Aum Gung Ganapathaye Namah
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa
Homage to The Blessed One, Accomplished and Fully Enlightened
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most
Merciful
Saiva Siddhantha
A Collection of Articles, Notes and References
References
(Revised:
References Edited by
An Indian Tantric
What’s in a name? That
which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
- William Shakespeare
Copyright © 2002-2010 An Indian Tantric
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Should NOT be used for commercial, political or any
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8 "... Freely you received, freely give”.
- Matthew 10:8 :: New American Standard Bible (NASB)
1 “But mark this: There
will be terrible times in the last days.
2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather
than lovers of God—
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with
them.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all
kinds of evil desires,
7 always learning but never able to acknowledge
the truth.
8 Just as Jannes and Jambres
opposed Moses, so also these men
oppose the truth--men of
depraved minds, who, as far as
the faith is concerned, are rejected.
9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those
men, their folly
will be clear to everyone.”
- 2 Timothy 3:1-9 :: New International Version
(NIV)
6 As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest for
ever after the order of Melchisedec.
- Hebrews 5:6 :: King James Version (KJV)
Therefore, I say:
Know your
enemy and know yourself;
in a
hundred battles, you will never be defeated.
When you
are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself,
your
chances of winning or losing are equal.
If ignorant both of your
enemy and of yourself,
you are sure to be
defeated in every battle.
-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, c. 500bc
There are two ends not to
be served by a wanderer. What are these two? The pursuit of desires and of the pleasure which springs from desire,
which is base, common, leading to rebirth, ignoble, and unprofitable; and the pursuit of pain and
hardship, which is grievous, ignoble, and unprofitable.
- The Blessed One, Lord Buddha
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Brief Word on Copyright
Many of
the articles whose educational copies are given below are copyrighted by their respective
authors as well as the respective publishers. Some contain messages of warning,
as follows:
Republication or
redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
without the written
consent of “so and
so”.
According
to the concept of “fair use” in US copyright Law,
The reproduction,
redistribution and/or exploitation of any materials and/or content (data, text,
images, marks or logos) for personal or commercial gain is not permitted. Provided the source is cited, personal, educational
and
non-commercial use (as defined by fair use in US copyright law) is permitted.
Moreover,
I
believe that satisfies the conditions for copyright and non-plagiarism.
References
Some of
the links may not be active (de-activated) due to various reasons, like removal of the
concerned information from the source database. So an educational copy is also
provided, along with the link.
If the
link is active, do cross-check/validate/confirm the educational copy of the
article provided along.
References
Danielou, Alain. While the Gods Play.
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/danielou2.html
Rev. Goudie W. The Saiva Siddhanta.
http://www.geocities.com/ktsshiva/goudie.html
Little, Layne. An Introduction to the Tamil Siddhas: Their Tantric Roots, Alchemy,
Poetry, and the True Nature of their Heresy Within the Context of South Indian
Shaivite Society.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/tamil_si.html
Sundaresan, Vidyasankar. (
http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/1997_6/0012.html
Rao, Velcheru Narayana. (Trans.) (1990)
Siva's Warriors - The Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somanatha.
http://magusbks.com/bookCategories/AsianArt&History/SivasWarriors.htm
Zvelebil K. V. (Trans.)
(1984) The Lord of the Meeting Rivers: Devotional
Poems of Basavanna.
Motilal
Banarsidass. 196 pages. ISBN: 0-89581-755-1
http://www.mergingcurrents.com/book3007.html
History of Veerashaivism
http://members.aol.com/ukumbar/vsny/Detailed.htm
Kalevala in Tamil
http://www.helsinki.fi/~ramaling/kalevala-tamil/pub.html
Lingayats – Followers of Siva
http://www.indiaprofile.com/lifestyle/lingayats.htm
Saivism
http://www.subaonline.de/saivascriptures/
Shaivism: An Introduction
http://www.seekersway.org/seekers_guide/shaivism_2_d.html
vIrasaiva panchAchAryaru
http://www.shaivam.org/kvpancac.htm
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Educational Copy of Some of the References
FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY
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Reference
Danielou, Alain. While the Gods Play.
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/danielou2.html
the Shivaites were both ascetic and lascivious; Gautama later rejected the latter
Shaivism, the religion of the
ancient Dravidians, was always the religion of the people. Its metaphysical, cosmological,
and ritual conceptions were preserved by communities of wandering ascetics
living on the fringe of the offical society, whom the Aryans scornfully called Yati(s) (wanderers), Vratya(s) (untouchables), or
Ajivika(s) (beggars).
In the fourth century A.D.,
Amarsimha, the author of a famous Sanskrit dictionary, still classes among the
Shudra(s) (the low castes) the Devala or Shaivas,
who worship idols,
{p. 16} and notes among them the Pashupata(s), the Pancharatra(s), and the Tantrika(s), that is, the population groups who had been able to maintain the old religion, its rites, cosmology, myths, and practices. It is the members of these monastic orders who today still teach the disciplines and eroticomagical rites of Tantrism.
…
The Shaiva ascetics went about naked, their bodies smeared with ashes, practicing orgiastic dances. They refused to be participants in a society oriented toward productivity and puritanism. With matted hair and haggard eyes, they lived away from villages and towns and refused to take an interest in material wellbeing. In the same epoch, the sect of Cynics, of which Diogenes is a typical example, flourished in Greece and is clearly related to the Kalamuka(s) of India. {and as F. Gerald Downing pointed out, the early Christians were much like Cynics: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/downing.html ; see also pp. 19 & 26 below}
…
The wandering Shaiva sages, asocial and marginal, both
{p. 19} ascetic and lascivious, free from the tyrannies of society, held a great fascination for the bourgeois and aristocratic young people of the cities (a little like the hippies of modern times). Hence, the great bourgeois Mahavira and the prince Gautama became disciples of Gosala. (Plutarch reports that Alexander said of himself: "If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.") {Diogenes was a Cynic: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/downing.html}
…
The role of Gosala can be compared to someone such as Aurobindo, who, in the modern era, however contested by orthodox Hinduism, provoked considerable interest in the philosophic and religious conceptions that Europeans until then had regarded as the superstitions of backward populations.
…
Halla
is a mysterious term used by certain Shaiva sects to invoke the Supreme Being
during ecstatic dances. It is difficult to avoid a comparison with
Allah, the divine name adopted by the Muslims, together with the black stone of Mecca, which, according to the
geography of the Purana(s), is a Shiva Linga
situated in the ancient sacred site called Makhevshvara (Lord of the
Crocodile). Vestiges of an important colony of people from the
THE DOCTRINE OF GOSALA
We
primarily know about the doctrine of Gosala through the writings of his Jaina
and Buddhist opponents. These texts must
therefore be read with some caution.
The
essential element of the teaching of Gosala is the doctrine of Niyati
(determinism), which envisages a preestablished
universal order by which the world evolves, at all levels, as do living
{p. 21} beings, according to a plan contained in its seed. Progress and change are strictly determined by the "law of the process of development" (parinama-krama-niyamd , which forms ruts or molds inside which individuals develop.
Gunaratna, the commentator of the Shaddarshana-Samucchaya (condensed from the six systems) of Haribhadra, cites Gosala: "What makes thorns pointed and determines the innumerable forms of the animals and birds? All this originates from their nature (svabhava). Nothing is born of its own will or its actions. All beings develop according to the plan (niyati), to their nature (svabhava) and chance (sangati)."
Evil and suffering, attributed by others to the actions (karma) of living beings, are, according to Gosala, determined by fate. "Just as a dropped spool of thread unwinds to its end, so will the madman, like the sage, follow his destiny and reach the end of suffering (dukhanta)." {Digha Nikaya I. 53, (Buddhist text in Pali)} "Human efforts are ineffective" (N'atthi purisakare) was the slogan of the Ajivika(s).
…
All the Ajivika(s) used music and dance as ecstatic media and knew the secret of the technique of rescuscitating the dead by the transfer of their own vital energy, one of the Siddhi(s) (powers) obtained through Yoga. This power was called pautta parihara by the disciples of Gosala.
…
{p. 22} IT was in the Age of Doubt (dvapara), with the development of agricultural, sedentary, and urban civilizations, that Jainism appeared, whose first prophet, Rishabha, belongs to what we call prehistory. With him arose the notion of a moral, materialistic society with atheistic tendencies, which restrains individual liberty in the name of the common good and of the orderliness of the city, in opposition to Shaiva mysticism, which promotes the joy of living in communion with the divine work that the natural world represents.
It was Jainism that introduced vegetarianism and nonviolence, as well as the theories of transmigration and Karma, into the Indian world. Jainism also advocated suicide by fasting.
The doctrine of Karma, linked to that of transmigration,
attributes differences between beings to their behavior in previous lives.
Inequalities between living beings, and, in
particular, between men, are due to an automatic
retribution after death for actions committed in life.
…
Mahavira
is considered to be the twenty-fourth and last prophet of Jainism. Parshva, the
twenty-third prophet, lived three centuries earlier and had apparently liberalized the ascetic customs of the sect.
Mahavira
was, at a young age, outraged by the
environment he lived in, which was essentially
commercial. He became the disciple of the wandering monk Gosala, with
whom he traveled, begging for his food, for over six years. Gosala did not practice or recommend the observance of
chastity, as it was contrary to the principles of Shaivai Yoga. Antisexual moralism was introduced later in certain
sects, such as the
{p. 23} Vira-Shaiva.
It was on these grounds and on that of Karma that Mahavira parted company with Gosala. "Mahavira
was almost certainly a twice-born Aryan who had been converted
from the religious goal of sexual power to that of ethical celibacy. His
reform of the religion of Parshva {identified at the bottom of p. 25
below} was precisely to impose the law of celibacy where earlier it had not
been in effect. He was overall the most antisexual
of the religious teachers of his time. " {McEvilley, An Archaeology of Yoga, I, p. 57} Mahavira undertook to reform Jainism, which, since that
time, has been divided into two sects: the
Jaina "dressed in space" (digambara), who are always naked,
and the Jaina "dressed in white"
(shvetambara), which allows them to participate more easily in the social life
of urban society.
…
GAUTAMA belonged to a princely
family of the Shakya clan of Nepal, who reigned over the rich city of
…
Adopted by the aristrocratic {sic} and warlike class to which Gautama belonged, Buddhism became a powerful instrument of colonialism and cultural expansion, justifying, under the pretext of religious propaganda, the most savage conquests, such as that of Kalingi, by the emperor Ashoka. Later, Christianity and Islam, other moralistic religions stemming from Arihat {this word is also used in the next paragraph, & on p. 27}, were to serve in the same way as a pretext for a conquering imperialism.
The
Religion of Nature and the Religion of the City
DURING
the Dvapara Yuga, the age of doubt and economic development, together with
sedentary life and urban growth, new forms of religion emerged which sought to
protect a conservative and puritanical social order. But it was not until the
middle of the Kali Yuga that we witness the realization of the prediction of
the Purana(s). The teaching of Arihat, in the form of Buddhism and Jainism,
as well as reformed Ajivikism, attacks the old ecstatic, orgiastic, and
mystical Shaiva tradition and, at the same time, the ritualistic and
hierarchical structures of Vedic society.
{quote}
The three heterodox sects that arose in this cultural climate, Buddhism,
Jainism, and Ajivikism, had much in common. All three alike rejected the
sacrifical polytheism of the Aryans and the monistic theories of the Upanishadic
mystics. The supernatural powers were relegated to an inferior or even
negligible position. The three new religions represent a recognition of the
rule of natural law in the universe, and the work of their founders may
be compared with that of their approximate contemporaries, the natural
philosophers of
{p.
25} The religious reforms in the middle of the Kali Yuga were to bring to the
fore the conflict of mysticism and moralism, and of the religion of
nature and love in contrast to that of the city and civic virtues.
In
Jainism,
an essentially moralistic religion, along with the forms of Hinduism derived from it, such as
Buddhism and Vaishnavism, are still the religions of the city dwellers and
commercial classes in
The
Kali Yuga in the World
A
development similar to that in India took place in all the territories occupied
by the Aryans. The
legacy of vanquished Pelasgi and Cretans is at the root of the development of
the Hellenic civilizations. The Indo-Sumerian sources of Hesiod and Homer have
been proven. {J. Van Duk, Introduction to the Lugal-Ud} Dionysian cults
similar to Shaivism combine with the Aryan religion in Greek and Roman
antiquity as they do in
The
middle of the Kali Yuga is everywhere marked by great upheavals.
{p.
26} havira. All these religions and philosophical movements are
moralistic and puritanical in character, demonstrate a belief in
transmigration, and also oppose polytheism and ecstatic practices.
Zoroaster
(died 553 B.C.) {some
say he lived a thousand years earlier}, a little before the occupation of
the
In
China, the fifth century is the age of the birth of Taoism (Lao-tse, 604-531
B.C.) and Confucianism (Confucius, 551-479 B.C.), whose ideas are very close to
some of the Indian concepts. The great system of Tao, which tries to follow the natural
movement of the universe, originally appears to be based on a poetic
version of the concepts of the Samkhya and of Yoga. The words Yin and Yang
correspond to Yoni and Linga. Breathing practices and the search for the
sun and moon in the body recall Ida and Pingala, the lunar and solar paths of
breath in Yoga. The sexual practices (withholding the spermatic essence and
trying to absorb the feminine essence) are identical to those of Yoga. The
notion of immortality conceived as transmutation, in which "astride a
white cloud the Sage or Yellow Emperor arrives at the region of the gods,"
is analogous to that of Shaivism. We again find the seven sages, the refusal of
asceticism, the practices aiming at a long life (Ayurveda, the Indian science
of longevity).
Confucius,
who was born ten years after Gosala, in 551 B.C., and died five years after
him, in 479 B.C., was an agnostic who was against Taoism and sought to resolve
all difficulties in the world through morality. He was, according
{p.
27} to Max Weber, "a rationalist absolutely free of the metaphysical
and of any religious tradition who ... built up a morality based on the nature
of man and the needs of society." His meeting with Lao-tse would have been
in 517 B.C. It is apparently a Jaina influence that caused the appearance of
the notion of transmigration in later Taoism. With the development of
urban, industrial, and capitalist societies, the doctrines of the kind
attributed to Arihat - moralistic, materialistic, and atheistic Ñ filtered
through into all subsequent religions, including modernized forms of
Hinduism and Shaivism. We find their influence in Zoroastrianism,
Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Marxism, the last of the
religions of the Kali Yuga.
The
Shaiva Revival
THE
period that corresponds to the beginning of the Christian era was everywhere a
time when the official religions were being challenged. In
Lakulisha
IT
was an Ajivika called Lakulisha, one of those wandering monks who maintained
the heritage of the ancient knowledge
{p.
28} in an occult tradition, who judged the moment opportune to reveal it,
causing a great revolution in society. This corresponds to the greatest
period in Indian civilization, which was to last for more than a millennium.
Lakulisha (the name means the "Club-bearing Lord") restored an
extraordinary impetus to Shaivism, reestablished the pre-Aryan culture, and
united, under the name of the Pashupata(s) (followers of Pashupati, Lord of the
Animals), the different sects that had survived in semisecrecy for centuries.
According
to tradition, Lakulisha probably lived a little before and at the beginning of
our era. He would be contemporary with John the Baptist. He is
considered by his disciples to be the last of the twenty-eight manifestations
of Shiva mentioned in the Purana. The Kunna Purana (chap. 53), the Vayu
Purana (chap. 23), and the Linga Purana (chap. 24) predicted that
the Great God (Maheshvara) would appear in the form of a wandering monk called
Lakulin or Nakulisha, and that he would have four disciples named Kushika,
Garga, Mitra, and Kanrushya, who would reestablish the cult of Pashupati and
would therefore be called Pashupata(s). Lakulisha would have had a predecessor
called Uluka. After teaching Maheshvara Yoga, Lakulisha would return to the
paradise of Rudra (Shiva).
Lakulisha descended from a dynasty of non-Aryan priests called
Jangama. He belonged to the Kalamukha (Black Face) sect. He embarked on a work
that conflicted with that of Gosala, reestablished the strictest conventions of
the ancient religion, and violently opposed Vedism, Jainism, and most particularly
Buddhism. Lakulisha reinstituted sacrifices {lest anyone think that I
support sacrifices, let me state clearly that I oppose them; will they be
reinstituted when Jews build their Third Temple?}, including human
sacrifices {Danielou comments on this, in Gods of Love and Ecstasy: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/danielou-paglia.html, pp. 9-10; Hyam Maccoby says that Judaism is founded on a
human sacrifice, that of Isaac}, and restored
respect for the practices of Hatha Yoga and Tantrism and the cosmological
theories of the ancient Samkhya.
According
to M. R. Sakhare (The History and Philosophy of Lingayat Religion), the
infiuence of Lakulisha was immense and spread like wildfire, first in the north
and then in the south of
{p.
29} gradually spread in the south under the impetus of Shaiva mystics, the
Nayanar, who all belonged to the artisan classes. During the first eleven
centuries of the Christian era, Shaivism thrived and Buddhism was uprooted.
This Shaivai and Tantric revival coincides with one of the most important
periods of Indian civilization on a mystic, philosophical, artistic, and
literary plan, which was to last until the Muslim invasions of the twelfth
century.
In
the time of Lakulisha, the Akhada(s) (regiments), which were religious
military orders, reassumed a great importance. The order of the
Dashanami Naga, which still exists, is the oldest. Their organization had much
in common with that of Mithraism, which developed at the same time among
the soldiers of the
In
the fourth century, Chandra Gupta, an adventurer of Scythian origin, who had
married a princess of the ancient Shaiva tribe of the Lichavi, assassinated the
last monarch of Pataliputra and ruled from A.D. 319 to 330. It is from this
period on that representations of Lakulisha are to be found in
In
A.D. 78 commences the Shaka (Scythian) era, which is still in progress in
Mahayana
IN
the second century, the Kushana emperor Kanishaka embarked on a reform of
Buddhism based on the ideas of Tantric
{p.
30} Shaivism. The canons of this new Buddhism, which is a disguised Shaivism
and is called Mahayana (Great Vehicle), were defined in a great synod held in
Alain Danielou, The Way to the Labryinth: Memories of
East and West, New
Directions,
This
book, Danielou's autobiography, reveals much of Hinduism from a Westerner who
immersed himself in it for many years, becoming a translator of Sanskrit and
Tamil, as well as an ethno-musicologist. The snippets I present here do not
necessarily imply my endorsement - but I find Danielou an important interpreter
of what he concluded was a culture much like pre-Christian
We
are now used to Gay Militancy, as part of the new Left campaign to destroy
marriage; Danielou's homsexuality is quite different - he has no wish to harm
family structures. Whilst I do not promote homosexuality, I find his type
acceptable.
The
New Left encourages young people to interpret sex in terms of a rebellion
against religion and the sacred. But Danielou sees sex as inherently a
religious experience: leading TO religion, not FROM it.
Although
he opposes the Aryan destruction of
{p.
63} Although I was still physically innocent in those days, I had
declared myself a homosexual. All my college friends seemed to find this
quite natural, and no one ever made the slightest disparaging remark. A number
of boys tried to draw me into sexual relationships, but I was too shy and
elusive to respond. Then came Donald. Donald was a twenty-year-old baseball
player, six-foot-seven tall. One night he came into my room, took me in his
arms, and refused to take no for an answer. All of a sudden I felt infused
with light and an incredible sensation of pleasure ran through my body. I
murmured: "There must be a God for such happiness to be possible!"
For a long time I had ceased to believe in the Christian God, that severe
schoolmaster who makes decrees and punishes transgressors. Oddly enough, it was
in that moment of intense pleasure that a god of sensuousness, happiness,
and light was revealed to me Ñ that God of Love whom mystics write about,
the God of Jalalal-Din Rumi and Saadi, of Saint John of the Cross and Saint
Teresa of Avila, of Dionysian and tantric rites. He had appeared before me
once and for all; all I needed to do now was find him.
{p.
135} ... For several years I read nothing but Hindu and Sanskrit, no book,
newspaper, or article besides those I had to translate. I found this very
difficult at first, but the discipline I imposed on myself allowed me to grow
accustomed to another mode of thought, a different conception of life and the
world.
In
order to study Sanskrit and philosophy under a Hindu scholar and master, it was
necessary to live and think exactly like a Hindu. I had to become a strict
vegetarian, observe all the customs and taboos, and wear the spotless, elegant,
and completely seamless dhoti and chhaddar (a silk shawl).
Raymond never learned to speak Hindi very well, but he was interested in the
rites and learned to perform the puja, a minutely detailed and very poetic
ceremony which all Hindus must perform in their homes before the image of a
god.
{p.
136} A man born outside of
{p.
137} ings of traditional philosophy and science. Many of the great Indian
mystics, poets, painters, musicians, and sculptors who were honored by kings
belonged to the castes of artisans that, as a result of some very stupid
propaganda, people sometimes call "the untouchables."
"The
untouchable" is in fact the Brahman who, being a priest, must observe the
strictest rules of ritual purity; he cannot accept food from anyone outside his
own family, nor can he touch anyone. One of the most typical characteristics of the European
mentality is its ability to present everything backwards.
{p.
140} Shiva is the god of the universe, the ruler of all living things, trees
and animals as well as men. In temples devoted to his worship he is
represented as an erect phallus, source of all life but also symbol of pleasure
and sensuous delight, the earthly image of the state of godliness. Shiva is
Sat-Chit-Ananda Ñ Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss. Men build sanctuaries to
honor him, but his true temple is nature, especially the forest, where he
sometimes appears in the form of a naked, priapic adolescent. Shivaist
initiation rites always take place in the forest, never in a temple. Here at
last was the god I had vaguely sensed in my childhood and had secretly been
searching for all my life.
{the
following is interesting, showing how the marijuana problem in the West
originates from ignorance and the spirit of rebellion. Indian use is ritualised
and most likely harmless}
{p.
142} Bhang is made with fresh Indian hemp leaves, which are crushed against
a rock and carefully washed to eliminate certain toxic elements that remain
when hemp is used for smoking. A modest amount of this spinach-like
substance, the size of a small hazelnut, is mixed with almond milk and
sweetened water. The result is a drink that not only tastes very pleasant but
is apparently quite harmless. Bhang can also be mixed with cakes and sweets. Proper
Hindus never smoke hashish Ñ only cab drivers and other people belonging to
the most discredited classes. When it is drunk, bhang has no immediate effect.
This is why, after enjoying it with a small group of friends Ñ just like tea Ñ
one can usually go home, take a bath, dress up for the evening, and sit down to
dinner. Only then does the drug begin to take effect: a strange sensation in
the spine, a complete loss of the sense of time, a sharp intensification of all
the perceptions, and heightened powers of analysis. If one is listening to
music, for instance, it becomes possible to hear the separate parts played by
each of the instruments, the double bass, the flute, the oboe, which normally
cannot be distinguished from the ensemble.
These
heightened perceptions are such that people begin to notice all the absurd and
ridiculous peculiarities of their companions Ñ the shapes of their noses or
ears, their way of speaking Ñ and are seized with an irresistible need to
giggle; those who tend to be depressed, however, must be very careful with
bhang, for it will probably make them dissolve into tears. Yogis often use it
to facilitate meditation, mental concentration, and extra-sensory perception.
Sometimes
Raymond would organize bhang parties for his foreign visitors, and they were
always highly successful; Ramprasad, our boatman, prepared the potion very
well. Cecil Beaton, the famous photographer, often spoke of his bhang party at
Rewa Khoti as the most amusing evening in his life.
I
have never been able to take drugs. A pipeful of opium makes me feel ill for
several days. For this reason I was always very careful to take the smallest
possible amount of bhang. One day Ramprasad decided to play a trick on me and
gave me a larger dose than usual. I soon fell into a half faint, a peculiar
{p.
143} hallucinatory state. I went off into a wonderful world filled with strange
and sublime forms and was encircled with multicolored streamers of light
different from anything I had ever seen. I was carried to my bed. Raymond grew
quite worried and sent for a woman doctor who lived in the neighborhood. I
heard her say: "If you wish, I can give him an injection for his heart."
It was impossible for me to move. I could hear and feel everything, and yet I
was elsewhere. I thought: "I am dead, I have almost reached
{p.
149} I had gradually gained a certain reputation in
{p.
150} Certain sacred places "breathe of the spirit." Pilgrims go to
them in search of miracles.
{p.
151} thousands of carts, tents, peddlers' stalls, clowns, sleight-of-hand
performers, and small fires where people cooked chapattis. Pilgrims came on
foot from all the neighboring region. There were no priests. No rites or
ceremonies were performed, yet, responding to some kind of ancestral reflex,
throngs of humble people would periodically return for a visit to this most
sacred and propitious place.
The
same thing happens during the great mela of Amarkantak, in central
The
most remarkable feasts of all take place in eastern
In
the
Foreigners
speak indignantly of the barbarity of such sacrifices, conveniently forgetting
the unseen horrors of the slaughterhouse. The purpose of the sacrifices is to make the gods bear witness
to the terrible cruelty of a world where living creatures cannot survive
without killing and devouring one another. Man too must be made aware of
the seriousness
{p.
152} of the act of killing so that he will avoid doing so needlessly. Hindus
are not supposed to eat the flesh of an animal which they have not killed
themselves; this is why many of them prefer to become vegetarians.
Buddhists do exactly the contrary. Killing is not allowed, yet they eat meat.
Buddhism is a hypocritical religion.
The
bloodbaths resulting from these sacrifices seem to produce a state of
collective intoxication that reminds one of Dionysian rites, or Euripides'
Bacchae. Sacrifices
satisfy one of man's deepest needs and definitely play an important role in the
psychology of the masses. This orgy of blood is a kind of revenge against the
gods, against the world and all the frustrations it imposes on the less favored
members of society. Having satisfied their vendetta, Hindus immediately
revert to their wonderfully gentle selves, always kind towards animals and
their fellowmen. Brahmans cannot participate in these popular feasts, for any
form of violence is forbidden to them. Warriors and princes may witness but
cannot take part in them; their violence must be expressed through the art of
hunting - a prelude to the art of war, another form of murderous frenzy.
In
1942, when the Indian National Congress headed by Gandhi revealed its
socialistic and progressive goals, Swami Karpatrl decided that Hindu
civilization was becoming seriously threatened: it was time for the Brahmans
and sannyasis, who are not supposed to take part in politics, to
"descend upon the battlefield" according to the predictions of the
sacred texts. Before Swami Karpatri created the Jana Sangh political movement
for the defense of traditional values, he ordered the preparation of one of
those astonishing rituals called yajnas, on which kings have sometimes
spent their entire fortunes. This particular feast was financed by the very
rich caste of tradesmen, who are always conservative in matters of religion.
In
a vast field on the banks of the
{p.
153} interruption for ten whole days, murmuring ritual formulas and making
offerings of grain, oil, and butter to Agni the firegod. As I watched, the
immense column of prayers and smoke rising heavenward in the sky seemed like a
link between the world of men and the world of gods. Neither the Congress nor
the British press ever mentioned this extraordinary event which had attracted
over ten thousand Brahmans and nearly a million pilgrims to the sacred city.
Certain
yoga practices can develop "magic" powers: hypnosis, mindreading,
long-distance vision, levitation, and the temporary suspension of heartbeat and breathing. The
power of hypnosis can be so great that it is often difficult to tell whether
what one sees is really happening. Yogis who truly seek spiritual
fulfillment never use these tools, which are considered temptations put in
their way to prevent further progress in their conquest of Heaven.
Often,
while witnessing melas, I saw yogis fall into a cataleptic state and
become as stiff as boards. They were laid upon two sharp-bladed swords, one
under the neck, the other under the ankles. Rocks were placed on their stomachs
and broken to pieces with enormous hammers, but their bodies did not even bend. Then they were buried and left
underground for several hours. They would reemerge somewhat flushed, but
apparently unhurt.
{p.
202} While living in
{p.
205} In every domain I have always met with the hostility of
"scientists." On one such occasion, when I was being criticized
as an "amateur," Louis Renou was so exasperated that he publicly
protested: "Danielou may not be familiar with our methods, but when I
don't understand a text, he is the man I turn to." After that, French
Indianists left me in peace.
{p.
248} ... This was not the case with Mircea Eliade, the famous prophet of
religious history whose superb work always struck me as being based on exterior
knowledge rather than actual experience. Although he was always very polite
with me, I sensed a certain reticence in this man, as I always did with
university-trained Indianists and musicologists.
In
the very curious Western world of Indian scholarship, no one, in fact, speaks
any Indian languages. All these people's opinions on Indian philosophy are
based on English-written texts. Many Sanskrit professors cannot even read the
alphabet and need to use transliterations. That was why I was always considered
so troublesome. I did not pretend to be a philosopher or a historian, but I
knew the subtleties of the language, the meaning of the rites and symbols as
well as any Brahman formed in the Hindu tradition. My approach to this
extraordinary civilization challenged the ideas of people who did not really
understand its spirit. It was as though I were a scholar from Ancient Egypt
suddenly and mysteriously transported into the modern age among a herd of
Egyptologists. It was perfectly natural that such "men of
learning," accustomed to interpreting the vestiges of a "dead"
civilization as they pleased, should feel threratened by a survivor who had not
only practiced all the rites and sacrifices but understood their psychological and
social significance, not only studied them but lived them. For these people I
was an intruder who was best ignored; my works were never included in their
bibliographies. Like all others, apparently, Eliade feared a reality that might
disturb his clever, intelligent, but artificial system of reconstruction.
{p.
308} For many years I had grown accustomed to the extreme intellectual
discipline of Hindu scholars. With them it was possible to discuss any problem
without ideological interference or limited preconceived notions; one could
think and try to go to the heart of things according to different value
systems, without the prejudices or limitations that are created by set beliefs.
Vijayanand never found it difficult to discuss ways of life or opinions about
the world and the divine that were different from his own; he would analyze
them logically without ever allowing himself to make judgments or trying to
reconcile them with his own value system or the life he had chosen or been
fated to adopt by birth. The darshana doctrine is a solid basis for
well-balanced thinking. What may be true on one level is not necessarily
true on another. Any hasty and superficial generalization not only leads to
absurdities but is morally, socially, and intellectually dangerous. All
systems are defined and limited by their data, and become false when they try
to go beyond their postulates. As a result, many different relative truths can
coexist without negating one another. The
{p.
309} important thing in any kind of research is to determine at the outset
the limitations of its given data. This is why science, for Hindus, is
necessarily atheistic, for the study of the material world does not lead to the
notion of God. Yoga, on the other hand, is theistic for it leads to mystical
experience, while in cosmology the "first causes" of the universe
must be impersonal. A realistic approach towards any problem must
necessarily take these contrasts into account; a doctor who allows his
religious beliefs to interfere with the exercise of his profession not only
betrays science but religion as well.
Armed
with this baggage I began to renew my contacts with Europe, which appeared to be suffering from a
deadly disease, a kind of cancer with some cells developing in an
incontrollable manner and contaminating the others little by little. There is a
limit to this kind of development, however. The countryside and wooded areas
of our lands are slowly being devoured by giant urban anthills, with less and
less vital space to breathe in. Certain aspects of life have grown
disproportionately in relation to others, creating a serious disequilibrium.
The desire for prosperity has stifled the quest for wisdom and the joy of being
alive. I often used to wonder why modern Westerners were so agitated and so
seldom happy. The truth is that Aryans, from whom all the dominating forces of
I
was quite amazed by the incoherence of ideas, the naivete of beliefs, and the low
level of reasoning that I found in
{p.
310} Discussions always seem to focus on critical interpretations of
"prophetic" texts rather than on an effort to understand reality. Only
a few "scientists" working in very limited fields seem able to escape
dogmatism, but the moment they move away from these specialized areas they
become as incoherent as everyone else.
No
one seems capable of recognizing the point where the valid elements of a theory
become absurd. A
so-called ideology can very quickly turn into blind faith. People choose their
arguments, their proofs, and deny any evidence that contradicts them. This kind
of artificial game can only result in a distorted value system imposed by
various forms of tyranny; for when one reaches the extreme limit of a lie,
there is no other choice but to destroy the evidence of one's opponent and
physically annihilate those who maintain and defend it. History has only too
often proved this.
{p.
312} But whenever people, instead of simply being themselves, wish to be
labeled as Christians, Moslems, Communists, Democrats, Fascists, or Socialists,
I feel as though their minds were dead and see no point in trying to establish
contact.
In
a world based on systems of belief, free spirits tend to lead marginal lives.
Among
Hindus there is a moral code for thieves as well as for prostitutes. They are considered special kinds of
castes that can be found in all societies, with as much right to spiritual
growth as anyone else. There is no reason why a thief or a prostitute should
not also be a saint: their ways of life are unacceptable only from the
standpoint of social conventions, which have nothing to do with the inner life.
One might even say that the true thieves are those who accumulate property and
wealth.
{p.
313} Whether under the rule of capitalism or socialism, Western countries are
completely dominated by the bourgeois mentality - in Hindu terms the spirit
that motivates the third, or mercantile, caste. This is true not only
because of the power associated with money but because of the importance of
material concerns and, above all, snobbery. This word which, according to some,
comes from the Italian snobile (without nobility), characterizes a caste whose
interest in intellectual matters is nothing more than a desire for social
advancement, power, or profit. In the political world people easily speak of
the proletariat and the ruling class, but seem to forget the most powerful
group of all, the merchants and the businessmen - useful, but unproductive and
parasitical - who control everything connected with money but have long since overstepped
the bounds that should exist in a well-balanced society .
Whether
one is dealing with literature or the arts, philosophy, politics, or science,
it is impossible for an idea or a principle to achieve recognition or success
unless it conforms to certain fashionable and ready-made standards that are
geared towards commercial interests or ambitions of power in the name of which all other values
are sacrificed. In the artificial and pretentious world we live in today, independent
spirits who try to find their own truth and live according to their personal
ideas and tastes are viewed with suspicion. Snobs go about extolling the
artistic fashions of the day as though their merits were absolute. In all
artistic domains snobs seem to lead the way, not even realizing that by
calling graffiti "sublime," cacophonic jumbles "musical
masterpieces," and banal literary forms "works of art" they are
only yielding to vulgar commercialism. They have lost all sense of reality,
which generates ludicrous, even perverse attitudes in their politics as well as
in their personal lives. Their judgment has been so totally conditioned that
they cannot think seriously or adopt rational attitudes regarding the world and
its problems. It seems as though the links between cosmology and science, art
and the sacred no longer existed. Ideologies - even certain diseases - become
"the latest thing," when in fact the problems are deeply vital. Fashionable
Communism goes hand in hand with faddish and short-lived musical crazes or feigned
enthusiasm
{p.
314} for painting styles that are totally devoid of talent, aesthetic
interest, or even technique. I was quite astonished by the difference in
atmosphere between the avant-garde circles of my youth, when artists flirted
with the absurd without taking themselves seriously, and the postwar
intellectuals who pondered over it with pedantic solemnity.
Snobs
are vain and naive people who are easily used and manipulated by powerful
plutocracies and other types of imperialisms. Intellectuals, unfortunately, are
often part of the flock.
In
the Hindu world, "knowledge" is considered above all a heritage. It
is one's duty to pass it on and, if possible, add a few elements that will
serve to develop and keep it up to date. As a result, those who have been
deemed worthy of carrying this burden have a heavy moral responsibility,
especially in the choice of their disciples. Knowledge is like a calling. Some
forms of knowledge must never be transmitted to ambitious or irresponsible
people. The greatest problem of a scholar is to find a disciple, a receptacle
(patra) who will be worthy of this sacred trust. One of the most astonishing
aspects of the evolution of Western society is its total irresponsibility and
anonymity regarding the transmission of knowledge. Knowledge has become
collective. A learned man or scientist is nothing more than an easily
replaceable cogwheel in the machine of "progress." Nowadays, in the
excitement of new discoveries and their applications, the legacy of the past is
completely left aside. The keenest minds are taken up by specialized branches
of science, their findings immediately thrown into the communal melting pot of
all these sorcerers' apprentices, without a thought for the use that will be
made of them. There is no longer any such thing as a responsible individual,
only a vast community of brains. This community apparently has no guide, no
presiding force, and seems to drift along aimlessly at the mercy of chance. But
is it really a question of chance? Might we not be victims of an evil force
goading us along with the promise of a few so-called material advantages, but
leading us in fact to the total destruction of our own species? This process is
obvious on all levels of society.
{p.
315} Only occasionally does a scientist, like Oppenheimer, have sufficient
courage and insight, at the end of a long career, to recognize the great
dangers of the world he has helped to build and the irresponsibility of
collective science in its blind pursuit of an unknown and frightening destiny -
a destiny everyone is aware of and no one really wants. ...
The
vital music of our time is jazz, rock, disco, the popular song. What people call modern music,
most often abstract compositions completely devoid of acoustical or
psychological meaning, only interests a small group of conditioned music
lovers. I, for one, find it deadly boring. Nowadays even the masterpieces of
romantic music are too often played coldly, precisely, with no thought for
anything but technique. Gone are the days when simple folk would go about
humming Verdi arias or Neapolitan songs to themselves, when children learned
die Forelle or Standchen without ever having heard of Schubert. A gloomy,
disquieting silence has fallen upon a modern society that is saturated with the
blare of radio music and the images of television advertisements.
Sometimes
I sit down at the piano and play a Schubert
{p.
316} impromptu, a short piece by Grieg, a Mozart fantasia, or a melody by Faure
only to remind myself that music still exists. Other times I turn to my vlna
and suddenly feel myself enveloped in a world of beautifully precise and
meaningful sounds, full of poetry and emotion. What the fate of contemporary
music may be, I cannot say. I do not believe that it can be leading to anything.
People seem to have forgotten that music is a language - the language of the
soul, the language of the gods.
Young
animals that live in the forests soon learn to make as little noise as possible
for fear of attracting the lurking tiger. The children of poor peasants work
along with their parents and know that the food on their table comes from the
seeds they have sown, and from nothing else. Indian children share the lives of
adults. By prolonging childhood to absurd lengths, the Western bourgeois system
of education produces a society of shallow minds that have spent too many years
living outside reality and are accustomed to functioning in a vacuum,
constructing systems not based on experience.
Revolutions,
murderous wars, and genocides are created not by artisans or peasants, who from
infancy are always in touch with the problems of everyday reality, but by the
idle classes who have no idea what it means to be hungry. Most of the problems of the modern
West have been caused by maladjusted members of the petite bourgeoisie who
spend their lives daydreaming instead of trying to learn. Whether one is
speaking of Rousseau, Marx, Lenin,
{p.
317} When belief in a doctrine or ideology becomes a substitute for a serious
and responsible study of facts and possibilities, it inevitably leads to the
opposite of what is expected. The striking example of Soviet concentration
camps has not impressed people conditioned by Marxism, any more than the
genocide of the Albigensians or Incas has kept Christians from preaching
charity and love of their neighbor; nor has the tragic example of Nazism
prevented dictatorships from multiplying.
Marxism,
which seeks to replace Christianity, has adopted its system of absolute
conformism, enforced by laic"bishops" who demand blind obedience. People who consider themselves
rational have grown so accustomed to accepting questionable dogma and obvious
lies that they cannot react, or are afraid to do so. They seem to have lost the
ability to recognize independent or well-balanced forms of thinking, which they
systematically reject.
The
list of populations victimized by ideologies grows longer and longer. Slogans
and propaganda, which no one dares or feels able to oppose, preclude all other
forms of social action or a more realistic style of politics.
{p.
320} In traditional
In
In
southern
{p.
321} lishments, with large tracts of land, herds of animals, servants, a
family, and those flowerlike, dainty, elegant, impeccably groomed men who
devote their time to games, sports, theater, music, literature, and war. The
result is a charming and cultivated society in which the role distribution
seems far more reasonable than in the West. In these matriarchal societies the
level of literacy and culture is higher than anywhere else.
Man
is like the male fig tree: he bestows his seed. He can produce thousands of
children. Procreation is little more than an incident along his sexual journey.
Of all the millions and millions of genes he can transmit through the sexual
act, only a few serve towards reproduction; the rest are wasted according to
the vicissitudes of life and pleasure. Havelock Ellis scandalized his time by
declaring: "Man is polygamous by nature." In answer to his critics,
he added: "I never met a man who had not enjoyed sexual relations with
several women. I mention this only as an experimental fact." It would have
been more accurate for him to say: "Man is polyvalent by nature." In
traditional
According
to the Hindu system, the preservation of the species is an essential duty,
which is why interracial marriages are strictly forbidden. Whether or not one
believes in religion or rituals, the responsibility toward an unborn child is a
basic moral duty. Hindus believe that children born of interracial marriages
have ambiguous personalities and lose the hereditary qualities of both races,
thereby causing the corruption and ruin of any society. Individual freedom is
only restricted if it is harmful to a third party. This is true of procreation
since it
{p.
322} involves the unborn child and the future of the species. If one does
not wish to have children, the sacramental aspect of marriage is meaningless.
The
solemnization of a marriage which is nothing more than a legalization of sex is
the prostitution of a holy rite. It seems to me that many of the family problems of our time
are the result of a conception of marriage as a simple channel for erotic
energy in a puritanical society perverted by moralistic Christian nonsense.
The quality of the product, the child, does not seem to be taken into account,
except perhaps among the Jews, with undeniable success.
{p.
323} Egalitarian societies that try to fit everyone into the same mold and
refuse to acknowledge the essential and beneficial role of homosexuals pay
dearly for the consequences. I am what people call a virile man. I am daring
and adventurous.
My
long years of training in sports, dance, and yoga have given me far more
strength and serenity than my brother, the cardinal, ever had Ñ for to the end
of his life he remained a nervous, frail, and agitated man. I can leap into adventures
without even thinking of the risks involved, and have never known fear. I enjoy
the company of men who possess these same qualities and feel somewhat repelled
by effeminate boys and those weak, fainthearted, prissy men who can be found
among woman-chasers as well as among homosexuals.
Once,
when I was in
I
became integrated into the Hindu world without any trouble, without making any
sacrifices. Through a series of erotic adventures I became aware of the
subtleties, the mild taboos,
{p.
324} and all the nuances of behavior and feeling that distinguish particular
civilizations. For a married man, such a degree of integration would be
unthinkable. A European wife could never adapt to the traditional role that is
expected of Indian women, nor would interracial marriage be the answer, since
it violates the most basic taboos of Hindu society.
I
have always had the feeling that my destiny, which in a way seemed to have an
existence of its own, could only be accomplished if I remained unattached and
without social responsibilities. I could not have a family or children. This is
why the gods granted me the privilege of a nature that would keep me free from
the inevitable social ties that go with having a family, while also allowing me
the high level of eroticism that is essential for mental equilibrium.
Once,
during a dinner party given by Enrico Fulchignoni, the Italian philosopher, I
was asked various questions about polytheism and explained how every aspect of
the world is a particular projection of God's mind; so that for a tree, God is
a tree, for a bull, he is a bull, for a man, he is man, for a woman, woman, and
for a Negro, he is black. All this seemed fairly acceptable. But when I added
that for a homosexual God was androgynous, I noticed that several women were
shocked. I found this reaction very interesting. If I had said that God was
inevitably Christian for a Christian, or Moslem for a Moslem Ñ or even that a
Marxist, though his choice is strictly ideological, thought more or less
consciously of God as a Marxist - my statement would have struck my listeners
as just another paradox. They seemed totally unable to accept the idea that
homosexuality was a fact of nature, therefore part of the divine order of
things.
In
{p.
325} nor should he attempt to impose upon others a code of behavior that might
prevent them from fulfilling their true destiny. I have never found it
difficult to accept myself as I am. In this sense I have been very fortunate.
RELIGION
The
main purpose of religion is to provide men with a sense of the supernatural and
an awareness of the divine nature of the world. The word "religion"
is probably a translation of yoga (that which connects), and refers to the
fundamental link between the Creator and the created, man and the divine. The
social groupings that go under the name "religion" are altogether
different, however, and form a further category to be added to such human
entities as race, language, tribe, and country. Religion is the most effective
instrument of conquest and domination. A defeated people that is forced to
adopt the religion of its conquerors loses its individuality, its rituals, its
beliefs, and the magical protection of its gods. As a result it becomes
vulnerable, therefore submissive and easily assimilated.
Mystics
adapt more or less successfully to the dominant religion of their culture; they
remain marginal and are generally mistrusted by society. For others, religion is a means of
conquest, a pseudo-divine pretext for domination, corruption, and genocide. The
total lack of judgment and critical sense of many Westerners which causes them
to form fanatical and irrational sects in nearly every domain Ñ social, moral,
religious, as well as artisticÑis mostly a result of the age-long tyranny of
Christianity. They have grown so accustomed to expressing themselves through
scriptural exegesis, distorting the meaning of texts more or less ingeniously,
that their faculty for logical thinking has become paralyzed. This was true of
my brother, the cardinal, whenever he was led into topics of conversation that
challenged the foundations of the doctrine which he had to believe in. I
learned long ago that believing was the opposite of knowing. People do not need
to believe when they truly know; they only believe in things that they do not
know. Belief is always a very poor counselor.
There
is nothing original about Christianity such as it ap-
{p.
326} pears today. It is part of a system of religious and moral thought that
originated with Mahavira and ancient Indian Jainism, which influenced Ikhnaton,
Moses, and shortly before Jesus, the Master of Justice and the Essenes {so
Danielou sees Jainism as the original moralistic religion, predating the Aryan
invasion of India, older than Akhnaton, and influencing him and Moses; yet it
seems that Solomon's religion may have been polytheistic: the Song of Songs,
for example, suggests a Goddess religion}. With
its worship of the Trinity, the Virgin, and the Saints, Christianity - like
Mahayana Buddhism - reincorporated certain elements of polytheism. In the
Christian religion there is no connection between theory and practice. It
probably runs counter to all of the teachings of Jesus, who was essentially a
liberal dissident. What we know of his doctrine was written, modified, and
expurgated long after his death and in a spirit totally different from his.
The
gnostics of the early Christian era, who attempted to place the teachings of
Jesus within the context of his time and man's ancestral religious experience,
were viciously eliminated by a Church obsessed with power. After years of
internal conflicts and mutual accusations of hereticism, Christians were
finally able to establish a system of politico-religious authority so stringent
and so terrifying that any sign of independent thinking or attempt to return to
the original teachings of Jesus was immediately suppressed. Dissidents were put
to death and all their works destroyed or burned, including certain parts of
the Gospels that were considered apocryphal. During the Renaissance a new
attempt was made to link Christian teachings to ancient forms of wisdom, but
this too was quickly put down.
From
the time it set itself up as a political and missionary system, Christianity
has done all it could to conceal its sources, disregarding all the other
ancient traditions, claiming to have invented everything. This is why, even
today, Westerners are still so ignorant of the sources of their culture or the
meaning of
their rites and customs. All attempts to link cosmological and theological
thinking, science and religion, have been rejected. In the higher spheres of
the Church, the only topics worthy of attention seem to be moral and social
behavior, to which one might add a violent antisexual fanaticism, a kind of
reverse Kama-sutra, which can only be of interest to psychiatrists.
Protestantism
made it possible for certain Christians to es-
{p.
327} cape the massacre of "heretics" at the hand of an all-powerful
Church. Scientific research, freed from the bonds of dogmatism that had
paralyzed it for centuries, was finally allowed to develop. But this reformed
Christian church has evolved within a framework of theological and moral
concepts without a solid cosmological foundation. This is why, instead of
leading to serious considerations on the nature of man, the world, and the
divine, it has concentrated on scientific discoveries and their applications.
The Protestants' traditional reliance on the Bible - a mixed bag of
protohistoric anecdotes - as the obligatory source of all knowledge has severely
restricted their freedom of thought. Until I returned to Europe, the British
world was my main contact with Western culture. As a result of political
events, these relatively liberal-minded Protestants had some smatterings of
knowledge - incomplete and distorted, to be sure - of Indian ideas. France
seemed far more closed and remote.
I
had lived in a culture
{in India} whose religious conceptions were very close to those of the
pre-Christian era. After my return to Europe, I was surprised by the great numbers
of feasts, rites, customs, and superstitions that greeted me everywhere I
went; but although they were very familiar to me, no one seemed to know what
they actually meant. Then I remembered hearing an old Brahman explaining the
myth of the nativity of Christ to a group of ignorant, bewildered
missionaries. Why was the God-child - like Ganesha or Hephaestus, son of
Hera - born of a virgin, symbol of the first feminine principle? Why was he
born in a cave, in the belly of the goddess Earth - the traditional site for
mysteries and initiations - surrounded by an ass and a bull, the impure and the
sacred beast? What was that star that guided the Wise Men, who came from
three different continents and held secret doctrines representing the three
different modes of initiation? Why was Jesus riding on an ass, like Shiva,
when he entered Jerusalem? Why did he have twelve companions, like the Sun
among the signs of the zodiac? Why did he befriend a prostitute, symbol of
sacred love? Why, like Dionysus, did he turn water into wine and walk across
the waters? And what was the Cross, the symbol of universality and life, of
the union
{p.
328} between fire (the masculine principle) and water (the feminine principle),
besides a simple instrument of torture? How and why did Christians come to
forget the real meaning of all these myths and symbols, which are common to all the gods?
The same is true of rites, sacred formulas, texts, the architecture of temples
and their magic orientation. All the feasts, whose universal meaning has
disappeared, are linked to the passage of the stars and seasons, as are
thousands of other customs. All the sacred Christians {sic} sites are inherited
from antiquity; saints have simply taken the place of gods and retained their
magic qualities. Vatican ceremonies are in no way different from those of
ancient "pagan" rites. It was in trying to understand the obvious
similarities between the surviving rituals and symbols of the West and the
rites of ancient civilizations, which are very close to some still existing in
India, that I became interested in the Dionysian cult. Here, I found a
conception of the world, of the divine, of happiness, that is very similar to
ancient Shivaism and still survives, without anyone being really aware of it,
in the mysteries of Christianity. Seen from this angle, the West became far
less alien to me, and seemed only a world adrift that needed to find its
moorings, its sources, and its origins.
The
Christianity of mystics and humble people has very little to do with Church
dogma, which they must
accept for want of anything better. Many Christians still feel the need to
commune with divine mystery in all its multiplicity, whatever names they choose
to give it. Many of the people I have met in recent years are struggling hopelessly
in the miasma of arbitrary and contradictory beliefs that seems to characterize
the modern world. Sometimes they are attracted to so-called initiatory sects or
recruited by pseudomystical adventurers, especially by certain types of Indians
who preach a very simplified form of Vedanta and exploit their credulousness.
Westerners
often speak of Oriental "wisdom" without realizing that this
so-called wisdom is simply an attitude of realism in the pursuit of knowledge,
whether the field be science, philosophy, religion, or social organization. The
little that I could explain of Indian philosophy and cosmology seemed to them
an important new discovery; in fact I was only describing
{p.
329} certain very rudimentary aspects of Hinduism that have been taught in the
traditional world for thousands of years and have somehow been forgotten and
lost in the West. Most of the problems of today are a result of monotheistic
ideologies taught by prophets who believe themselves to be inspired and claim
to know the truth. This is obviously absurd, for there can be no single,
absolute truth. The reality of the world is multiple and elusive. Only those
who succeed in freeing themselves from various forms of monotheism, dogmatism,
blind faith, Christianity, Islam, and Marxism can ever hope to approach the
multiple aspects of the divine, understand the proper place of man within the
scheme of Creation, and discover the true path of tolerance and love as well as
the good will of beasts, men, and gods.
People
have often asked me whether I could suggest a line of conduct, a method, and a
"religion" that might bring the Western world out of its predicament
or at least help some people to fulfill themselves. But I am neither a master
nor a prophet. In a world that is hastening towards its own destruction, man's
only hope, according to the theory of cycles, lies in individual salvation.
Hindus believe that we are approaching the last stages of the kali yuga, the
age of conflicts, which must inevitably end in a cataclysm. Only when the
greater part of humanity has been destroyed by an underwater explosion will
Kalki, the last "messiah," appear on his white horse and grant a few
individuals a reprieve in this wondrous adventure man has known on Earth.
{end
of quotes from Danielou}
Danielou was a prolific
writer, but his books on Shivaism appear to be out of print, and second-hand
copies very hard to find. However, this Internet Bookshop says it has new
copies: http://www.mindbodyspirit.com.au/auth/d/danielou.htm.
To buy The Way to the
Labyrinth from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0811210146/qid=1005868800/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/t/002-2571111-5335244.
To order a second-hand copy of any of Alain
Danielou's books through Abebooks
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch?an=alain+danielou.
Alain Danielou, Gods of
Love and Ecstasy: the Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/danielou-paglia.html.
Barbara G. Walker on the
"Star of David", the Kabalah, & Tantrism:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/jewish-taoist.html.
Send your comments to mailto:[email protected].
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Personal Notes
We
primarily know about the doctrine of Gosala through the writings of his Jaina
and Buddhist opponents. These texts must
therefore be read with some caution.
You get
only a one-sided narrow viewpoint on Gosala, especially when you read the
relevant Buddhist sutras, where he was mentioned.
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The Shaiva ascetics went about naked, their bodies smeared with ashes, practicing orgiastic dances. They refused to be participants in a society oriented toward productivity and puritanism. With matted hair and haggard eyes, they lived away from villages and towns and refused to take an interest in material wellbeing. In the same epoch, the sect of Cynics, of which Diogenes is a typical example, flourished in Greece and is clearly related to the Kalamuka(s) of India. {and as F. Gerald Downing pointed out, the early Christians were much like Cynics: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/downing.html ; see also pp. 19 & 26 below}
Cross-reference
3 And I set my face to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes;
- Daniel 9:3 :: Amplified Bible (AMP)
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Halla is a mysterious term used by certain Shaiva sects to invoke the Supreme Being during ecstatic dances. It is difficult to avoid a comparison with Allah, the divine name adopted by the Muslims, together with the black stone of Mecca, which, according to the geography of the Purana(s), is a Shiva Linga situated in the ancient sacred site called Makhevshvara (Lord of the Crocodile). Vestiges of an important colony of people from the Indus Valley have been discovered at Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula.
Cross-reference
…Abraham's
role in Islam, which acknowledges the Torah narrative but with significant
changes and additions. The Koran portrays Abraham as the first man to make full surrender to
Allah. Each of the five repetitions of daily prayer
ends with a reference to him. The holy book recounts Abraham's building of
the Ka'aba, the
black cube that
is Mecca's central shrine.
Several of the rituals performed in that city by pilgrims making the hajj recall episodes from his history. Those who cannot journey still join in
celebrating the
Festival of Sacrifice, in which a lamb or
goat is offered up to commemorate the same near sacrifice of a son that the
Jews feature at their New Year. It is the holiest single day on the Islamic calendar.
(Reference: Van
Biema, David. (Sunday, September 22, 2002) The
Legacy of Abraham. USA: Time Inc.)
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Reference
Rev. Goudie W. The Saiva Siddhanta.
http://www.geocities.com/ktsshiva/goudie.html
From this tedious enumeration of the authors and sacred writings of the system we pass on to a consideration of its teaching. And here we find that the questions that have occupied the minds of the Saiva Siddhantists are the great vital questions that lie at the root of all high thinking:- What am I? What is the manifold universe that lies around me? Who is he who is the beginning and cause of all things? How can he be known? And how can the finite attain to the Infinite? The sum of all our knowledge on these great questions the Saiva Siddhanta sums up under three symbols, which stand for the three great padarthas or categories which make up the sum of existence, namely, PATHI, PASU, and PASUM, the Lord, the Flock, and the Bond. These are the three eternal entities of the system, and accepting them in the order given we find that the foundations of the system are laid in a carefully conceived doctrine of God.
…
The Tiru Arudpayan on the other hand assuming the existence of God declares him to be the Incomparable Lord, the All-Pervading, Changeless, All-Intelligent, First Cause of all things. This Matchless One, who is the eternal fountain of all life and being, the Saiva Siddhantists identify with Siva, not, mark you, with the Siva of the earlier Hindu trimurti, but with an exalted and glorified Siva, whom his votaries have lifted from his place in the common triad, and set in a position of absolute supremacy. To the Saiva Siddhantists there is but one Supreme Being, and he is Shivaperuman. The heavens doubtless are full of other gods but they are all his creatures, whom he calls to his foot, or orders on his service, while they lowly chant his praise, or they are born, and die like other creatures, and change with the everchanging acons.
…
In answer to the question whether Hara, or Siva, is one with souls, or different from them, the Sustras state that he is both, one with them and different from them; He is bethabetha. The ancient commentary on this sutra is an interesting example of clear and penetrative thought. "The word adwaitham cannot mean absolute oneness or ekam, as without a second no one can think of himself as one, seeing the very thought implies the existence of two things." This is surely a very sound and a very strong position that every act of conscious cognition implies duality, and the very effort to assure myself that I am one and there is a second which I first conceive and then deny. The commentary goes on to say that the word adwaitha simply denied the separability of the two; the Lord and the soul are distinct entities, but bound together in an intimate and inseparable relationship. Many illustrations are used to set forth the bond of union by which these distinct entities are yet one;- as heat is one with the water that is heated, as light is one with the ether, as the human soul is one with the body and sense faculties which it uses, so is the Lord one with the soul, and yet he is not the soul, and the soul can never become the Lord. We thus arrive at a doctrine of God in his relation to the universe hardly to be distinguished from what is grown as the higher pantheism of the west, whose exponents have been found amongst the foremost of our poets.
…
In the familiar banter which the Saiva Siddhantists sometimes use towards Siva, Manikka Vacagar threatens in one place that if his master show not grace he will abuse his name to his enemies, he will call him 'black throat, who ate poison from the sea,' 'the man crowned with the waning moon,' 'the mighty God gone wrong,' and among such epithets is 'gunamili,' 'the unqualified and useless.' In reality this was no reproach on the lips of Manikka-Vacagar, but it is evident that the term was one of vulgar abuse on the lips of the enemies of the Saiva faith in the poet's time, and it is equally evident that to the Saint it was the expression of a conception of God which he held as true and sacred.
…
In midst, beneath, above, in all contained,
Thou art, my Sire, like oil within the seed,
To thee nor wealth nor want, from heavenly ones to worms,
And grass-(no limit)-all thou fill'st.
…
"They are ignorant who think that God and Love are two,
None know that God and Love are one,
Did all men know that God and Love are one,
They would repose in God as Love."
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Reference
Little, Layne. An Introduction to the Tamil Siddhas: Their Tantric Roots, Alchemy,
Poetry, and the True Nature of their Heresy Within the Context of South Indian
Shaivite Society.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/tamil_si.html
The rift between the two orders
has been sharply polarized by the fact that some Saiva Siddhantins, who mostly worship their God Shiva as the Lingam or sacred Phallus,
have had a difficult time accepting the Siddhas tendency
to emphasize the Goddess. To the Tamil Siddhas, Shiva is the unqualified and
ultimate reality beyond form or comprehension, but Shakti, the Goddess, is
immanent and accessible as the divine force abiding within the body itself.
There she can be coaxed & subdued, manipulated & directed. As the
serpent power Kundalini, flowing through the subtle body, she can propel the
consciousness of the Siddhar into union with the Absolute. Though the orthodox Saiva
Siddhantin may content himself with the worship of Shiva in the temple through
the rituals of the priest, the Siddha placates the
goddess to intercede on his behalf and expand the consciousness of the Siddha
beyond all limitation, where he may become Shiva himself. Notions, such as this, being fundamental to
the Tamil Siddha, has struck the Shaivite orthodoxy as heretical.
Within the context of Hindu myth the name Siddha
originally denoted one
of the eighteen categories of celestial beings. These beings of semi-divine status were said to be of great
purity and their dwelling was thought to be in the sky between the earth and
the sun. Later they became associated
with a class of more adept human being, often an accomplished yogi. The term
had been derived from the Sanskrit root sidh meaning "fulfillment" or "achievement," so
the noun came to refer to one who had attained perfection. Because the Tamil language
lacks the aspirated consonants of Sanskrit the word has been written and
pronounced by the Tamils as cittar. This has lead the Tamils to associate the
word more with the
Sanskrit term chit, meaning
"consciousness."
This appellation is evident even in the Shaivite devotionals known as
the Tevaram hymns of the 6th
& 7th centuries that would later become part of the Saiva
Siddhanta canon. There the term is applied not only to one of the 18 categories of divine beings but
also to God Shiva himself, who is a cittar because the very nature of God is consciousness. Likewise, it describes the devotee as also being a cittar since his consciousness is always
immersed in the Divine presence.
By the 12th -13th century the term has taken on new
meaning as we learn from the writings of Perumparrapuliyur Nambi who describes
the God Shiva as the
cittar alchemist who is working strange miracles in the city
of Madurai.
…
Although Ramalingar's hymns were penned in praise of the God Shiva, they
were often addressed to a feminine audience with unqualified personal
designations such as 'Amma' or 'Akka', 'Mother' or 'Sister'. Perhaps indicating
that the hymn was meant for an internal and distinctly feminine force that
could propel the invocation along the proper channels of the inner cosmos,
towards Shiva's divine abode.
The fact that his songs began to be sung in the schools, villages and
even the temples of 19th century Cennai, began to outrage the orthodox
Shaivites in the area. He, as all other Tamil Siddhas, was somewhat
iconoclastic, not adequately deferential to temple or Brahminical tradition. He
did not worship the linga. Forgoing all such images, he perpetrated the
greatest of heresies by blatantly revealing the true face of God veiled within
volumes of tantric lore. At the shrine he established at Vadalur, behind the
curtain that housed the holy of holy's, he established a single flame's light to
illuminate a mirror that would reflect the image of the worshipper as the
secret face of god and final mystery of the Tamil Siddha cult.
(Reference: Little,
Layne. An Introduction to the Tamil
Siddhas: Their Tantric Roots, Alchemy, Poetry, and the True Nature of their
Heresy Within the Context of South Indian Shaivite Society.)
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Reference
Sundaresan, Vidyasankar. (Thursday,
June 12, 1997) Re: ARTICLE :
Philosophical Sketch of Hinduism - Reply to Jerzy.
http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/1997_6/0012.html
Ram V Chandran wrote:
[..]
>
> The Saiva Siddhanta (Suddhadvaita): The unity of India
transcends the
> diversities of blood, fusions in color, language, dress,
manners and
> sects. It is seen in the fusion of Brahminical ideas and
institutions
> with Dravidian beliefs. The Saiva Siddhanta recognizes three entities:
> God, the Soul or the aggregate of souls, and Bondage
(Pati, Pasu and
> Pasa). The expression Bondage denotes the aggregate of the elements
which
> fetter the soul and hold it back from union with God.
In one of its
> aspects it is Malam, the taint clinging to the soul. In another aspect it
> is Maya, the material cause of the world. The peculiarity of the Saiva
> Siddhanta doctrine which calls itself
"Suddhadvaita" is its difference
> from the Vedanta Monism.
The Saiva Siddhanta school is a result of a fusion of earlier Saiva
systems like Pasupata, Kalamukha, Kapalika etc. The Pasupatas
contributed mainly to the philosophy, while the legacy of the Kalamukhas
and Kapalikas is seen in the religious practices of the Saiva ascetics.
Many Nyaya and Vaiseshika ideas, like the size of the soul, are also
found in the Saiva Siddhanta teaching. It is quite difficult to separate
out Brahminical and Dravidian elements in this system.
Be that as it may, does Saiva Siddhanta call itself Suddhadvaita? To the
best of my knowledge, the one school which labels itself "Suddhadvaita"
is the Vaishnava Pushti Marga teaching of Vallabhacharya. Saiva
Siddhanta, on the other hand, follows Saiva Agamas as its
basic texts,
and does not claim to be monistic in thought. There is only one saint,
Thayumanavar, who explicitly strikes a middle ground
between Advaita
Vedanta and Saiva Siddhanta, and he sings of
"vedanta-siddhanta
samarasa". But other
southern Saiva saints like Manickavacakar seem
quite opposed to a monist philosophy.
There is a school called Sivadvaita, quite distinct from
Saiva
Siddhanta, expounded first by Srikantha Sivacharya in his
commentary on
the Brahmasutras, and by Appayya Dikshita, in his
sub-commentary to
Srikantha's work. Through
the influence of Appayya Dikshita and his
disciples, the followers of Sankaran Advaita and
Sivadvaita have drawn
closer together over the centuries.
Another important school of Saivism is Virasaivism, which
is prevalent
in Kannada and Telugu speaking areas. There are many philosophical works
by Virasaiva authors such as Sripati Pandita, Renukacharya
etc. The
fourth and fifth volumes of "History of Indian
Philosophy" by S. N.
Dasgupta gives a nice overview of different Vaishnava and
Saiva schools.
S. Vidyasankar
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Reference
Rao, Velcheru Narayana. (Trans.) (1990)
Siva's Warriors - The Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somanatha. Princeton, USA: Princeton
University Press.
http://magusbks.com/bookCategories/AsianArt&History/SivasWarriors.htm
First translation into english of this Telegu poem
of South India.
13th century hagiography of Basavesvara, the 12th century Virasaiva leader.
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Reference
Zvelebil K. V. (Trans.)
(1984) The Lord of the Meeting Rivers: Devotional
Poems of Basavanna.
Motilal
Banarsidass. 196 pages. ISBN: 0-89581-755-1
http://www.mergingcurrents.com/book3007.html
An introduction to legends of the Shiva linga and an introduction to the
vacanas is followed by translations of vacanas of Basava, founder of the
Lingayat or Virasaiva sampradaya.
The poems are arranged under the four heads of devotion
(by far the longest section), receiving, experience and union.
With a postscript on the life of Basava, an introduction to Virasaiva
philosophy, and suggestions for further study. With an index of first lines of
the poems and a general index.
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Reference
History of Veerashaivism
http://members.aol.com/ukumbar/vsny/Detailed.htm
…the 12th century visionaries like Basavanna, Allamaprabhu,
Channabasavanna, Akkamahadevi,…
the collection of which is called Vachanashastra.
…
The Vedic deities
were the forces or powers of nature and Vedic religion was a system of
conciliation of those Nature powers by means of sacrifices and offering into fire that regarded as the mouth of deities. In contrast, the Agamic deities were
personal deities (Shiv, Shakti or Vishnu) who control the forces of nature. The
fire was an intermediary between the worshipper and worshipped in Vedic
religion where as the worshipper was himself was an intermediary between
worshipper and the deity in Agamic religion, who was in direct communication
with the deity.
In
Vedic religion, offerings were consumed by the deities through their mouth, the
fire, while in Agamic religion, the deity
consumed only subtle portion and the worshipper consumed the remaining in form
of Prasada or grace of God.
…
The
Vedic Gods being the forces of nature had no physical representation required by the worshipper, while the Agamic deities were
represented by means of visible emblem or image.
…
Vedic rites were restricted to only small portion of the public -
Brahmins, which led to the concept of Varnashramadharma, where as all
were considered equal in the eyes of Agamic Gods.
Vedas shut their door to women, while Agamas treated men and women alike.
Yoga philosophy and Yogic practices are part of Agamic
religion, which are absent in
Vedic religion.
…
The Agamas also
differ from the Upanishads fundamentally. The Agamas are scriptures of Bhakti path and the Upanishads are the scriptures of Jnana path. The former is an easy path and the latter is a difficult one.
…
The practice of religion is attainment of Moksha. Religious practices are based on the philosophy and are the reverse process of the
evolution of human life. The practice takes the individual soul back to the
original source.
…
As a result of the activity of Adimaya, Jiva gets affected by three taints (Mala) and covers over by five sheaths or by six
if we include Maya: Jiva becomes
constricted as a result of Anavamala; is
covered by five sheaths as a result of Mayamala; and
retains the vague craving as a results of Karmamala -
contracted form of Shiv's Sarvakrtrattvashakti-
that produces tendencies of mind and Karmasanskara.
Jiva has to be born as a human being in order to
free from Karmasanskara either by enjoying the fruits of Karma or destroying the accumulated Karma. That he/she can do by undergoing a course of
strict spiritual disciple and living a holy life of devotion to the Godhead
that forms the practice of religion. Through this, Jiva can get rid off three taints and five sheaths.
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Reference
Kalevala in Tamil
http://www.helsinki.fi/~ramaling/kalevala-tamil/pub.html
Dr. R. Muthukumarasamy
(Sole distributor for India and Sri Lanka)
The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing society
Tirunelveli
The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing society
154, T. T. K. Salai,
Alwarpet
Madras - 600 018
Tel: + 91 - 44 - 454 157
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Lingayats – Followers of Siva
http://www.indiaprofile.com/lifestyle/lingayats.htm
If sparks fly I shall think my
thirst and anger quelled. If the skies tear down I shall
think them pouring down for my bath If a
hillside slide on me I shall think it flower for my hair Lord, white as
jasmine, If my head falls from my
shoulder I shall think it your offering.
Yatra jivaha, tatra Sivaha
(Where there is life there is Siva)
In the state of Karnataka there is a small
community numbering about seven million people who are known as Lingayats. They are also called followers of
Virasaivism. Virasaivism is a form of Siva worship. Virasaivites describe their
religion as “revived, regenerated and revolutionary Saivism.” The term Virasaiva means “militant, heroic follower of Siva.” They
also call themselves Lingayats because they wear
the Linga, the emblem and symbol of Lord Siva, on their person. They
protested against the caste system and aimed at the creation of an egalitarian
and casteless society.
Even though the community is small in
number, in religious, philosophical and cultural significance, they are quite a
force to reckon with. It was somewhere in 1160 AD
that Lingayatism originated as a result of the activities of scholar saint
Basavanna. Basavanna
worshipped Siva in the form of the Lord of the Meeting Rivers,
Kadalasangamadeva. The story goes that Basavanna went to the
place where rivers Krishna and Malaprabha meet. At that place stands the temple
of Siva Sangemswara. (Sangameswara also means the
Lord of the Meeting Rivers). Here Lord Siva Himself is believed to have
appeared before the devotee and blessed him.
A mythological story is more interesting.
Shiva, it is said woke one fine morning to get the news that few people on
earth worshipping him. So immediately he dispatched his mount, Nandi, the bull.
Nandi was born as Basavannna.
There were many saints after him and he as
well as the others wrote as whole corpus of
literature in Kannada known as vacanas. Over 450
vacana writers are known to date, the most popular and influential remaining
Basavanna, with others like Dasimaya, Allama and
Mahadeviyakka coming a close second. The most intense and significant poetry was a span of two centuries
between the tenth and twelfth.
The Lingayats are entrenched in the Pashupata tenets which believes Siva is everything, the beginning and the end. The
sect strongly believes in gurus or teachers
and the original teachers trace their descent from Panchamukha Siva.
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Reference
Saivism
http://www.subaonline.de/saivascriptures/
…Saiva Siddhantha scriptures, written by Saiva Saints lived in 11 to 14 century .
Saiva Siddhantha philosophy is based on 12 Thevarath Thirumuraikal, 14 Saiva Sastras and ancient philosophical scriptures such as Upanishad, Tolkappiyam and Sangkam and Bakhthi Literature.
The fourteen Meykanda Sastras written mainly in 13th and 14th century, emerged as philosophical discoveries to mark a true renaissance in the development of saivism in total .
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Reference
Shaivism: An Introduction
http://www.seekersway.org/seekers_guide/shaivism_2_d.html
page 2
There are six primary schools of Shaivism, though not all devotees of Shiva will consider themselves as belonging to any one of these schools. These schools are: Pasupata Shaivism, Vira Shaivism, Kashmir Shaivism, Shaiva Siddhanta, Gorakhnath Shaivism, and Shiva Advaita. The differences are philosophic, geographic and linguistic in character. The similarities include the desire to liberate the mind or soul from its binding attachments to the body and the physical world. Some of the common features that distinguish Shaivas in general, and yogis in particular, are: covering the body with ashes or making three horizontal ash marks across the forehead. Some sects of Shaivites wear their hair long and matted and many sects wear a necklace or rosary, of rudraksha berries, representing their "austere ties." Isolated sects of those practicing Shaivas may also practice self-mortifying vows such as: never lying down, inserting needles into their body, lying on a bed of nails, walking on a bed of hot coals, and long periods of fasting or sleep deprivation.
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Reference
vIrasaiva panchAchAryaru
http://www.shaivam.org/kvpancac.htm
panchAchAryas are regarded as the sthApanAchAryAs of vIrashaivism. They established Ashrams at five locations in India and spread the vIrashaiva philosophy. They are said to be associated with the five faces of Lord shiva. They are the initiators of the five gotras to which the vIrashaiva's associate themselves.
Sage rEvaNArAdhya is also known as rENukAchArya and rEvaNa siddha. Tradition accounts that he taught sage agasthya ShaDsthaLa, 101 sthaLa of siddhantha shikAmaNi. He also guided vibhIShaNa to install 30 million shiva lingas in reverance to his brother rAvaNa. He is associated with the sOmEshvara linga at kollipAki. He established mutt at rambApuri.
Sage marula sidhdha is the other name maruLArAdhya. He is associated with the siddhEshvara linga of vaTakshEtra. He established a monastery at ujjain.
Sage EkOrAma is said to have written commentary of brahma sUtra. He is associated with the mallikArjuna linga of sudhA kuNDa. He established a monastary at shrI shaila.
Sage paNDitArAdhya is associated with rAmanAtha linga of drAkshArAma. He esstablished matha at kEdAr.
Sage vishvArAdhya is associated with the vishvEshvara linga os
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005
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“Thou belongest to That Which
Is Undying, and not merely to time alone,” murmured the Sphinx, breaking its muteness at last. “Thou art
eternal, and not merely
of the vanishing flesh. The soul in man cannot be killed, cannot die. It waits, shroud-wrapped,
in thy heart, as I waited,
sand-wrapped, in thy world. Know thyself, O mortal! For there is One within thee, as in all men, that
comes and stands at the bar and bears
witness that there IS a God!”
(Reference: Brunton,
Paul. (1962) A Search in Secret
Amen