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    தமிழ்

    The path round the hill

    Nine rounds circling Arunachala, each a little higher than the last, and every page on them. The rounds you have walked and the one you are on are open; those ahead are named but still in mist, until the path brings you to them.

    How this path works

    The site is laid out as a journey round Arunachala: nine rounds, walked clockwise, each a little higher than the last.

    • Each teaching is a lamp on the path. Read it and answer the few questions at its end, right or wrong, and its lamp is lit. A lit lamp shows how far you have walked, not how well you have understood.
    • Each teaching holds one gem for each of its sections, and one for its questions at the end, so some teachings hold more gems than others. The gem beside a section's heading lights as you read it.
    • Part way round, the gate inward leads behind the hill to the inner path: a little stillness, something to carry, a small practice. What happens there is yours alone and is never recorded.
    • The gate outward brings you back to the front of the hill to walk the rest of the round.
    • When every lamp of a round is lit, its lotus blooms: one circuit of the hill is complete.
    • The rounds above are in mist until you reach them. Any page can still be opened; the path only suggests.
    • Nine rounds lead to the summit, where the lamp is lit. The hill and its rounds are this site's own picture of an order of reading; the tradition does not lay them down, and reaching the summit marks the end of the reading, not a spiritual attainment.
    • Your journey is kept only on this device. A journey code carries it to another.
    • Some pages stand beside the path. When a lamp is lit, its page may offer one; reading it lays a small flower by that lamp. A flower lights nothing and is never needed.

    1. Round 1 · வருகை

      Arrival

      What Saiva Siddhanta is, the words everything else is built on, and worship at home and in the temple.

    2. Round 2 · அடியார்களும் அவர்கள் பாடல்களும்

      The saints and their songs

      The sixty-three Nayanmars, and the four whose hymns are sung in every temple: Sambandar, Appar, Sundarar and Manikkavasagar.

    3. Round 3 · திருத்தலங்கள்

      Sacred places

      The temples the saints sang, the shrines of the five elements and the jyotirlingas, the dance at Chidambaram, the festivals, the singers and the monasteries.

    4. Round 4 · திருமுறை முழுவதும்

      The full Tirumurai

      The rest of the twelve Tirumurais: the other Tevaram volumes, the Tiruvisaippa, the Tirumantiram and the Prabandha Malai, and the saints who came after.

    5. Round 5 · கொள்கை

      The doctrine

      The whole philosophy, step by step, where the hymns and the Sastras meet, and the first two Sastras to read.

    6. Round 6 · சிறு சாத்திரங்கள்

      The shorter Sastras

      The two oldest Sastras, Arulnandi's twenty verses of twenty, and Umapathi's first short works.

    7. Round 7 · உமாபதியும் பின்வந்தவையும்

      Umapathi and after

      Umapathi Sivacharya's remaining works, and the commentaries and later books that carried the Sastras forward.

    8. Round 8 · பெரும் விரிவுரை

      The great exposition

      The Sastras that set out the whole doctrine, and how the great sayings are read.

    9. Round 9 · வேர்

      The root

      "I am That" as Siddhanta reads it, and the twelve sutras that hold the whole of Saiva Siddhanta.

    At the summit: The Deepam. What is found there is shown on arrival.

    Walked this path before?

    9 questions, one from each early teaching. Answer what you can; the path will light the lamps you already carry and show you where to walk on.

    Question 1

    1. What does the word "Siddhanta" mean?

    Question 2

    2. Who are the four Samaya Kuravars?

    Question 3

    3. In Saiva Siddhanta, what is Pati?

    Question 4

    4. How many impurities (malas) hold the soul?

    Question 5

    5. Why does Siva create the world, in Saiva Siddhanta?

    Question 6

    6. Why does Siva provide the soul with a body and a world?

    Question 7

    7. In Siddhanta, who comes to the ripe soul as its guru?

    Question 8

    8. Which way is service in the temple, such as cleaning and making garlands?

    Question 9

    9. When the soul is freed, what happens to it in Siddhanta?

    Your journey code

    Your journey is kept only on this device. To carry it to another phone or computer, write down this code and enter it there. It holds only which lamps are lit; nothing about you.

    Your journey is kept only in this browser.

    The path round the hill

      The whole path