Ecstatic Religion in Bengal (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1989).
Shaiva Siddhanta See SAIVA SIDDHANTA.
Shaivism
Shaivism is the formal name for the group of tradi-
tions that worship SHIVA as the supreme divinity.
A person who worships Shiva will be called a
Shaiva in India or a Shaivite in academic parlance.
This loose sect, which encompasses by far the
large majority of Hindus, probably began to form
around the fifth or fourth century B.C.E. Worship
of Lord Shiva is mentioned in both the RAMAYANA
and MAHABHARATA epics.
The first Shiva LINGAM authenticated archaeo-
logically dates from about the first century C.E.,
but it is likely that this type of worship was already
many centuries old. Scholars often point to a very
ancient Indus Valley seal showing a seated fig-
ure with a water-buffalo-horned headdress and,
apparently, an erect penis, both evocative of Shiva.
It is called the Pashupati figure, “Lord of the Ani-
mals,” which is also a later designation of Shiva.
However, there is no other evidence to indicate
worship of a Shiva-like being in the INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION. Some even discern a “yogic” seating
posture in the figure, although Indians do tradi-
tionally sit in that cross-legged pattern.
The Shiva lingam is actually a sexual symbol
showing the coitus of the divine male with the
female. The sexual organ of the GODDESS is found
in the surrounding circular stone that almost
always encases the lingam. It is probably because
of this primordial association of Shiva with the
goddess that from his first appearance in mythol-
ogy he is seen with a wife, SAT I, who tragically
dies. She is afterward reincarnated as PARVATI. At
times Shiva is also associated with DURGA and
KALI. With Parvati the divine family develops with
an older son, the elephant-headed GANESHA, and a
younger son, KARTTIKEYA.
The first formal Shaivite text may well be a
Tamil text relating the worship of the younger son
of Shiva, Murugan, another name of Karttikeya,
dating from approximately the third century C.E.
The first known Shaivite saint, a female ascetic,
Karaikkalammaiyar, dates from around the fourth
century. Not long after, stone temples were built
to Shiva in South India, around the sixth century.
As later all around India the central shrine was
almost always a Shiva lingam.
In a challenge to the Jains in Tamil Nadu, a
group of great Shaivite saints began to wander
from shrine to shrine and temple to temple sing-
ing the praises of Lord Shiva. The three great
saints associated with the Tamil Shaivite scripture
TEVARAM date to the sixth to eighth centuries.
They helped make Shaivism the most influential
tradition in the region. The pattern repeated itself
farther north in later centuries, as poet-saint devo-
tees spread the word of Lord Shiva and popular-
ized devotional worship.
Shaivite puranas were first written in SANSKRIT
around the sixth century. They told extraordinary
stories of the ascetic-erotic Lord Shiva, the chaotic
Lord, who resisted household life and children
and made trouble for the world and the gods.
These puranas form the Sanskrit backbone for the
Shaivite cult.
By the 12th century Shaivism (as had VAISH-
NAVISM) in the Tamil country had fully assimilated
the Sanskritic tradition of the north into the local
traditions. Thus Shaivism developed a clear sense
of continuity with northern Vedic Brahminism.
Both Sanskrit and Tamil were honored as holy
languages. Shiva undoubtedly had a northern
Indian provenance. All the shrines that the south-
ern Shaivite saints frequented were originally
associated with local divinities, whom the saints
recognized as forms of Shiva.
Farther north, the VIRASHAIVA tradition devel-
oped in the 12th century in Karnataka. The Viras-
haivas did not accept icons and eschewed Vedic
worship entirely. They were devoted only to Shiva
as a formless indefinable divinity. Each VirashaivaK 396 Shaiva Siddhanta