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24
Literature of Southern Saivism
CH.
Śiva-jñāna-bodha.
By Meykaņdadeva This is a brief work of twelve kārikās (sometimes called sūtras), and taken from Rauravāgama, as has already been pointed out. It has a number of commentaries. Its Tamil translation forms the basic work of the Siva-jñāna-siddhi school of thought, and has been elaborated by many capable writers. The general argument of the Siva-jñāna-siddhi is as follows:
This world, consisting of males, females and other neutral objects, must have a cause. This cause is not perceivable, but has to be inferred. Since it has come into being in time, it may be presumed that it has a creator. Moreover the world does not move of itself and it may, therefore, be presumed that there must be an agent behind it.
The world is destroyed by God and is re-created by Him to afford proper facilities to the malas for their proper expression. The position, therefore, is that though the material cause (upādāna) is already present, yet there must be a nimitta-kāraņa or instrumental agent for the creation and the maintenance of the world. At the time of dissolution the world-appearance becomes dissolved in the impurities or malas. After a period, the world again reappears through the instrumentality of Siva. Siva thus on the one hand creates the world, and on the other hand destroys it. It is said that as in the summer all roots dry up and in the rains they shoot up again into new plants, so though the world is destroyed the impressions of the old malas remain inlaid in the prakrti, and when the proper time comes they begin to show themselves in diverse forms of world creation according to the will of God. The creation has to take a definite order in accordance with the good and bad deeds of persons. This creation cannot take place spontaneously by compounding the four elements.
God is the instrumental agent through which the functions of creation, maintenance and destruction take place. The Saiva view of Meykandadeva is entirely opposed to the purely monistic theory of Sankara. The jīva cannot be regarded as identical with Brahman. It is true that in the Upanişads the individual soul (or jīva) and Brahman are both regarded as self-luminous and inner-controlled, but that does not mean that the self and the Brahman are identical.
