Vedic Wisdom - Major Concepts of Shaiva Siddhanta

Vedic Wisdom

Major Concepts of Shaiva Siddhanta

Shiva

According to Shaiva Siddhanta, Shiva is the ultimate and supreme reality, omniscient, omnipresent and unbound. He is Pati, the primal being and the supreme deity. Shiva alone is the efficient cause of all creation, evolution, preservation, concealment and dissolution. He brings forth the worlds and their beings through his dynamic power, Shakti.

The Jivas

The jivas are the individual souls or beings. They are not the same as Shiva. But they are made of the same essence. According to Shaiva Siddhanta, Shiva is the same as the souls but also separate from the souls. The number of souls remains constant throughout.(Similar to Plutonism).Their number can neither be increased nor decreased. They may undergo transformation but their number remains constant.Therefore any thing new born automatically means transmigration or rebirth. Thus in Shaiva Siddhanta there is a fine distinction between the souls and God. The difference is not in their essence but in their constitution. Their relationship with Shiva is not a state of oneness but of sameness. Because Shiva and jivas are different but also the same in essence, this school is considered as pluralistic or dualistic.

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The Three Impurities

The soul is neither the gross body nor the subtle body nor the breath body. It should not be confused with sense organs or the internal organs (tanmantras). In essence it is the same as Shiva (abheda), but also different (bheda), because it is subject to the three impurities (malas) or bonds. These three bonds (pasas) or impurities (malas) are anava, karma and maya.

They bind the jivas to functional limitations and the experience of unreality or asat and turn them into pasus (animals) or ignorant beings. Of the three impurities, anava is the natural impurity (sahaja mala). It is born with the soul and never parts from it except during the state of kaivalya or sameness with Shiva. It clouds the consciousness of the jivas and makes them act like individual entities of finite nature (anu) with limited knowledge and limited abilities. It is the cause of ego, which makes a jiva think itself to be different from Shiva and other beings.

Karma or binding action is the second impurity. It binds the soul to the consequences of its actions. Actions done from a cosmic perspective are not binding. But actions done with an egoistic attitude, driven by ones own desires, are binding.

Maya, the third impurity, binds the jivas to the sense objects through desires and ignorance. Maya is an instrument of Shiva. In its highest form it is eternal, indestructible and indivisible. It is of two types, shuddha maya (pure maya) and asuddha maya (impure maya). The suddha maya caters to the adhikara muktas or pure souls. The asuddha maya caters to the impure souls. Both the pure and impure mayas together give rise to 36 tattvas . Pure maya gives rise to pure tattvas which are five in number, namely:

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shiva-tattva,

shakti-tattva,

sadashiva-tattva,

ishvara-tattva,

shuddhavidya-tattva

Using these five tattvas, Shiva creates the bodies, organs, worlds and objects of enjoyment for the pure souls. The asuddha maya is the cause of prakriti-maya from which arise 24 tattvas including the pancha bhutas (air, water, ether, fire and earth) and their five qualities (touch, taste, sound, color and odor), the five organs of action, the five sensory organs and the four internal organs (manas, buddhi, chitta and ahamkara). These impure tattvas are used by Shiva for the creation of the bodies, organs, worlds and objects of enjoyment for the impure souls.

Contrary to the popular belief, the purpose of maya is twofold. First, to subject the jivas to the conditions of material existence and help them acquire pasha-jnyana (sensory knowledge) and pasu jnyana (material knowledge). Second, to prepare them for final liberation by subjecting them to the laws of karma and helping them discriminate between right actions and wrong actions so that they can gain merit by doing right actions and avoiding wrong actions. This is of course a long and tedious process and the jivas may have to spend many lives before they feel the need to work for their liberation.(The purpose of creation can be seen here as to enable the beings to experience the world and not to decry it because it is these experiences which the God is looking for the evolution).

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Although maya may play some role in bringing the jivas closer to the path of liberation, it cannot take them far on the path. When it comes to liberation, maya is a clumsy instrument. The jiva cannot know of God through the knowledge of the senses or the knowledge gained by the mind. He cannot be known either by speech or by any faculty of the mind. Yet he is not unknowable. He can be known by pati-jnyana obtained directly from him through a guru who has already been blessed or his own grace (anugraha) or through intense devotion and meditation directly from the ‘loha guru’ ‘Dakshinamurty’.

In Shaiva Siddhanta true liberation is a gift from God and the result of his direct intervention. When the jivas are immersed in maya, they learn about the real from the unreal. What they learn is basically theoretical knowledge or lower knowledge. It does not help them to transcend their conditioned minds and experience their true consciousness. It is only when Lord Shiva bestows his grace upon them and comes to them in the form of a personal guru, the jivas overcome their illusion and realize their Shiva consciousness.(The classical doctrine of ‘God’s grace’ which is the real game changer)

According to Shaiva Siddhanta school, liberation is attained through the means of charya, kriya, yoga and jnyana.

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This article is a snippet from the Book Vedic Wisdom, Authored by Pandit Sri Rama Sharma. Vedic Wisdom is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.