saivism origins
HE ORIGINS OF sAIVISM
THE origins of Saivism are lost in obscurity, but it is clear that the
Saivism of history is a blend of two lines of development, the Aryan
or Vedic and the pre-Aryan. Much more than the urbane cult of Visnu,
it has exhibited a close alliance with yoga and thaumaturgy, and a constant
tendency to run into the extremes of ascetic fervour. It is not a single
cult, but a federation of allied cults, whose practices range from the serenest
form of personal life in the faith to the most repulsive excesses that alienate
one’s sympathy for the cult. The hold of Saivism extends not only over
the whole of India, from the Indus valley to Bengal, but stretches out
across the sea to Greater India and the Archipelago, and beyond the
northern mountains to Central Asia. We shall endeavour to indicate the
genesis of this powerful creed and the chief stages of its growth, and briefly
survey the evidence from literature and epigraphy of the range and extent
of its influence.
The characteristics of Saivism are the exaltation of Siva above all other
gods, the highly concrete conception of the deity, and the intensely personal
nature of the relation between him and his devotees. These traits are
most clearly seen in the Svetasvatara Upanisad, a treatise which resembles
the Bhagavad-Gitd in many ways, but seems to have been the work of an
earlier age. Just as the Gita voices the intense theism of Vaisnavism in
very general terms, and in close relation to broad philosophical principles,
so does the Svetasvatara expound the supremacy of £iva as the result of
the theistic strain of thought developed in the Upanisads. On the one
hand, Siva is here identified with the eternal Absolute. ‘There is no form
for Him whose name is supreme celebrity’ (IV. 19). On the other hand,
he is the God of all gods, potent for good and evil. He is Girisa ; he holds
the arrow in his hand ready to shoot ; he is the great Master (Isana), the
giver of boons, the origin of the gods, Rudra, the great seer, the supreme
Lord (Mahesvara), and so on, and his nature is clearly revealed in the repe¬
tition of the Rg-Vedic prayer to Rudra imploring him to accept the havis
(oblation), and spare the lives and property of the worshipper and his
kindred. He is attained by true tapas (austerity), and then comes the
removal of all bondage. There is nothing else to be known, and there is
no other way. The end of this Upanisad differs from the rest of it in its
style, and is most probably a later addition. But it is not without interest,
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THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF INDIA
We read here that ‘men would sooner be able to roll up the ether like a
skin than reach the end of sorrow without knowledge of the Lord’ (VI. 20).
Intense devotion to the Lord and equal devotion to the guru (teacher) are
the essential preliminaries to a realization of the true path (VI. 23).
We have here all the elements of Saivism, and the further growth of
the creed meant only the elaboration of the details of the doctrine and
the rise of local variations in the practice of the cult, leading to the forma¬
tion of different schools or sub-sects.
The name Siva hardly occurs in the Rg-Veda as a proper noun. It is
often applied to many gods of the pantheon in the sense of ‘propitious’,
and once indeed to Rudra himself (X. 92. 9). The name came to be applied
euphemistically to the god of terrors, for Rudra, the prototype of Siva in
the Rg-Veda , is really a terrible god, and much supplication was needed to
humour him into a good temper.1 And there is none more powerful than
Rudra. The Rg-Vedic Rudra exhibits more of the traits of the Rudra-Siva
of later times than have generally been allowed. In one hymn (II. 33), for
instance, the term ‘vrsabha is applied to him five times, and he is called
the doctor of doctors, Isana, Yuvan, Ugra, and so on. He carries the bow
and arrows and wears necklaces of all sorts, and is followed by his hosts ;
and curiously enough, in one of the stanzas in this hymn also occurs the
term ‘ kumara Thus most of the stuff from which Saiva legends take their
rise is apparently as old as the oldest part of the Rg-Veda.
There are, of course, striking differences, and it would be indeed
strange if it were not so. And these differences persist in the later Samhitas
as well. Thus Rudra is the father or chief of the Maruts ; he is identical
with Agni (Fire).2 Ambika is his sister, not his wife.3 Bhava, Sarva, Kala,
and others figure as independent deities, who have not yet merged in the
great God, Mahadeva.
In the Yajur-Veda, however, we meet with stories concerning Rudra’s
exploits, such as killing the asuras and destroying their tripura (three
cities),4 breaking into the midst of a sacrifice and taking violent possession
of offerings meant for other gods. But it is the Satarudnya which draws
together all the floating conceptions regarding Rudra-Siva of the early Vedic
1 Macdonell, Vedic Mythology , p. 77. Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism , II. p. 141. Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts, IV is an invaluable collection of the sources. The derivation of
‘Siva’ from Tamil Sivappu, which is sometimes suggested, appears to be far-fetched. Rudra
is generally understood to mean ‘roarer’. Sayana suggests no fewer than six derivations (Muir,
op. cit., p. 303, f.n. 9), and a seventh is suggested in the Atharuasiras Upanisad — a clear proof of
the obscurity of its origin. The text in Taittiriya Samhita, VI. 1. 7. 7-8 is the criticism of a
later age on the Rudra of the Rg-Veda.
2 Cf. Mahdbharata, cited by Muir, op. cit., pp. 198-99.
3 One of the early references to Uma Haimavati is in the Kcna Upanisad where her
relation to Siva is not made explicit.
4 Taittiriya Samhita, VI. 2. 3.
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AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF sAIVISM
times and provides a fresh starting point for new developments which
culminate in the theistic Vedanta of the Svetdsvatara, while, at the same
time, the biography of Siva is developed, from the stray hints of an earlier
time, into the elaborate legends narrated in the later Upanisads and the
Saiva Puranas. The Satarudriya came to occupy a large place in later
Saivism. Its jap a (repetition) was a sure road to immortality ( Jdbalopa -
nisad, 3), the expiation for all sin, and the means of attaining release. The
importance of the Satarudriya has also been emphasized in the Periya
Purdnam.
WAS SAIVISM PRE-VEDIC ?
Was Saivism pre-Vedic and non- Aryan in its origin? An affirmative
answer to this question seems to rest on the following considerations: Siva
as the name of a deity is unknown to the ancient Vedic hymns, though they
mention a tribe of Sivas.5 The characteristics of Siva are those of a fearful
deity worshipped with propitiatory rites by primitive folk. Worshippers
of the linga (phallus), the chief emblem of Saivism, are condemned in
the Rg-Veda, and Indra’s intercession is sought against them (VII. 2 1.5 ;
X.99.3). Lastly, the discovery of several prehistoric relics of a phallic
character from various parts of India, including the chalcolithic sites of
Mohenjo-claro and Harappa, shows that the phallic cult with which Saivism
is closely connected was a widespread cult in pre-Vedic India. In the
warrior clans of the Rg-Veda , the Bharatas, Purus, Yadus, and others, R. P.
Chanda recognizes ‘the representatives of the ruling class of the indigenous
chalcolithic population’ in whose service the Aryan rsi (seer) clans came
to seek their fortune, more or less as missionaries of the cults of Indra,
Varuna, Agni, and other nature gods.6
But we can hardly proceed yet to reconstruct the history of the
Rg-Vedic age in the manner suggested by Chanda. Though Siva as a deity
is unknown to the Rg-Veda, there can be no manner of doubt that the
Vedic Rudra has furnished the foundation for Saivism as we know it. That
Rudra does not occupy in the hymns the high position which Siva does
later cannot make different deities of them ; for the fortunes of gods have
varied in time no less than those of their worshippers. That some traits
of non-Aryan aboriginal religion have gone into the make-up of the Siva
of Pauranic Hinduism can hardly be gainsaid ; but that is true of Visnu as
well, and, in fact, the absorption of pagan traits is the price that any prose¬
lytizing religion has to pay for its being accepted by fresh tribes or classes.
It is not to be forgotten also that the expression ‘ sisnadevdK may not signify
5 Archaeological Survey of India Memoirs, 41. p. 3.
6 Ibid., 41. p. 25.
IV— 9
65
THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF INDIA
‘men who had the phallus ( sisna ) for deity’, but rather, as Roth suggests,
some ‘tailed (or Priapic) demons’, from whose unwelcome intrusion the
Aryans sought the protection of Indra.7 Further, even if the expression
has reference to human worshippers of the phallus, it is impossible, in the
absence of definite criteria about what is Aryan and what is non-Aryan,8
to assert that these worshippers were not Aryans themselves.9
The interpretation offered by Sir John Marshall of the evidence from
Mohenjo-daro rests on unproven, and to me improbable, assumptions on
the chronology of Vedic literature. The interpretation of these data can
hardly become final until the inscriptions on the seals are satisfactorily
explained. While Marshall’s explanations appear conclusive in regard to
the Mother Goddess cult, the phallic cult, and the tree and animal cults,
his speculations on the male god, who, he thinks, was the prototype of the
historical £iva, are rather forced, and certainly not so convincing as the
rest of the chapter.10 It is difficult to believe on the strength of a single
‘roughly carved seal’ that all the specific attributes of Siva, as Mahesa,
Mahayogin, Pasupati, and Daksinamurti, were anticipated in the remote
age to which the seal belongs. In his eagerness to discover the origin of
Saivism in this seal, the learned archaeologist suggests so many hypotheses
that the less imaginative reader begins to feel rather sceptical about the
whole attempt. ‘The lower limbs are bare, and the phallus ( urdhva -
medhra) seemingly exposed, but it is possible that what appears to be the
phallus is in reality the end of the waistband.’11 Again, the three faces of
this god may be ‘a syncretic form of three deities rolled into one’, because
‘the conception of the triad or trinity is a very old one in India’ and ‘it was
equally old in Mesopotamia ; it is more likely, however, that in the first
instance the god was provided with a plurality of faces in token of his all-
seeing nature ; that these images afterwards suggested the trimurtis of
Siva, Brahma, and Visnu ; and that the latter in their turn subsequently
inspired such images as those of Devangana, Melcheri, and other places’.
The elephant and tiger on the proper right of the god, and the rhinoceros
and buffalo on his left, may be taken to imply that the god was the lord
of the beasts (pasupati), or it may only be that the four quarters are repre¬
sented, as on the capitals of Asoka columns, by the four animals. The pair
of horns, which makes a trisula (trident) on the head of the god, with the
head-dress proper, is admitted to be a pre-Aryan symbol of divinity that
7 Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, IV. p. 411.
8 Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, pp. 629-30.
9 Contra R. G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism, and Minor Religious Systems, p. 115.
10 Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization , I. 5 ; Contra O. Schrader in Z. D. M. G.,
1934, p. 191.
11 Ibid., p. 55, f.n. 5 shows clearly how eager Marshall is to accept the first explanation,
66
An historical sketch of sAivisM
survived in later times in the trisula of Siva, and the triratna12 of Buddhism.
‘This emblem . . . while of itself proving nothing definite, nevertheless,
provides another link in the chain which connects Siva with the pre-Aryan
religion, and to this extent supports his identification with the deity of the
seal.’ The deer throne of the god and his yogic posture are the two most
unequivocal features left, and these prove nothing more than the antiquity
of yoga, a system of physical discipline and mental magic. It should be
observed that the yogic posture of our god is not unique in the Mohenjo-
daro finds ; it occurs also in a statue of a male figure, and in a small faience
seal, where a deity in the same attitude is apparently worshipped by a
kneeling ndga.
Marshall’s conclusions regarding Saivism in pre-Aryan India are there¬
fore open to doubt on two grounds. While the high antiquity of the Indus
valley culture is very well established, it is not definitely proved that this
culture was pre-Vedic, that is, pre-Aryan. Again, most of the data from
which he draws his conclusions are, as he is himself aware, open to other
interpretations which have nothing to do with Saivism.
is sivalinga a phallic symbol ?
Is the sivalinga a phallus? The discovery of phallic cult objects
here and there, bearing evidence of the worship of the phallus among pre¬
historic tribes, has led to the easy assumption that the sivalinga was phallic
in its origin. And the preponderance, real or supposed, of orgiastic rites
in some forms of 3aktism has doubtless sometimes influenced modern
students of Saivism into accepting an exclusively phallic interpretation of
the sivalinga. But the linga may have been in origin no more than just
a symbol of Siva, as the sdlagrdma is of Visnu. The worship of the linga
as a symbol once started, there was little to prevent a confusion in the
popular mind between this and the cult of the phallus, and legends came
to be invented of the origin of the worship of the linga as the phallus of
Siva. In some such way we can explain the passages — not many after all,
and rather late in the Mahdbhdrata and other works — , which lend colour
to the phallic interpretation of the sivalinga ,13 ‘Of all the representations
of the deity which India has imagined,’ observes Barth,14 ‘these ( lingas )
are perhaps the least offensive to look at. Anyhow, they are the least
materialistic ; and if the common people make fetishes of them, it is never¬
theless true that the choice of these symbols by themselves to the exclusion