CHAPTER 10
The S ́aiva Traditions
Gavin Flood
S ́aiva traditions are those whose focus is the deity S ́iva and a S ́aiva is a Hindu
who follows the teachings of S ́iva (s ́ivas ́a ̄sana). These teachings are thought to
have been revealed in sacred scriptures and propagated through the generations
in traditions of ritual observance and theology. Many S ́aivas have also wor-
shipped the Goddess, S ́iva’s consort and power (s ́akti), as the esoteric heart of
their religion, and it is often impossible to meaningfully distinguish between
S ́aiva and S ́a ̄kta traditions. Every culture creates its own forms (Castoriadis
1997: 84) and in the following pages I shall discuss the forms that S ́aiva tradi-
tions produced and hope to convey something of the S ́aiva religious imaginaire.
Thisimaginaireis distinctive within the Indic traditions and relates to wider
cultural and political history, both insofar as it has corroborated and upheld the
values and goals of mainstream orthodox society and in the ways it has chal-
lenged those norms. On the one hand the S ́aiva imagination has been in line
with the instituting power of particular regions, on the other it has brought to
life a world that undermines that power through its promotion of a vision of the
self that transcends social institutions and political stability. It is this ambiguity
that shares many of the wider goals of collective life while eroding those goals
through promoting a subjectivity external to them that is a characteristic of
S ́aiva traditions. It is in this truly creative dynamic in which S ́aiva values are
embedded in social institutions, such as caste and kingship, while simultane-
ously undermining those values, that the genius of the tradition resides. It is
perhaps not a coincidence that this ambiguity is reflected in the ultimate imag-
inary signification of the tradition, S ́iva himself, as the erotic ascetic (O’Flaherty
1981), as family man and vagabond, as form and formless, and as transcendence
and immanence.
In this chapter I will focus on early S ́aiva traditions, and although I will briefly
discuss the fifteenth-century Kerala tradition, I will not venture much past the
eleventh century. In effect, largely due to limitations of space I will not deal with