Talk:Shaiva Siddhanta

I've organized the ideas into sections, to see if that helps. Somebody please add a table of contents. If the edit does not make sense, try to reorganize until it does.

Request for help in identifying forking

I have been looking at the complex of articles Shiva, Rudra, Shaivism, History of Shaivism, Six Schools of Shaivism, Shaiva Siddhanta, Kaśmir Śaivism etc., and see quite a bit of forking and overlap. It would be great if as many editors as possible could watchlist all of these articles and help out with an effort to figure out what should go where. Sharing effort across multiple articles may help with sourcing for all of them. Buddhipriya 22:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Bias

"Most vigorously practiced Shaivite Hindu group?" How can that ever be measured or known?--ॐJesucristo301 16:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"However the Muslim subjugation of North India restricted Shaiva Siddhanta to the south" - given that Hindu traditions (both Shaivaite and Vaishnavaite) flourished right through the period of Islamic rule, this seems a biased view. North Indian Hindus became largely Vaishnavaite, not Islamic, though many areas continued with Shaivaite and Tantric traditions - such as Bengal or Kashmir (both large centres of Islamic rule) Shanky (talk) 06:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

This article is biased in that it is slanted towards the view of a small minority of shaivas. The Shaiva Siddhanta tradition in India is known for and overwhelmingly dualistic (mono-theistic), as opposed to Kashmir Shaisvism which is nondualistic (monist). Yet by reading this article a person would come away believing that "real" Shaiva Siddhanta is monist like the Kashmiri school. I assume this is due to the followers of the Saiva Siddhanta Church, who are a small sect of Shaivas who like to teach that their type of Shaiva Siddhanta (the monist variety) represents Shaivism within the Hindu world (see this article in their newspaper "Hinduism Today" https://www.hinduismtoday.com/magazine/october-november-december-2003/2003-10-hinduism-2/ Go down to the section titled 'On the Soul and God' where you will see this

"Saivism: God Siva is one with the soul. The soul must realize this advaitic (monistic) Truth by God Siva's grace.

Shaktism: The Divine Mother, Shakti, is mediatrix, bestowing advaitic moksha on those who worship Her.

Vaishnavism: God and soul are eternally distinct. Through Lord Vishnu's grace, the soul's destiny is to worship and enjoy God.

Smartism: Ishvara and man are in reality Absolute Brahman. Within maya, the soul and Ishvara appear as two. Jnana (wisdom) dispels the illusion."

Not only is the description of Saivism giving the minority view (since most Shaivas belong to the non-monist traditions), also the description of the Smarta tradition is biased (While most smartas believe in monist philosophy it is not what makes a smarta a smarta, many are not monists, a smarta can have any vedic philosophical belief and still be a smarta)

One example of the general bias of this article is this section:

"A dualistic development

In the thirteenth century, another important development occurred in Shaiva Siddhanta when Meykandar wrote the twelve-verse Sivajñanabodham. This and subsequent works by other writers laid the foundation of the Meykandar Sampradaya, which propounds a pluralistic realism wherein God, souls and world are coexistent and without beginning. Siva is efficient but not material cause. They view the soul’s merging in Siva as salt in water, an eternal oneness that is also twoness. This school’s literature has so dominated scholarship that Shaiva Siddhanta is often erroneously identified as exclusively pluralistic. In truth, there are two interpretations, one monistic and another dualistic, of which the former is the original philosophical premise found in pre-Meykandar scriptures, including the Upanishads."

The entire article is twisted to promote the views of a minority as being the real true form of the religion while relegating the larger tradition as some new form which is not in line with the Upanishads! Essentially that paragraph is saying the main tradition is bogus, since the Upanishads are revealed scripture in Hinduism, and that the minority monist sect is the true religion!

Here is how Shaiva Siddhanta philosophy is usually described

http://www.saivism.net/sects/siddha/siddhasaivism.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shaivism

Shiva das 20:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This is not a page on shaivism but about the this particular school of shaivism.so obviously it is not intended to represent the "majority view" as u put it.In the very beginning of the article it is expictly stated that it is one form of shaivite hinudism although the oldest and extensively warrants ciations -which are not provided-it is obvious it is not the only school of thought.It would most kind of you if you can add content to the page . Manquer (talk) 16:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the following until checked; Redheylin (talk) 02:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The first known guru of the “pure” (Suddha) Shaiva Siddhanta tradition is Maharishi Nandinatha of Kashmir, recorded in Panini’s book of grammar as the teacher of Patanjali, Vyaghrapada and Vasishtha, whose only surviving work is the twenty-six Sanskrit verses called the Nandikesvara Kasika.

Tirumular, a Siddha in the line of Nandinatha from Kongu Nadu, (Mulanur), South India, propounded the teachings of the Shaiva Ågamas in the Tamil language for the first time in his work Sacred Incantation (Tirumantiram), which unfolds the way of Siddhanta as through the grace of the living satguru—which leads to the state of jñana and liberation. After liberation, the soul body continues to evolve until it fully merges with God—jîva becomes Shiva.

Tirumular and Nandinatha propounded a monistic theism in which Shiva is both material and efficient cause, immanent and transcendent. Shiva creates souls and world through emanation from Himself, ultimately reabsorbing them in His oceanic Being, as water flows into water, fire into fire, ether into ether. Tirumular’s Suddha Shaiva Siddhanta shares common roots with Gorakshanatha’s Siddha Siddhanta in that both are Natha teaching lineages. Tirumular’s lineage is known as the Nandinatha Sampradaya, while Gorakshanatha’s is called the Ådinatha Sampradaya.

Need to fix

"Some[who?] hold that it originated as a monistic doctrine, espoused by Kashmiri northern shaivites (date unknown)."

Shaiva Siddhanta originated from Mantramarga and not from Kashmir Shaivism or Trika:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Development_of_Shaivism.svg/440px-Development_of_Shaivism.svg.png

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1e085c5e9d197e65c2c4597a2082bc44-lq 2A00:1FA0:8429:6A31:40B3:2B8B:549B:7238 (talk) 13:44, 14 December 2022 (UTC)