Arunandi Sivacharya: The Teacher Who Sat Down

The Sivajnana Siddhiyar has two halves, and the first is a survey of everybody else.

Parapaksham, the other side, and it is a doxography: a systematic account of rival positions, stated and then answered.

Which is worth reading for what it is not. It is not a neutral survey, it is polemical, and each position is summarised in order to be refuted. What it is is a snapshot of what a well informed Tamil scholar of the thirteenth century thought the intellectual landscape looked like, and there is very little else of the kind.

The positions he takes up

One. Lokayata, the materialists, also Charvaka. Only what is perceived exists; consciousness is a product of the elements; there is no rebirth and no other world.

And note what its presence tells you: a school of philosophical materialism was a live enough position in thirteenth century Tamil country to require an answer first.

Two to five. The Buddhist schools, treated separately: Sautrantika, Yogachara, Madhyamaka and Vaibhashika, on momentariness, on mind only, on emptiness and on the analysis of the person.

Six. Jainism, on the soul, on karma as substance, and on anekantavada, the many sidedness of truth.

Seven. Ajivika, the school of Makkhali Gosala, which held a strict determinism, and which was extinct almost everywhere else by this period but was still remembered in the Tamil country.

Eight and nine. The two Mimamsa schools, Bhatta and Prabhakara, on ritual action as the sole content of scripture.

Ten. Sabdabrahmavada, the grammarians' position, that ultimate reality is of the nature of speech.

Eleven. Mayavada, the Advaita of Shankara, on Brahman alone being real and the world being an appearance.

Twelve. Bhedabheda, difference and non difference, the Bhaskara position.

Thirteen. Sankhya, in both its forms: nirisvara, without a Lord, and sesvara, with one, the second being the yoga school.

Fourteen. Pancharatra, the Vaishnava agamic tradition, which is the tradition of the previous batch in this series.

And then the Shaiva schools he disagrees with

Which is the interesting part.

He does not treat Shaivism as one thing. He takes up and rejects Pashupata, Mavratha, Kapalika, Vama, Bhairava and the Aikyavada Shaivas, all of whom worshipped Shiva.

Which is worth stating for a reader who assumes these traditions were monolithic: a Shaiva philosopher of the thirteenth century spent as much effort separating himself from other Shaivas as from Buddhists.

How this app treats the polemic

With three qualifications, stated openly.

One. The summaries are a Shaiva scholar's summaries.

The accounts of Buddhism and Jainism in particular reflect what a thirteenth century Tamil Shaiva understood them to say, and modern scholarship states several of those positions quite differently. Reading the Parapaksham as a reliable account of Buddhist doctrine would be a mistake.

Two. Refuting a school is not attacking people.

This is intellectual argument in the classical Indian mode, conducted according to strict conventions: state the opponent's position as they would, raise your objection, and let them answer.

And Buddhism and Jainism are dharmic traditions with which the Hindu traditions share a great deal, and this app covers Buddha Purnima and Mahavir Jayanti in the panchang and treats both with respect.

Three. The genre had a rule and it is worth knowing.

Purva paksha: you state the opponent's position first, in its strongest form, well enough that they would accept your statement of it, before you answer it.

Which is a better standard than almost anything in modern argument, and the fact that a polemical thirteenth century Tamil text observes it is worth noticing.

The second half

Suppaksham, our side: three hundred and twenty eight verses in twelve chapters, expounding the twelve sutras of the Sivajnana Bodam one by one.

And this is where the system in the previous entry gets its full statement: pati, pasu and pasam; the three impurities; the five acts; the sequence by which grace descends; and the nature of liberation as inseparable union rather than identity.

Which is why the Siddhiyar rather than the Bodam is what students actually read. The Bodam is twelve sentences. The Siddhiyar tells you what they mean.

One. He sat down.

The man called master of all the agamas, with the title, the school, the students and the family's confidence, went to examine a child, was answered, and reversed the relationship publicly.

And then spent the rest of his life saying so in writing, in the most prominent book the school has.

Applied: the test of whether you actually want to know things is what happens when the person who tells you something is junior to you.

Two. He stated the other side first.

Purva paksha is the rule of the genre: state your opponent's position, in its strongest form, well enough that they would accept your statement of it, before you answer.

Fourteen positions, each set out, from materialism to four schools of Buddhism to Jainism to Advaita to the Vaishnavas to the Shaivas he disagreed with.

Which is a better standard than almost any argument you will read this week, and it was being observed in a polemical Tamil text seven hundred years ago.

Three. Traditions are not monoliths.

He rejects Pashupata, Kapalika, Vama, Bhairava and the Aikyavada Shaivas, all of them Shiva worshippers, and spends as much effort on them as on the Buddhists.

Which is worth remembering whenever somebody tells you what Hinduism thinks about something. It has never agreed with itself about anything, and the disagreements are internal, ancient, and documented in detail.

Four. And the honest note about polemic.

The summaries of Buddhism and Jainism are a thirteenth century Shaiva's summaries, and modern scholarship states several of those positions differently. Refuting a school in a book is not attacking people, these are dharmic traditions the Hindu traditions share a great deal with, and this app treats both with respect.

Five. The Irupa Irupahtu.

Twenty verses by a great scholar to a child, asking questions and describing what receiving grace through another human being is like.

And it is the tradition's chief text on the guru for a specific reason: the school holds that Shiva takes human form as the teacher at the moment grace descends, and Arunandi is the person best placed to say what that felt like from the receiving end.

A daily practice from this entry:

• Om Namah Shivaya
• The purva paksha rule, applied once this week to something you disagree with: can you state it well enough that the person holding it would accept your statement
• A verse of the Sivajnana Siddhiyar in translation, if you can find one
• Nataraja, and the five acts

Where to go

• Thiruthuraiyur, Tamil Nadu, where he taught
• Thiruvennainallur, for Meykandar
• Chidambaram
• The Thiruvavaduthurai and Dharmapuram Adheenams, which still teach the Meykanda Shastras

A closing thought

A man who had been given the title master of all the agamas heard that a child in a village his own students came from was being talked about, and went there to settle the matter.

He asked the child a question, in public, with his own standing attached to how it went.

And then he sat down on the ground, and stayed there, and wrote three hundred and twenty eight verses explaining what the child had told him, and twenty more addressed to the child himself, and the school that came out of it is still being taught in Tamil Nadu seven hundred years later.

Who: Arunandi Sivacharya, thirteenth century, the second of the four Santana Acharyas of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta and the author of its longest expository work. Before that he was Sakalagama Pandita, the scholar of all the agamas, teaching at Thiruthuraiyur, and he was the acharya of Meykandar's family, having taught Meykandar's father Achyuta Kalappalar, so by the ordinary arrangement the child would have become his student.

The reversal: he heard the boy was being credited with something and went to test him, publicly, with his own standing attached to the outcome. The child answered, and Arunandi became his disciple. This required him to accept in front of the people who had been calling him master of all the agamas that a child knew something he did not, and to keep saying so for the rest of his life in the school's most prominent book.

The pattern: this series has now recorded the same shape several times, in different languages and centuries. Thirukoshtiyur Nambi embracing Ramanuja for breaking his instruction. Yadava Prakasha taking initiation from the student he expelled. Nanjiyar delighted to find his book improved by the boy who copied it. Nampillai approving the commentary written behind his back. These are the episodes a tradition would leave out if it were managing its reputation, and they are in the record because the traditions that kept them thought being overtaken was not a defeat.

The Irupa Irupahtu: twenty verses in two metres addressed to Meykandar, the most personal thing in the Shaiva Siddhanta corpus, written by a man of great learning to a child, asking questions and describing what receiving grace through a human being is like. It is the tradition's chief text on the guru, since the school holds that at the moment grace descends Shiva takes human form as the teacher.

The Sivajnana Siddhiyar: two halves. The Parapaksham surveys fourteen rival positions, stating and then refuting each: Lokayata materialism, four Buddhist schools, Jainism, Ajivika determinism, the two Mimamsas, the grammarians, Advaita, Bhedabheda, Sankhya in both forms, and Pancharatra, plus the Shaiva schools he rejects, Pashupata, Mavratha, Kapalika, Vama, Bhairava and Aikyavada. The Suppaksham expounds the twelve sutras of the Sivajnana Bodam in three hundred and twenty eight verses across twelve chapters, and it is what students actually read, since the Bodam is twelve sentences and the Siddhiyar tells you what they mean.

The honest qualifications: the summaries are a Shaiva scholar's summaries and modern scholarship states several of those positions differently, so the Parapaksham is not a reliable account of Buddhist doctrine. Refuting a school is not attacking people. And the genre's rule, purva paksha, requires stating the opponent's position in its strongest form before answering it, which is a better standard than almost anything in modern argument.