Shaiva Siddhanta

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

Main article: Shaivism

Shaiva Siddhanta (also Saiva Siddhantam) (சைவ சித்தாந்தம்) is a Saivite Hindu school that encompasses tens of millions of adherents, predominantly in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka (see Hinduism in Sri Lanka). Today it has thousands of active temples there and a number of monastic/ascetic traditions, along with a special brahman subcaste, the Adisaivas, who are qualified to perform Shaiva Siddhantin temple rituals.
The culmination of a long period of systematisation of its theology appears to have taken place in Kashmir in the tenth century, the exegetical works of the Kashmirian authors Bhatta Narayanakantha and Bhatta Ramakantha being the most sophisticated expressions of this school of thought.^[1] Their works were quoted and emulated in the works of twelfth-century South Indian authors, such as Aghorasiva and Trilocanasiva.^[2] The theology they expound is based on a canon of Tantric scriptures called Siddhantatantras or Shaiva Agamas. This canon is traditionally held to contain twenty-eight scriptures, but the lists vary,^[3] and several doctrinally significant scriptures, such as the Mrgendra,^[4] are not listed. In the systematisation of the ritua of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kashmirian thinkers appear to have exercised less influence: the treatise that had the greatest impact on Shaiva ritual, and indeed on ritual outside the Shaiva sectarian domain, for we find traces of it in such works as the Agnipurana, is a ritual manual composed in North India in the late eleventh century by a certain Somasambhu.^[5] After the twelfth century, North Indian evidence for the presence of the Shaiva Siddhanta grows rarer. The school appears to have died out in other parts of India even as it grew in importance in the Tamil-speaking south. There its original emphasis on ritual fused with an intense devotional (bhakti) tradition. The Tamil compendium of devotional songs known as Tirumurai, along with the Vedas, the Shaiva Agamas and "Meykanda" or "Siddhanta" Shastras^[6], form the scriptural canon of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta.

History

Early Siddhanta

The Siddhanta tradition, like Kashmir Shaivism and Kaula, differs from the Vedic and Puranic worship of Shiva and also from the ancient Pasupati tradition by its adherence to texts called Agamas or Tantras, which lay down rites that may be performed by men of the first four varnas (women in these varnas played marginal roles) and describe a progressive, fourfold spiritual path of virtuous and moral living (charya), ritual (kriya), individual practice (yoga) and knowledge (jnana, vidya). The Siddhanta Prakashikā of Sarvātmasambhu refers to these Siddhanta Shastras as the "mantramārga" ("mantra way") which has been further elaborated by the modern scholars Flood and Alexis Sanderson in their research articles.
Saiva Siddhanta's original form is uncertain. Some hold that it originated as a monistic doctrine, espoused by Tirumular (date unknown). It seems likely to others, however, that the early Śaiva Siddhānta may have developed somewhere in Northern India, as a religion built around the notion of a ritual initiation that conferred liberation. Such a notion of liberatory initiation appears to have been borrowed from a Pashupata (pāśupata) tradition.^[7] 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.

 Sanskrit Siddhanta

The name of the school could be translated as "the settled view (siddhānta) of Shaiva doctrine" or "perfected Shaivism." There are of course many other Shaiva doctrines, and so it may seem odd that this particular one should have been known by a name that makes such a large claim, but widespread epigraphical and literary evidence suggests that this is because it simply was the dominant school of Shaiva liturgy and theology for a long period and across a wide area. Early works of the school do not appear to use the label Śaivasiddhānta:^[8] one the earliest datable attestations of the label is probably that in the eighth-century Sanskrit inscription carved around the central shrine in the Kailasanatha temple in Kancheepuram.
Siddhas such as Sadyojyoti (ca seventh century^[9]) are credited with the systematization of the Siddhanta theology in Sanskrit. Sadyojyoti, initiated by the guru Ugrajyoti, propounded the Siddhanta philosophical views as found in the Rauravatantra and Svāyambhuvasūtrasaṅgraha. He may or may not have been from Kashmir, but the next thinkers whose works survive were those of a Kashmirian lineage active in the tenth century: Rāmakaṇṭha I, Vidyākaṇṭha I, Śrīkaṇṭha, Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha, Rāmakaṇṭha II, Vidyākaṇṭha II. Treatises by the last four of these survive. King Bhoja of Gujarat (ca 1018) condensed the massive body of Siddhanta scriptural texts into one concise metaphysical treatise called the Tattvaprakāśa.
Three monastic orders were instrumental in Shaiva Siddhanta’s diffusion through India; the Amardaka order, identified with one of Shaivism’s holiest cities, Ujjain, the Mattamayura order, in the capital of the Chalukya dynasty near the Karnataka, and the Madhumateya order of Central India. Each developed numerous sub-orders. (see Nandinatha Sampradaya) 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 in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra and Kerala.