SHAIVISM - an Overview Prof
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SHAIVISM - an overview Prof. B.N. Hebbar, Ph.D., D.D. Religion Department, George Washington University MLA program, Johns Hopkins University Convener, International Buddhist group of the 13 Buddhist majority nations HE GOD SHIVA WORSHIPPED IN PRESENT-DAY HINDUISM IS A COM- upaniShad of the Yajur Veda� POSITE DEITY. THE ARYAN VEDIC GOD RUDRA BECAME IDENTIFIED In post-Vedic Hinduism, Shiva came to be worshipped TWITH THE DRAVIDIAN DEITY SIVAN. THE FACILITATIONS ON EITHER in the form a stone known as the linga� This is prob- side existed to make this gradual mutual identification ably the way he was worshipped by the Dravidians� possible� Thus, by the time of the shaivAgamAs and the Stone-worship was the hallmark of Semitic culture, purANAs, the two were t reated as one god� and Dravidian religiosity had a certain cultural kin- The Vedic god Rudra is essentially an atmospheric god� ship with the Semitic religious ways� Further, the bull In Rig Veda I:43:4, Rudra is considered the lord of the Nandi associated with Shiva, also bears resemblance Vedic hymns, the lord of Vedic rites and the great to bull-worship among the eastern Semites, i�e� the medical deity� In Rig Veda I:114:5, he is obliquely iden- Mesopotamians� By contrast, the Indo-Iranic branch of tified with varAha, who is later considered an incarna- the Aryans never worshipped their deities in the form tion of viShNu� In the subsequent verse, he is called of idols� Their gods were mantrasvarUpA (in the form the father of the maruts, a class of wind-deities� Two of chants) and oblations were offered to them only verses down, he is requested not to bring harm to the through the medium of the sacred fire� The Vedic god faithful ones� In Rig Veda II:33:3, Rudra is referred to as Rudra was no exception to this form of worship� Hence vajravAhu, the bearer of the thunderbolt� In taittiriya the Vedic Rudra was not the Dravidian Sivan� Since a samhita IV:5:1 of the Yajur Veda, Rudra is reckoned to be vast majority of the people of the Indian subcontinent thousand-eyed� Thus, these two aspects certainly make were culturally and racially Dravidian before the advent him very similar to the god Indra� Three verses down, of the Aryans, it is not surprising that the worship of the various people of all the castes (including the Sivan in the form of a linga is to be found to this outcastes) are considered as manifestations of Rudra day as far north as Kashmir� The stone affiliations of and as such all ought to be saluted and respected� In Sivan are so deep that his abode was identified with shatapatha brAhmana VI:1:3:10 of the Yajur Veda, Rudra a big stone, i�e� Mount KailAsa� The linga being a male is identified with Agni, the fire-god� In the same text procreative symbol is also very Dravidian� In Rig Veda VI:1:3:9-17, he is said to be the child of the gods pra- VII:21:5, the god Indra is invoked by the Aryans to jApati and uShas� It is said here that the divine child protect them from the worshippers of shishna (male kept weeping because he had not been given a name� procreative organ) who came to disturb their yaj~jas So, prajApati named him Rudra (one who weeps)� It is (fire sacrifices)� Again, in Rig Veda X:99:3, the deity In- said that he kept weeping as he disliked that name� He dra is praised as the slayer of shishna worshippers� kept on crying until his eighth name ‘ĪsAna’, an appel- Sivan was a very popular and powerful Dravidian god, lation with which he was satisfied� In Hindu sacred nu- whose widespread worship, the Vedic Aryans could merology, the number eight is usually associated with not ignore� When he got identified with the Vedic Ru- Shiva� In atharva Veda IV:28:1, Rudra is called dually as dra through a gradual assimilation process, there was Bava and sharva� A renowned medieval commentator struggle to accept him by the Vedic Aryans as the story on the Vedas named sAyaNa, considers these epithets of Dhaksha-prajApati depicts� Sivan is the only god as describing the creative and destructive aspects of who remains un-Aryanized to this day� He is depicted the deity respectively� The same commentator avers as someone who dwells in the cremation-ground, who that the name Rudra is so because he makes all cry wears ashes, who is unornamented and adorned with at the dissolution of the universe, as well as the fact animal-skins, skulls and serpents� The Vedic Aryans had that he removes in all, the sorrows of worldly life and to accept him as is, because of his overwhelming na- strife� The deity finally achieves a supernal status as the ture in Dravidian religion� The Indo-Aryans by the late Supreme Lord of the Universe in the shvetAShvatara Vedic period had themselves become very Dravidian- MAHARUDRAM 2012 65 SHAIVISM - an overview ized in many ways� So, such things were becoming less of the kUrma purANA, the agni purANA, and the skanDha an issue� The final Vedic Aryanization of Sivan came to purANA� These texts give information on the various be fossilized as follows: The IshAna form was equated mythological stories about Shiva, the legends of the with the Sun, the mahAdeva form was equated with places sacred to him, the vows and rites associated the Moon, the BhIma form was equated with Space, with his worship together with blessings and benefac- the ugra form was equated with Air, the Rudra form tions to such worshippers etc� In the Shiva purANA is was equated with Fire, the pashupati form was equated the story the linga symbol which is interpreted as an with the patron of the Vedic sacrifice (the yajamAna), infinite cosmic column rather than a male generative the Bava form was equated with Water, and the sharva organ� The former is what is emphasized by modern form was equated with the Earth� Hindus� However, it is equally important to point out that in two other purANic sources, Shiva is said to have By the Epic-purANic era, Siva was a god accepted by come to be worshipped in the form of the male sexual the Vedic Aryans and many Vedic Aryan sages and organ on account of him being cursed by a hermit for heroes worshipped him� From the first century CE on- attempting to rape the hermit’s wife, and on account wards when old-style Vedic religion was on the decline, of the curse by Sage BhRigu who was ignored by Shiva the Brahmin priests saw their vocational future not in while the god was making love to his consort goddess elitist Vedic yaj~jas, but in populist idol-worship in tem- pArvatI� ples� To legitimize their worship in temples, manuals in Sanskrit called Agamas were created by these Brahmin The temple consecration and ritual manuals associated priests laying out details of temple consecration, idol with Shiva worship are known as the shaivAgamAs� installation, its ritual veneration and liturgical worship� These are 28 in number� The names of some them are: The Brahmins were always good at the art of dramatic the kAmikAgamA, the ajItAgamA, the dIptAgamA, the priestcraft� This art was now transferred from the Vedic rauravAgamA, the siddhAgamA, the ArameshvarAgamA fire-altar to the non-Vedic (Agamic) temple sanctum� etc� Most of the shaiva mythological beliefs and temple The purANAs provided the right myths to support and ritual lore followed by the vast majority of modern reinforce the rites, temple legends etc� However, Shiva shaiva Hindus is based on the purANAs and the Aga- was not the only deity to have this pan-Indian pres- mas and has little to do with the Vedic Aryan deity ence� Two other deities, one Vedic Aryan and the other Rudra. Dravidian provided stiff competition to the cult of Shiva� The lingas found in the narmadA River are said to be These were the gods viShNu and shakti� Each of these particularly sacred to Shiva - worship� The shaiva purA- deities had their own set of temple-worship legitimiz- NAs mention twelve special Shiva shrines as particularly ing Agamas� The god viShNu, though very Vedic in sacred� These are: somanAtha and nAgeshvara in Gujarat, origin, had also assimilated many hero-cults (principally mahAkAleshvara and OnkAreshvara in Madhya Pradesh, rAma and kriShNa) and non-Aryan elements (kUrma, BhImashankara, tryambakeshvara and grishNeshvara in varAha, narasimha etc�), and as such had become as Maharashtra, vaidyanAtha in Jharkhand, vishvanAtha in composite an Aryo-Dravidian deity as Rudra-Shiva� The Uttar Pradesh, kedAranAtha in Uttaranchal, mallikArjuna goddess shakti was the Dravidian deity Amman� Thus, in Andhra Pradesh, and rAmeshvara in Tamilnadu� a new Aryo-Dravidian culture was to successfully domi- nate Hinduism for good as it does to the present-day� There are four major sects among the shaivas� Two are There was only one relatively modern attempt to revive north Indian and two are south Indian� The north Indi- Vedic Aryan religion albeit with twists of its own; and an sects are Kashmir shaivism and pAshupata shaivism� this was done by Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824- The south Indian sects are shaiva siddhAnta and VIras- 1883 CE), the founder of the Arya SamAj� However, haivism� this revivalist movement was confined to a few in the Kashmir shaivism northern part of India, especially the Punjab region� There are three schools of Kashmir shaivism� They are The god Shiva is extolled as the Supreme Lord of the the tryambaka school of somAnanda, the spanda school Universe in six of the mahApurANAs� These are the of vasugupta, and the pratyAbhij~jA school of aBi- Shiva purANA, the linga purANA, the matsya purANA, navagupta and kshemarAja� All of them basically hold 66 MAHARUDRAM 2012 SHAIVISM - an overview a non-dualistic