Indian Philosophy v2.c27.s2.17

v2.c27.s2.17

The process of creation receives great attention in the Śaiva system. While Śiva is pure consciousness, matter is pure unconsciousness, and Śakti is said to mediate between the two. She is not the material cause of the world, since she is of the nature of consciousness (caitanya). She is the eternal sound, the connecting-link between the gross and the subtle, the material and the spiritual, the word and the concept,⁴ Śuddhamāyā, the mother of the universe, is Vāk, or Nāda, "the voice of the silence." The Śaiva Siddhānta analyses the universe into thirty-six tattvas as against the twenty-five of the Sāṁkhya. Between prakṛti and buddhi guṇa is introduced, and so we have twenty-five principles below puruṣa, who is the twenty-sixth. Above the puruṣa, we have the pañcakañcuka, or the fivefold envelope of niyati (order), kāla (time), rāga (interest), vidyā (knowledge), kala (power). Above kala there are māyā, Śuddhavidyā, Īśvara, Sadāśiva and Śiva. Śivatattva is a class by itself; Sadāśiva, Īśvara and Śuddhavidyā form the Vidyātattvas, and the other thirty-two from māyā downwards are the Ātmatattvas. These are the different stages of evolution. Māyā first evolves into the subtle principles and then into the gross. Kala, the first principle evolved from māyā, overcomes the impurities obstructing the manifestation of consciousness, and helps it to manifest itself in accordance with karma; by the next principle of vidyā, the soul derives the experience of pleasure and pain. "That instrument by which the active soul observes the operations of buddhi is vidyā."⁵ Māyā is the desire on which all experience depends. Kāla or time regulates experiences as past, present and future. Time is not eternal, for eternity is independence of time. Niyati is the fixed order governing the distinction of bodies, organs and the like, for the different souls. The puruṣas are enveloped by these five. The Śaiva Siddhānta holds that the mūlaprakṛti of the Sāṁkhya is itself a product, and admits five subtle principles beyond it. Of these five, the first three serve to manifest the powers of knowledge, action and feeling, while the other two answer roughly to time and space. Prakṛti is the stuff of which the worlds which the puruṣa is to experience are made. It is the first gross development. From prakṛti evolve the guṇas, from the guṇas the buddhi; the rest of the evolution is on the lines of the Sāṁkhya.