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Literature of Southern Saivism [CH. Sanskrit or in the Dravidian tongue. The present writer had the good fortune to collect a large number of the Āgamas either as complete wholes or in fragmentary portions. Many of the manuscripts are in a decaying state and some of them have been completely lost. The Sanskrit manuscripts on which our present attempt is founded are available in the big manuscript libraries at Triplicane, Adyar and Mysore. It is curious to note that Benares, the principal seat of Saivism, has but few manuscripts of importance. The important Siddhāntas and Āgamas are quite numerous and most of them are in manuscripts mainly in South India. The same works may be found also in many cases in the whole Dravidian language; but the inspiration and the thought are almost always taken from Sanskrit. The essence of Dravidian culture is therefore almost wholly taken from Sanskrit, at least so far as philosophy is concerned.
The study of old Tamil is fairly difficult, and those who had made a lifelong study of Tamil, like Pope or Schomerus, had but little time to dig into Sanskrit to any appreciable extent. The present writer, being unacquainted with the Dravidian languages, had to depend almost wholly on the Sanskrit literature, but has taken good care to ascertain that the works in Dravidian, pertinent to the subject, are well represented in the Sanskrit manuscripts.
It is difficult to ascertain the respective dates of the Agamas, We only feel that most of the Agamas mentioned above were completed by the ninth century A.D. Some of them were current in the time of Sankarācārya, who lived some time in the eighth or
The works intya-visva, Sivaatna-traya,
1 Some of the Āgamas are as follows: Kāmika, Yogaja, Cintya, Kārana, Ajita, Dipta, Sūkşma, Amsumāna, Suprabheda, Vijaya, Nikšvāsa, Svāyambhuva, Vira, Raurava, Makuta, Vimala, Candra-jñāna, Bimba, Lalita, Santāna, Sarvokta, Pārameśvara, Kirana, Vātula, Siva-jñāna-bodha, Anala, Prodgīta.
In the Siva-jñāna-siddhi we find extensive quotations from other Agamas and Tantras as illustrating the philosophical and religious position of Siddhāntas. The works from which the quotations have been taken are as follows: Himasamhita, Cintya-viśva, Siva-dharmottara (purāna), Pauskara, Siddha-tantra,
Sarva-matopanyāsa, Parā, Ratna-traya, Nivāsa, Mrgendra, Iñāna-kārikā, Nādakārikā, Kālottara, Viśva-sārottara, Vāyavya, Mātanga, Suddha, Sarvajñānottara, Siddhānta-rahasya, Iñāna-ratnāvali, Meru-tantra, Svacchanda and Devi-kālottara.
Most of the above Agamas are written in Sanskrit characters in about half a dozen Dravidian languages, such as Tamil, Telegu, Kanarese, Grantha and Nandi-nāgri. Several Tantras based on these Agamas are also found as Sanskrit compositions in Dravidian scripts. So far as the knowledge of the present writer goes, there is hardly anything of philosophical value or systematic thought which is available in Dravidian, and not available in Sanskrit.
