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Kashmir Saivism
Kashmir Saivism is the most prominent of the North Indian schools of Saivism, and is thought to have been founded by Vasugupta
in the eight century CE. It is named after the region in which Vasugupta is said to have found the Siva Sutras, which along with the Saiva Agamas form the scriptual foundation of this tradition. According to one account, Vasugupta was directed by Lord Siva in a dream or vision to go to a particular rock on Mahadev Mountain. On doing so and touching the rock, it is reputed to have rolled over and revealed the seventy-seven sutras or aphorisms of the Siva Sutra. According to another account, Vasugupta received the sutras in deep meditation. The nature of its origin aside, the Siva Sutra is considered to have been divinely revealed and so is equal in status to the Saiva Agamas.
Kashmir Saivism is also known by the names Pratyabhijna, Spanda and Trika. Pratyabhijna means recognition or remembrance and refers to one of the central tenets of this school, that the individual is ultimately identical with Siva as the Absolute, and that the recognition or remembrance in the sense of an immediate awareness of this identity leads to liberation. Spanda means self-movement or vibration and refers to another key principle of this school, the apparent movement from a state of absolute unity to the plurality of the world that takes place through the spontaneous activity or Sakti that gives rise to the creation, maintenance and dissolution of the cosmos. Trika means triple or triad, and refers to a number of threefold principles that are characteristic of Kashmir Saivism. These include the three fundamental categories Siva, Sakti and anu or the individual that for Kasmir Saivism is a microcosm of the whole; Pati (Siva), pasu (individual) and pasa (bond); and the triple nature of Sakti: iccha (will), jnana (knowledge) and kriya (activity).
It is also held that the designation Trika refers to the three types of literature in Kashmir Saivism: Agama, Spanda and Pratyabhijna Sastras (from the verb root sas = to rule, teach), which correspond to the three closely related philosophical positions that emerged within this tradition, and whose overall tendency was towards Samkara’s Advaita Vedanta. Abhinavagupta (950-1015) is acknowledged as effecting a reconciliation of the three positions in his version of non-dualism in important works such as Tantraloka, Tantrasara, and Isvara Pratyabhijna Vimarsini.
Abhinavagupta’s non-dualism or advaita (from a = ‘not’ + dvaita = ‘dual’), like Samkara’s, accepts a conception of the Absolute as the only Reality, both transcendent and indeterminate. However unlike Samkara, Abhinavagupta maintains that the cosmos is a real manifestation of Siva (as the Absolute) rather than something merely apparent. Siva is the self-shining, pure consciousness or prakasa (from the verb root kas = ‘to shine’ and pra = ‘forth’), whose self-awareness or vimarsa (meaning knowledge or reflection) is represented as Sakti. Spanda or kriya is understood as the spontaneous and eternal vibration or creative pulse that expresses Siva’s absolute freedom (svatantra: from sva = ‘own’ + tantra = ‘rule’) and infinite bliss (ananda); it has no inherent motive or guiding purpose beyond the joy of free expression. This doctrine is portrayed in Saiva iconography by the ecstatic dance of Siva in the form of Nataraja (from nata = ‘dancer’ + raja = ‘king’), whose movements are the movements of the cosmos: its creation, maintenance and dissolution, and whose dance is the cosmic play or lila, which takes place for no other reason than the joy of movement itself.
As the Absolute, Siva is self-dependent and so remains unaffected by all manifestation which is made to appear as if it were distinct from Himself even though it is projected from Himself, in Himself and by Himself. The cosmos is therefore both real and non-different from Siva, and this for Abhinavagupta is authentic advaita; not the denial of duality as it is for Samkara, but the ultimate unity of Siva and Sakti, prakasa and vimarsa, which though distinguishable in thought are in reality inseparable. This conception of advaita is personified in Ardhanarisvara, the half-male and half-female form of Siva that is intended to express this inseparability in art. In most cases Ardhanarisvara is male on the right side of the figure and female on the left-side, although some examples which are presumably sakta in origin reverse this arrangement.
According to Abhinavagupta, the pasu or individual self is nothing other than Siva appearing under particular limitations (keeping in mind that some kind of limitation is required for any form of determinate existence to appear at all). The pasu is therefore an aspect of creation that expresses Siva’s absolute freedom and infinite bliss just like any other. However by identifying with determinate forms as if they were distinct from Siva, such as thinking that ‘I am the body’ or ‘I am this life’, the pasu cuts itself off from its source and becomes bound to the cycles of samsara.
The error that is introduced through this false identification, through the sense that there is anything that is ultimately distinct from Siva, is the root cause of all bondage or bandha (from the verb root bandh = ‘to bind’). This ignorance of the real nature of the pasu is referred to as anava-mala: the impurity (mala) of ignorance, and is the mula-mala or root impurity that taints the other malas (karma and maya), which together constitute the three strands of pasa that bind the pasu. Karma-mala (the impurity of action) is said to be the result of anava-mala, with the false identification with determinate forms leading to the impurities caused by residual impressions of past actions that are believed to have been the product of one’s own finite will. Maya-mala (the impurity of transmigration) is in turn the result of both anava- and karma-mala, as the material conditions of empirical existence are misinterptreted as not only distinct from Siva, but as what defines the finite pasu as an independent agent that endures through the cycles of birth, death and rebirth.
Given that anava-mala is held to be the root cause of bondage, and that the pasu is ultimately nothing other than Siva, liberation or moksa in Kasmir Saivism is defined as the recognition or pratyabhijna of this underlying unity. The ignorance that pratyabhijna dissolves is not intellectual but innate and beginningless and so cannot be removed by intellectual knowledge alone. Pratyabhijna is instead an immediate and direct realisation of one’s identity with Siva, which by dissolving the false distinction between the determinate forms of what manifests and Siva releases the pasu from the ties (pasa) that bind it.
This realisation may be prompted by spiritual instruction and initiation (diksa), meditation on the sacred texts (sastra-vasyah), sincere and dedicated spiritual practice (yoga), through some combination of some or all of these, or may simply occur spontaneously. Regardless of the particular means, the pratyabhijna tradition emphasies the importance of the descent of Siva’s grace (saktipata or anugraha) in all spiritual attainment. The realisation that all manifestation, including oneself, is non-different from Siva makes manifest in the form of the jivanmukti an embodied awareness of grace of Siva in all creation, and a living example of advaita.
Saiva Siddhanta
Saiva Siddhanta is often presented as the southern branch of Saivism in India, described in terms of both its region of influence
and the rich devotional literature it inspired in the Tamil language. While this strand of Saiva Siddhanta has been the focus of recent scholarship and will also be of this section, the tradition as a whole can be traced back to Nandinatha who is believed to have lived in Kasmir around 250 BCE. Nandinatha’s Sanskrit work, Nandikesvara Kasika, has more in common with the advaita doctrines of Kasmir Saivism than the position developed by the southern arm of this tradition. It is therefore useful to refer to Sanskrit and Tamil forms of Saiva Siddhanta, with the former prevailing in northern and central India and the latter in the south. The former flourished until successive waves of Islamic conquest from the seventh century onwards significantly altered the religious demographics of the north and centre of India, while the latter continues to this day.
The principal and most distinctive literature of the southern arm of Saiva Siddhanta is the twelve-book Tirumurai (‘holy book’) which was composed between the fifth and ninth centuries CE and compiled in the eleventh century CE by Nambiyandar Nambi. The first seven Tirumurais are known as Tevarum and include the devotional hymns of three of the most revered figures of southern Saivism: Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar. The eighth Tirumurai contains the poetry of Manikkavacakar and is known as Tiruvacakam, while the tenth is the Tirumantiram of Tirumular who according to tradition was a direct disciple of Nandinatha, though more recent scholarship tends to place him around the eighth century CE.
This vast devotional literature attended a bhakti movement that insisted on a subtle yet irrevocable distinction between the individual self and Siva. This conviction was given its first systematic statement in the thirteenth century CE by Meykander in his Sivajnanabodham, which is regarded as the standard exposition of the Tamil form of Saiva Siddhanta. This and subsequent works by significant figures such as Arulnandi, Umapati, Srikantha and Appaya Diksita developed a position somewhere between the advaita of Kasmir Saivism and the visistadvaita (qualified nondualism) of Ramanuja (1017-1137 CE), one of the most influential figures of Vaisnavism.
In maintaining that the individual self or pasu is of the same essence as Siva without positing an ultimate identity between them, Meykander is able to conceive of liberation not as the realisation of one’s identity with the Absolute, but as enjoying the eternal presence of the Lord.
Did the soul perish on becoming united with Siva, there would be no eternal being associated with God. If it does not perish, but remains a dissociated being, then there would be no union with God. But the impurities will cease to affect the soul and then the soul like the union of salt with water will become united with Siva as His servant and exist at his feet as one with Him. (Sivajnanabodham, xi, 5)
Siva is therefore not only the Absolute, but also a personal God who in His infinite grace and love wishes ‘that all should know Him’ (Sivajnanabodham, xiii, 3). Both the Lord (Pati) and his pasu are of the nature of consciousness, and in liberation the pasu attains a perfect resemblance to Siva, though the five functions of creation (srsti), maintenance (sthiti), dissolution (samhara), obscuration (tirodhana) and grace (anugraha) are reserved for Siva alone.
The hymns of the Tirumurai describe the passage of those entangled in samsara - their waywardness, struggles and suffering - through their first awakenings and continued trials as they turn their attention from worldly desires and concerns in growing love and devotion towards the Lord. The entanglement of the pasu in samsara is understood in terms of the three strands of pasa in much the same way it is in Kasmir Saivism. The pasu, ignorant of its true nature, falsely identifies with the body and the qualities of finite existence. However in contrast to Kasmir Saivism, both the pasu and empirical existence are not ultimately identical with Siva. The cosmos has Siva as its first cause, Sakti as its instrumental cause and maya as its material cause. Maya is insentient, the seed from which the cosmos develops and whose unceasing rhythms and karmic regulation is the theatre in which the pasu comes to know itself by coming to know Siva. The cosmos and the pasu are pervaded by Siva through His Sakti, and even though there is no ultimate identity between them, Siva is said to dwell in them and they in Him. When Sakti is active, Siva becomes both the subject of experience (bhokta) and the personal Lord whose grace is extended to all who turn to Him. In defining liberation in terms of a perfect resemblance to the Lord, the passage towards this state is marked by the purification of the consciousness that constitutes the true nature of the pasu. The ignorance (anava-mala) that binds the pasu to samsara is dissolved through devoted attention to Siva, which when unqualified by any taint of the finite leaves the pasu able to reflect the supreme Reality in its purity, which is true knowledge of Siva. The jivanmukti is thereby infused with the presence of the Lord and continues in this final embodiment until all past karma has been exhausted, with all subsequent actions being free expressions of the divine will.
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