Shaivism
Shaivism is one of the major Hindu religious traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. It is the second-largest Hindu sect, after Vaishnavism, constituting about 385 million Hindus, found widely across South Asia predominantly in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The followers of Shaivism are called Shaivas or Shaivites.
According to Chakravarti, Shaivism developed as an amalgam of pre-Aryan religions and traditions, Vedic Rudra, and post-Vedic traditions, accommodating local traditions and Yoga, puja and bhakti. According to Bisschop, early shaivism is rooted in the worship of the vedic deity Rudra. The earliest evidence for sectarian Rudra-Shiva worship appears with the Pasupata, possibly owing to the Hindu synthesis, when many local traditions were aligned with the Vedic-Brahmanical fold. The Pāśupata movement rapidly expanded throughout North India, giving rise to different forms of Shaivism, which led to the emergence of various tantric traditions. Both devotional and monistic Shaivism became popular in the 1st millennium CE, rapidly becoming the dominant religious tradition of many Hindu kingdoms. It arrived in Southeast Asia shortly thereafter, leading to the construction of thousands of Shaiva temples on the islands of Indonesia as well as Cambodia and Vietnam, co-evolving with Buddhism in these regions.
Shaivism encompasses a wide range of sub-traditions, from devotional dualistic theism such as Shaiva Siddhanta, to yoga-oriented monistic non-theism, such as Kashmiri Shaivism. Shaivite theology ranges from Shiva being the creator, preserver, and destroyer to being the same as the Atman within oneself and every living being. It is closely related to Shaktism, and some Shaivas worship in both Shiva and Shakti temples. It is the Hindu tradition that most accepts ascetic life and emphasises yoga, and encourages one to discover and be one with Shiva within.
It has a vast literature, considering both the Vedas and the Agama texts as important sources of theology.
Etymology and nomenclature
Shiva literally means kind, friendly, gracious, or auspicious. As a proper name, it means "The Auspicious One".The word Shiva is used as an adjective in the Rig Veda, as an epithet for several Rigvedic deities, including Rudra. The term Shiva also connotes "liberation, final emancipation" and "the auspicious one", this adjective sense of usage is addressed to many deities in Vedic layers of literature. The term evolved from the Vedic Rudra-Shiva to the noun Shiva in the Epics and the Puranas, as an auspicious deity who is the "creator, reproducer and dissolver".
The Sanskrit word or means "relating to the god Shiva", while the related beliefs, practices, history, literature and sub-traditions constitute Shaivism.
Origins and history
The origins of Shaivism are unclear and a matter of debate among scholars. According to Chakravarti, it is an amalgam of pre-Vedic cults and traditions and Vedic culture. Gavin flood associates it with the Brahmanization of local traditions. According to Bisschop, early shaivism is rooted in the worship of the vedic deity Rudra.Indus Valley Civilisation
Some trace the origins to the Indus Valley Civilisation, which reached its peak around 2500–2000 BCE. Archeological discoveries show seals that suggest a deity that somewhat appears like Shiva. Of these is the Pashupati seal, which early scholars interpreted as someone seated in a meditating yoga pose surrounded by animals, and with horns. This "Pashupati" seal has been interpreted by these scholars as a prototype of Shiva. Gavin Flood characterises these views as "speculative", saying that it is not clear from the seal if the figure has three faces, or is seated in a yoga posture, or even that the shape is intended to represent a human figure.Other scholars state that the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered, and the interpretation of the Pashupati seal is uncertain. According to Srinivasan, the proposal that it is proto-Shiva may be a case of projecting "later practices into archeological findings". Similarly, Asko Parpola states that other archaeological finds such as the early Elamite seals dated to 3000–2750 BCE show similar figures and these have been interpreted as "seated bull" and not a yogi, and the bull interpretation is likely more accurate.
Vedic elements
The Rigveda has the earliest clear mention of Rudra in its hymns 2.33, 1.43 and 1.114. Flood notes that Rudra is an ambiguous god, peripheral in the Vedic pantheon, possibly indicating non-Vedic origins. The text also includes a Satarudriya, an influential hymn with embedded hundred epithets for Rudra, that is cited in many medieval era Shaiva texts as well as recited in major Shiva temples of Hindus in contemporary times. Yet, the Vedic literature only presents scriptural theology, but does not attest to the existence of Shaivism.Emergence of Shaivism
According to Chakravarti, Shaivism developed as an amalgam of pre-Aryan religions and traditions, Vedic Rudra, and post-Vedic traditions, accommodating phallic, bull and serpent cults, the Dravidian Father God and Mother Goddess concept, and Yoga, puja and bhakti.According to Gavin Flood, "the formation of Śaiva traditions as we understand them begins to occur during the period from 200 BC to 100 AD." Shiva was originally probably not a Brahmanical god, The pre-Vedic Shiva acquired a growing prominence as its cult assimilated numerous "ruder faiths" and their mythologies, and the Epics and Puranas preserve pre-Vedic myths and legends of these traditions assimilated by the Shiva-cult. Shiva's growing prominence was facilitated by identification with a number of Vedic deities, such as Purusha, Rudra, Agni, Indra, Prajapati|, Vayu|, among others. The earliest evidence for sectarian Rudra-Shiva worship appears with the Pasupata. The followers of Shiva were gradually accepted into the Brahmanical fold, becoming allowed to recite some of the Vedic hymns.
Patanjali's , dated to the 2nd century BCE, mentions the term Shiva-bhagavata in section 5.2.76. Patanjali, while explaining Panini's rules of grammar, states that this term refers to a devotee clad in animal skins and carrying an ayah sulikah as an icon representing his god.
The Shvetashvatara Upanishad mentions terms such as Rudra, Shiva, and Maheshwaram, but its interpretation as a theistic or monistic text of Shaivism is disputed. The dating of the Shvetashvatara is also in dispute, but it is likely a late Upanishad.
The Mahabharata mentions Shaiva ascetics, such as in chapters 4.13 and 13.140. Other evidence that is possibly linked to the importance of Shaivism in ancient times are in epigraphy and numismatics, such as in the form of prominent Shiva-like reliefs on Kushan Empire era gold coins. However, this is controversial, as an alternate hypothesis for these reliefs is based on Zoroastrian Oesho. According to Flood, coins dated to the ancient Greek, Saka and Parthian kings who ruled parts of the Indian subcontinent after the arrival of Alexander the Great also show Shiva iconography; however, this evidence is weak and subject to competing inferences.
In the early centuries of the common era is the first clear evidence of Pāśupata Shaivism. The inscriptions found in the Himalayan region, such as those in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal suggest that Shaivism was established in this region by the 5th century, during the late Guptas era. These inscriptions have been dated by modern techniques to between 466 and 645 CE.
Puranic Shaivism
During the Gupta Empire the genre of Purāṇa literature developed in India, and many of these Puranas contain extensive chapters on Shaivism – along with Vaishnavism, Shaktism, Smarta Traditions of Brahmins and other topics – suggesting the importance of Shaivism by then.The most important Shaiva Purāṇas of this period include the Shiva Purāṇa, the Skanda Purāṇa, and the Linga Purāṇa.
Post-Gupta development
Most of the Gupta kings, beginning with Chandragupta II were known as Parama Bhagavatas or Bhagavata Vaishnavas and had been ardent promoters of Vaishnavism. But following the Huna invasions, especially those of the Alchon Huns circa 500 CE, the Gupta Empire declined and fragmented, ultimately collapsing completely, with the effect of discrediting Vaishnavism, the religion it had been so ardently promoting. The newly arising regional powers in central and northern India, such as the Aulikaras, the Maukharis, the Maitrakas, the Kalacuris or the Vardhanas preferred adopting Shaivism instead, giving a strong impetus to the development of the worship of Shiva. Vaishnavism remained strong mainly in the territories which had not been affected by these events: South India and Kashmir.In the early 7th century, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang visited India and wrote a memoir in Chinese that mentions the prevalence of Shiva temples all over North Indian subcontinent, including in the Hindu Kush region such as Nuristan. Between the 5th and 11th century CE, major Shaiva temples had been built in central, southern and eastern regions of the subcontinent, including those at Badami cave temples, Aihole, Elephanta Caves, Ellora Caves, Khajuraho, Bhuvaneshwara, Chidambaram, Madurai, and Conjeevaram.
Major scholars of competing Hindu traditions from the second half of the 1st millennium CE, such as Adi Shankara of Advaita Vedanta and Ramanuja of Vaishnavism, mention several Shaiva sects, particularly the four groups: Pashupata, Lakulisha, tantric Shaiva and Kapalika. The description is conflicting, with some texts stating the tantric, puranik and Vedic traditions of Shaivism to be hostile to each other while others suggest them to be amicable sub-traditions. Some texts state that Kapalikas reject the Vedas and are involved in extreme experimentation, while others state the Shaiva sub-traditions revere the Vedas but are non-Puranik.