Later works and commentaries

A commentary makes the steps of an argument visible and lets the reader return to the original words with greater understanding.

✦The text and its unfolding

Meykandar's Bodham already contains more than twelve bare sentences. Its Vartikam divides the statements into arguments, and its illustrative venbas help readers follow them. A later commentator works with that structure: the sutra, its divisions, its reasoning and its illustrations.

This matters when a familiar word carries a particular philosophical meaning. “Knowing,” for example, can describe the soul's awareness of an object or the grace through which it knows Siva. A commentary asks which meaning the passage requires. It can also explain a grammatical connection, bring another passage beside it, or state an objection before answering it.

These are descriptions of work done by a book. Length alone cannot tell us whether its explanation is close to a reader's present question.

✦How to keep the older voice audible

A useful way to read is to hold three things apart: the wording of the Sastra, the commentator's explanation, and the thought it awakens in us. The explanation may be persuasive, but it remains an explanation of particular words. Reading the verse again after the prose makes that relationship visible.

Pramanam, the means of valid knowledge, is one reason these books pay attention to arguments. An assertion about the soul cannot rest only on how familiar it sounds. The commentator asks what establishes it and what follows from it. That discipline carries through to the reader's own understanding.

Sivagnana Munivar gave the Bodham both a concise explanation and an extended Tamil philosophical commentary.

✦An eighteenth-century teacher

Sivagnana Munivar, சிவஞான முனிவர், also called Sivagnana Swamigal or Sivagnana Yogi, belonged to Tiruvavaduthurai Adheenam. He worked in Tamil grammar as well as Saiva philosophy and taught disciples in the setting of the monastery. Literary histories place him in the eighteenth century and record his death in 1785. His grammatical writing matters to his philosophical work: the connection between words is part of the connection between thoughts.

✦Two commentaries, two distances of reading

The Sivagnanabodha Sirrurai, சிவஞானபோதச் சிற்றுரை, is his shorter commentary on Sivagnana Bodham. It offers a compact route through the statements and their explanation. A 1940 printing brings the Bodham's text, vartikam and illustrations together with Munivar's Sirrurai and additional explanations by Subramania Desikar.

The Dravida Mapadiyam, திராவிட மாபாடியம், also called Sivagnana Mapadiyam, சிவஞான மாபாடியம், is his extended commentary on the same work. Its title corresponds to Dravida Mahabhashya, a Tamil extended commentary. It unfolds the Bodham through close reading and philosophical reasoning, taking time over distinctions that a shorter explanation can only state.

For a reader moving between them, the question is practical. A concise account helps hold the argument together. The longer work gives room to examine why a particular interpretation follows, which alternative it excludes, and how the passage belongs with the rest of the doctrine. Moving back and forth can be more fruitful than treating completion of a long book as the sole aim.

✦The distinction a reader carries forward

In Bodham sutra 3, the soul is distinguished from the body and the instruments through which it acts. A commentary can unfold the significance of saying “my body,” the limits of sense-awareness, and the relation between the knower and what it uses. Those questions then accompany the reader into sutras 4 and 5 rather than remaining isolated definitions.

Munivar also wrote a Supakkam pozhppurai, சுபக்கப் பொழிப்புரை, on Sivagnana Siddhiar. He belongs to the commentary history of both works. The dates of these writings lie within his eighteenth-century activity; individual completion years are not securely established.

Six Supakkam commentaries preserve several centuries of close reading, while Sivagrayogi also wrote on the Sanskrit Sivajnanabodha.

Sivagnana Siddhiar has two parts: Parapakkam, பரபக்கம், examining other philosophical positions, and Supakkam, சுபக்கம், setting out the Siddhanta position. The familiar Aruvar urai, அறுவர் உரை, brings together six commentators on Supakkam. It is a particular gathered set, rather than a complete list of everyone who wrote on Siddhiyar.

✦The six names

The centuries are approximate, and literary histories differ on the placement of some earlier commentators.

The Gnanaprakasar in this set is distinguished from Tiruvotriyur Gnanaprakasar, whose name occurs among the Parapakkam commentators. Keeping the two parts and the two names apart prevents a book on one part from being mistaken for another.

✦Sivagrayogi beyond the gathered set

Sivagrayogi, also written Sivagra Yogin, wrote on the Sanskrit Sivajnanabodha, சிவஞானபோதம், as well as on the Tamil Siddhiyar. His Laghutika is a concise Sanskrit commentary; his extended Sivajnanabodha Bhashya, often called Sivagrabhashya, is a separate work. These belong beside the Tamil Bodham in the study of Saiva thought, with attention to their respective texts and languages.

A commentary's use of Tamil and Sanskrit together can carry technical distinctions between Agamic teaching and Tamil philosophical expression. Reading across the languages requires attention to the argument, not merely replacing one word with its apparent equivalent.

Teaching manuals organise the distinctions that students repeatedly need, from valid knowledge to the soul's embodied instruments and release.

✦Questions that can be carried in memory

Siddhanta Gnana Ratnavali, சித்தாந்த ஞான ரத்தினாவளி, is a question-and-answer manual credited in an early twentieth-century journal notice to S. Palvanna Mudaliar, ச. பால்வண்ண முதலியார். Its English presentation begins with valid knowledge and goes on to the Sastras, tattvas, the Lord, the soul and spiritual practice. It lets a teacher ask for a definition and then unfold its meaning. Its original publication date remains uncertain.

Placed beside Unmai Vilakkam and Sivagnana Bodham, such a manual gives a reader a store of distinctions to draw upon. The answer learned by heart becomes useful when the teacher can ask why it is true and how it bears on the passage being read.

✦Tattva Kattalai and the ninety-sixfold account

Tattva Kattalai, தத்துவக் கட்டளை, is a title used for works that arrange philosophical categories. The Tamil work translated by H. R. Hoisington in 1854 sets out thirty-six primary principles and a further sixty subordinate categories, making ninety-six. Its Tamil author and composition date are not securely established.

The thirty-six tattvas describe the principles through which the world and the soul's instruments are articulated. The broader ninety-sixfold manuals also arrange bodily and experiential categories, including channels, vital winds and dispositions. Their teaching interest lies in the relation between a knowing soul and the many conditions through which embodied life occurs. The 36 Tattvas gives the central cosmological arrangement.

A bodily category and a principle in the thirty-sixfold order do different explanatory work. Holding that distinction lets us read a ninety-sixfold account without imagining ninety-six successive cosmic principles. These are inherited descriptions of embodied life; their categories are not interchangeable with those of modern anatomy.

✦Explaining the inward sequence

Unmai Neri Vilakkam, உண்மை நெறி விளக்கம், presents dasa karya, the tenfold sequence of spiritual understanding. Tamil explanations by I. Chelladurai, இ. செல்லத்துரை, and Isuramurthi Pillai, ஈசுரமூர்த்திப் பிள்ளை, are listed among its commentaries. Their publication dates remain uncertain. A separately documented 1978 Kasi Math printing gives the work with explanatory prose.

Commentary is particularly helpful with words such as “form,” “vision” and “purification.” The reader needs to understand whether the text is describing a principle, the soul's recognition of it, or freedom from identification with it. The tenfold account can then be read beside Sivaprakasam, rather than as a sequence of experiences to claim from a list.

✦Monastic teaching works

The Pandara Sastras, பண்டார சாத்திரங்கள், of Tiruvavaduthurai include works on instruction and contemplative steadiness. The collected titles include Dasakariyam, தசகாரியம், under Ambalavana Desikar, Dakshinamurti Desikar and Swaminatha Desikar, and Upadesa Venba, உபதேச வெண்பா, under Ambalavana Desikar. These give further teaching forms beside the fourteen, with particular attention to understanding and living their doctrine.

Monastic teaching and publishing put the text, its explanation and a community of readers within reach of one another.

✦Teaching beside the printed book

The Adheenams preserve more than the possession of a manuscript or a printed volume. Their work joins teachers, disciples, libraries, worship and publication. The Adheenams describes these institutions and the lines of teaching through which the Sastras have remained in use.

Tiruvavaduthurai is part of Munivar's scholarly setting and the home of the Pandara teaching works named above. Dharmapuram supports Siddhanta research, publications and organised classes; its account of its evening colleges describes a four-year course concerned with religion, philosophy, spiritual literature and the Sastras. The Kasi Math at Tiruppanandal is represented in the 1978 Unmai Neri Vilakkam printing. These examples show several ways an institution can bring older writing into continued study.

Printed books give this work a portable form. A reader can keep the Sastra and its urai together, revisit the teacher's explanation, and place another commentary beside it. A library preserves the different voices through which a short text has been read over time. Publication makes some of those voices available beyond the monastery.

✦Why prose matters in a classroom

A student may know a sutra by heart but need help following its reasoning. The teacher can move from the remembered words to a connected explanation, pause at a difficult distinction, and then return to the sutra. A question-and-answer manual helps make the vocabulary familiar; an extended commentary supplies space for the argument.

The reading order used on this site begins with Unmai Vilakkam, then Tiruvarutpayan, Sivaprakasam, Sivagnana Siddhiar and Sivagnana Bodham. Later writing can accompany that movement. The concise work gives an orientation; the next text tests and deepens it. Individual teachers can adapt their choice of companion books to the readers before them.

Translators, philosophers and literary historians opened different routes into the Sastras and their commentaries.

✦Works and what they offer

The years below name publications or specified printings. They let a reader place a book in the history of study without treating a later printing as the date of the older text it discusses.

For a reader who reads only English: begin with Pope's Tiruvasagam or Vanmikanathan's two books for the hymns and the saints, then Schomerus or Dhavamony for the doctrine.

✦Different ways of opening a book

A translation carries an argument into another language. Its notes can help readers who do not yet read the Tamil fluently. A philosophical study follows a problem across several works: the relation between Siva and the soul, the validity of knowledge, or the possibility of release. A literary history asks how the texts belong within a sequence of authors, forms and earlier writing.

These approaches can be used together. A reader of Bodham sutra 2 may begin with its Tamil wording, turn to a translation for the connected sense, and then read a philosophical study on the relation between the Lord, souls and karma. Returning to the sutra keeps that wider study attached to a definite passage.

English words such as “soul,” “bond” and “non-duality” carry their own histories. The Tamil terms Pasu, Pasam and Advaitam keep the reader close to the distinctions made in the Sastras. A glossary offers a beginning; following the term through an argument gives it substance.

Read an older text with its explanation, then use a manual or scholarly study to follow one question further.

✦Commentaries and teaching books

• Tamil Digital Library: Sivagnanabodha Sirrurai, 1940: the Bodham, its vartikam and illustrations, Munivar's shorter commentary and Subramania Desikar's additional explanations.
• Shaivam: Meykanda Sastras and commentaries: gathered listings for the Mapadiyam, the six Siddhiyar commentaries and other explanations of the fourteen texts.
• Himalayan Academy: Sivagnana Bodha with Sivagrayogi's Laghutika: Sanskrit text and English presentation of the concise commentary.
• National Mission for Manuscripts: Sivajnanabodha Bhashyam: a Sanskrit publication of Sivagrayogi's extended commentary, with an introduction.
• Siddhanta Gnana Ratnavali and its tattva chapter: the English question-and-answer presentation.
• Internet Archive: Hoisington's three treatises, 1854: Tattuva-Kattalei, Siva-Gnana-Potham and Siva-Pirakasam; an early translation whose vocabulary reflects its period.
• Tamil Digital Library: Unmai Neri Vilakkam with explanatory prose, 1978: the Kasi Math publication from Tiruppanandal.
• Shaivam: Tiruvavaduthurai Pandara Sastras: titles in the monastic teaching collection.

✦Modern study

• Tamil Digital Library: Nallaswami Pillai's Bodham, 1895.
• Internet Archive: Nallaswami Pillai's Studies in Saiva-Siddhanta, 1911.
• Tamil Digital Library: Devasenapathi's Saiva Siddhanta, 1966.
• Roja Muthiah Research Library: Sivaraman's Saivism in Philosophical Perspective, 1973: bibliographic details for the printed book.
• Internet Archive: Pope's Tiruvacagam, 1900: the Tamil text with his translation and introduction.
• Motilal Banarsidass: Schomerus's Saiva Siddhanta in English, 2000.
• Center for Research Libraries: Vanmikanathan's Pathway to God through Tamil Literature, 1971: catalogue details.
• RelBib: Dhavamony's Love of God according to Saiva Siddhanta, 1971: catalogue details.
• CiNii: Vanmikanathan's Periya Puranam, 1985: catalogue details.
• Tamil Digital Library: Vellaivarananar's Saiva Siddhanta Sastra Varalaru, 2002.

✦Classes to listen to

• Karka Trust on YouTube: Ilangai Jayaraj's classes on Saiva Siddhanta.

✦Institutions and companion reading

• Dharmapuram: publications and Siddhanta evening colleges.
• The Adheenams and Pann and the Oduvars: the institutions that keep the teaching and the voices that carry the hymns.
• Sivagnana Bodham, Sivagnana Siddhiar, Unmai Vilakkam, Sivaprakasam, Tiruvarutpayan and Unmai Neri Vilakkam: the older works to keep beside their explanations.