THE HISTOEY OP MANIKKA-VACAGAK. 127 



mitted, there is no room for condemnation of the stoiy as a sjjecimen of 

 divine action.* 



* The composite character of what may be called the Caiva religion is very 

 marked ; it has borrowed much from diverse sources, and is accordingly full of in- 

 consistencies, sometimes speaking the language of absolute pantheism, and then 

 ■again seeming to grasj) most firmly the idea of a personal divinity, who is at once 

 the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroj-er of all things. The original idea of 

 Civa is found in the Vedas, but the name is simply a euphemism meaning ' pro- 

 pitious ' or ' gracious.' Another name seldom found is Carva, ' the Destroyer.' It 

 seems most probable that with the idea of Eudra, the god of the Storm, and Agni, 

 the god of Fii-e, is mixed up the notion of an aboriginal demon such as are still wor- 

 shipped in the south of India. In the hymns to Civa the most incongruous epithets 

 are applied and actions ascribed to him. At one time, we see Civa in Kailaca, the 

 Silver Mountain (Note X), surrounded by all the gods in awful state, supreme ruler 

 of all the woidds ; at another time he is represented as wandering in the jungle or from 

 village to village, smeared with ashes from the biu-ning ground, a horrible and dis- 

 gusting object. Ho he was reviled by Daksha. He is at once an awful deity, a 

 froUcsome and mischievous man with superhuman powers, and a ferocious demon; 

 ■and so his Catti, or spouse, who is worshipped under a vast variety of names 

 throughout all India, is sometimes the gracious and beautiful mother and sometimes 

 the fearful and malignant DuRGA. There is good reason to suppose that the wor- 

 ship of this malignant demoness may have been an original cult of the jn-c-Aryan 

 races of India. In this way every species of inconsistency is to be found in the 

 hjanns which are sung in honour of Civa and his spouse. Wherever two views have 

 been held with regard to C4od, the Caiva system asserts them both without the least 

 attempt to reconcile them or qualify them, indicating thereby the deep feeling of 

 which many illustrations will be found in the translations of Caiva poetrj^, that the 

 thought of God so transcends human intellect that all statements regarding Him 

 contain some truth, and none are adequate, so that all may be alike afRrmed and 

 denied. There is no doubt that the gaivites of the South learnt the necessity of a 

 ^^sible divine Guru, an incarnate Teacher, first of all from Buddhism. The most 

 elaborate arguments are to be found directed to the establishment of the proposition 

 that man can only receive divine teaching from one who is both God and man. 

 This is perhaps the most prominent doctrine of Caivism : The true Guru is an 

 incarnation of Civa. (Note IV.) Another leuet that the Caivites alone among Indian 

 sects maintain is the conscious immortality of the souls of the faithful. Ten different 

 theories of the heavenly state are recounted in the Civa-praga^am, of which the last 

 is the authorised teaching of the ^aiva Siddhanta ijhilosophy. The soul in Mtikti, 

 or the state of release, retains its individual consciousness, remains for evermore a 

 separate existence, sharing the blessedness and wisdom of the Supreme, but uu- 

 mingled with His essence. In fact, the doctrine held by the Caivites on this head is 

 hardly to be distinguished from Christian doctrine. (Note III.) 



The prayers and hymns addressed to Civa contemplate him in every aspect, and 

 are accordingly exceedingly inconsistent, mingling the most puerile conceptions with 

 those that are in the highest degree exalted. Again, the controversies of the Caivites 

 with Jains and Buddhists in the South have led to a very elaborate system of mystic 

 interpretation. Whatever ^iva does or says has some mystic meaning ; such meaning 

 being sometimes exceedingly edifying and elevated, but appearing very often to be 

 forced and unnatural. One is tempted to say that the myths often obscure and 

 even neutralise the truths which they are supposed to symbolise. The Caivites 

 are now divided into several sects, which agree in scarcely anything but the assertion 

 of the supremacy of Civa. 



