THE ŚAIVA-DARŚANA.
[The seventh system in Mádhava's Sarva-darśana-saṅgraha is the Śaiva-darśana. This sect is very prevalent in the South of India, especially in the Tamil country; it is said to have arisen there about the eleventh century a.d. Several valuable contributions have been lately made to our knowledge of its tenets in the publications of the Rev. H. R. Hoisington and the Rev. T. Foulkes. The former especially, by his excellent articles in the American Oriental Society's Journal, has performed a great service to the students of Hindu philosophy. He has there translated the Tattuva-Kaṭṭalei, or law of the Tattwas, the Śiva-Gnánapotham, or instruction in the knowledge of God, and the Śiva-Pirakásam, or light of Śiva, and the three works shed immense light on the outline as given by Mádhava. One great use of the latter is to enable us to recognise the original Sanskrit names in their Tamil disguise, no easy matter occasionally, as aṛul for anugraha and tíḍchei for díkshá may testify.
The Śaivas have considerable resemblance to the Theistic Sánkhya; they hold that God, souls, and matter are from eternity distinct entities, and the object of philosophy is to disunite the soul from matter and gradually to unite it to God. Śiva is the chief deity of the system, and the relation between the three is quaintly expressed by the allegory of a beast, its fetters, and its owner. Paśupati is a well-known name of Śiva, as the master or creator of all things.
There seem to be three different sets of so-called Saiva sútras. One is in five books, called by Colebrooke the Paśupati-śástra, which is probably the work quoted by Mádhava in his account of the Nakulíśa Páśupatas; another is in three books, with a commentary by Kshemarája, with its first sútra, chaítanyam átmá. The third was commented on by Abhinava-gupta, and opens with the śloka given in the Sarva-Darśana-Saṅgraha, p. 91, lines 1-4. The MS. which I consulted in Calcutta read the first words—
Kathañchid ásádya Maheśvarasya dásyam.
None of these works, however, appear to be the authority of the present sect. They seem chiefly to have relied on the twenty-eight Ágamas and some of the Puráṇas. A list of the Ágamas is given in Mr. Foulkes' "Catechism of the Śaiva Religion;" and of these the Kiraṇa and Karaṇa are quoted in the following treatise.]