A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s2.29

c19.s2.29

Early in this period, in the first half of the thirteenth century, came Meykaṇḍār who formulated the tenets of Śaiva-siddhānta in his Śiva-Ñāna-Bōdam, a short treatise of a dozen Sūtras, perhaps translated from a Sanskrit original. The author has added vārttikas which explain and illustrate the argument of each of the Sūtras. The scheme of the work is simple: the first three Sūtras affirm the existence of the three entities—God (pati), Bondage (pāśa), and Soul (paśu); the three next define and explain their nature and interrelation; the next triad deals with the means of release, and the last with its nature. ‘The Veda,’ it has been said, ‘is the cow; its milk is the true āgama; the Tamil sung by the four in Dēvāram and Tiruvāśagam is the ghee extracted from it; and the virtue of the Tamil work of Meykaṇḍār of the celebrated (city of) Veṇṇai is the fine taste of the ghee.’ After the Bōdam, the next work of importance on Śaiva doctrine is the Śiva-Ñāna-Sittiyār of Aruṇandi, reputed to have been first the guru of Meykaṇḍār’s father and then the disciple of Meykaṇḍār himself. Written altogether in verse, this work is a statement of the true doctrine (supakkam) in viruttam verses, following the order of the Sūtras in the Bōdam; this statement is preceded by a critical discussion of rival systems (para-pakkam) of which no fewer than fourteen, including four schools of Buddhism and two of Jainism, are passed under review. This is the great classic of Tamil Śaiva doctrine; often commented on, it has been the most widely read manual on the subject. The Irupāv-irupahdu by the same writer owes its name to the alternate use of two metres in its twenty verses in the form of a dialogue between teacher and pupil. The name of the author’s guru, Meykaṇḍār, occurs in each of these twenty verses. The Uṇmai-viḷakkam (‘Explanation of the Truth’) of Manavāśagan-gaḍandār of Tiruvadi (South Arcot) is the simplest of the manuals on the doctrine, true to the essence of the Āgamas. Umāpati-śivācārya (end of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century) was the author of the remaining eight works which complete the tale of the fourteen Śaiva-siddhānta-śāstras.¹ One of them, Saṅkarpanirākaraṇam, is dated 1313. Like the para-pakkam of the Sittiyār, it is a critique of other creeds; but, unlike the earlier work, it is much exercised with the minute differences within the fold of Śaivism. Both these works were commented on in the sixteenth century by Ñānaprakāśar of Tiruvorriyūr who also composed a Purāṇa on his birthplace (c. 1580).