Shaiva-Siddhanta (Philosophy of Shaivism) and Its Social Aspect

DOI

10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.180How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Shaiva-siddhanta; Agamas, Tamil Veda; astika; caste (jati); twice-born (dvidja) castes; shudra; Indian theism (Icvara-vada)

Abstract

Shaiva-siddhanta – a profound and elaborated Religious and Philosophical Hindus system that emerged in South India (Tamil Nadu). Shaiva-siddhanta got the ambiguous status in orthodox Hinduism because of socio-caste structure rooted in medieval India and ethno-cultural dispositions between Indian South and Indian North. Social problems put their indelible marks on development and status of Shaiva-siddhanta: it is not included in the list of orthodox Hindus astika Philosophical systems/darshanas. Many of siddhantin authors belonged to shudras and untouchables; Meykandar, the author of one of the sources of this system "Sivajnanabodha" was learned shudra. "Sivajnanabodha" as a high sophisticated treatise of Indian theistic tradition (Icvara-vada) resembles some opuses of Nyaya darshana especially in argumentation in favor of God's (Icvara's, Hara's) existing. Social background of Shaiva-siddhanta became the main reason not to associate it with astika darshanas. Shaiva-siddhanta seems to be the crossroad between Nigama and Agama, Indian North and Indian South, the Aryans and Dravidians, Brahmins and inferior casts.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Elena Anikeeva
PY  - 2017/12
DA  - 2017/12
TI  - Shaiva-Siddhanta (Philosophy of Shaivism) and Its Social Aspect
BT  - Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Intercultural Communication (ICELAIC 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 773
EP  - 776
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.180
DO  - 10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.180
ID  - Anikeeva2017/12
ER  -