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XXXIV]
The Agama Literature some of the most important Āgamas. In what follows, the reader will have the opportunity of judging the literary contents of the philosophical aspects of some of the important Āgamas, thereby getting a comprehensive view of the internal relation of Saivism to other branches of Indian philosophy.
The Mrgendrāgama has often been quoted in the Sarvadarśana-samgraha. This work is said to be a subsidiary part of Kāmikāgama, supposed to be one of the oldest of the Agamas, and has been referred to in the Sūta-samhitā which is regarded as a work of the sixth century. The Sūta-samhitā refers to the Kamikāgama with the reverence that is due to very old texts.
Mrgendrāgamal opens the discussion of how the old Vedic forms of worship became superseded by the Saiva cult. It was pointed out that the Vedic deities were not concrete substantial objects, but their reality consisted of the mantras with which they were welcomed and worshipped, and consequently Vedic worship cannot be regarded as a concrete form of worship existing in time and space. But devotion to Siva may be regarded as a definite and concrete form of worship which could, therefore, supersede the Vedic practices. In the second chapter of the work, Siva is described as being devoid of all impurities. He is omniscient and the instrumental agent of all things. He already knows how the individual souls are going to behave and associates and dissociates all beings with knots of bondage in accordance with that.
The Saivāgama discusses the main problem of the production, maintenance, destruction, veiling up of the truth and liberation.
These are all done by the instrumental agent, God Siva. In such a view the creation of the world, its maintenance and destruction are naturally designed by the supreme Lord in the beginning, yet things unfold in the natural course. The changes in the world of our experiences are not arranged by the later actions of beings. But yet the attainment of liberation is so planned that it cannot take place without individual effort.
Consciousness is of the nature of intuitive knowledge and spontaneous action (caitanyam dỊk-kriyā-rūpam). This conscious
1 Since writing this section on the basis of the original manuscript the present writer has come across a printed text of the Vidyā and Yogapāda of Mrgendrāgama published in 1928 by K. M. Subrahmanya Sāstri, with a commentary by Bhatta-nārāyana Kantha called Mygendra-vrtti, and a subcommentary by Aghora-śivācārya called Msgendra-vrtti-dipikā.
