses the female
part which symbolizes his Sakti. He is formless
(aruvan) 2 as Civan., Catti, Natam, and Vintu. He has

i See Tamil Commentary in Meykanta Cattiram p. -"45.
2 In the Sa/'va Siddhanta literature God is described
as aruvan, uruvan, aru uruvan, meaning : 'formless-'
c with form 5 f both formless and with form j respectively.
That is to say, God is formless in the sense that he
does not possess forms such as the unaided human
minds can think of. He has form in the sense that he
manifests himself to tho bhaktas in many human forms.
He is formless and with form when he manifests
himself as redeemer within the human soul itself. More
philosophical analysis of this is given in Ch III on the
Sivananapotam.

146

form (uruvan] as Mahesvaran, Uruttiran, Vishnu anc
Brahma ; he is also formless form as Catacivan (6).

Such an unknowable God is accessible only to
his bhaktas (eliyan, 5) whether they be gods or men,
because (bhakth alone can win the necessary grace
by which they can see God as he is in himself
(3). To those who are his genuine loving devotees
(parivana l meyyarkku) he reveals his nature as Truth
(meyyan) (6-7). He is the father (aiyan, 7) of souls,
the Lord (fraivan) who resides in his flock (pacu)
and becomes their fullness (nirainta) (8).

(b) The symbolism of the ten insignia of God as
King

The idea of God as the Lord (Patf) and Master of
souls has inspired many a Saivite writer to describe
him as the Supreme King and attribute to -him qualities
that are proper to earthly kings. Umgpati, apparently
following the example of Manikkavacakar, explains the
symbolism of the lordship and sovereignty of God and
of his reign of love and grace by means of the ten
insignia! faca/?fra/77) * of an earthly king-Manikkavacakar's
Tiruttacankam from the Tiruvacakam 3 is of great help
10 us to understand better the texts of the Nencuvitututu.

I- Note the expression parivana, which signifies

'loving'.

2. Tacankam - taca + ankam, lit. 'ten attributes
or adjuncts (of the King)', The real meaning is 'ten
royal insignia*.

K> Cupplramaniva m P'llai, Tiruvacakam, Madras,

t pp. 332-7.

147

([} The King's mountain. Siva., the Supreme King.,
possesses the mountain of auspicious qualities
{kunakkunron : 39) which, being of the nature (panpu)
of love iparivu) and grace {arul'i, shine in the minds
of the bhaktas (39> According to the T/ruvacakam,
the King's mountain symbolizes the most gracious of
his qualities, namely the redemptive action 1 by which
he shines in the hearts of his bhaktas (nencattu,
irulaka/a, valvici) and grants the Supreme bliss of mutti
(inpamaru mutti arufum;. z

(2) The King's river. From this mountain of supreme
dharma (tarumac cefun kiri) descc-r.ds the King's river,
and, winding its course tc the delight of the people,
removes all doubt (aiyam}, theft (ka/avu), fear (payam),
lust (kamairi), murder {kola/}, and anger (kopam) from
the bhaktas (40-1). Destroying all the effects of karma
vina/y e/'am e//ffc/, 4:) with the sound of tf.e sacred
formulae, it runs through the Sruti end the Agamas,
uprooting the three malam ; and passing beyond the
shore of instruction and initiation into the Saivite way
of life, it wipes out empirical experience (putatt unarv
alittu, 43), the desires of the five senses aivaya vetkaiy
a]/f)y 44) 5 and the functions of the organs (45,; it also
breaks the cord of bondage \pantani psrittu,46] produced
by the action of the inner organs. In order to increase
the power of grace \arul) to destroy the three gunas,
the illusion of the five senses, and earthly desires,
especially the intoxicating lust for women (matar

1. Or the mutti itself, mutti arulu ma/ai 3 as
Dr. G.U- Pope takes it.

2. Tiruvacakam, 19.5.

- the unvets

. 49,, the river "- , |t Caches th

and grants it

n*, come down into the hearts of
"i -vo impurity'. '

: T e Kings land. God, the Supreme King's
,, ,s v.here one can see (partw) and grasp
-, fhi- truths of the Swtf and the Agamas, wh.ch

i' source of immense bliss (58).

i^kui.acakar says that the Southern Pandya
. iht? land of h^m who rules over hs loving
*j;*/ ..w) through love (anp^/) and bestows tne
.- n v- returning (milaarul) to the samsanc
rrf s The Pandya realm of the Tamil country

19.4 :

* n vjriA cintai malank kafuva vant ///yum

Af^grtan ban utaiyan aru.

*- ?*i j> rather obscure. Dr. G. U. Pope translates
** ' ^A* . . the Master's river is the rapture

<~: * n*aven, come down, the foulness of our

*& v ijjin&a'. Cf. his Jiruvacakam, p. 2O4. A
; **'* *' iatc.n v.ould be what we have given in the
5*; i.^ra^-T*,r.q ihus : ma/an kaluva van vanta c/nta/*
S** * .'.^^a-.an - r am Pillai, Tiruvacakam, p. 334.

* *-">c***m. w.r. M//a art// can also be taken
fi -" * ; " y*ttp*, a^ Dr. G. U. Pope translates.

149

is supposed to be the sacred place of Siva. The
Tiruvifa/yatal Puranam contains the history of the sixty-
four sacred sports (tiruvilaiyatal} of Siva at Maturai, in
order to show that he dances the creation into existence.
Some would say that Cola kingdom is the holy place
of Siva, where Citamparam and Amr are situated.

(4) The King's city. Siva's city is where souls,
trained in sixtyfour arts, detached from all desires and
pleasures (kama nilayanat ellamum nittu, 59), and
having put aside all wandering of the mind, remain
fixed in Cfvamonam (60). Civamonam or civayokam
is the discipline by which the soul, losing all
distinction, intuitively realizes Siva as he is in himself
and becomes most intimately united with him. Most
native commentators represent this union as being
effected by civananam, which in this case is drufcatti-

Manikkavacakar says that Uttarakoca mankai is
lauded by the bhaktas as the earthly city of Siva
(pattar el lam parmer civapurampor kontatum'^
According to the Saivite tradition, Uttarakoca mankai
is called Civapuri because it is there that Siva is
supposed to have revealed the Agamas to the sixty-
iour bhaktas *

("5) The King's garland- God wears the garland,
resplendent with grace, that attracts the heart of the
true bhaktas, whose eyes shed tears of love, whose
enlightened minds are fixed on God, and whose hearts

1. Thiruvacakarn, 19. 3.

2, K. Cuppiramanjam piljai, T/ruvacakam, p. 35,

150

melt and overflow with unlimted love, trembling in the
enjoyment of union with God (6 -3;.

Manikkavacakar observes that the Lord, who dwell;
in hearts where love-springs abound (at/urum anparpar,
owns him ( Manikkavacakar). a worthless cur, in ordr
that the 'evil' deed may not approach him; and he says
that God wears ac wreath the tali aruku.i

(6) The King's ccurser 'horse). God owns the
horse that symbolizes cfvananam, which knows a!! the
tattuvam, all human souls and their thought, and
which stands in a relation to all beings (eltamay] like
that between body and sou!, though still different from
them fa/favumay)* because of the difference in their
own proper essence; it is the difference between the
eye (kan) and the sun (arukkan}. This nanam is
hidden in everyone's thought (enna/n\ both as different
(nillamal) and not different (nirkum] from it (65-6).

Manikkavacakar notes that God joyously rides upon
the courser of the sky {van puravf uru matifntu).*

(7) Thn King's army (elephant). The Eternal King
possesses the elephant which symbolizes the power of

5. Tiruvacakam, 19.9, 'Tali aruku* is a garland
made out of the red water-lily, worn by Siva (se?
ibid, 2. I !3_14). The cassia fistula (konrai} has beautiful,
long, yellow, and fragrant leaves; it is supposed to be
Siva's adornment.

2 Tfruvacakdm, 73.5 V<w - sky - cutta mayai or
Gitakayam,

151

divine wisdom (nana anafyan, 73). This divine wisdom
penetrates the lower worlds, supports the seven worlds
of the earth and the seven worlds of the sky ; it
pervades the invisible worlds (akantam J n/ra/ntu) (66).
It is not definable, but the bhaktas can easily realize it;
it takes the shape of the Vedas and Agamas (maraf)
and of six Vedankam (67). * United with the soul as
its inner soul (uyiray and inner knowledge (unarvay),
nanam destroys impurity (pacam) and dries up the sea
of birth (678 ; it attacks the evil powers of desire,
anger, pride, and jealousy (69}j refutes false alien
religious systems, and does away with fear and murder
(70). It "dispels the concupiscence of the world of
impurity 'pacam\ of sexual desire (kamam) (70-1).
With the quickness of love 'necatta/ ana vekam} it
enters the garden of the tattuvam, drinks in the honey
of bliss, and shines with four horns (713).

Manikkavacakar does not make use of the
symbolism o! the elephant, but instead brings in Siva's
weapon, the trident (kalukatafi, and remarks that it
transfixes the threefold impurity (mummalankal payum)

\ Akantam, lit. 'invisible' ; in Saivism it refers to
cutta maya lokam. See the Tamil Commentary in
Meykanta Calt/ram, p. 754.

2 The Vetankam, which are subordinate and supple-
mentary to the Vedas, are six: c/tcai (the scierce of
pronunciation and articulation) karpam (a ritual for
religious service), viyakaranam (grammar), cantacu
(prosody), niwttam (a glossary explanatory of the
obscure words and phrases that occur in the Vedas),
got/tarn (astronomy and astrology)*

152

in order to make the stainless hearts of the bhaktas
melt (afukk ataiya nenc wruka)* l

(8) The King's banner. The Eternal King has the
banner thet wipes out the burden of misery (cuma/
tunpam nikkum, 74). Manikkavacakar says that Siva-'s
banner of the bui! gleams resplendent while enemies
run away. 2

(9) The King's mania! drum. The Divine King
possesses the material drum (muracu' that responds
with the sweet grace ''inpaarul which enables a man
to forget himself (tammai marantu), grants the divine
light to souls (ol/y ulley irutti), and helps it to
practise yoga (75.7).

Manikkavacakar comments 3 on this symbol by
saying that this drum dispels the foe of birth piravfp
pakai kalanka - and causes supreme bliss {per inpam}

10) The King's command. The Supreme King
commands the whole creation to exist, last, and be
active through the minor gods Brahma (ayan} and
Vishnu (mal} OS-9). Manikkavacakar does not include
this symbol in his exposition ; instead he points out
the King's name, the Lord of Arur (arursn) the gracious 4
Lord (cemperuman] ; both Brahma, the god of the
white flower (ven mafaran), and Vishnu, the god of

1 Tiruvacakam, 19.7. 2 Ibid 19 JO.
3 Ibid. 19.8.

4. Cemperuman can also be taken to mean 'the
ruddy one', as Dr. G. U. Pope translates-

153

the milky sea (par katafan), praise him as the God of
the gods (tevar p/ran'-. 1

(c) The waywardness of the sou!

Umapati, in order to describe the situation of sin
and rebirth in which human souls find themselves
involved and to extol the workings of Siva^s grace to
redeem them from such a situation, has recourse to
liis own personal experience both of sin and of grace
and addresses the reader in the first person.

Although I am as eternal as God himself (enrum
u/an anra/avum yanum u/an, 9), yet without realizing the
real state (or nature) of my being I underwent the cycle
of various births, I was egg-born (antam), sweat-
born (cuvetacam), soil born (urp/cam}, and placenta-
born (carayucam) (10) 2 . I was foolish to eat the evil
fruits of karma ('-I) : uninstructed^ in false knowledge,
I joined hands with the materialists (ufakaytan) (12) ;
I committed injustice to my family (kutfp pa//), murder
(kolai\ theft (kalavu), fornication (kamam} (\3) ;
without striving after true wisdom^ I became a slave
to the tiring and boring empirical knowledge of the
mind (manatu}, to the judgement (putti; which follows
this knowledge, and to self-will (akantal) (14-15) ;
and I grew tired of the experiences of these and
suffered a great deal from them (16).

1. Tiruvacakam. 19. \

2. These are the four kinds of matrix from which
one undergoes innumerable births ; namely, egg.
(antam)) sweat {cuvetacam), seed (urpicamj, and womb
(carayucam),

As a result of this waywardness. I was entangled
in lust, anger, fornication, pride, and jealousy (17). 1
came under the sway of the powerful ten faculties
(intiriyam), of the corresponding senses (mattirai), of
the endless five elements (putankal) (18), of the three
faults (kurram} of desire, anger^ and delusion which
attract the will, and finally, of the three strands
(kunam}, three impurities (ma/am], three states (avatfa/)
of the soul, and two kinds of karma (iruvinar) (19). *
was deeply attached to riches, became cruel and fearful
of losing them OO-l). Thus, Instead of following
Siva's praiseworthy path of bhakti, l I sank ever deeper
into the sea of birth and sin (21).

The grace of God and serious meditation led me
to realize that those who hold on to the truth that God
is the only true kinsman (unnai olfya uravil/aJ, 23) of
the soul, and those who remain at one with the
wisdom (arivu) that is contained in this realization^

are the ones who truly renounce the world (23 4).

Realize, my soul, that the path of the pleasures of
the five senses, of sin (pavam), especially that of
being entangled in the net of wcmen-'s eyes (puva/y&r
tarn kan valai] and of learning the art of sexual inter-
course (kalavik kafai payinru, 11), and the sin of
speaking cruel and harsh words: all these implicate on
in the cycle of rebirth (28).

I. Kace aravan ciril nf/ai : lit, 'the praise-worthy
state of the one who wears a snake around the waiet*,
i.e. Siva. Obviously the state referred to is the
Saivite path of jbhakt/. This quotation is erroneous.

155

C. THE DOCTRIWE OF BHAKTI
(a} The God of love

God's omnipresence and omnipotence in creation
have the sole purpose of granting grace out of love.
He possesses the quality of bestowing grace with love
(pan'nt arul cer panpar ku/avi vi/anku kunak kunron 39).
His grace hastens to indwell and operate in creatures
with the speed that can be realized only through love
(nec&tta! ana vskam konte arul) (71 2;.

For the benefit of his bhaktas God Siva burnt the
fortress of the rebellious asuras by his mere srnile (30)
He shines as light in the nata tattuvam (a form of the
male energy of the Deity) which is the source of all
the VedaSj Agamas. and arts p ). He is the source of
kalai tattuvam ^the principle that dispels malam) in the
universe (33). He is also the light both of wisdom
(nanam) in cuttavtitai l and of the cukkumam ; 2 he is
the supreme power (catti\ beyond apara natsm and para
natam (33-4).

More especially does God show his love in his
dealings with the bhaktas. He bestows grace (arul)

I. Cutta v/ttai is the divine form in which action
is less fully developed and nanam predominates.

.". The four vakku are the means through which
the soul is made to experience the proper results of its
karma ; they are : cukkumai, paicanti, maxima/, vaikari.
These constitute the organic bases of intelligent ideas
and language, as laid in the human organism-

156

by which his bhaktas come to know him as their
intellectual light (ariv o/i) and dwells in their hearts
(32-ff.). Only those who constantly meditate on him
with love (anpar) does he favour with his visit
(n/na/ppavarpa/ cenran, 35), and he is easily accessible
to them. To the true bhaktas (parivana meyyarkku) he
reveals himself as Truth (meyyan) (1). Living in their
souls as inner light, he manifests his nature to the
inner eye (utak Ran, 36) of bhaktL

Redemptive love of Siva is strikingly portrayed by
Umapati when he alludes to God's manifestation in the
form of his own guru- Siva appeared to me, he says,
in the person of my guru, Marai nana campantar, as he
came in procession. I bowed to him in adoration in
the company of other bhaktas (89). He looked at me
and his graceful look purified me from the five 1 kinds

1. Reference to the five ma/am instead of the
usual three is quite new in this text. The Tamil
commentator enumerates them as follows : anavam,
kanmam, tirotanam, mayai mayeyam (op. cit , p. 757).
Now mayeyam signifies the seven tattuvam-ka/am,
niyati etc (ses Kafakat Jamil Akarati). Tirotanam
(.Lit. 'curtain*, 'screen', that which hides') means tirotana
caw' (according to the same dictionary), i e. the catti
that shields the soul from truth by making it experience
wordly goods. Hence mayeyam, being the evolutes of
mayai itself, and tirotanam, being the effect of mayai
both these could be reduced to mayai Thus the usual
doctrine of the three malam does not contradict this
passage [ Mayeyam is contained in Maya
Tirotanam in Aanava. Ed.]

157

f impurity and transformed my thinking (n/nafvu
verakkinan) (90); cutting asunder the coil of delusion,
his glance showered on me the nectar of c/vanantam (91).
He instructed me that the besmearing of the sacred
ashes (vennir)?- Sa/va appearance (c/va vetam)'* and
Sivapuja are what really matter in lifej 3 whereas such
things as riches and family are impermanent (92)*
He taught me the meaning of the five sacred syllables
(namacivaya) and the way of meditating on their
hidden meaning with ever increasing bhakti (neyem)
(93-4). Lighting the lamp of grace (aru/aik ko/uttf) he
united me with its flame as the inner light (uf/oI/,96)
of my soul : so, I could take rest in this ineffable/
union. He granted me his grace in order to possess
my whole being (ullam mutataka ul/atef/am vanka aru
vellam alittu, 98).

(b) The love of the devotee

Umapati outlines the various paths of bhakti by
which the soul has to get purified before entering
the sphere of mystical love.

(i) Lower bhakti. Bhakti at the lowest level
consists in an exterior form of worship, like taking to
Sa/va appearance (c/va vetam} by wearing rudraksa
berries, saffron robe, ash mark on the forehead, etc.

1. viputi (holy ashes/

2. Wearing rudraksa beads, tiger skin, etc.

3. Cattiya patarttam.

4. Poy, i. e. 'untrue'.

Next comes the Siva - worship itself in which bhakti is
itself interiorized and genuine love of mutti and of divine
union takes possession of the aspirant (91-2). Then
the bhakta meditates on the meaning of the sacred
syllables and fixes God more intimately in his mind
and heart (nencu] ; he increases his desire for union
by more intense love (neya mayalakki) * for God (93).

(ii) Higher bhakti First of all Umapati exhorts
his own soul not to follow those who falsely assert
that they have seen the Supreme Absolute (Brahman)
by themselves (tarn, pitamam kantavar pol), when in
fact they only intuit into th3mse\\fes(tamma/'kk&ntu) and
affirm '{ am Brahman' (nan piramam} (I i 1). Advaitic
experience of mutti is hereby explicitly rejected. So,
too, is the experience of a passionless state., indifferent
to pleasure or pain; the Buddists consider the impersona
dharma itself as their God(arame teyvam, I S 2) and gain
freedom in the practice of this dharma.

For the Safva Siddhamin the state of real mutt
lies only in a union of fove (bhakti) with the personal
God Siva. That this union is realized only in love is a
constant teaching of Umapati in this work. Melting of
the heart <,// uruki, 61), shedding tears of Jove

I. Neyamayal is 'passionate love' ; but with
respect to God, who is free of passion and desire, as
affirmed in other contexts, this expression means simply

intfinca \r\\id' ^ *

nattatta/ 1 tennir aruvi vila, 61) are expressions among
many that denote love of God. It is in the supreme
union of love that God Siva enters the inner essence
of the soul (evvuyirkkum ul pukuntu, 55) and grants the
bliss of mutti (vit 3 alittu, 56). This is certainly a
reminiscence of the Gita concept of the supreme
bhakti 3 namely, of God penetrating the soul in love
and giving himself as the supreme object of love.

1. Nattatta!, lit. 'by the eyes'; tennir lit. 'clear
water'. The whole context signifies 'tears of love'.

2. Vitu is the equivalent of the Sanskrit mukti.

VIII. "Nenju Vidu Thoothu"

(Message through the Heart)
of

Saint Umapathi Devanaifanar

Rendered into Enghish Heroic Verse without rhyme

By
Sekkizhar Adi-p-Podi T. N. Ramachandran

The Nature of God

The nimbus-hued Maal of flowery navel

The Four. Faced decked with lotus chaplet golden

As boar and swan, burrowed the earth and winged

the sky

But could not of His Nature know ; again,
Neither Indra, nor dwellers ethereal
Nor others of all the different worlds,
Nor habitants of Mantra-mountain great,
And billowy seas, nor Mantras, Vedas,
Nor Naada and Vintu-the crown and flower
Of Vedas, His Nature can comprehend.
He whc is for ever easy of access
(To the godly) is past both speech and logic ;
He is small as He is the subtlest ;
His Frame His Consort shares.; invisible
He is formless who hath a form as well
And a formless-form too and none of these;
He is the deathless One who is the Life
Of mortals' life; He in sooth is the true one

161

To the devoutly true; He indeed is the Deed
Behind the deed; unto the false He is
The false one fictitious; He is the Father
The Lord God, the dweller in His Flock

The Nature of Soul

Though I be eternal as the Bright one

I abided not in the abiding state true.

But fared forth for ever in transmigration

Of all kinds of birth that are engendered

In ovum, or svveat, or seed, or matrix

And suffered deaths innumerable times;

Even then, the more fool that I really am

For ever bound to eat of the two-fold deed !

Unschooled, with low knowledge condemned was I

To join the Lokayaths ; than an arrow

Faster I sped forth and did evil deeds

That my family to shame did expose ;

Heinous murder^ larceny, lechery,

I sought after and in them all wallowed;

I'd not seek to know what ought to be known ;

Unto the mind forlorn and buddhi errant,

And to arrogance by buddhi begot,

I slaved, grew weary as body weaned,

And did waste as rny body wasted, sure;

I know not of my life's sorrows to relate.

The Nature of Bond

To flint-hearted Lust, Wrath, Passion.. Pride, Env>

And to the faculties ten and matras ten,

To the five elements illimitable,

To brain-pervading felony three-foid,

Gunaas three-fold, malaas three-fold and states

162

three-fold and to deeds two-fold which all things

Embrace, to the invisible airs ten.,

To relations, the very form of deeds two-fold

And to wealth rare, I slaved and hard did work

Deep immersed in boundless fear and cruelty

Ignoring the pursuit of the path great

That leads to the great God, serpent-cinctured

But stood plunged, all bewildered in billows

Of buffetting sea of deed-breeding tools;

Dawning wisdom imparts the saving truth

That TRUER KINSMAN than THOU, there is none.

They that really realise this truth, the knowledge

Of Life, and the Great Being that truly is

The knowledge behind the knowledge of Life

Are the absolutely liberated ,

Others in the net of bewilderment

Are entangled sure ; thus did speak the poet

Of divine afflatus, Valluvar great.

His words of truth I ignored and did toil

To propitiate full the senses five,

And in this did persist relentlessly

Only to sink deep in the sea of sin ;

Caught was I by the net of damozels' eyes

Where I learnt the fine art of lechery ;

Little knowing the true state I blabbered

Full many a word of cruel import.

For ever in the cycle of birth and death

I involved myself: Behold, oh my Heart

The decadent plight of my piteous life.'

Now hearken with care to what I relate.

The State of God

He is the One enthroned on the Silver Mountj
His smile of frown did to cinders reduce.;

163

The forts of those that respected Him notj
He is the bright Light superne that issues
From the summation of Vedas boundless ;
He is the Alpha, the Immaculate ;
The One to whom blemish is alien
He's known only by the knowledge of those
That possess enlightened knowledge divine ;
In their bosoms he enters to abide
He is the One of Space righteous that sustains
The inner space of Space ; He is the Light
That lights the light by the Grace begotten;
He is the Gracious One, the Giver of grace
To Grace ; immeasurable He doth stand
Pervading all ; He's already with them
That think on Him ; He is not to be known
By mere knowledge ; He is the fadeless One
Of effulgence, the blooming brilliance
All-pervasive ; the flame immutable
On earth ; the blemishless One invisible
Save to the inner eye ; the One immanent
And transcendent too ; of the ineffable

God^s glory, I fetter'd of deeds two.fold .

Will relate to you, as in my power

It lies 5 now I bid thee listen with care.

The Ten Insignia

(1) The Mountain

He is beyond the touch of paasam manifold
And His is the Mountain of Love and Grace.

(2) The River

From the Mountain of Righteousness supreme
Down descends His River, winding its course

164

To the delight of earthly lives ; destroys

Doubt, theft, fear, lust, murder^ wrath and effects

Of all the deeds ; runs with bosom-thrilling

Sound of "Aum" through Vedas and Aagamas

Grace-abounding ; dashes forth uprooting

"The thicket of triple malaa and passes

Beyond the shore of scriptures and instruction

To sjuell experience empirical ;

Removes the five-fold passion and desire

Yclept the long- renowned body, mouth, eyes

Nose and ear ; wipes out full the weakening

Speech, feet, hands, and organs excretory

And genitals ; gushes torrentially

To pull down the irremovable bondage

Forest-like ; and rolls on everywhere to dash

To pieces, by its grace, the mind, buddhi

Ahamkar and chittha ever- distracting ;

On it flows washing three gunaas away ;

The confounding of senses ceases as it

Courses with thrill supreme through the human frame

To sever the lust bred by damozels

Whose bosoms boast of sandal paste fragrant

And to fill the fields of passionlessness ;

Forth it proceeds to purify the abodes

Of Sun, Moon and Agni and in justness

Is firm attached to the bases six and spreads

In the realm beyond the ten airs mighty

And higher soars beyond the elements five

To transcend Ayan, Ara., Mahesa

And Sadaa-Siva and all the tatwas too

Of Naida and Vintu and the fathomless

Zero which it doth subdue and again

Passes beyond the land of knowledge great,

Absorbent of all the innumerables.

(Thus) it grants to Souls clarified and from

Doubts freed, its Own Knowledge which is Moksha,

And dwells in all flesh inseparable

And as its own, entering their very lives

Like the coursing beyond the five bodily states

Towards the great sempiternal haven

Of ever-lasting effulgence great, doth run

His River of Bliss Stream, Grace-abounding,

Perpetual coolth, from deception free.

(3) The Country

Comprehinsion and practice of Sruti
And Aagamas lead to perennial bliss
Which is His Country inaccessible.

(4) The Town

His Town is the dwelling of such souls which
Learning by mastery of arts, eight times eight,
Have cut asunder the source of all desires;
Placid remains their Chinta-in Silence
Unique of Siva-Gnanam soused for ever.

(5) The Garland

A flood of tears bred by love cascade from

The eyes of devotees; their Chinta

Is serene, pf confounding doubts well-cleared ;

Theirs is realisation; constantly thrilled

Their bodily hairs stand ever erect ;

Of falsehood they will have none ; their hearts true

Atremble melt with love unbounded for Him ;

The great Grace that draws these hearts is His Garland.

166

(6) The Horse

His is the Horse which abides recondite
In the thought of those thinkers who reside
Beyond the dark realm of space, universe,
Mountains, seas, under-worldsall seven-fold,
Transcending the five organs, the elements
Life and feeling ; they are knowledge, and are
All things as well as the reverse thereof.

(7) The Elephant

Penetrating beyond the nether worlds

By rare words pictured, it is the support

Of seven-fold-middle and upper worlds;

Is ineffable and effable and is of

The form, life and sou! of Vedas and six

Angaas; it quells the vast cruel sorrowing

Paasarn and smites the sea of birth to turn

Dustily dry; again it doth fiercely scorch

Doubt-breeding lust, anger, miserliness,

Moham and madam and extirpates action

Which causes the cycle of birth and death ;

It does away with the false theories

Of all the vociferous religions ;

Utterly extirpates fear and murder;

It speeds dripping ichor of grace divine

Into the grove of tattwas and feeds on bliss

Of honey with delight; the Vedas four

It doth wear as its two pairs of bright tusks ;

!t is the Tusker of Divine Gnosis

(8) The Banner

His Banner non-pareil wafteth beyond
The religions six and clears the world
Of its burthensome misery immense.

(9) The Drum

Quelling the rebellious flesh they do

Worship the First one in their enthroned hearts ;

They are oned with Him and are immune from

Births future ; by yogic process they stay

The straying airs in their bodies ; the wind

Ethereal too they detain and cause the glow

Of flame ever uniform and achieve bliss

Of the sound of their lives is wrought His Drurr

(I0j The Fiat

In all the worlds created and sustained by
Ayan and Maal, beyond them and everywhere,
In the upper worlds and in the city
Of grae unperceivable, reigns His Fiat.

(11) God's Greatness

He is of boundless knowledge ; yet He is

Not to be seen by mere knowledge ; He rules

Over the realm of all arts and knowledge

By sense utterly incomprehensible ;

A subtle Trickster is He who fills the worlds

And all the cardinal points with His light ;

He's the One beginningless and endless ;

He stands as the root of all, the sed as well j

He is that which germinates from the seed ;

He is the body and the tanmatras,

The elements and the pure space of Zero,

The void and the things beyond the mere void.

(12) Gnaana Acharya

Unto me the senseless one He granted
Heaven, my fall into the cruel wave-tossed

168

Sea of birth averting ; He is my Lord /

The Saint great Sampandhan ! His blessed feet

Worshipped by all, he planted on my poor crown

My King is He ; the Rider of the Bull ;

He's the meaning of the words of the wise ;

The First One beyond compare ; self effulgent ;

He needeth no happiness rrom without.

In the hallowed form mighty of Guru

Sans gunaa or mark he stood, the great Lord !

He did snap the bondage, the cause of birth ;

He abides in Tillai where dwell the learned,

To mere intellect inaccessible.

(13) The Abolition of Malaa

He the Lord ethereal came in procession >

I adored Him. seeing others Him adore ;

He threw his eyes on me ; in that instant

Abolished was the bunch of my malaa

Five-fold, and He transformed my very thought

Uprooting the tattwass six and ninety,

Hard to narrate ; to me my inner spa

Of honied ambrosia, he did reveal

And demonstrate that the sacred ashes white,

The form of Siva's devotee and worship

Of Siva alone to be true ; 'Riches

And life domestic arejals**, he declared 5

He did inculcate the inner content

Of the Pentad of Syllables sacred

And how to chant and count and meditate

On it; He taught me to look within too

Fearless, and trim the inner taper aflame

And merge with the inly light of that lamp

169

Bright with boundless effulgence beautiful ;

Thus abides the Lord like honey in bloomy

He is to be contemplated even so;

He showed me His light wrought of grace sans form

And in place sans gunaa or mark

Bade me rest; my life and all He did

Unto Himself draw and with me did mate

In a flooding grace of intoxication;

He made me forget my thievery and did

Transform my knowledge imo wisdom true;

He made me lose my l-ness and My-nessj

My cycle of birth and death he snapped;

He is past speech; He's inaccessible

To any, howsoever great he be; He is

Of divine attributes eight-fold ; He is

The Wielder great of the letter matchless.

He is the Songster great and Dancer grandj

He abides in Koodal with a vast court endowed;

He is not to be seen by the frivolous,

The unfriendly and the fippant; He is

The sight of the seer; from Him the Paanar

A gift of seat wrought of wood did receive;

More incarnadine than russet sun-set

Is He who is beyond Maal's prehension;

All things He fills with His Omnipresence;

By His grace He snapt the cycle of birth

And death., ever revolving like the fan,

Simoon., beetle and rotating wheel of fire.

He is the falsity of the false ones ;

He is the embosomed truth of them who know;

His hand doth wield the axe; oh my Bosom !

Hearken attentively now to the course

Of thy journey to the Father's abode,

(14) The Goal

With each dawning day, himself he perfumes

Gormondises, wears vestment velveteen

And longs to be soused in the merry sea

Of sexy chits of flower-decked locks

And maintains that tHs life Epicurean

Is indeed mukti; other joys aren't mukti.

Like a devil of darkness he doth lie;

Beware him, the Lokayath; go not near him;

Go not near them who not having seen the Lord

But only themselves, give out; "I am Brahm";

Be not trapped by the doctrine Buddhistic

Which says; "It is no slaughter to eat the slaughtered.;

The only Deity sure is righteousness,

And right conduct is nothing but patience."

With contentment false, their bodies' hairs pluck

And discard shamelessly their accoutrement;

They maintain that mukti is controlling

The senses five; go not near these deceptive Jains.

Believe not as true, the words of the Brahmins

Who chant hoary Vedeas of goodly words

Composed, but know not their import or use.

Shun the base who in their hearts do contemn

God-given ashes and God's own Temple;

Befriend not tools who have little regard

For the true form of tapas, worship, grace,

And knowledge true; shut thine eyes on them all

Who adore dying gods and hate Siva.

(15) The Message

His eyes cast looks of grace on us and thus
Ruled us ; He is the great saint Sarr.bandhan /

I He is the Beyond that lives beyond the End ;

i Hie unto His Court, before him prostrate,

I Adoringly hail Him high and wish Him

Victory eternal and praise Him thus;

''You once did peel the skin of the warring mammoth!

Will those who eyed Thee in Thy procession

Be stung by the arrrows of Manmathan ?

Will they think on wealth fleeting and flee Thee
': To wallow in Hell cruel ? Or will they

Be trapped by religions vociferous ?

Will they stand confounded many a time ?

Will they be witched by the dames whose bright teeth
f The pear! do excel and be thus fuddled

By lewd desire for union with them ?

Willt hey both day and night take notes of what
| The stars twenty-seven and planets nine

j Foretell ? great One whose Eye to cinders

I Did Manmathan reduce .' Setting her mind

On the sea of bliss, the damsel hath clean

| Forgotten her own self ; You must rid her

I Of her sorrows." Say thus and beg of Him

1 Grant her His roseate feet of lotus ;

I So praying, beseech Him adoringly

/ Again and again ; from Him His chaplet

j Of cassia get ; extol Him and of Him take

| Leave to corns back and live with me for ever.

To rid the deeds begotten by damsels

Whose eyes deceptive pierce like arrows,

Oh my Bosom ! fare forth to fetch the garland

Of the great Saint Sambandhan who averted

My fall into painful transmigration

And com back filled with memoried bliss.

IX The Souls: Their Relation to
Brahman

[The author of this article is Swami Vidyanand Sarasvati
(formerly L. D. Dikshit). His is a well - known name in Delhi,
Haryana and Punjab where for about two decades he had served
as Principal of Colleges. The Vice-President of India nominated
him as a Fellow of the Paajab University. For several years he
was closely associated with Gurukul Kangri University.

He writes in the aphoristic style, and as a creator of sutras,
he is second to none. His thinking is at once powerful and
individualistic. His bold announcements of his theories merit high
accolade.

He differs from the school of Sankara. Without having any
recourse to Saiva Siddhhantam, he has arrived at the conclusions
already reached by it. This is of supreme importance to the Saiva
Siddhantin. This article is from his 'Satsiddhanta Vimarsha'
(Theory of Reality). Ed. ]

The Individual Souls and Their Relation to
Brahman

Sou! is non-different from or identical with God.

According to non-dualism the individual souls
have no-existence of their own. As a matter of fact,
there is no reality except the Supreme Being who is
the source of the manifold appearances which owe
their origin to the pluralising power of Maya. "In the
beginning", says the author of Panchadashi. ''the
Supreme Spirit, without a second, blissful and
absolutely perfect, Himself assumed the form of the
world, ancl Himself entered into }t f assuming the

form of individual souls through the instrumentality
of his own Maya. J * * Thus an individual soul is in
its essence non-difforent from Brahma, its individuality
being due to apparent limitation. Bondage consists
in its consciousness of limitation, and freedom from
this consciousness is real freedom or salvation. The
Supreme Spirit, by its very nature* is absolute reason
or bliss. It is the adjunct of avidya or ignorance
which apparently limits the infinititude of the Self,
and thereby reduces it to the position of jiva or an
empirical ego limited or Individualised in its character.
Thus the jivas, being no other than Brahma
conditioned by its adjuncts, their individuality i& a
borrowed and, in one sense, illusory individuality.

The theory is further explained by saying that
Brahma does not undergo any change or form and
there is no question, therefore, of its getting trans-
formed into anything else. The jiva is not a
manifestation of Brahma, nor any portion of it, but
only Brahma in empirical dress. It is Brahma
conditioned by avidya. Each jiva has its own knowing
apparatus and moves in a small world of its own. It
has its own joys and sorrows, its own individual
existence. Though Brahma is one., the souls are
many. Both Gaudapada and Shankar believe in the
plurality of empirical selves. But, in truth, there is no
jiva. It is all false creation or mere appearance. The
mutable forms and names do not appertain to the
essence of individual soul but are really separable
adjuncts erroneously imputed to them.

We now proceed with the objections that may be
urgtd against this view

God and Sou) both are eternal and distinct from
eaeh other-

There is no dispute about the Supreme Being and
the souls existing simultaneously and yet distinctly
from the time of eternity. But it does not necessitate
that the relation between the two should be that of
cause and effect or substance and attribute Howsoever
the effect may be originally pressnf in the cause,
the cause always precedes the effect and in that
case, the exact simultaneity of the two cannot be
established. Jiva cannot be the effect of Brahma,
also because in that case., He (Brahma) would become
'Vikari' or changeable., whereas He is essentially
unchangeable.

The Soul is without a beginning or an end.
Individual souls are co-eternal with Brahma. But the
admission of the souls as existing side by with
Brahma does not in any way clash with the position
of Brahma who being infinite and unlimited in his
character, is pre-eminently greater than the rest. If
Brahma alone is rea/, there is no room for the distinction
of a God who as f Karmadhyaksha' rules and the world
and the souls ruled by him.

According to Madhva, we cannot say that Brahma
is one but appears as many because of adjuncts or
upadhies. If he is conditioned by upadhies, he cannot
be released from them, for his association with
upadhies will be permanent. If upadhies are the
product of ignorance, then ignorance will be of the
nature of Brahma, if they were different, 'then

We will have dualism of Brahma and ignorance.
If it is argued that ignorance is the quality of "jiva"
we ara in a vicious circle. Thsre is no "jiva",
without 'avidya' and no 'avidya' without 'jiva* .

That the individual souls had a beginning in time,
and owed their existence to the creative activity of
God is equally open to serious objections. A thing
having a beginning is likely to have an end, for
extinction is but the reverse process of origination.
It a thing can come out of nothing it has only to
retrace its steps to revert to nothing. Stepping into
existence and stepping out of it stand ex ctly on the
same footing. The admission that a thing had a
beginning in time implies that its existence is determined
by a conjunction of conditions, so that the withdrawal
of some of the conditions^ would entail its extinction.
Immortality of soul is thus hardly compatible with the
denial of its eternal existence.

Then again, why did an individual soul come into
being for the first time at a particular moment of time
and not another?There is nothing peculiar in any particular
moment in the stream of time-continuum by reference to
which you can explain why in particular it should be
the starting time of the creation of souls ; time in itself
is indifferent to this great transition. The only way of
meeting this problem may be by saying that the creation
of individual souls being purposive, it took place
when the necessary materials for the fulfilment of that
purpose became available. But a little consideration
shows the untenability of this position. In the first
place, the ascription of creative purpose to God carries

176

with it the ascription of mutability to his nature, and
impliesj furthermore, that He may have a want which
requires to be satisfied. In the second place, a thing
which owes its existence to an external purpose may
cease to exist with the cessation of that purpose. In
the third place, how can you ascribe any purpose to
God ? He can have no purpose of his own directed
towards an unrealised end, for He is ever perfect. For
these and similar other reasons it is difficult to accept
the position that one fine morning God said 'let there
be so many individual souls' and forthwith they came
jnto existence.

The following aphorisms contain further arguments
in support of the view that God and souls cannot be
identical.

Because of different attributes (God and soul are
not identical).

According to Ramanuja, Brahma is endowed with
a number of auspicious qualities. He is all pervading,
all powerful, all-knowing and all merciful Lord of the
universe. Nothing evil can be ascribed to him. He
transcends all limitations, and controls everything.
Those passages in the scriptures that seem to fay
down that he is devoid of all artributes really import
that the low and limited attributes appropriate to
mundane objects cannot be ascribed to him.

Souls and the rest of the world, though pervaded
by the Supreme Being, are distinct from him ; and
being different from him in form and character, they

can never be identical with him. The attributes of
God cannot be predicated of the soul. While
God is a dimensionless unity, all active and pervading,
the souls are dimensionless units pervaded by God. Both
are conscious entities. But they are idenified and
distinguished on account of three attributes the
capacity to know, the capacity to do and the
capacity to enjoy pleasure and pain*. These three
tendencies are manifested, while in bondage,, into
six attributes ; desire, avarice, volition, pleasure,
pain and cognition- The Supreme Being, on the
other hand, is the Absolute Self, free from ignorance
and all other vices and never subject to the reward or
punishment of any actions. The Supreme Being, being
omnipresent and omniscient is above all confusion, but
the soul with its limited knowledge often falls into
ignorance.

The Mundaka Upanishad, while distinguishing
between God, soul and matter says, "God is refulgent,
pure, bodiless, all-pervading inside and outside all,
uncreated, free from the bondage of birth and death and
unaffected by inspiration, expiration, body and
mind. He is all-bright. These are the attributes.
The soul is finer than the eternal and imperishable
materiaradica. But god is finer than the soul, the
finest of all." 5

Commenting on Vedanta Darshana (1.2.22), Shankar
quotes the fame verse from the Mundaka Upanishad
and says: "The distinctive attributes mentioned here,
such as being of heavenly nature^ and so on can in
no way belong to the individual soup'. So far he is

right. But then his prejudice prevails, and in his usi
style, he adds a phrase, not at all consistent with t
occasion: "which erroneously considers itself to |
limited by name and form as represented by Nescience
By a Jittie distortion like this, he changed the tn
spirit and meaning of the Darshana as well as tt
Upanishad.

The relation between the substance and the attribute
does not coincide with the relation between God an
soul. The free nature of the sou/, the whole doctrin
of the cycle of life and death., pain and plegsure an
the consciousness within, show that the soul is nc
a mere attribute of God.

On account of the law of relativity.

It was Descarte who said that "we cannot haw

the idea of finiteness if we did not have the idea o

infinity (God).'* The reverse is also equally true. Anc

much more if God is all powerful, there must b(

someone \\ho should be relatively less powerful. I

there is one who is all pervading, there must be

someone who is not so or something which is

pervaded by him; for the pervader and the pervaded

cannot be identical. We cannot conceive the existence

of a Prajapati (Ruler of the people) without the

co-existence of the people to be ruled, a teacher

without the taught, a preceptor without the disciple,

a deity without the devotee and so forth. Likewise, if

there is the Brahman who is Supreme, there must be

some entity or entities who should be subordinate to

mm. And t is they which are known as 'jivas* or

Zl*;, nly ' the same entlt y can n< contain

opposite or contradictory attributes.

On account of distinction between the worshipper
and the worshipped.

Devotion or Bhakti is a relationship of trust and
love to God. It is loving attachment to God. Narada
defines it as intense love for God. For Shandilya, it is
supreme longing for God., 6 It is Ishwarapranidhana, of
yoga sutra. Devotion thus implies a duality between
the worshipper and the worshipped. The distinction
between the creature and creator is the ontological
basis of Bhakti. As a matter of fact,profound faith in God
and belief in redemption requires us to assume three
entitiesthe soul which has to be redeemed, the fetter
(Prakriti) which binds it and from which it has to be
redeemed and God, the Supreme Being who is to release it
from bondage. Even those who, otherwise, advocate non-
duality or 'advaita', have to admit that "the truth is
non-duality ; but duality is essential for the sake of
worship''. Again "Before the rise of knowledge., duality
is misleading, but when our understanding is
enlightened, we perceive that duality is more beautiful
than even non-duality and is conceived so that there
might be worship".

If God and soul were identical, no meaning would
be left in the word 'devotion.' The same being
cannot be both the deity as well as devotee. Who
should worship or adore whom ? Obviously, rny
worshipping or adoring myself would be simply
ridiculous. If I arn God myself but. being conditioned
by ignorance, in bondage, whom should 1 approach
for release, for, there is none else except myself.
Even Shankaracharya does not preclude the necessity of

ISO

worship. Commenting on Satyadharmaya in Ishopanishad,
he says, ''By worshipping you, who is ail truth, 1 have
been wedded to truth". Worship necessarily implies the
existence of duality-the worshipper and the worshipped
who are to be regarded as eternally different. When
Madhva says that Bhakti consists of a continual flow of
love for the Lord, he spells out its details, saying
that "it is continual thinking of God, leaving all other
things aside." Madhva has here very clearly admitted
the existence of three entities 'jiva', the thinker
(meditator); 'God^, the object of concentration
(meditation) and 'other things' (.Prakrit!.).

On account of desire for emancipation.

AM of us entertain a keen desire for emancipation.
The Supreme Being is free from bondage. Ignorance
is the causs of bondage- It is through ignorance that
we have become bound; knowledge will cure it by
taking us to the other side. When that happens,
nature (Prakriti) will fall at our feet^ and we will enjoy
trampling on it. No more is there life, therefore, no
more is there death. No more enjoyment, therefore,
no more misery. It is bliss unspeakable. What we
cal'l good and happiness here, are but particles of that
bliss. And His eternal bliss is our goal

If we had besn God ourselves why should we all
aspire for freedom from bondage. But we know that
we have to undergo transmigration from one body
to another and finally, when we are sufficiently purified,
we attain emancipation. Hence our prayer to lead us
from death to immortality. In the state of immortality

also, the soul does not lose its individuality, and after
the prescribed period comes again into bondage. And
this cycle of bondage and emanicipation goes on-

Establishing the distinction between God and soul,
the Upanishad says, "The sou! becomes happy after its
communion with God who is all bliss." Had God
and soul been one ard the same, it could not have
been said that the soul becomes happy when it becomes
one with God. We often talk of union with God
and union always takes place between two distinct
objects.

Madhva believes in a personal God endowed with
qualities and characters. When He is said to be
nirguna, all that is meant is that he is not associated
with the qualities and attributes of Prakrit!.. He- is
saguna in that he admits the presence of auspicious
spiritual qualities. Each one of his qualities is
boundless. He is the author of the acts of creation,
preservation, destruction, governance, knowledge^bondage
and release. Madhva holds that if all souls were
identical, then there would be no difference
between the emancipated and the unernancipated ones.
If all difference is due to ignorance, then Gcd who is
free from ignorance will perceive himself as one with
ail individual souls and experience their sufferings.

Baldeva Vidyabhushan has written a commentary
on Vedanta Sutras, known as Govinda Bhashya,
supporting the doctrine of dualism ascribed to Audulomi.
According to this view the jivas are essentially different
from God. Owing to their connection with body and

182

mind, they become subject to impure ideas from which
they can free themesh/es only by the acquisition of
self-knowledge and the performance of devotional
meditation ; and when they are so purified they
attain salvation and become one with God.
The non-difference which is sometimes indicated
in the scriptures does, according to this
view, refer to a possible future state, viz the state, of
salvation. While the view about the merger of the
soul with God in the state of salvation may be disputed
(and left for discussion at some later stage), two
things are abundantly clear: firstly, the soul is originally
distinct from God ; and secondly^ the desire and efforts
on its part to be free from bondage prove that it knows
that it lacks the qualities of God. Both these
conclusions testify that God and soul are not
identical.

On account of injunctions and inhibitions being
meaningful.

The scriptures ordain certain things to be done
and certain others to be *desisted from. For instance :
Thou shalt speak the truth;thou shalt not steal; thou shalt
love thy neighbour; thou shalt not covet what belongs to
others etc. Does Brahma need to know (what
is good action and what is bad one) ? Why should
the immortal God the fountain head of all bliss -pray
(Relieve me from the cycle of birth and death
and lead me to emancipation. It is always the needy
who asks for something. As a matter of fact, all this
relates to the individual whose ignorance binds it in
the mortal body.

The soul ("Atman/ is something different from the
body as well as the mind Those who study the
English language, are often confused or deluded by the
words., soul and mind. Our soul is entirely different
from our mind. What we called manas, the western
people called soul. They never had the idea of soul
until they got it through Sanskrit philosophy, some
two hundred years ago. The body is here, beyond
that is the mind, yet the mind is not the
soul. Actually, mind is the fine or subtle body,
the 'sukshma sharira' which goes on from birth to
birthj and behind the mind is the soul, often designated
by western scholars as 'self 3 . The soul goes, through
birth and death, accompanied by the mind or the
sukshma sharira'. It is only when it has attained
emancipation through knowledge that this going from
birth to death and from death to birth ceases for it.
During the period of dissolution also, the sou! remains
without the subtle body or 'sukshma sharira'.

If there be no difference between the individual
souls and the absolute spirit, no instructions are
needed to impress upon them that they are essentially
non-different from or identical with the Absolute ; for
a real identification can never be disturbed. If the
difference really exists, all instructions calculated to
impress upon them otherwise would be futile ; for no
amount of instructions can eliminate a difference
which is inherent in their nature. It is suggested that
the conscious attainment of immortality depends upon
our realising that we are not the poor limited creatures
that we seem to be, but the divinities upon earth
appearing under condition? of time and space which

can fetter us only so long as we remain ignorant o
our real nature, just as a prince brought up in thi
house of a poor man remains unconscious of his roy a
dignity so long as he labours under the false impressior
that he is a poor man's son. This analogy may be ap
in the case of a prince who, being human with all his
limitations, can be ignorant of his reality, but not j n
the case of the omniscient and omnipotent Supreme
Being.

Man is subject to different sets of laws. He
cannot disobey the law of gravitation- If he is
unsupported in mid air, he must fait to the ground like
a stone. As a living organism he is subject to various
biological laws which he cannot afford to violate,
These laws he shares with the animals. But there are
laws which he does not share with animals laws
which he can disobey, if he so . chooses. These
are ethical or moral laws laws of Dharma or laws
of right or wrong. Nothing is wholly good and nothing
is wholly bad. The two good and evil pervade
the world throughout The famous English poet,
Alexander Pope, said, in his 'Essay on Man'

Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in the extreme, but all in degree.

The couplet while warning us to be careful in
judging others, makes it clear that we human beings
are far from being perfect like the Supreme Being who
is ail virtuous.

The soul is possessed of fres will which, when
exercised, leads it sometimes to Prakriti and sometimes
;o Brahma, To quote Alexander Pope once again

185

Two things in human nature reign,
Passion to urge and reason to restrain.

This freedom to act, this individuality of the soul
and its limitations take it round the whole circle of
life and death. It cannot be in relation to Brahma
who, in its very nature, is eternal, pure, all knowing
and ever free. Freedom always means the non
restriction of path, and in that case, for one who is
not all-knowing, there is an equal probability of being
deluded on a wrong path as of following the right one
for the soulj the two courses are open the one
leading to Prakriti with all its pleasures and pains and
the other to Brahma, the source of all bliss. Hence
all the injunctions and inhibitions.

On account of the fruition of actions.

Man is hald responsible for the works good or
bad done by him. If all are the transformation or
appearance of Brahma, how is it that we do not make
animals accountable for their evil deeds ? What is that
which distinguishes a man from the lower animals? It
is not at all possible for an animal to do otherwise than
what it is dictated to it by its actual natureby its
impulses and passions. But the case is different with
man. . He could have, had he only paused and
deliberated, seen the consequences of his impulsive
actions which he had indulged in. There was, in him,
a possibility for a better course of action than what
he had done, and this possibility he had ignored. Why
did he. in following his evil impulse, stoop to an
animal sacis>faction ? It is for this that we hold the
rnan responsible for his evjl deeds and punish hirn fgr

186

them. An infinite possibility either for good or for
evil is always present in him. But with an animal, the
case stands differently; because all of us are not one
entity or identical with each other or non-different from
one Supreme Being.

If God had desired to create a world of automata
there would have been no evil, no failure. God could
have eliminated evil if he had so wished by denying
us . freedom of choice. Evil is there because we
sometimes abuse free will. If the world is a machine,
then the individual has no meaning. He is not free
until he is capable of creative activity. Without creative
freedom man cannot produce either a paradise or a
desolation on earth. God permits evil because he does
not interfere with human choice.

God is spoken of as one who presides over actions
and supervises the operation of the law of Karma. There
must be no miscarriage of justice, nor any frustration
of the inexorable law of Karma. Men must get the
rewards and punishments at the right time and place.
Naturally, therefore, a great deal of design must enter
into the creation of the world. He provides the souls
with various forms of bodies which belong to different
species of beings, possessing a definite arrangement of
organs and are, therefore, capable of constituting the
abodes of fruition. His creating all creatures in forms
and conditions corresponding to and retributive of their
deeds is just what entitles him to be called the cause
of fruits of actions. The Mimansakas speak of
an invisible potency which is said to connect the
rewards an4 punishments with tbs doers of the deecfs,

187

The law of Karma has nothing in common with
the popular idea that rewards and punishments are
dependent on the arbitrary will of God. If God
predestines us for weal or woe regardless of what we
do, it is no use bothering about what we do. Karma
is not predestination. If the law of Karma is the will
of the highest wisdom and God is the sovereign who
works the law, then our future may be regarded
indifferently as either the fulfilment of the law or a
gift of God.

But all ethical rules become meaningless if the
world is divine and everything is Gcd. Then there is
no excuse for our interfering with the sacred activities
of t.he pickpocket or the assassin. At a time when
people are doing devil's work under divine sanction
and consoling themselves by attributing everything to
God, the acceptance of the doctrine of monism is doing
incalculable harm to human society. Who can punish
whom when the offender and the judge are one and
the same Brahman ?

Divine laws cannot be evaded. Every act, every
thought is weighed in the invisible but universal scales
of justice. The day of judgement is not in the remote
future, but here and now : and none can escape it. But,
if I were to sit for judgement on myself, I should not be
expected to punish myself for anything done by me.
The diversity we see in the world shows that there
is a divinity, distinct from us, which shapes our ends
in the light of our action. The world is the scene of
an active struggle between good and evil in which
Gog! is deeply interested. He pours out his

of love in helping man to resist all that makes for
error, ugliness and evil. As God is completely good
and his love is boundless, He is concerned about the
suffering of the world.

If God is the oniy absolute reality, it must be
assumed that in the Absoluts mind good and evil,
which are so obvious in the world on equal terms are
reconciled or are made consistent with each other.
If the Absolute mind is held to be all good, which
vanishes from the absolute point of view in proportion
as we succeed in attaining that outlook. This to the
realist will be an encouragement to moral laxity, an
apology for the abominable.

The difference of pleasure and pain cannot be
explained without plurality of Souls, distinct from
Brahma.

The difficulty appears still more insuperable when
we come to deal with the problem of the inequality
of human happiness. Individual beings in this world
are found endowed with different amounts of knowledge,
power, pleasure^ pain etc- It can hardly be denied
that this inequality is, to a great extent, determined
by the differences in the conditions, capacities, and
susceptibilities characterising different individuals from
the very outset The Vedantjc doctrine that individual
souls are non-different from Brahma is inconsistent
with the assertion that, when considered from a
relative standpoint, they are to be regarded as different
from one another. Even conceding that the empirical
diversity of individual st.-ul i? not inconsistent

189

with their ultimate unity inasmuch as they are
essentially non - different from the Supreme Spirit,
the existence of misery as an almost invariable
concommitant of individual existence throws consi-
derable doubt on the asserion of this identity.; for,
does not the Vedantic position imply that in making
the individual souls subject to misery, the Supreme
Spirit has done mischief to himself? It is not perhaps
too much to say that two persons are not equally happy or
equally miserable. No body can, at the same time, assert
that, BS a state of feelingj, pain is not antithetia to
pleasure one, being the object of aversion and the
other of desire. Even the Vedantists admit that
ultimately God is the regulator of pleasures and pains.
But he does not make all persons equally happy.
We might have imputed partiality or cruelty to God,
had he caused pleasures and pains in an arbitrary way.
But the supposition that different persons are from
their birth placed under unequal circumstances and
endowed 'with different capacities and dispositions
irrespective of their actions and dispositions in the
past is itself inconsonant with our idea of justice.
As a matter of fact, just as rain is necessary for the
seeds to sprout and grow up into plants and trees and
then to produce their fruits sweet or sour evenso
God creates an atmosphere that would be most
congenial for the souls to reap the sweet or bitter
consequences of their actions. When different seeds
produce different crops, we cannot hold the clouds
responsible for the difference, although without showers
of rain they miqht not have fructified.

Conceding that the .present differences are due to
the vestiges of actions performed in the past, it may

be asked if these streams of actions had a beginning
in time. If they had, the difficulty really recurs a few
steps back and,, on the whole, remains as insoluble as
before; for, differences in the initial stage require as
much explanation as present differences, and perhaps
more, for as they are ex hypothesi primordial, we
cannot fall back upon the past to account for them.

Now, if the Jivas (souls) are being created by
God, these primordial or connate differences require
some justification or explanation, in the absence of
which, it may very well be contended that the Creator
is neither impartial nor merciful. You cannot get over
the difficulty by saying that although the differences,
so far as the present life is concerned, appear to be
primordial, they are really derivative, baing the effects
of differences in actions performed in the past lives :
for, assuming that the individual souls had an origin
in time, the difficulty is sure to recur only a few steps
back. Thus the problem is only shifted but not solved:
for, if you admit an original diversity in the conditions,
capacities and disposition of different individuals
affecting their happiness in the course of fife, the
impartiality of the Creator remains as questionable as
ever.

It is at any rare indubitable that subjection to some
amount of misery is the inevitable result of worldly
life. Now, if that be so, and if the individual beings
are but creatures set af/oat by the Creator, it seems to
be at least questionable whether the epithet 'merciful'
s properly applicable to Him. fn the next place,
con8.der.no the limited character of individual existence,

as maintained in this system, one may suspect that if
salvation involves complete freedom from pain as one
of its constituent elements, the individual souls cannot,
on this view, attain that state except by undergoing
complete annihilation. If the individuals sprang out
of nothing they may ultimately revert to it, and this is
a prospect which is certainly neither covetable nor
encouraging.

To prove the identity of the same individual both
before and after sleep, Shankar argues that otherwise
the man waking up could not have begun
again the same works which he had left
unfinished before he went to sleep This brings
into light what was really working in the mind
of Shankar when he said that "a piece of work half
done by one man cannot be brought into completion
by a different man." Shankar speaks of memory
here. The works themselves cannot exercise 'the
memory. It is, therefore, the Self which does it,
recollects his past and connects it with the present.
Memory is the distinguishing characteristic attribute of
the Self. That makes every man accountable for his
works. The 'past' or 'present' are applicable only to
the individual soul and not to the eternal and all
pervading Supreme Being.

In fact the concept of the eternity of soul, distinct
from God, coupled with the doctrine of metempsychosis
furnishes the only reasonable hypothesis to enable us
to answer all such questions. This world is not the
scene of a constant flow of new individuals^ so that

he who comes into it never came before, and once out
of it, will never return. As a matter of fact, the present
birth is one among a series of successive births
through which an individual passes until he reaches
the end of his journey. This course of metempsychosis
can only be put an end to by the attainment of
knowledge which enables the individual to attain
freedom.

X, The Role of the Saivagamas in
the Saiva Ritual System

Jean
four
It is ;

[The author of this article is
Indologist. He is responsible for the
Institute of Indology at Pondicherry.
great measure, the revival of inter^
discovery that the majority of Brahm
majority of priests are not Brahmins
The contribution of Fillioz.it to Dra\i
has retrieved many old and rare iv
documents from oblivion. He is also ^
ancient Indian medicine. Ed.]

The standard ritual in Hindu t.-nv
books of religious technical teaching
Tantras or Agamas. They are in LS. ;
as well as in Siva temples.

Vaishnava Tantras usually bear th t
jn Ahhbudhnyasamhita, Paramasanrttta r
find such titles as Laksrr.s Tartn
Tantras are ordinarily termed Ar.a-a-,:-
and other texts.

Th ese texts, as well as tfe c '-,-;
Jain and Buddhist circles, are -
four parts or pad*-s : I ' >--?j^
with doctrine^ 2) kriyap*. r.t.
of rites and to the r^s ~
making images, ?; carya; ** .
conduct of life and for :nc,, ..-,

13

* .

4) yoffaptda, completing the caryapada by psychoso-
matic training leading to the supreme goal.

As Agama simply means "Tradition", the name
has been applied in India to any tradition ; it has even
been borrowed in Indonesia to designate religions, tor
example, "Agama Hindu, Agama Islam, or Agama
Kristen J '.

Today, the Saivagamas are ehiefly in use in South
India. It 'is in South India that the religious tradition
has been preserved at its best as South India has
been less disturbed by various kinds of mvaders than
was Northern India. Futher, South India, after the
decline of Vedic and Brahmanical religions has been a
region of intense creativity in philosophy and devotion.
Sankara, for example, was born in Kerala, Ramanuja in
Tamil Nadu, Madhva in Karnataka, while Nimbarka and
Vallabha were natives of Andhra.

The first great movement of poetic bhakti., both
Saiva and Vaishnava, appeared in Tamil Nadu with the
Saiva saints called Nayanmar and the Vaishnava saints.,
the Alvar. But the Saivagamas have also been in
vogue in Kashmir where flourished the Saiva school of
Trika different from but analogous to the Tamil Saiva
Siddhanta school which was also based on the Agamas.

Moreover, the Saivagamas have been exported
from India to South-Esst Asia. Not only are the main
features of Hindu rituah practised in Cambodia and
Indonesia based upon the Saivagamas, but also these
texts are explicitly referred to in Sankrit inscriptions of
Cambodia The Paramesvara, for example, is mentioned
in one inscription of Bantay-srei in 976 A. D.*

Some theories have been advanced regardinq tha
origin of mountain-temples in Cambodia and of ;he
so-called davaraja. One such theory supposes that the
human king was divinized and represented by a hr'ga
established with his name. Such theories are no
longer tenable when we consider the Agams,
Mountain-temples either symbolising rvii. Mem cr beirri
built on tombs are erected according to the Ararr c
prescriptions. Devaraja is not merely c jcc-vira. LW
is Siva himself as king of the gods. Brahrran Visr-
and Indra. He is naturally represented by a I -g
which may be designated with the rave c* n < 5
who established it. 2

In modern times, in the Btc
Cambodia and Thailand, th3 so-called "i
have been in charge of State certs:?
spiritual descendants of the Hindu pr.es
empire period. They mainly came from
coast and belonged to the Ka-lasaouT
group still flourishing in TFiv:il r.cci..
Sanskrit texts they BO longer u-c'"fiM
by the Saivagamic rituals ana afs.
very often- Iheir rstr.ii texts are ^
and Vaisnava. 4 These "Erahrr.io" v;
Agamic wave of Hindu inM^ac&
peninsula. The previous one hoJ
beginning in the first cer.i-jr.e? vt * ,
era. By that time Vedic r :...:: ',
virtually abandoned^ cei^.te r.s '.- :
were still sacred and ii.,i "=,.
cosmologicol doctrines. Aj. " -
agnikarya, arcana and

.or

s

tr-

3

. . "*^rc-j

a St *

Vedic yajna and great Ve.dic ceremonies like agnisioma,
asvamedha, and others. The Epics, Puranas,
Dharmasastras, Arthasastra, Vyakarana and scientific
books of medicine and astronomy were imported from
India side by side with Buddhist scriptures. But these
texts did not give rules for religious practice. These
have been supplied by the technical manuals The
Tantras or Agamas.

The Western notion of Tantrism separates th
corresponding practices from "orthodox" Hinduist
(represented by Smrtis, Epics, Puranas and Darsanas
and evokes images of magical and sexual practices
characteristic of the Tantras. That is the consequen<
of paying exclusive attention to such practices
prescribed in some peculiar Buddhist Tantras ai
parallel Hindu sectarian texts. But the ordins
Saivagamas or Tantras are simply the detailed manui
of general Saivism. just as Pancaratrasamhftas are the
of general Vaisnavism.

The classical list of Saivagamas is as follows :

1. Kamikagama

2. Yogajagama

3. Cintya-

4. Karana

5. Ajita-

7. Suksma

8. Sahasra

9. Amsumat-

10. Suprabheda -

11. Vijaya-

12. Nisvasa -

197

13. Svayambhuva -

14. Anala

15. Vira-

16. Raurava

17. Makuta -

18. Virnaia

19. Candrajnana -

20. Bimba -

21. Prodgita -

22. Laiita

23. Siddha

24. Santana ~

25. Sarvokta -

26. Pararnesvara

27. Kirana -

28. Vatula -

Several of these texts seem to be
restricted to one or two padas \r.t\*
priests of the temples ordirariiy ke*.
which are specially useful for t^e
rites

There are also a number of up 323
dary technical manuals or pacfdhs: i
often translated into Tam;l The
authors of these manuals hav : L V ;
Aghorasivacarya and Somasamthu.
paddhatf belongs to the XI center.. TJ ~ .
translated into French because it ,s a .'.
Agamic ritual. s

But the ritual and the technical ; - T3
are not separable form tha doctdr,^ bi

,e

198 |

practice of Saiva religion inc/udss ths knowledge of
Siva as Supreme Being producing the world from
himself, under the influence of his Sakti who has
generally three aspects : Jnanasakti (by whom, he gets
the notion of the world). Icchasakti (by whom he
wishes to enjoy this world), and Kriyasskti (by whom
the world is created). As far as man is concerned
the doctrine refers to him a pasu (a cow). Siva is the
pati who takes care of the pasu, afflicted by the
pasa, the bondage which is constituted by the world
and the human condition in this world.

This doctrine is fundamental to the Sanskrit
Agamas and aJso to the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta. The
Saiva Siddhanta is referred to by name in one
inscription of Kailasanatha's temple at Kancipuram,
perhaps as early as the seventh century.

This doctrine attained great popularity in Tamil
Nadu thanks to Meykantatever fthe tever-a name of
a caste who has seen the Truth''/, author of the
Cfvananapotam and thanks to such of his followers as
Civananacittiyarf The Civananapotam is considered to
be a commentary on twelve stanzas from the
ftauravagama. But these stanzas hav not been traced
m the text presently at our disposal. 6

Before Meykantatevar Saiva Siddhanta principles
had been described in a large collection of stanzas
known as the Tirumantiram by Tjrumular The poetic
value of the works is great, but veiled allusions and
double meanings make it sometimes obscure. The

^^-^-^

A. Tevar means a celestial

3 Aral Nandi who is t<i3 author of Civananacittiyar.

199

possession of marvellous powers (astamahasfddhf).
According to his ligend, he met cows which were
in danger because their cowherd had died. In order to
save the cows he entered the cowherd's corpse.
That is an image which recalls the compassion of Siva
as Pati taking care of the pasu-s. Tirumular claims
to have been instructed by Nandi, who is Siva himself
in the guise of an anthropomorphic god With a bull's
head (Nandikesvara).

The Tfrumant/ram deals extensively with the
practice of yoga, sometimes in an original way. For
example, taranai (Skt. dharana] is understood not simply
as a fixation of the attention but also as the stopping
of breath (kumbhaka) together with the awakening of the
consciousness of Siva's unity. The symbolism of
ritual yogic practices like the awakening oj
Kundalinisakti is also revealed, The text serves as a
guide by means of Psychosomatic exercises towards
the Supreme goal

These exercises, ordinarily known as Hathayoga
are more ancient than it has been generally supposed.
There is in the Lalitavistara (composed around the
start of our era) a description of one practice tried
by the Bodhisattva which corresponds to causing the
ascension of the Kundaiinisakti towards the skull. When
the exercises are performed in order to reach the
astamahasiddhi, they are characteristic of the sfddha-s
the "Perfects". The name Saiva Siddhanta has a double
meaning : "Demonstration of Siva's truth" and finql
term for the "Saivite Perfect ones" ?

200

in any case, the teachings of the Agamas In their
carya and yogapadas,' like similar teachings in various
manuals, 7 are essential for individual ritual and for their
prescriptions of the kriyapactas for the public cult.

This public cult consists first in the daily service
of the God in the temple. He is treated like a king
in his palace. He is awakened and receives everything
for bathing, eating, enjoying music and dance, etc.

During the festivals, (mahotsavas) he is carried
outside in procession. The ritual also includes
oblations in fire <homa) and sprinkling of water
(snapana, kumbhabhiseka etc) ... Symbolism plays a
qreat role in the ritual. For example, in the different
kinds of snapana ( bathing), the vessels in use represent
Siva, Sakti, around them, the gods of the universe as
conceived in the Agamic cosmology. They also
receive samples of precious things and medicinal
plants They are established in fixed places, as are
the Buddhist deities in the famous Tantric mandalas.

Aff the rites must be accompained by recitation of
formulae (mantra, estra, kavaca etc), enunciation of
condensed symbolic syllables (bija) and also by gestures
mudras) .

Vedic re and yajus are also prescribed in some
Agamas (Ajitagama for example), but they must be
excluded according to others

The ritual may be performed or conducted only by
persons having received an appropriate <//fts&. These

201

do not always belong to the Erahmanical class, though
they are commonly termed "Brahmins". The diksa for
certain Agamas, is more important than birth.
Nevertheless, those who order the ritual, the acarya or
ctesika, must be Brahmins. The ordinary officiants in
Tamil, the gurukka\, are not recognised as regular
Brahmins. That is in accordance with the general
situation in India. Regular Brahmins are characterized
more by knowledge and technical science than by
sacerdotal functions. In fact, the majority of Brahmins
are not priests and the majority of priests are not
Brahmins. Even the Vedic brahmana did not perform
any ritual operation ; rather, he surveyed the ceremony,
intervening with his science only in case of faults.

But the Saiva doctrine of the Agamas
emphasizing, as they do, knowledge and ritual
observances more than lineage, has helped to open the
highest religious practice to non-Brahmins.

The Saiva cult together with the Sakti cult has
been the most widespread throughout India and even
in all the countries which have received a strong Hindu
influence This cult is based on the Agamas. So the
role of these Saivagamas has been and still is
fundamental in the Saiva ritual system.

Notes

1. G Coedes, Inscriptions du Cambodge, "1 , Hanoi,
19.17, pp. <50-154.

2. J Filliozat, 'New researches on the relations
between India and Cambodia', INDICA, 3. 2. Sept.
1966, pp. 95-106. And Laghuprabandhdh, pp. 454-465,

J02

3. Kailasparampara Felicitation volumes of South
East Asian Studies presented to H. H. Prince Dnan 1
Nivat, Vol. II, Bangkok, 1965, pp 241 247 and Laghupra-
bandhah, pp. 394-400.

4. Neelakanta Sarma - Texfes Sanskrits et tamoufs de
Thai/ande. Publ. Institut francais d' Indologie, n47.
Pondicherry, 197?.

5. Cf, Helene Brunner,, Somasambhupaddhatf,
Publications institut francais d' Indologie n 25. 1 vol ,
Pondicherry, 1963- i968.

6. N.R Bha.tt, Rauravagama, ed ,2 Vol., publications
of the Institut francais d' Indologie, 1961-1972.

7. One has been recently published : Tara Michael,
Sivayogaratna. Publ, Institut francais d' Indologie,
n 53, Pondicherry, 1975.

XI The Puraanam of Rudra Pasupati

rThis Puraanam as indited by St. Sekkizhaar is given here
in English translation. To help the reader understand The core
and true content of this Puraanam, we have printed n th s
volume the wondrous article of Bruce Long, entitled : "Rudra
Stotram" ^ ^^ Ambivalen ' The Satarudriya

_ Rudra Pasupati is mentioned as the seventeenth Naavanaar
m St. sundarar's Tiru-th-Tonda-th-Tokai which form. thf^
and foundation over which the grand ecU ice o the Per ' a
Puraanam is reared. Ed.] ya

"I am a serviteur of Muruka and Rudra Pasupati."

Tiru-th-Tonda-th-Tokai

1. Great Tiru-th~ThaIaiyoor among all towns, is
Endowed with superior excellence; it is situate
In the land of the Cauvery, and its fields
And groves get richly watered;
Here flourish flawless families galore,
Well. endowed and lacking nothing.

2. The fire of the sacrificial pit tended by Brahmins
Supplied them with rain; the dense gardens
-Fragrant and flowery-, supplied them with honey
The kma gave unto the Lord the panchaksvya- '
The town bestowed on men
Dharma, Niti and Saalpu.

[Oharma, Niti and Saalpu are three untranslatable
words. The reader may be familiar with Dharma and
IMiti but not SQalp Ui The Kural savs;

04

"Love, modesty^ beneficence, benignant grace
And truth are the five pillars of Saalpu's resting

place
Saalpu is fulness, perfection, complete excellence.]

3. In that grace-abounding town
From the family of Brahmins

Firmly established in the truth of the Vedas,

He, the pure one. came to be born:;

He was called Pasupatiyaar;

In love he serve^. tha Lord whose mount

The red-eyed Bull-, is Vishnu,

And whose Consort is the liana-like

Daughter of rich and auric Himavant.

4. Chanting Sri Rudram, this Brahmin hailed

The flower-feet of the Lord unknown to Vishnu.

His heart poised in Vedic devotion.

In love and without break.,

He was ever chanting Rudram

Which is treasured by the Vedas.

Thus he throve, established

In the ministry of chanting.

5. As the birds twitiered endlessly
And the honey-bees hummed,

He would enter the pool where burgeon
Fragrant red lotuses
Like a blaze of flame on water,
And where Varaal and Kayal leaped and rolled.
[Varaai and Kaya! are two of the fish varieties.]

6. Thither would he stand
Neck-deep in the cool iucid water,

205

Hold his hands, above his head, folded in

adoration,
And practise the purposive chanting of

Sri Rudram

In loving devotion of the Lord
In whose matted hair white-waved Ganga
Flowed and overflowed

7. He who was like Brahma throned on lotus
Chanted Sri Rudram the fruit of the rare Vedas-
During broad day-light and eventide, without fail;
When he chanted thus for some days

He attained at-one-ment;

The Lord of Uma was pleased.

[The state of at-one-ment is the highest. It is
the advaitic union of Saiva Siddhantam, the Kaivalya
of Vedantam. The Greek phrase : "monogenes huios"
referred to in the Greek Testament (John I ! 18)
is akin to this. ]

8. The Primal Lord approved of

The loving servitor's glorious and rare askesis

And his excelling mastery

And well-ordered incantation

Of the Vedic mantras,

And blessed him to abide

In the flawless Siva-loka.

[Mantras are not to be articulated with indifference.
They are to be recited en regie. This calls for.
patience, practice and unflagging devotion.]

06

9. As he chanted Sri Rudram
With ever-during love

He came to abide beneath the gracious

Dancing feet of the Lord,

And came to be hailed by the world

With the renowned name "Rudra Pasupatiyaar."

[The life of this Maayanaar may appear to be
simple. True* it is divinely simple. However this
simplicity is not easy of accomplishment. Centuries
have rolled by, since he passed into the Siva-loka.
However, we are yet to hear of Rudra-Pasupati., the
second.]

10. Having hailed the glory of Rudra Pasupatiyaar
Who was blessed to abide beside Him

And hail Him of the sharp trident,

We now proceed to hymn

The divine devotee: "Naalai-p-Povaar'- 5

Who-ministered

Without the temple and without the precincts

Of forted Tillai.

[Though the Puraanam ended with stanze 9, yet
St. Sekkizhaar would add one more stanza which
would act as a connecting link in the catena.]

XII Rudra as an Embodiment of Divine
Ambivalence in the Satarudriya Stotram

[The author of this essay is J. Bruce Long, Director, Blaisdell
Institute (Claremont, California). He has closely studied the
the scriptures of Saivism and is therefore entitled to indite
ex cathedra on Saivism.

Where eminent writers and translators like J. Muir,
A. A. Macdonell, A. B. Keith, Nicol Macnicol, J. Gonda and
J. N. Farquhar failed, our author had succeeded. For the first
time a near-perfect interpretation of the Satarudriya Stotram is
available to the student of Saivism.

The article printed hercunder is truly an eye-opener. It
silences the vociferous misinterpreters. The wealth of notes
appended to this article attests the thorough-going intellect of the
author.

By this article and the one on MAHASIVARATRI (Religious
Festivals In South India and Sri Lanka, Manohar, 1982), the
author will be gratefully remembered by true Saivites for genera-
tions to come. Ed.]

It was common practice for Vedic priests to invoke
deities in the pantheon by presenting oblations of food
and drink while singing hymns of praise (samana-s,
mantra'S, stotra-s, sukta-s). The hymns were composd
either as intricate poetic verses (sukta-s) or as simple
strings of sacred formulae (stotra-s). The recitations
served as an oral counterpart to the sacramental acts
of constructing the altar, kindling the fire and presenting
the oblations in the fire. In Vedic religion, the offering
of sacrifice and the recitations were two complementary
aspects of a single ritual performance.

208

It is the purpose of this paper to explore ways in
which the sacred hymn and sacrificial ritual known as
the Satarudriya reflect the image of Divinity during
the Vedic period and how this notion of Divinity is
consistent with the religious experience of "god-con-
sciousness^ of its devotees. We will do this, first, by
analyzing the text of the hymn as well as its
accompanying ritual, and secondly, by interperting
these materials critically with the help of Richard R.
Niebuhr's discussion of religious experience

Rudra as Divine Ambivalence

Around the turn of the century., the British
Indologist, A. A. Macdonell, attempting to characterize
the basic features of the Vedic gods^ observed that
"Personification has, however., nowhere in Vedic
mythology attained to the individualized anthropo-
morphism characteristic of the Hellenic gods. The Vedic
deities have but very few distinguishing teatures,
while many attributes and powers are shared by all
alike." He believes the reason many deities share
numerous traits in common has to do with the fact
that "the departments of nature which they represent
have often much in common, while their anthropo-
morphism is comparatively undeveloped". 1 However, If
Sri Aurobindo's contention is true, that, contrary to the
opinion of nineteenth century Indologists, few of the
Vedic deities represent, "departments of nature" in a
simple and unequivocal sense, * then, we must seek
another explanation for the undeveloped nature of
anthropomorphism in the Vedas. One possible
explanation is that Vedic priests understood Divinit/
to be manifested within the world in multivalent terms:

209

both simple and multiple, both personal and impersonal
Of transpersonal. In many instances, a single deity is
presented in various guises and the domain of his
power is extended either by elevating him to a lofty and
transcendent position (as with Varuna) or by multiplying
the -departments of nature and society over which he
exercises control (as with Rudra). In this way, both
the unified and differentiated, the personal and
impersonal dimensions of divinity were reflected in a
realistic and vivid fashion. Further, the Vedic poets
extended the realms over which a particular deity
exercised jurisdiction by multiplying the number
of names, epithets, character traits_, heroic deeds and
divine powers which were believed to belong properly
to that godj until, in the end they declared his
sovereignty to be universal in scope.

While the Vedic poets applied this principle of
multiple denomination to all the deities in the pantheon
to some degree^ they developed it in a most elaborate
fashionin the case of Rudra. s As many Indologists have
remarked previously, an impressive number and
diversity of names and epithets are assigned to Rudra
throughout every phase of Indian religion. He is the
multiform deity par excellence. As one scholar has
put it, "His very character lent itself admirably to
splitting up into partial manifestations as well as to
assimilation of divine or demonic powers of cognate
nature, were they Aryan or non-Aryan . 4 The priests
invoked him with as many pleasing names and
attributes as his nature and the particular occasion
would allow, in hopes that, by doing so, they might
avert the -outbursts of wrath for which he is so
renowned:, and earn his benevolent favour.