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Updated: June 25, 2025
He professed the Saiva form of worship. His chief poems are the Raghuvansam, the Kumarasambhavam, the Meghadutam and the Ritusanharam. It is believed that he wrote a treatise on Astronomy and one on Sanskrit Prosody. His genius was of a versatile nature. He was a poet, a dramatist and an astronomer.
Although the Pasupata and the Saiva systems exhibit some features which are not altogether contrary to the Veda, yet they are unacceptable because they rest on an assumption contrary to the Veda, viz. of the difference of the general, instrumental and material causes, and imply an erroneous interchange of higher and lower entities. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'Pasupati.
A dispute ensues between Viswabhanda, a Saiva mendicant, and Kalahankura, his disciple, which they refer to the decision of Mahanindaka, another Brahman, who asserts that he composed the vedas and visited Swerga, where he treated Vrihaspati and Brahma with contempt and gave Siva a drubbing.
The originality of the Śaiva Siddhânta lies less in its dogmas than in its devotional character: in the feeling that the soul is immersed in darkness and struggles upwards by the grace of the Lord, so that the whole process of Karma and Mâyâ is really beneficent. As already mentioned Śivaism has an important though unorthodox offshoot in the Lingâyats or Lingavants.
Steeds born on the sea-coast and white as the moon, bore Chandrasena of fierce energy, the son of Samudrasena. Steeds of the hue of the blue lotus and decked with ornaments of gold and adorned with beautiful floral wreaths, bore Saiva owning a beautiful car to battle. Superior steeds of the hue of Kalaya flowers, with white and red streaks, bore Rathasena difficult of being resisted in battle.
But at a rather later date we hear that Jains were persecuted and tortured by Śaiva princes both in southern India and Gujarat, and if there were any detailed account, epigraphic or literary, of such persecutions in the eighth and ninth centuries, there would be no reason for doubting it. But no details are forthcoming.
In their views of causation and free will they differed slightly from the Śaivas, since they held that Śiva is the universal and absolute cause, the actions of individuals being effective only in so far as they are in conformity with the will of Śiva. The Śaiva siddhânta however holds that Śiva's will is not irrespective of individual Karma, although his independence is not thereby diminished.
The Saivas are ascetics. That is," he added, in another tone, "if the fellow is really a Saiva and not just a plain fraud." "All these fellows are frauds, more or less, aren't they?" I questioned. "No," was Godfrey's unexpected answer; "the real yogin are no doubt sincere; but a real yogi wouldn't waste his time on a soft-brained old man, and fire sky-rockets off at midnight to impress him.
Thus in the list of her 108 names she is described among other more amiable attributes as terrible, furious, the slayer of evil beings, the destroyer, and Kâlî: also as carrying skulls and being the mother of the Vedas. Here we have if not the borrowing by Buddhists of a Śaiva deity, at least the grafting of Śaiva conceptions on a Bodhisattva.
Then, O king, Drona addressed Duryodhana in those words." "'Drona said, "I know the Vedas with their six branches. I know also the science of human affairs. I am acquainted also with the Saiva weapon, and diverse other species of weapons. Endeavouring to actually display all those virtues which ye, desirous of victory, have attributed to me, I will fight with the Pandavas.
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