Women in Saivism

Women in Saivism

Saivism with its concept of BEING ( God) who presents Himself also as Ardhanari,  fully half-man and half-women holds within itself a view of EQUALITY between man and woman that needs to be  retold.



The Mythical Stories:


It is said that while Brahma holds KalaivaNi,  the Female of Wisdom and Scholarship in his mouth , VishNu holds Laxmi,. the Goddess of wealth and prosperity in his Heart, Siva in contrast holds Uma, as his equal half. 

The common adage goes that without Sakti there is no Siva and without Siva there is no Sakti. 

Sambantar dares to say that the Woman is also BEING ( PeN taan aaki ninRa pemmaan). Thus we can  see that for some very important reason the woman is held not only in high esteem but also given equality in Saivism.

Saivism is NOT peculiar to the South -- it is all over India and so is the image of Ardhanari and hence this view may be a pan Indian phenomenon though buried deep down by various new developments in Hinduism that have set aside such deep and metaphysically significant images.

Before I give some details (that may take several essays) let me state my view in a nutshell:

The anma in itself  is  neither man nor woman --it is FREE of sexual determinants. The sexuality is simply biological and hence not something ultimate on metaphysical grounds. Therefore when it comes to metaphysical/ religious  matters there should be NO DISCRIMINATION whatever between the sexes. However the inherited biological nature imposes some unconscious pressures and the male and female should  not  forget this. In this the WOMAN'S essence is  Motherhood and a man must promote and foster this MOTHERHOOD of a woman and in this consists his masculine Fatherhood.


Women Can be Great even in Metaphysics


The Tamil tradition right from the Sumerotamil period supports this. 

We have EnHudu Anna (2200 B.C) , not only the chief priestess of the main temple of Ur,  but also a brilliant philosopher , the most brilliant in the Third Millennium world whose Sirbiyam is a  delight even now. Then after a long gap we come  to CaGkam period ( 800 B.C to 300 A.D) where we have among so many brilliant lady poets the famous Auvvaiyar.

During the bakti period we have  Punitavati who set the model even for the Tevarat Tiruppatikam and who came with the deeply significant claim that it is aruL ( grace of BEING) that rules the world. We have also Andal Nacciyar whose Tirppaavai is a marvel of Bakti poetry and which are sung even to this day .

Later during the post bakti period we have Kaakkaipp Padiniyaar, the women Linguist who wrote a treatise on Prosody that was studied as a classic for  a long period and which exits till today. Subsequent to that we have Auvvaiyaar from the Chola period who wrote the Atticudi, the longest surviving school text book in the world. And several centuries later we have the Sittar Auvvaiyaar with her Auvaik kuRaL that is replete with deep metaphysical insights.

These are evidences to show that women can EXCEL in any intellectual field and in fact can be CREATIVE and show LEADERSHIP qualities provided they are given the opportunities.



ULLAGANAR

( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

Europeans and the Dravidians by Paulinus Tambimuttu

As I research more scholarly articles on the link between Sumerian and Tamil, I found this rare book which is very interesting. I cannot help by wonder why further research along this line of investigation is not taking place.

I am posting the link below for those who might be interested.

http://noolaham.net/project/45/4423/4423.pdf

The Tree of Knowledge in Tamil Philosophy

Recently and within Evolutionary Psychology , the notion that the different system of thinking especially the psychological can be understood within the model of  a TREE of Knowledge  has been proposed and which is interesting for  in Indian circles and as  part of the Indic Traditions, such a view has been in existence for a long time.. 


Below I give a brief summary of this way of looking at the philosophical thinking of man from the Tamil sources and how it exists as part of the Tamil Philosophical culture to this day.


1. The stage is set by Tolkaapiyar (~ 3rd cent. BCC) where he sees philosophical debates and other kinds of combats among the human beings as belonging to the Vaakai TiNai which is taken as the PuRam of Paalai, a kind of social behaviour of the inner  the Desert Landscape and hence symbolically meaning the seeking to attain, the INNER DESERT landscape and hence Inner radiance and hence the Sunyata. He mentions that six kinds of Paarppaan or Brahmins, the philosophers ( aRivar) of faultless behavior and who has or seek to understand all, the eight  kinds of Taabatars or Yogies  and so forth are the people who are in this combat 
and who would endeavor to establish that their philosophy is faultless. ( taavil koLkait tatam kuuRRaip, paakupada mikutip paduttal enpa)

This parallels the notion of Parishads that is mentioned in the Upanishads.


2. We see a further development of this in the Camayak KaNNakar tam tiRangk keedda kaatai of Manimekalai, ( ~6th cent) where MaNimekelai, the heroine seeks to UNDERSTAND to the different schools of thought  before deciding that they are defective and the Buddha Dharma with its Logical Positivism  is the correct one. The different schools - the Samkhya,  Mimamsa , Nyaya , Vaisesika,  Saiva , VaishNava and so forth are simply DISMISSED as erroneous in a summary manner.


3. Then we have Civanjana Siddhyar ( 13th cent) where all the philosophical schools are are not only described but also DISCONSTRUCTED very elaborately,  a marvel of philosophical achievement that remains unparalleled to this day. All the different philosophies of India are collected together and organized into Parapakkam and Supakkam, where in the Parappakkam are included philosophies that are Discontructible while in the Suppakkam, the TRUTH understood here as that which CANNOT be disconstructed. This line of philosophical thinking is continued in SaGkaRpa NiraakaraNam of Umapati and the massive NjanavaraNa  viLLakkam of Gurunjana Sambantar and so forth. Tattuvap Pirakaasam 9 15th cent) also contains elements of 
this.


4. At about the same we have the Civapprikasa Tiraddu of one Sivaprakasar who very clearly organized all the different philosophies into a model of TREE with the different philosophical systems as the various branches. There is no attempt to DISCONSTRUCt but only an attempt to see the different philosophies of the human mind growing like the branches of a TREE and hence evolutionary in nature.


5. This gives way to simply a mere collection of Philosophies in such books as Vedanta Manana SintamaNi (18th or 19th cent) where the representative texts of ALL the major philosophical systems ( already in Tamil) are collected  together so that the the Philosophical Mind is exposed to the different ways in which mankind has thought leaving the stresses they create in the mind of the readers, enjoy illuminations as a result of it. Something similar is perhaps is also the intention of  Swami VidhyaraNya's Sarva Darsana Sangraham (~ 15th cent?)



ULLAGANAR
( 19-5-2002, AT )

( editing and re=paragraphing by his student )