Prof. Alexis Sanderson: Śāktism among the Śaivas (part 1)

Welcome to the first lecture of the Shasta Traditions online lecture series. It's my great pleasure and honor to introduce Professor Alexis Sanderson, fellow of All Souls and senior fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Until 2015, he was the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics in Oxford. He has contributed to the great flourishing of tantric studies and indeed revolutionized the field and our understanding of Shaivism and the tantric traditions through such groundbreaking works as his mapping of the tantric traditions in the world's religions in 1988. In this magisterial work, The Cyber Age, in 2009, he introduced a new periodization of the history of religions in South Asia, and this includes groundbreaking work on Shasta traditions. So, without further ado, I will leave the word to you, Professor Sanderson.

eastern religions and ethics in oxford he has contributed to the great flourishing of tantric studies and indeed revolutionized the field and our understanding of shaivism and the tantric traditions through such groundbreaking works as this mapping of the tantric traditions

Thank you. Thank you very much for your kind introduction. This is an unusual experience for me; I've never lectured to a computer screen before, but I shall, I hope, adjust to it. I've agreed to give a lecture on the Shakti traditions of Kashmir, that is to say, of those traditions among the Shaivas of Kashmir that privileged the goddess as the ultimate object of worship and meditation. Sometimes their rhetoric is such that one might imagine that they abandon the appearance of being Shaivas and are Shaktas in some stronger sense, that is to say, worshipers of the goddess alone to the exclusion of Shiva. But while Shiva may fade into the background as the theoretical substrate of the power embodied in the goddess, he never completely disappears, even in the most radically Shakta of texts within this Kashmiri tradition. And there are some which are rather radically Shakta, which, for example, define the goddess as that point within Shiva's nature which Shiva himself cannot be aware of, the point of his absolute spontaneous being which he cannot get behind to observe. That brings us pretty close to the idea of the goddess as the ultimate ground of the ground, but nonetheless, theoretically, it's still Shiva Shakti, the power of the goddess. This, of course, raises the possibility that Shaktism could also be Vaishnava as well as Shiva, and indeed, I think it was to a large extent in certain periods of Indian history, and those periods have been largely overlaid by the work of the Shiva redactors. But if you look at a work like the Jayadrathiyamala, a vast compendium of nearly 24,000 verses looking at many different forms of the goddess, Khalasan Karshini or Kali, one finds therein a number of kalpas or ritual procedures in which the goddess has very many strongly Vaishnava characteristics. So she is, for example, the consort of Narasimha. So indeed, I think it's reasonable to make this assertion that certain forms of radical Shaktism that we see in the Kashmiri tradition go back to more Vaishnava-inflected prototypes. I shouldn't pursue that theme here, but I am pursuing it in current work that I am doing and showing indeed that this esoteric Kali tradition has, in its early phase of development, colonized what looked like more wild forms of Vaishnava worship. Now, I'm going to begin by contextualizing, and of course, contextualizing could be to reproduce the whole of my work, my life's work, because that's been about contextualizing the Shaiva tradition of Kashmir, the Shakta tradition of Kashmir. But I'm a great believer in contextualization. I think the meaning of things comes from the understanding of their context. So I'm going to begin by giving you an outline of the historical picture as I see it, within which the Kashmiri contributions can be located. Now, I have prepared for this lecture a substantial handout which will contain a lot more detail than I can possibly give now in the course of an hour's lecture, and that will be made available to those attending this lecture. It will be distributed shortly, I believe. Now, any attempt to date Shaivism, to give a horizon after which it must have been present, is fraught with difficulty, if only because one is likely to tread on a lot of toes when one points out that much of the evidence used to claim its vast antiquity is actually insubstantial or highly doubtful. So I'm going to begin, I'm afraid, by rejecting four theories which still seem to be standing, at least for some people, and I'm afraid that there's no other way around this. We simply have to eliminate these theories in order to get a clearer understanding of the historical picture. Now, the first of these theories is to claim that the figure with a horned headdress seated in a yogic posture—I'm putting commas around yogic because it's assumed to be yogic—in fact, it's a personal creature sitting in a cross-legged posture. So this figure with a horned headdress seated in a yogic posture and allegedly three-faced and ithyphallic, that is to say, with an erect penis, which is depicted on a steatite seal number 420 unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro from the Indus Valley Civilization, that is to say from the period approximately 2600 BC to 1900 BC, the claim that this is recognizable at once as the prototype of the historical Shiva. So this has often been reduced as evidence that Shaivas and goes right back to pre-Vedic times, if you believe in pre-Vedic times. Many people don't, it seems, that this tradition of Shaiva worship goes right back to this very early level in the historical record of the subcontinent. However, a sober analysis of this figure in the light of other seals has shown that the supposed erect penis is in fact the end of the waistband, and that the supposed two lateral faces are rather the ears of a bull-headed figure. The affinities of this and other bull-man horn-crowned Indus Valley icons are to be found not in post-Vedic India but in the Trans-Elamite culture of southeastern Iran and western Baluchistan that developed from the Mesopotamian early dynastic period two or three times, that is to say from about 2900 BC to 1940 BC. The second theory that I reject is that when the Rig Veda deprecates the so-called Shishna Deva, literally those whose god is the penis, it is referring to worshipers of the linga, the phallic substrate of Shiva's worship, and therefore provides evidence that Shaivism was current in the subcontinent more than 1500 years before the common era. In 7.21.5 of the Rigveda, the poet prays that these gods, that these persons whose god is the penis, will not attack our truth. And in another hymn, 10.99, we are told that Indra slew them. In my view, the meaning intended is more probably those whose highest object of veneration is their own sex organs, alleging godless carnality rather than Shaiva religious practice. I think here of the classical sound expression which we see in the Mahabharata, meaning intent above all unsatisfying penis and belly. But even if the expression does refer to real rather than figurative worship, and even if there were a historical link between this penis worship deprecated in the Rigveda and the much later Shiva worship of the linga, it would not follow that this ancient antecedent was in any meaningful sense Shiva. The third view is that Shiva is the identity of the Indian Dionysus of the Greek author Megasthenes, that is to say the Indian deity identified by Megasthenes as Dionysus. Megasthenes, according to his own testimony, visited India in an embassy sent to Chandragupta Maurya, who ruled Pataliputra 321 to 297 BC, and wrote about the country and its people, drawing on the interpretations of other Greeks in a lost work known to us in part through the testimony of later historians from the first century BC to the second century AD. According to the fragments of this work reported by these authors, Megasthenes associated his Indian Dionysus with wine and bacchanalia, bacchanalian rites, and this has prompted the conclusion that he must have had Shiva in mind since Shiva was believed to have a similarly or

word to you professor sanderson thank you thank you very much for your kind introduction uh this is an unusual experience for me i've never lectured to a computer screen before but i shall i hope adjust to it i've agreed to give a lecture on the

shakti traditions of kashmir that is to say of those traditions among the shivers of kashmir that privileged the goddess as the ultimate object of worship and meditation sometimes their rhetoric is such that one might imagine that they abandon

the appearance of being shivers and are shocked as in some stronger sense that is to say worshipers of the goddess alone to the exclusion of shiva but while shiva may fade into the background as the theoretical substrate of the power embodied in the goddess he

never completely disappears even in the most radically shakta of texts within this kashmiri tradition and there are some which are rather radically shocked which for example define the goddess as that point within shiva's nature which shiva himself cannot be aware of

the point of his absolute spontaneous being which he cannot get behind to observe that brings us pretty close to the idea of the goddess as the ultimate ground of the ground but nonetheless theoretically it's still shiva shakti the power of the goddess this of course

raises the possibility that um sharktism could also be vaishnava as well as shiva and indeed i think it was um to a large extent in certain periods of indian history and those that period has been largely overlaid by the work of the shiva

redacters but if you look at a work like the jayadrathiyamala a vast compendium of nearly 24 000 verses looking at many different forms of the goddess khalasan karshini or kali one finds therein a number of kalpas or ritual

procedures in which the goddess has very many um strongly vaishnava characteristics so she is for example the consort of narasimha so indeed i think it's reasonable to to to to to make this assertion that certain forms of radical shaktism

that we see in the kashmiri tradition go back to more vaisnava inflected uh prototypes i shouldn't pursue that theme here but i am pursuing it in current work that i that i am doing and showing indeed that this

esoteric khali tradition has um it's an early phase in its development colonized what looked like more uh wild forms of vaishnava worship now i'm going to begin by contextualizing and of course contextualizing could be to reproduce the whole of my work my

life's work because that's been about contextualizing the shaiva tradition of kashmir the shark to shine the tradition of kashmir um but i'm a great believer in contextualization i think the meaning of things comes from the understanding of their context

um and so i'm going to begin by giving you an outline of the historical picture as i see it within which the kashmiri contributions can be located now i have prepared for this lecture a substantial handout which will contain

a lot more detail than i can possibly uh give now in the course of an hour's lecture and that will be uh made available to those attending uh this lecture it will be distributed shortly i believe now any attempt to date shaivism

the to give a horizon after which it must have been present is fraught with difficulty if only because one's likely to tread on a lot of toes when one points out that much of the evidence i'd used to claim its vast

antiquity is actually insubstantial or highly doubtful so i'm going to begin i'm afraid by um rejecting four theories which still seem to be standing at least for some people um and i'm afraid that this there's no other way around this we simply have to

eliminate these theories in order to get a clearer understanding of the historical picture now the first of these theories is to claim that the figure with a horned headdress seated in a yogic posture i'm putting commas around yogic because

it's assumed to be yogic in fact it's a personal creature sitting in a cross-legged posture so this figure with a horned headdress seated in a yogic posture and allegedly three-faced and ithiphalic that is to say with an erect penis

which is depicted on a stereotype seal number 420 unearthed that mohenjo-daro from the indus valley civilization that is to say from the period approximately 2600 bc to 1900 bc the claim that this is recognizable at once as the prototype of the historical

shiva so this has often been reduced as evidence that chives and goes right back to pre-vedic times if you believe in preventing times many people don't it seems um that this tradition of shiver worship goes right back to this

very early level in the historical record of the subcontinent however a sober analysis of this figure in the light of other seals has shown that the supposed erect penis is in fact the end of the waistband and that the supposed to lateral faces

are rather the ears of a bull-headed figure the affinities of this and other bull man horncrowned indus valley icons are to be found not in post-vedic india but in the transelamite culture of southeastern iran and western baluchistan that developed

from the mesopotamian mesopotamian early dynastic period to or three times that is to say from about 2900 bc to 1940 bc the second theory that i reject is that the that when the rig veda deprecates the so-called shishna deva

literally those whose god is the penis it is referring to worshipers of the linga the phallic substrate of shiva's worship of shiva's worship and therefore provides evidence that shaivism was current in the subcontinent more than 1500 years before the common

era in 7.21.5 of the rigveda the poet prays that these these gods that these persons whose god is the penis will not attack our truth and in another hymn 10.99 we are told that andrews slew them in my

view the meaning intended is more probably those whose highest object of veneration is their own sex organs alleging godless carnality rather than shiver religious practice i i think here of the classical sound expression which we see in the mahabharata meaning

intent above all unsatisfying penis and belly but even if the expression does refer to real rather than figurative worship and even if there were historical link between this penis worship deprecated in the rigveda and the much later shiva

worship of the linga it would not follow that this ancient antecedent was in any meaningful sense shiva the third view is that um the third claim is the view that shiva is the identity of the indian dionysus of the greek author

magassinis that is to say the indian deity identified by magastanis as dionysus uh magustini's according to his own testimony visited india in an embassy sent to chandragupta maria who ruled osaka 321 to 3 to 297 bc and wrote about the country

and its people drawing on the interpretations of other greeks in a lost work known to us in part through the testimony of later historians from the first century bc to the second century a.d according to the fragments of this work

reported by these authors magastanis associated his indian dionysus with wine and bacchanalia bacchanalian rights and this has prompted the conclusion that he must have had shiva in mind since shiva was believed to have a similarly orgiastic nature but that belief was derived from much

later and in opposite shakhta shiva sources if any indian god was associated at this time with wine drinking and drunken revels it was baladeva otherwise known as balarama or sankarsna the older brother of the god vasudeva or krishna

who has been thought to be the indian heracles the only other indian cult figure mentioned by magassemes you may be surprised that that magazine should single out these two greek figures um dionysus and heracles for his interpretation greika of indian religion

the explanation for this lies in the fact that magastanis was drawing on the reports of those who had accompanied alexander in his evasion invasion of india in 327 bc and were seeking to magnify their heroic leader for alexander believed that heracles and

dionysus were his forefathers that they had penetrated asia as far as india before him and that he was simply following their example even surpassing it the fourth position that i reject is the claim based on conjecturing mandations and

ancillary arguments that there is knowledge of shaivism indeed of the shakta shiva cult of the goddess kali in the pali buddhist canon if this claim is sound then worship of shiva was already current in some form as early as the 4th century bc

the evidence adduced however has not survived scrutiny now although there may be no evidence of knowledge of shaivism in the pali canon absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and there is no evidence of which i am

aware that excludes the possibility that the worship of shiva was present somewhere in the indian subcontinent during this early period it may well have been there however we may be confident that if such worship was present it was not important enough to merit

attention in the earliest buddhist literature particularly significant is the silence of the pali text mahani desa for that text perhaps composed as early as ad300 catalogues the observances adopted by non-buddhist voters to propitiate gods the gods listed uh are an exhausted list exhaustive list

it seems the gods listed begin with vasudeva and baladeva and the two yaksha generals purana badra and mani bhadra i won't give you the complete list now this evidence is particularly striking because it reports the propitiation of the bhagavata deities vasudeva and

baladeva indeed it places their cults at the head of its list of deity observances if shiva had been known at this early period as a deity with a significant following then we would expect that they would have been mentioned here at least

their absence strongly suggests that this other tradition which would rival and overshadow vaishnavism in later centuries had not yet emerged with any strength if at all what then is our earliest sure evidence of the worship of shiva in india it is to be found in the

work of the great indian grammarian patanjali his date i'm afraid is still subject to discussion but the general consensus which may not be the final one um places him around the middle of the second century bc he mentions a shiva and devotees of

shiva incidentally when commenting on three rules in panani's grammar in the first 5.3.99 he mentions images of shiva in his comment on 5.2.76 he refers to devotees of shiva whom he calls shiva bhagavatas those whose bhagavan was dear to his

shiva and noting that they carry pikes possibly even tridents and in his comment on 6.3.26 we have a rule which tells us that when we want to make a dual compound of the deity names shiva and vaishavana we do not

lengthen the uh of shiva so we get shiva vaishava now this is an exception to the general rule that vedic deity pairs show such lengthening of the final vowel of the first member this pairing of shiva and vaishravana by

shravana being another name for kubera the god of wealth is also seen in other early indian sources it's found in the china angavija a work on prognostication it's found in that famous work on on on politics the arata shastra of kartalya

and it's also seen in the mahabharata so this is the earliest uh literary evidence which we can locate in the second century bc with some hesitation the earliest epigraphic evidence is as follows by epigraphic evidence i mean evidence recorded in dated inscriptions

which refer to donations to to shiver foundations or the founding of chandra shiva foundations the oldest inscription i've encountered so far has a date of ad75 again that date is somewhat provisional but it's not far out and this is an inscription in a

northwestern prakrit um found uh in the pakhtunkhwa province of pakistan and it records that a certain son of urumuja the names are iranian rather than indian had a shiva stellar made here that is to say a precinct for the worship of shiva

after that we have a fragmentary record in a west in a central western prakrit at vasana in the darwar district of karnataka and this reports a donation to a temple of chanda shiva mahadeva mahadeva being the name of shiva

which was established during the time of the satava king vasiti puta city that's to say in sanskrit ii whose reign spanned the turn of the first and second century's a.d so very little epigraphic evidence of this early period

that the worship of shiva was a relatively late phenomenon in the deccan or at least late in his recognition by the satavahana kings is suggested by the formula of obeisance that opens the prakrit inscription of na yanica consort of the early satavahana

the first at the top of the nane guard pass in the western guts for in the premium of this record which was written in the second half of the first century a.d obeisance is offered only to prajapati dharma indra

sankarsana and vasudeva chandra and surya the four loka palas indra and skanda this list is strikingly similar to the list which i did not give you in its totality whose voters practice practices are attacked in the buddhist mahan ni desa

there is no mention here of shiva under this or any other name after the vasana record i know of no epigraphic evidence of any other shiver foundation of which we can be sure that it predates the fourth century a.d

from that time onwards however epigraphic and literary evidence is abundant there is also a supposed numismatic evidence evidence from coins from the legends and images on coins and if this interpretation as shiva evidence were genuine this would greatly raise the profile of

shaivism during the 2nd century bc up to the 4th century a.d that is to say between the maoris and the guptas for it has been maintained that we have abundant proof of recognition of the importance of shaivism from as early as the late second century

bc on coin issues of the foreigners who ruled parts of northern india during this period namely the indo-greeks the indo-scitians the indo-parthians and the kushans now i've set out the detail of all that in in your handout and i won't go in into

it in any great detail um i'll dismiss the major part of that evidence by saying that there's no evidence at all that the item said to be shiver namely the depiction of a bull should there's no evidence at all that that image

conclusively proves a shiver connection bulls were already being used by the cello kids way a long way away from india in the 3rd century bc and generally these this supposed indian element occurs on coins whose on the reverse of which we see purely

greek deities so to to jump to the conclusion that this is shiva's bull seems to be rash there's also claims that a figure carrying a trident on some coins of the of maui's and gonda faris the endoparthians that these are shiva i think it's much

more likely that the deity being represented is the greek god poseidon in keeping with the other deities on the coins of these rulers all of whom are greek more contentious however is evidence that from the beginning of the second century a.d to the early 4th

century shiva appears on the reverse of several of the coin issues of the kushans beginning from the reign of vemma two cudd fishes of about 1895 to 127 and ending with that of buzzer deo or vasudeva ii in the

late third to early fourth century the deity is certainly rather shiver-like it is two four or six armed sometimes three-faced sometimes accompanied by a bull sometimes with an erect penis and holds a trident it has been assumed from the similarity

with the iconography of shiva in later times that this shows that the kushans had adopted shiva as one of their tutelary deities adding him to their non-indian and predominantly iranian pantheon but against the striking iconic similarity must be said the fact that the deity is

identified in the modified greek script used for the battery and legends on these coins as show which was probably pronounced wish but this is an east iranian wind god who serves later who surfaces later in saudi and buddhist sources of the

seventh and ninth centuries as the three-faced deity wesh parker seen in pictorial representations found in mural paintings of the early 8th century excavated various places in central asia that this is a wind god follows from recognition that the name

wesh parkar is a middle in iranian descendant of a western the name of the wind god in the non-tip singular followed by an epithet opero career a combination that occurs several times in the scriptural corpus of the zoroastrians

both in that of the priestly liturgy and in that of the prayers to be recited by the faithful on everyday occasions the striking iconographic similarity between wesh and shiva remains to be explained but the assumption that this must be understood

as a result of the absorption by wish of features proper to an already canonized iconography of shiva is unjustified i favor the alternative hypothesis that wesh contributed to the evolution of that iconography as occurred with three other major

deities of the kushan's pantheon ardogcho in the case of the indian goddesses hariti and lakshmi nana in that of durga and sroshard in that of skanda it is apparent then that firm evidence of shaivism during the centuries between

patanjali and the guptas is so sparse that one might be tempted to conclude that at this time devotion to shiva was a marginal phenomenon in comparison with buddhism jainism and vaishnavism we certainly have far less epigraphic evidence of its patronage during this

period however the epigraphic record also reveals that although shaivism was not a major beneficiary of royal support at this early period it was nonetheless widespread in the population and that this was the case throughout the subcontinent we can infer this from the fact that

theophoric names beginning with shiva and meaning for example given by shiva servant of shiva or protected by shiva are well represented from the third from the second century bc up to the third century a.d among the many lay donors named in the buddhist angina

donative inscriptions of that period found throughout the subcontinent from afghanistan down to amaravati in andhra pradesh this is also the period during which the anthropomorphic iconography of shiva began to take shape and the linga shiva's phallic emblem and the principle substrate of worship

emerges in the archaeological record and passes through the greater part of the changes in design that led to its classical less naturalistic form from this evidence i conclude that when shaivism did rise to prominence in the epigraphic record as it did in later

centuries it did so on the basis of an already well-established and widespread tradition of popular devotion that goes back at least to the second century bc evidence of the gradual rise of shaivism to significance in on the pan indian scene

is also to be found in buddhist notices of it although awareness of the existence of voters of shiva is lacking in the pali canon it does appear in later works as the cult of shiva became more prominent in the vineyard that is to say the word

dealing with monastic discipline of the dharmaguptakas which was composed in gandara in the far northwest around the beginning of the christian era we encounter maheshwara introduced into a series of deities whom a certain king is said to have

worshipped successfully in order to obtain offspring uh it's a list rather similar to that in the mahanidesa but with the addition of maheshwara purna bhadra mani madra the sun the moon indra brahma pritivi and then various local deities gods of

gardens words the wilderness and markets hariti and the gods of all towns he also appears in the same context but now under the name shiva and at the head of the list in the chivasto section of the vineyard of the moola

sarvastivadins not produced before the reign of kushan kanishka the kushan emperor kanishka the first who ruled by common consensus between ad127 and 147 a.d it was probably produced during that reign in fact and it this uh reference occurs in a

passage concerning a certain householder of the city of shravasti and translated it reads as follows being without a son and desiring a son he prays to shiver to varana kubera indra brahma and other deities who are specific to particular places

namely deities of gardens woods squares crossroads also deities that receive bully offerings deities that are of his lineage of his religion and permanently attached to him also maheshwara begins to appear in the literature of mahayana buddhism as an interlocutor in scriptural

dialogues he appears in this role in the early version of the lalita vistra which was translated into chinese in ad308 and in that of the sardarama pundarika translated in ad286 however at this early stage there is as yet no sign of buddhist

defensive hostility to shaivism nothing that would suggest that shaivism had already achieved the status of a significant rival for patronage the earliest knowledge of such hostility appears to my knowledge in the mahayanist ratna ketu parivarta of the mahasani pata such collection

also known as the ratna ketu dharani which was first translated into chinese during the first quarter of the fifth century there the wicked mara the tempter of the buddha appears before him in the form of shiva and tries in vain to lure him and his

followers from the buddhist path by offering to teach him his own true path to liberation the episode is present not only in the gilgit manuscript of the sanskrit text probably of the 7th century ad but also in the two chinese translations

the first completed by dharmakshima between 416 and 426 a.d here we see the beginning of the response to the rise of shaivism that would culminate in the 8th century and afterwards in the buddhist mythology and iconography of the violent subjection

and conversion of the shaiva deities which we see in the buddhist yoga tantras and yogani tantras as for evidence of shaivism's rights to dominance after the good the the the gupta period the first signs of which we see in this

and the evidence is really overwhelming um it's archaeological and epigraphical and also textual firstly the great preponderance there's a great preponderance in quantity and quality of shiver temples over all others during this period suddenly the temple building really takes off and

many of the great creations of early medieval indian architecture the great majority of them are indeed shiva there's also an overwhelming preponderance of shiva foundations recorded in in in inscriptions for this period finally the part we have the evidence of

the powerful influence exerted on surrounding traditions um leading by by shaivism leading to the creation of adriana buddhism what i'm calling here neo pancharatra that is to say the later pancharatra texts found in such tantric works as the jayaki sammita the

sarpatasamhita and the pashkura samhita which seem to me to be so similar in their technology in their their ritual system uh to the shiva ones that we need to assume that these are in fact the result of a substantial retooling by

certain pancharatrika groups of their ritual system along shiver lines and we also have the evidence of such uh transformational retooling of a ritual system in the case of vaginas um as i've pointed out on another occasion they the china liturgical system of the

nirvana kalika which deals with initiation and also the installation of temples and images i've pointed out that this text the nirvana kalika was redacted on the basis of the 11th century saidantika shaiva manual siddhanta sarapadati of bojadeva with

very little change elimination of bits that couldn't be used and simple modern and simple modifications of the sanskrit where necessary often simply crossing out shiva and putting in jinnah for example there is also a large body of jaina

mantra shastra texts such as the bhairava padmavati kalpa and the jawala malni kalpa which will strongly count on the um the late shakhtar shaiva tradition of tripara sundari worship and also there's the yoga shastra of hemachandra which though is a comprehensive

treatment of the the giant part according to uh schweitomers um although it is a thoroughly china work contains a lot of reprocessed chiva material which fundamentally in my view changes the the character of the of the china religion

now we come finally after that initial survey of the history of of shaivism when it begins to emerge and evidence of its rise to dominance we come now to consider the forms of shaivism within which we have to locate

the shakhtar systems of kashmir the first dichotomy we need to be aware of is that between lay shaivism and initiatory shaivism now this distinction is one between those who are devotees of shiva including ascetics as well as householders

but they have not undergone an initiatory uh process such as characterizes the the initiatory systems of the shivers of tantric shaivism and other such systems so this lay shaivism is a rather loose and fluid category which is found

in a large array of texts there's a core of such works the shiva dharma and the shiva dharmatura and then there are many puranic works which contain similar material so these are forms of worship of shiva which can be undertaken within the

context of brahmanical religion without incurring the accusation of having abandoned faith in the vedic tradition if you take shiver initiation then that is a problem from the point of view of the ultra orthodox you have stepped out of the domain of

veda rooted authority into forms of parchandam forms of practice which are not authorized by the vedic corpus so lay shaivism on the whole is congruent with the veda and initiatory shaivism at least in the eyes of the ultra orthodox

authors such as batakumarila is unvedic outside the veda veda and some forms of shaivism the more antinomian are considered to be veda even further outside the veda than such religions as buddhism and jainism because of their transgressive antinomian

character now um initiatory shaivism this is a vast area the literature was once so vast that i'm sure i could never have read it in my lifetime unfortunately you might one shouldn't really say this but it is at least now feasible to read this

literature if not in its entirety at least in the majority because much has been lost in the course of the centuries the texts that we have refer to many others which we no longer have so looking at this vast literature

i see three essential traditions now i'm talking now as if i'm describing the periodic table we have these three completely independent entities actually of course they are the result of historical evolution they are undergoing change there's no absolute boundary between them um and

these bombs in any case are constantly being renegotiated but nonetheless the learned within the later systems saw a fundamental dichotomy between themselves and what went before them and they expressed this in terms of a distinction between what they

called the atimoraga and the mantra morgan the atimaraga here refers to a number of ascetic only traditions of a rather austere world transcending kind and these were seen as in opposite in opposition to in in contrast with the mantra morgan a

system would be more roughly called tantric which was open not only to ascetics but also to householders and which promised liberation by virtue of um ritual essentially by virtue of ritual the ritual of initiation of course those competent to

take on ritual duties after initiation were obliged to do so but there were others notably kings who were able who were granted the benefit of initiation either promise of liberation of death without the inconvenience of ritual duties thereafter

so essentially what characterizes this system is that it's a highly ritualistic one which claims to be engaging um mantras gestures offerings into fire and the like which have the supernatural effect of eliminating the bondage of the soul so atimurga and mantra bargain and

there's a third element which is not uh clearly distinguished in my earlier writing and that is the kula marga the path of the kaula or shakhtar traditions now the boundary between the mantra marga and the kulamaru is not

entirely clear because um the uh sharpization which characterizes the color marker already begins also affects parts of the mantra marker it's like two rivers flowing together and for for a while blurring into each other um so this uh boundary between mantra

morgan and colour margaret is not entirely clear as we will see now the ati muraga i have distinguished three stages of the ati marga which i have named ati muraga one ati margaret two and a team three at timaru one this is

the it's a chronological order ati muragawan is the system of the pashabata sutras otherwise called the pancharita sutra and its commentary by kandinya there are also some other texts the ganakarika and its commentary the ratnatika and some minor track tracts on matters

such as initiation and penance the earliest epigraphic evidence of the pascha battery tradition also known as the panchayatica because they are following the pancharita shastra the earliest evidence is dated to the early 4th century and this is epigraphic evidence

and it points to the existence of this tradition perhaps as early as the second century ad this system is accessible only to invested brahmin men that's to say brahmin males who have undergone the uppanaya ceremony which entitles them to recite the

mantras of the veda so in a sense it's a kind of veda transcending practice within the domain of vedic observance and was seen as therefore therefore seen in orthodox circles as a somewhat ambiguous tradition half in and half out

it's characterized by some very extraordinary behavior namely the idea that one must remove oneself from the world by courting abuse from it by behaving in a way by appearing to behave in a way that deserves such abuse the idea being that this would gradually

distance oneself from mundane values and lead eventually to a state in which one could concentrate uninterruptedly on in one's meditation and shiva finally one when that meditation had been fully established retreating to a cremation ground to die there through a yogic separation of the

soul from the body a kind of yogic suicide known as utkranti rising from the body in atimaraga 2 this tradition was modified somewhat um it produced its own canon of scriptures none of which have survived we only have a list of their names and a

single citation from one of them but we also have a brief but informative account of the beliefs or their beliefs and also their world rejecting antinomian practices and this account is found in a group of mantra market texts

which i call the nishwasa corpus these in fact are the earliest texts of the mantra margaret probably dating from the fifth to the seventh centuries a.d and this account is backed up by later shri vaishnava attacks in the works of yamuna charia and ram

manager now what characterizes these sectaries variously known as l'aquilas carla lucas and mahavratas is that their transgression of brahmanical norms is made absolutely clear by the fact that they beg with the human skull as begging bowl and carry a staff

topped by a human skull as it were impersonating not as it were in fact impersonating um those observing a penance ordained in brahmanical shastra for the killing of a brahmana the slaying of a brahmana and in doing this they are mimicking

they are identifying with rudra or shiva in his role as brahmin slayer which we see uh in in in shiva mythology since as no doubt many of you know shiva is often represented as having um curbed the arrogance of brahma by

removing his fifth head giving him leaving him with only four hence shiva carries the skull of brahman in his hand the brief account of their practices given in the um corpus indicates that they rejected um brahmanical notions of purity

uh allowing their devotees to eat their secretaries as to say those performing their ascetic practices to abandon all dietary restrictions uh eating and drinking whatever they wished and this this text also introduces the idea of a kind of initiation which

looks as though it's already of a sociological kind that the very active initiation is somehow an anticipation of final release that somehow the soul is raised up through a cosmic hierarchy to achieve in advance a united are uniting with the ultimate goal

of this tradition now the nishwasa corpus which i i've mentioned inherits and extends the cosmos this many layered cosmos of the lakotas and uh gives us this distinction between the atimoraga in which it recognizes only ati muruga one and atimaruga ii

and the mantra marga which it announces for the first time as its own system so this distinction between the atimorga and mantramorga is articulated in the earliest mantramargic material how early is this material well it predates the nischwansa corpus

and so it's probably earlier than the 5th century there is abundant epigraphic evidence of it in later centuries mostly from maharashtra and karnataka where this particular tradition seems to have dominated the the shiva temples there for some centuries

now we come to atimaraga 3 which is particularly relevant for this overview of the development of shaktism within shaivism now ati margaret iii is the tradition of the kaabalikas literally the skull bearers who are followers of the soma siddhanta

and they're also called mahavratins so they too use a skull bowl uh for begging they too carry a skull bowl they too carry a staff with a skull attached to the top but in that sense they are continuous of

the tradition of the l'aquila's atimaga ii but what characterizes this what's new about the atamarga 3 is that it is the site of the eruption of shaktism into the atimaraga the previous two systems ati muragawan and ati margaret ii

are purely focused on rudra or shiva just that distinction are not important in that whole natural context there is there are no feminine elements whatsoever it's a radically austere um male only system of extreme asceticism with the atimoraga ii we have grafted

onto this um antinomian cults of new deities whom we know from inscriptions from fairly on fairly early on but new deities namely byrova this ferocious form of the god the word actually means the fearsome or the frightening so seen by the theologians is identical

with shiva but obviously different in origin bhairava and the emaciated goddess known variously as charmunder or charchika or karnamotti there are various names for her but let us just say charmunder that's perhaps the west known the best known

term now with the eruption of these antinomian cults of bhairava and charmander we find a very new kind of religion introduced involving possession the goal of these secretaries is induce in themselves a state in which these deities take them

over possess them literally we find also collective orgastic worship and collective worship is completely absent from anything proceeding in fact it's rather rare in indian legend in general um but here we have collective orgastic worship often cast promiscuous um and

this um modality of indian religion with its emphasis upon possession or arvasha on its uh with its emphasis on collective orgastic worship known as chakriyaga or murtayaga we see a form of religion that will flourish later in the um the mantra maga

in the division of that tradition known as the vidyar peter and will also flourish in the kula marga in fact the kula margaret can be seen as a kind of upgraded or updated version of atimaga3 and i've put that one of the sections in

my hand in bold to indicate the importance of this transition the sudden eruption of ecstatic orgiastic possession-oriented cults of these furious deities byrova and charmander consumption of meat and wine promiscuous sexual intercourse all sorts of ecstatic practices which are

completely alien to anything that goes before but became normalized in later times within certain divisions more extreme divisions obviously of the mantra marga and the kula marga now there's no reference to this car balega tradition of ati morgan iii

before the fifth century the earliest reference to car pilots that i have encountered is in augustine has practical commentary on the giant 327 on followers of bad religious practices this country can be dated to around the 5th century

but but i actually i think the um although it has been inserted that it can be dated realistically to the first century i think this is now in doubt because this depends upon um the date of a certain

council to standardize the giant canon the sritambara giant cannon whose date has been called into question recently so perhaps this is not entirely certain now nonetheless after this after the fifth century references to the kaabalakis abound beginning with the brahat samita of

varahamihira in the first half of the sixth century um and also with the vasavadatta the the prose poem of the poet subundu who lived in the second half of the sixth century now it's been claimed namely by by lawrence

in his study of the kalimakis and ka and kapalikas from 1991 that we have a much earlier reference to the car police from the early centuries the christian era in the buddhist lalitha vistara since that mentions deluded ascetics who

believe that they are purifying themselves by such practices as carrying a skull and a skull staff it is indeed the case that this text goes back to that period since the first of the two chinese translations that by

dharma raksha was completed in ad308 according to the kaiyuan liu catalogue of ad 730 which later chinese editors considered the most reliable but a passage in the chinese corresponding to the passage cited by laurenson seen in the sanskrit text edited on the

base of much later nepalese manuscripts is found only in the second translation completed by divakra in ad 683 or 685 the section of the much earlier translation roughly corresponding to that within which within which this reference occurs includes no mention of such practices

indeed like the pali canon it seems entirely unaware of shaivism for when in this section it lists the various gods in in which those with false views place their trust it does not include maheshwara it is only in devakara's version that

the repertoire of deities has expanded to accommodate him there are other passages which there are other claims in laurenson's work to have found references that carbolic is known in early works in these cases too the evidence is highly dubious

um so i'm afraid we're left with our sixth century date um epigraphic records from the seven cent are bound from the seventh century to the twelfth we have inscriptions from various parts of india from chhattisgarh to gujarat karnataka andhra pradesh and tamil nadu

there are also numerous colorful literary accounts of karpalika practice obviously it's good stuff for a dramatic story and uh one of these which i find particularly informative as as a as a scholar of shaivism is the malty martyr of

um the great poet baba bhuti um which seems to me to be based upon a thoroughly well-versed acquaintance with the literary tradition of this system now this atimaga 3 is not recognized as a variety of the ati marga in the

nishwasa corpus but is recognized as such in later texts now when we come to the mantra marker what what marks this as i mentioned before is initiation as the means of liberation and the accomplishing of supernatural effects and is open to both ascetics and the

married we distinguish here between saidantika shaivism and non-site article shaivism the followers of the um siddhantika division of the mantramarga propagated a vision of a shiva vedic social order and the authority of shiva kings and cultivated a marked public dimension

its leading ascetic acharya served as the gurus of kings offered them shiver initiation and consecration consecrated royal temples royal palaces and public utilities such as irrigation works and developed a monastic network aspiring to pan-indian liturgical standardization in its observances it avoided all

antinomian elements and maintain conformity with brahmanical caste divisions it was strongly ritualistic in its orientation a tendency consolidated and defended by its earliest known exegetes sadio sadio jyotis of the period 675 to 750 in my opinion and by his later

kashmiri and followers bhattanarayana kanta and bataramakanta during the 10th and 11th centuries and also by their south indian epigones from the 12th century onwards there's an extensive body of scripture under side antica titles in south indian manuscript collections

also but there's no trace of these words outside this region and that and their content reflects a distinctive south indian shy tradition centered on the great temples of the chola period so we have in fact two saidantaka scriptural corpora

one evidence mainly in kashmir and in nepalese manuscript collections and the other represented exclusively by south indian manuscripts and this is really a quite separate body of texts the earliest part of this tradition the said on tradition is as i've already

mentioned the nisswa corpus which was in its earliest part composed as early as the 5th century as for epigraphic evidence that takes us back to the 6th century we also have epigraphic evidence of royal initiations the giving of

uh said onto kashiva initiation to monarchs from the second half of the seventh century onwards and this of course marks the arrival of shaibism on the on the at the highest level um through accepting through winning patronage of

important uh rulers in the region um and persuading them to accept chiva initiation as a means of empowering their rule as well as legitimating it um when we come to the non-scientific mantra margaret we're dealing with scriptures often referred to as the buyer of a

corpus and this has been variously classified in our sources these texts teach antinomian practice centering on the propitiation of the fierce deities bioever and the goddess with a heavy orientation towards cities the attainment of supernatural effects that recommended it strongly to royal

patrons but also developing strongly mystical sociologies based on the non-dualistic or rather anti-dualistic transcendence of romantical notions of purity and caste they were generally not engaged in the public domain they teach private practice for oneself or for royal and other clients

seeking supernatural protection and other such benefits through the commissioning of tantric rituals within this rather large corpus of texts we need to distinguish in the first case between the mantra peter and the vidyar paid peter i should add

this is just one of several classifications but it is i think particularly revealing and corresponds very closely to the way the kashmiri and authors saw this branch of the shaiva tradition so we distinguish between a bible-oriented mantra peter literally a

mantra collection and the principle text there is the tantra which teaches the worship of swachhandha bhairava and his consort aborishvari then we have the vidyar peter which is closer to our shakti traditions and this is goddess orientated the term

vidya meaning a female mantra if you like and within this uh rather diverse category of texts we have two that concern us in particular others are listed on your handout the shakti tantras and um yeah one in fact that we need to

refer to principally here the shakti tantras which comprise two divisions that are relevant to us the tricker and the kali kula um both these uh are strongly influenced by the ati marga and i think within the kali kula

scriptural corpus we actually have material surviving in there which have been very superficially redacted from atimaraga three sources because they do not conform to the norm for that particular category they seem archaic less developed less yeah one suddenly feels the ground slipping

beneath one's falling away from beneath one's feet when one encounters these sections of the text so although we don't have any ati margaret three scriptural texts surviving i think we have materials within the vidyar peter that give us access to

to those materials thinly redacted at margaret iii sources so within that category we have texts of the tricker a system for the propitiation of a set of deities para para pranapura also the alphabet goddesses matrika and balari taught in a number of texts of which

only a small amount survives we have a short reduction of the sidio geshwari mata we have the assumed to have survived in in in total in totality but in fact i think not quite certain the manuscripts all are lacking

those at a certain crucial point um but at least we have majority of the text then we have a very important work which does appear to be lost although we have many uh citations from it the trishiro by

river and we have another word which survives in early nepalese manuscripts the tantra sabbahava and on top of those we have quite a few works which are cited by abhinav gupta or paraphrase by abner in the course of

his exegesis of this tradition then we have the kali kula which is represented by the jayadratiyamala a vast text of some twenty four thousand verses teaching the worship of various forms of karla samkharshney now we come to the kula marga also

heavily influenced from atabaga three we have in that category various purely color texts which teach the worship of the goddess kuleshwari a comet surrounded by or accompanied by the the eight mother goddesses beginning with brahmani and i've listed their titles beginning

with the kulapanchashika and the kaula gyana nirnaya but then we also have kulamaruga materials within texts of shock to orientation that have been assigned to the mantra burger so in such traditions we are offered two distinct cults of their deities

one following the mantra murder sometimes called the tantra system and the other seen as more elevated following the kulla marga with its emphasis upon possession and uh collective autistic worship uh in this category the malnimidiotra stands out because it

clearly distinguishes between a tantra prakria and akula prakria a tantra system and a coolant system and then we have within the jayadrathiyamala a clear distinction between the first shakka which teaches a mantramarga tradition and the second third and

fourth shuttlers which were clearly added later and probably in kashmir which teach a cowless system for the propitiation of the goddess kali then we have a corpus of scriptures belonging to a system that calls us off the krama or maharata

the great teaching the great truth uh krama maharata sometimes mahanaya also we have the kali kulapancha shataka the kali kula kramasad baba the devi diver dashatika the yonigara and related materials redacted within the jayadratiyamala itself then we have scriptures of the worship

of the goddess these are strongly kala works and these are heavily dependent on the scriptures of the trigger much scriptural trigger scriptural material has simply been reprocessed and reused within the armata and other related texts and finally we have the literature of

the cult of tripara sundari an early text known as the vamakeshwari meta and the later text the yogini friday which shows clear influence of the kashmiri and shaiva dondulis tradition of the 10th and 11th centuries and so per states that and there's no doubt of

south indian creation now in kashmir itself um which i've arrived at too late we are almost out of time so perhaps i should at some points insert another lecture for you um um we have virtually uh we have the scidante

goshams and we also have non-site anti-gashivism of various forms and i would like to go into that in some detail and i see that i've run out of time here and so perhaps i shall have to ask for

another another slot in order to accommodate this section of the lecture um properly thank you very much