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Shaiva Siddhanta (IAST:Śaiva-siddhānta)[1][2] is a form ofShaivism popular in a pristine form in South India and Sri Lanka and in aTantrayana syncretised form inIndonesia (as Siwa Siddhanta[3]) propounds a devotional philosophy with the ultimate goal of experiencing union withShiva. The former draws primarily on the Tamil devotional hymns written by Shaiva saints from the 5th to the 9th century CE, known in their collected form asTirumurai.Tirumular is considered to be the propounder of the term Siddhanta and its basic tenets. In the 12th century, Aghorasiva, the head of a branch monastery of the Amardaka order inChidambaram, took up the task of formulating Shaiva Siddhanta. This is an earliest known Aghora Paddhati system of Shaiva Siddhanta ofAdi Shaivasmathas inKongu Nadu.Meykandar (13th century) was the first systematic philosopher of the school.[4]
The normative rites, cosmology and theology of Shaiva Siddhanta draw upon a combination of TamilAgamas scriptures.[5] In the Sri LankanSinhalese society, kingRajasinha I of Sitawaka converted to Saiva Siddhantism, and made it the official religion during his reign,[6] after a prolonged domination ofTheravada Buddhism following the conversion of kingDevanampiya Tissa. This Sinhalese Saiva Siddhanta led to the decline of Buddhism for the next two centuries until being revived by South East Asian orders aided by Europeans, but left vestiges in the Sinhalese society. In the continental south East AsianRamayanas, Phra Isuan (from Tamilised Sanskrit Isuwaran)[7] is considered the highest of gods, while Theravada Buddhism is the dominant philosophical religion. Here Shaiva Siddhanta is the practical religion while Theravada Buddhism is the philosophical overarch. In theNusantaran Siwa Siddhanta, Siwa is syncretised with the Buddha in aTantrayanic form called Siwa-Buda.[3] A similar form is observed in theChams ofVietnam where the community has diverged into the Shaiva SiddhanticBalamons and the tantrayanicacharyas (Cham: Acars) becoming the Bani Cham Muslims.[8] This is due to the fact that the IndianBhakti era philosophical and the subsequent royal Shaiva Siddhanta reaction against Buddhism failed to reach south east asia in which Theravada Buddhism, Tantrayana Buddhism[9] and later Islam filled the role of philosophical Shaiva Siddhanta.[10]
This tradition is thought to have been once practiced all overGreater India,[11] but the Muslim subjugation ofNorth India restricted Shaiva Siddhanta to the south[12] where it was preserved with the Tamil Shaiva movement expressed in thebhakti poetry of theNayanars.[13] It is in this historical context that Shaiva Siddhanta is commonly considered a "southern" tradition, one that is still very much alive.[13] The Tamil compendium of devotional songs known asTirumurai, the Shaiva Agamas and"Meykanda" or"Siddhanta" Shastras,[14] form the scriptural canon of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta.
Monier-Williams gives the meaning ofsiddhanta as 'any fixed or established or canonical text-book or received scientific treatise on any subject ... as .. Brahma-siddhanta ब्रह्म-सिद्धान्त,... Surya-siddhanta, etc.
Karen Pechilis defines the term Shaiva Siddhanta as "the end of the knowledge of Shiva" signifying its culmination. Similar toVedanta, which is the culmination of the Vedas, Shaiva Siddhanta makes a claim to be the authoritative interpretation of the knowledge of Shiva.[15]
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Shaiva Siddhanta's original form is uncertain. Some[who?] hold that it originated as amonistic doctrine, espoused byKashmiri northern shaivites (date unknown).South India is another theorized location of origin, where it was most prevalent. It seems likely to others, however, that the early Śaiva Siddhānta may have developed somewhere in India, as a religion built around the notion of a ritual initiation that conferred liberation. Such a notion of liberatory initiation appears to have been borrowed from aPashupata (pāśupata) tradition.[16] At the time of the early development of the theology of the school, the question of monism or dualism, which became so central to later theological debates, had not yet emerged as an important issue.
Shaiva Siddhanta believes in three different categories, which are distinct from each other:[17]
The soul gains experience through its action (rituals), which removes the three impurities, but the liberation is realized only by the grace of Lord Siva.[17]
According to Shaiva Siddhanta texts, there are four progressive stages ofSiva bhaki for a path to attainmoksha:[18]
  | ||
|---|---|---|
| The twelve volumes ofTamilŚaiva hymns of the sixty-threeNayanars | ||
| Parts | Name | Author |
| 1,2,3 | Thirukadaikkappu | Sambandar |
| 4,5,6 | Thevaram | Thirunavukkarasar |
| 7 | Thirupaatu | Sundarar |
| 8 | Thiruvasakam & Thirukkovaiyar | Manickavasagar |
| 9 | Thiruvisaippa & Tiruppallaandu | Various |
| 10 | Thirumandhiram | Thirumular |
| 11 | Various | |
| 12 | Periya Puranam | Sekkizhar |
| Paadal Petra Sthalam | ||
| Paadal Petra Sthalam | ||
| Rajaraja I | ||
| Nambiyandar Nambi | ||
From the 5th to the 8th century CE Buddhism and Jainism had spread in Tamil Nadu before a forceful Shaivabhakti movement arose. Between the 7th and 9th centuries, pilgrim saints such asSambandar,Appar,Sundarar 63 nayanmars used songs ofShiva's greatness to refute concepts of Buddhism and Jainism.Manikkavacakar's verses, calledTiruvacakam, are full of visionary experience, divine love and urgent striving for truth. The songs of these four saints are part of the compendium known asTirumurai which, along with theVedas, Shaiva Agamas, and the Meykanda Shastras, are now considered to form the scriptural basis of the Śaiva Siddhānta inTamil Nadu. It seems probable that the Tirumurai devotional literature was not, however, considered to belong to the Śaiva Siddhānta canon at the time when it was first composed:[19] the hymns themselves appear to make no such claim for themselves.
The Bhakti movement should not be exaggerated as an articulation of a 'class struggle'; there is nevertheless a strong sense against rigid structures in the society.[20]
Tamil exclusivist reform Saiva Siddhanta:
The exclusive Tamil reformist Saiva Siddhanta are people living in a community faced with strong nationalist ideas. In that way their beliefs in a religious way and their beliefs in a political way were mostly intertwined. Maraimalai Adigal and his religious belief in the Saiva Siddhanta, for example, were heavily influenced by the Tamil Nationalism and especially by the party of the Shivaistic Revivalist, which he and his mentor had a part in creating. In Adigals belief system you can see how the Saiva Siddhanta that he relies his core beliefs on is mixed with his and the Revivalists core political to a very an individual tamilic Saiva Siddhanta Tradition. For example, though the Saiva Siddhanta in itself is not anti-Brahmanic Adigal develop it into having that tendency. That way his religious teaching in the Saiva Siddhanta strengthens his pro-Tamil and pro-shivaism attitude. It helps him and the Revivalists to establish their idea of the "pure Tamil", by becoming a religious tradition not reliant on any ties to older traditions by becoming itself the oldest tradition.[21]
Adi Shaiva Siddhanta:
In the 12th century, Aghorasiva, the head of a branch monastery of the Amardaka order inChidambaram, took up the task of formulating Shaiva Siddhanta. Strongly refuting monist interpretations of Siddhanta, Aghorasiva brought a change in the understanding of Siva by reclassifying the first five principles, ortattvas (Nada, Bindu, Sadasiva, Isvara and Suddhavidya), into the category of pasa (bonds), stating they were effects of a cause and inherently unconscious substances, a departure from the traditional teaching in which these five were part of the divine nature of God.
Aghorasiva was successful in preserving the rituals of the ancient Āgamic tradition. To this day, Aghorasiva's Siddhanta philosophy is followed by almost all of the hereditary temple priests (Sivacharya), and his texts on the Āgamas have become the standardpuja manuals. HisKriyakramadyotika is a vast work covering nearly all aspects of Shaiva Siddhanta ritual, including the daily worship of Siva, occasional rituals, initiation rites, funerary rites, and festivals. This Aghora Paddhati of Shaiva Siddhanta is followed by the ancientgruhasta Adi Shaiva Maths ofKongu Nadu[22] and the temple Sthanika Sivacharya priests of south India.
Meykandar Sampradaya:
In Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, the 13th centuryMeykandar, Arulnandi Sivacharya, and Umapati Sivacharya further spread Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta. Meykandar's twelve-verse Śivajñānabodham and subsequent works by other writers, all supposedly of the 13th and 14th centuries, laid the foundation of the Meykandar Sampradaya (lineage), which propounds a pluralistic realism wherein God, souls and world are coexistent and without beginning. Siva is an efficient but not material cause. They view the soul's merging in Siva as salt in water, an eternal oneness that is also twoness. This later Sampradaya is followed by the 18 cardinal non Adi Shaivasanyasi Adheenam Maths inChola,Pandya, Nadu andTondai Nadus.
Khmer Shaiva Siddhanta (extinct):
In the AngkorianKhmer empire, Shaiva Siddhanta flourished until the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism and the subsequent fall of the empire's God-king[23] Siddhantic hierarchy.
Cham Shaiva Siddhanta:
In Cham society, the Shaiva Siddhanta -Tantrayana divide resulted in the divergence of the society into the Shaivites becoming Balamon Hindus and tantrayanists converting into the Bani Cham Muslims.
Nusantaran Siwa Siddhanta:
InMajapahitnusantara, Siwa Siddhanta syncretised into theTantrayana Siwa-Buda portrayed byNagarakretagama. It still survives in theAgama Hindu Dharma.[3] This synthesis is portrayed by theKakawin Sutasoma derived national motto ofIndonesia: 'Bhinneka Tunggal Ika'.
Sinhalese Shaiva Siddhanta (extinct):
In the Sri LankanSinhalese society, kingRajasinha I of Sitawaka reverted to Saiva Siddhantism[6] after a prolonged domination ofTheravada Buddhism following the conversion of kingDevanampiya Tissa.
King Rajasinha arranged the marriage of his Tamil minister Mannamperuma Mohottala to a sister of a junior queen known as the "iron daughter" He converted to Shaiva Siddhanta[24] He was reported to have settledBrahmans Adi Shaivas andTamil Shaivite Velalars at significantBuddhist sites such asSri Pada, etc. TheVelala Gurukkals acted as religious mentors of the King and strengthenedShaiva Siddhantism at these centres. Under the advice of Mannamperuma Mohottala, he razed many Buddhist religious sites to the ground. Buddhism remained in decline thereafter until the formation of theSiam Nikaya andAmarapura Nikaya with the support of the Portuguese andDutch East India Company respectively.
Traces of the era exist in temples likeBarandi Kovila (Bhairava-andi kovil) in Sitawaka and the worship of other Shaivite deities by the Sinhalese, like the syncretic Natha deviyo, Sellakataragama and others.
Tamil exclusivist Saiva Siddhanta:
This colonialnew age movement was initiated by the Tamil purist nationalist Maraimalai Adigal. This school is followed by modern Maths dating from the colonial age likes of the Perur Adheenam (Circa 1895 initiate of the then ArasuPalli caste headed Mayilam BommapuramLingayat Adheenam) of Coimbatore which holds Lingayatism as the 'primeval' form of Shaiva Siddhantism. This modern sampradaya aims to 'rid' Shaiva Siddhantism of the two former earlier traditions which follow the Vedic and Agamic texts and Adi Shaivas thereby 'purifying' Saiva Siddhanta with theDravidian movement related Tamil Nationalist undertones.
Modern Shaiva Siddhanta:
Post colonial and contemporary movements like that ofBodhinatha Veylanswami'sShaiva Siddhanta Church have stressed upon reforming orthodox Shaiva Siddhanta of the pre-colonial era by initiating the non Shaivite born, both Indians and westerners. This movement also rejectsanimal sacrifices mentioned in the Siddhantic Vedic and Agamic scriptures.
Saiva Siddhanta is practiced widely among the Saivas of southern India and Sri Lanka, especially by members of theAdi Shaivas,Kongu Vellalar,[22]Vellalar andNagarathar communities ofSouth India.[25] It has over 5 million followers in Tamil Nadu, and is also prevalent among the Tamil diaspora around the world.[citation needed] It has thousands of active temples predominantly in Tamil Nadu and also in places around the world with significant Tamil population[citation needed] and also has numerousmonastic andascetic traditions, along with its own community of priests, theAdishaivas, who are qualified to perform Agama-based Shaiva Temple rituals.
The Encyclopedia of Saiva Religion, a ten-volume Saivite publication released in 2013, documents 990 Saivite institutions of Saiva Siddhanta. While many emerged after the 19th century, traditional centers like Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam, Dharmapuram Adheenam, and Thiruppanandal Kasi Math, founded in the 16th and 17th centuries, remain influencial.[26]
Kumaragurupara Desikar, a Tamil Saivite poet says that Shaiva Siddhantha is the ripe fruit of the Vedanta tree.G.U. Pope, an Anglican Tamil Scholar, mentions that Shaiva Sidhantha is the best expression of Tamil knowledge.[27]
The texts revered by the southern Saiva Siddhanta are theVedas; the twenty-eightSaiva Agamas; ShaivaPuranas; the twoItihasas[28] which form the ritual basis of the tradition; the twelve books of the Tamil Saiva canon called the Tirumurai, which contains the poetry of theNayanars; the Aghora Paddhati, a codified form of all the above and additionally the Saiva Siddhanta Shastras for the Meykandar denomination.[29]
A widely quoted and often given classical status, anonymous verse in Tamil Saiva Siddhanta expresses the relationship between the Vedas, Agamas, and Tamil literature:[30]
The Vedas are the cow; the true agamas are its milk; the Tamil sung by the four [the authors of the first eight books of the Tirumurai, i.e. Tevaram and Tiruvacakam] is its ghee; the essence of the book in Tamil [i.e. Sivagnana Botham] written by Meykatar of the famous Venney is the taste of the ghee of great knowledge
Siddhas such as Sadyojyoti (c. 7th century[31]) are credited with the systematization of the Siddhanta theology in Sanskrit. Sadyojyoti, initiated by the guru Ugrajyoti, propounded the Siddhanta philosophical views as found in theRauravatantra andSvāyambhuvasūtrasaṅgraha. He may or may not have been from Kashmir, but the next thinkers whose works survive were those of a Kashmirian lineage active in the 10th century: Rāmakaṇṭha I, Vidyākaṇṭha I, Śrīkaṇṭha, Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha, Rāmakaṇṭha II, Vidyākaṇṭha II. Treatises by the last four of these survive. KingBhoja of Gujarat (c. 1018) condensed the massive body of Siddhanta scriptural texts into one concise metaphysical treatise called theTattvaprakāśa.
The culmination of a long period of systematisation of itstheology appears to have taken place in Kashmir in the 10th century, the exegetical works of the Kashmirian authors Bhatta Narayanakantha and Bhatta Ramakantha being the most sophisticated expressions of this school of thought.[32] Their works were quoted and emulated in the works of 12th-century South Indian authors, such as Aghorasiva and Trilocanasiva.[33] The theology they expound is based on a canon ofTantric scriptures called Siddhantatantras orShaivaAgamas. This canon is traditionally held to contain twenty-eight scriptures, but the lists vary,[34] and several doctrinally significant scriptures, such as theMrgendra,[35] are not listed. In the systematisation of the ritual of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kashmirian thinkers appear to have exercised less influence: the treatise that had the greatest impact on Shaiva ritual, and indeed on ritual outside the Shaiva sectarian domain, for we find traces of it in such works as the Agnipurana, is a ritual manual composed in North India in the late 11th century by a certain Somasambhu.[36]
Three monastic orders were instrumental in Shaiva Siddhanta's diffusion through India; the Amardaka order, identified with one of Shaivism's holiest cities,Ujjain, the Mattamayura order, in the capital of theChalukya dynasty, and the Madhumateya order of Central India. Each developed numerous sub-orders. Siddhanta monastics used the influence of royal patrons to propagate the teachings in neighboring kingdoms, particularly in South India. From Mattamayura, they established monasteries in regions now inMaharashtra,Karnataka,Andhra andKerala.
In today's Tamil Nadu, there are both the ancientgrhasta Amardaka lineage Aghora Paddhati Adi Shaiva Maths and thesanyasi non Adi Shaiva Meykandar Sampradaya Adheenams (monastic) today. Adi Shaiva Maths numbering around 40 are usually centred inKongu Nadu[22] and the 18 Adheenams inTondai Nadu,Chola Nadu andPandya Nadu.[37]
In the Sinhalese areas of Sri Lanka, theTamil Velala Gurukkal either returned back or merged with the priestlyKapurala caste but retaining their Tamil surnames with a few persisting in places like the SellaKataragama temple. In Indonesia, Siwa Siddhanta syncretised with Tantrayana survives asAgama Hindu Dharma. In Indo-China, Shaiva Siddhanta survives as an uninstitutionalised worship of Shiva as an ancestral God of gods:Phra Isuan (Tamil: Isuwaran), while in VietnameseCham, it flourishes within the Balamon section.[38]
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