Tirumantiram - FOUNTAINHEAD OF SAIVA SIDDHANTA (Part 1 of 3)

Tirumantiram

English translation of the Tamil Spiritual Classic by Saint Tirumulat

 

FOUNTAINHEAD OF SAIVA SIDDHANTA. 

I want to introduce you to Saint Tirumular who is the very fountainhead of Saiva Siddhanta, and to his scripture, the Tirumantiram, considered the final authority on subtle matters of philosophy and theology in Saiva Siddhanta. In fact, it is said to contain the whole of Saiva Siddhanta. Saint Tirumular is a theologian of our faith, but not merely a theologian. He is also a siddhar, an accomplished yogi. Our Hindu scriptures come from such great men, men who have attained to the deepest realizations through their sadhana and their devotion. When their awareness dwells in the superconscious states resident in all men but penetrated intentionally by only a few, and when they speak out from that state, we consider that it is not man himself who has thus spoken but the Divine through man. Saint Tirumular was such a siddhar, and his words are valued as a divine message for mankind. 

Those of you who have been on San Marga here on Kauai have seen the beautiful life-size granite statue of Saint Tirumular that arrived here along with the statue of Saint Tiruvalluvar, the author of the Tirukural. In India during Tiruvalluvar's time there was neither paper nor pens, so writing was accomplished with a stylus, the characters being scraped or scratched into a specially prepared leaf, called an Ola leaf. Many ancient scriptures and literature were produced in this manner, and it is amazing that some of the original writings so made still exist today. Certainly no modern day paper would have withstood the centuries so well! The statue of Saint Tirumular shows him sitting in the lotus posture, deep in meditation, while Saint Tiruvalluvar is seated with a small writing table on his lap composing his sacred verses with stylus in hand. His Tirukural speaks on virtuous living. It gives us the keys to happy and harmonious life in the world, but it doesn't give any insights into the nature of God, whereas, the Tirumantiram delves into the nature of God, man and the universe in its depths. Taken together, they speak to all Hindus and offer guidance for every aspect of religious life, the first addressing itself to the achievement of virtue, wealth and love, while the second concerns itself with attainment of moksha or liberation. The Tirumantiram is a mystical book and a difficult book. The original text is written in metered verse, composed in the ancient Tamil language. Saint Tirumular is the first one to codify Saiva Siddhanta, the final conclusions, and the first one to use the term "Saiva Siddhanta." It is a document upon which the entire religion could stand, if it had to. It is one of the oldest scriptures known to man. I was very happy to find that all my own postulations, gathered from realization, are confirmed in this great work. That is why this book is so meaningful to me-as a verification of personal experience and a full statement of the philosophical fortress erected and protected by our Guru Paramparai. 

It takes a bit of meditation to understand the Tirumantiram because you have to know occultism and scripture to catch the meaning. It is composed in rhyme and cloaked in code-when the Five become Six and the Seven become Twelve and so on, all talking about the petals of the chakras and the esoteric bodies of man or the material world components known as tattvas. For these tantras Brahmin priests and shastris from various parts of South India had to be hired to help in deciphering the deeper, more abstruse verses about the kundalini and other mystical subjects. Like all mystical writings one can only understand this scripture by close study with a teacher. Why is that? Because mystics are cautious, protective of their special knowledge that it does not get into the wrong hands.

They therefore present their work minus a few important keys that the preceptor or Sat Guru has to fill in for the disciple who has proven himself worthy. It is something like a great chef who might write down all his finest recipes but leave out one or two crucial ingredients to preserve his reputation. Thus, many of the mantras or yantras spoken of in this or other texts are correct as far as they go, but usually leave out a necessary key which makes them work. That does not mean they are useless. It does mean, however, that the fullest use cannot be realized by merely reading or studying from the books. 

There is a timeless quality about Saivism-which preceded Hinduism as we know it today-that sets it apart from the modern faiths on the planet such as Christianity and Islam. Of course, we know that the founders of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism were all good Hindus. Saivism is so very ancient that it appears among the first civilizations unearthed by archeologists. It is our belief that Saivism is as old as man himself, the original or seed religion from which all others have sprung forth; and since they are the offspring of Saivism we look upon them as parents look upon their children, with a deep love and a hope that they will do well and a look askance when they don't. 

There never was a time when Saivism, the Sanatana Dharma, did not exist on the planet. Other religions trace their lineage to a man, to a founder, to a messiah or a theologian. Saivism does not. It has no founder because it was not founded by man. It is coexistent with man. That makes Saivism unique, different from all the religions and sects that followed it. Look into history and you will see it is the only religion without a beginning, without a founder and a date it was founded. Now one of the oldest of the preserved theologies of Saivism available to us today is that of Saint Tirumular. Of course, his was not the first theology, just one of the oldest to be preserved. He did not start anything new. His work is only a few hundred years older than the New Testament. He codified Saivism as he knew it.

He recorded its tenets in concise and precise verse form, drawing upon his own realizations of the truths it contained. His work is not an intellectual construction, and it is not strictly a devotional canon either. It is based in yoga. It exalts and explains yoga as the kingly science leading man to knowledge of himself. Yet it contains theological doctrine and devotional hymns. It is the full expression of man's search, encompassing the soul, the intellect and the emotions. 

Saint Tirumular's story begins more than two thousand years ago in the Himalayas where the great rishis had gathered in conclave apart from the rest of the world holding fast to the Sanatana Dharma as they pursued their own meditations to ever deeper strata. From time to time these ashram communities would send out members in response to the needs of the world, pilgrims who would travel by foot, taking the Eternal Truths to be taught and reestablished where perhaps superstition or alien religions had gained a foothold. These rishis traveled throughout the known world in those early days, spreading the Sanatana Dharma, Saivism, far and wide. It was a one teaching, but people adapted it to their own understanding and culture and local conditions, and thus the various religions of the world arose. Saint Tirumular was such a Himalayan rishi, a siddhar sent on mission to South India to spread the purest teachings of Saivism to the people there. Hinduism is a missionary religion. 

Everyone within it, myself included, is on a mission or is purifying himself through sadhana enough so that he can be given a mission for the religion from some great soul or a God perhaps. This is the pattern within Saivism, and Saint Tirumular's mission was to summarize and thereby renew and reaffirm at one point in time the final conclusions of the Sanatana Dharma, the purest Saiva path,

Saiva Siddhanta. 

Rishi Sundaranatha, which was his name before he was sent to the South, had to walk all the way. Along the way he halted near the village of Tiruvavaduthurai where he found the body of a cowherd who had died in the fields. The milk cows were wandering around aimlessly, lamenting the death of their master whom they clearly loved. The sight moved Rishi Sundaranatha deeply, inspiring him to relieve the anguish of the cows. An extraordinary miracle occurred, a boon from Lord Siva to help the cows and also to assist the sage in his task. Leaving his physical body hidden in a hollow log, Rishi Sundaranatha used his siddhis or yogic powers to enter and revive the lifeless body of Mulan-that was the cowherd's name. He comforted and cared for the cattle and led them back to the village.

Returning to the fields he was unable to find his original physical body! He searched and searched, but it was not to be found. It had simply vanished! The Rishi was deeply perplexed, and he sat in meditation to come to some understanding of these strange happenings. Through his spiritual insight he discerned that it was Lord Siva Himself who had taken his body, leaving him to live

thereafter in the body of the Tamil cowherd. He took this to be Siva's message that he should keep the South Indian body and serve in that way. He accepted it all as Siva's will and was thereafter known as Tirumular, or the holy Mular, for everyone realized that some extraordinary change had taken place in their village cowherd. 

Of course, there were certain advantages. For one thing, he could now fluently speak the language and knew the customs of the South. He stayed there and recorded the wisdom of the Upanishads and Saiva Agamas in the local language, Tamil. 

Saint Tirumular began his mission of establishing the purity of the Saivite path soon thereafter when he settled down near Chidambaram, an ancient temple of Lord Siva as Nataraja, the King of Dancers. There he worshipped near a Banyan tree where there was a Swayambhu Lingam. That Lingam is revered by Saivites even today in a small shrine within the Chidambaram walls, and you can worship there on pilgrimage just as he did so long ago. It was there that he began composing the Tirumantiram. Legend has it that the sage retired to a cave where he would sit in samadhi for a full year without moving. At the end of each year he would break his meditation long enough to speak out a single Tamil verse giving the substance of that year's meditations. Each verse composed in this manner was just four lines long, but the wisdom each contained was boundless. He wrote over 3,000 verses in all. This may not be accurate by the calendar, but it is true to the spirit and quality of the Tirumantiram, which has within it the wisdom of three thousand years of meditation. It is without a doubt the most complete and

authoritative scripture ever written. There are few before or since his time qualified to understand all the Tirumantiram says, much less to improve upon it. It is that perfect and that complete.

 

-         To be continued