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XXXVII] Saiva Philosophy in the Siva-mahāpurāņa 101 such as that which leads the individual to action; that which leads him to discover the true reality of twofold vidyā; that which attaches him to the objects of sense (rāga); kāla or time which makes things happen in succession; niyati, which is used in a peculiar sense, not of destiny but of conscience, that is, it is the factor by which one decides what one should do or not do?.
The puruṣa or the individual souls possess in a cumulative way the qualities of knowledge, will, etc. The so-called citta or the psychic plane is constituted of the various qualities existent in the prakrti. From buddhi come the various senses and subtle matter.
The system of thought referred to above, the Sivādvaita system, is arranged in rather a clumsy manner. The points that emerge from the above statements can be briefly summarised. First, it regards the Brahman as being an undifferentiated Being or Non-being, when there is nothing but void in the universe. From this Being-and-Non-being, the Brahman, there sprang forth an entity which represents within it the two principles of male and female energy which pervades all living beings. It is out of this principle, the Siva, that we have, on the one hand the individual selves which are but contractions of the nature of the supreme Lord, and on the other we have the world evolving out of the female energy side, the prakrti, more or less in the Sāņkhya fashion. The puruşa is supposed to have within him fivefold categories, through which he can experience joys and sufferings of his intercourse with the world as such. These individuals, on account of the contraction that they suffered, show themselves as impure as a flame in a wick appears smoky. Thus the whole system tends towards a sort of monism without being purely idealistic. The closeness or its affinity with Śrīkantha's philosophy will be immediately apparent, though there are differences in the mode of expression. There are certain passages which remind us of some form of Kāśmir Saivism, which though a monism, is largely different from the monism as expressed herein. We also find here a reference to the spanda theory of Kāśmir Saivism. But in spite of this we need not think that the monistic Saivism was first enunciated in this Purāņa or in this chapter. We shall have occasion to show that some form of distinctly monistic Saivism with relative
idam tu mama kartavyam idam neti niyāmikā, niyatis syāt....
Siva-mahāpurāņa, vi. 16. 83.
