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152 Saiva Philosophy in some Important Texts [CH. from which it necessarily follows that there may be permanent release from all bonds. There are other Saivas who think that in liberation the soul acquires miraculous powers, and that the liberated persons are partakers of divine nature and attributes, and are able to gain possession of, and exercise, miraculous powers called siddhi. There are others who think that in emancipation the soul becomes as insensible as a stone. This apathetic existence is the refuge of the soul from the suffering and struggle of the cycle of births and rebirths. We have already mentioned most of these ideas of liberation in a more elaborate manner in the relevant sections. But according to Māņikka-vāchakar the soul is finally set free from the influence of threefold defilement through the grace of Siva, and obtains divine wisdom, and so rises to live eternally in the conscious, full enjoyment of Siva's presence and eternal bliss. This is also the idea of the Siddhānta philosophy?.
A great pre-eminence is given to the idea of the operation of divine grace (called aruļ in Tamil) in the Saiva Siddhānta. The grace is divine or mystic wisdom, to dissipate the impurities of the āņava-mala and to show the way of liberation. The souls are under the sway of accumulated karma, and it is by the grace of the Lord that the souls of men, in a state of bondage in the combined state, are let loose and find their place in suitable bodies for gradually working out and ultimately attaining liberation. Through all the stages, grace is the dynamic force that gradually ennobles the pilgrim towards his final destination. The grace of Siva through the operation of His energy (sakti) affords light of understanding, by which people perform their actions of life and accumulate their karma and experience joys and sufferings. The material world is unconscious and the souls have no knowledge of their own nature. It is only by the grace of Siva that the individuals understand their state and acquire the mystic knowledge by which they can save themselves; yet no one knows the grace of Siva and how it envelops him, though he is endowed with all sense perceptions. From beginningless time the individuals have been receiving the grace of God, but they have seldom come under its influence, and are thus devoid of the right approach to the way to deliverance.
The grace can be observed as operative when the proper guru comes and advises the person to follow the right course. When the
1 Pope, loc. cit. p. xliv.
