Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity and Persecution in Medieval India (Alexis Sanderson)

8/17/2019 Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity and Persecution in Medieval India (Alexis Sanderson)

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Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity,

and Persecution in Indian Religion

During the Early Mediaeval Period

ALEXIS SANDERSON

INTRODUCTION

I period from the fifth century of the Christian era onwards, if not earlier,there existed a single Hindu religion, embracing Vaidika orthopraxy in ac-

cordance with primary and secondary Vedic revelation (Śruti and Smr˙ti) together

with the sectarian traditions of the worship of Vis˙n˙u, Śiva, Devī, and the Sun God

(Sūrya), to mention only the foremost among the deities that attracted personaldevotion, that is to say, those whose worship is attested not only in countless tem-ples surviving from that period in the Indian subcontinent and much of SouthEast Asia but also in numerous donative inscriptions and extensive bodies of pre-scriptive literature. It is also widely believed that this complex unity displays anexemplary degree of religious tolerance, not only between Vaidikas, Vais

˙n˙avas,

Śaivas, Śāktas, and Sauras, but also between these and the followers of the othertwo major Indian faiths of the age, namely Buddhism and Jainism.

. For a survey of the major proponents of this doctrine of the essentially eirenic and tolerant natureof Hinduism see VERARDI , pp. –. (For full bibliographic details see References at the end of thisessay).

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One who wishes to challenge the first of these beliefs might begin by pointingout that before the advent of Islam India lacked any term even loosely correspond-ing in its semantic range to that of the modern term Hinduism. Sanskrit sourcesdifferentiated Vaidika, Vais

˙n˙ava, Śaiva, Śākta, Saura, Buddhist, and Jaina tradi-

tions, but they had no name that denotes the first five of these as a collective entityover and against Buddhism and Jainism.

. The term Hindu (Arabic and Persian hindū), first used by Muslims to refer to the inhabitants ofHind, that is to say, the lands east of the Indus river, who had not embraced Islam, does not appear inany non-Muslim Indian source known to me before the work of the Kashmirian brahmin court historianŚrīvara, learned in both Sanskrit and Persian, who uses it in the late fifteenth century in the Sanskri-tized form hindukah

˙

to refer in the Indo-Islamic manner to those in the population of Kashmir who

were not Muslims (variously called yavanāḣ, mlecchāḣ, turuṡkāḣ, and mausulāḣ in Kashmirian Sanskritsources). He does so in his Zaynataraṅgin

˙ī ( Jainataraṅgin

˙ī ), covering the last years of the reign of Sult

˙ān

Zayn al-‘Ābidīn (–), and, in the second chapter, the short reign (–) of his son andsuccessor H

˙aydar Šāh, and his Rājataraṅgin

˙ī , covering the reign of H

˙asan Šāh (–) and the first

two years of the reign of Muh˙ammad Šāh (–). The passages in these works in which the term

hindukah˙ is found are Zaynataraṅgin

˙ī .–: oppression of certain Muslims (yavanāh

˙) by Hindus

(hindukāh˙) leading on the Sult

˙ān’s orders to retaliatory oppression of the brahmins (dvijapīd

˙anam);

Rājataraṅgin˙ī .ab: Sult

˙ān H

˙asan Šāh’s mother Gul Khātūn is lamented after her death as one who

had been to the observances of the Hindus like the sun that causes the lotus to open its petals ( hindu-kasamācāraśatapatraraviprabhām); .: some pro-Muslim (mausulavallabhāh

˙) merchants who had

observed Hindu customs from birth (ājanmahindukācārāh˙) slaughter a cow; .–: after the death

of the tolerant Sult˙ān Zayn al-‘Ābidīn the kingdom became bereft of proper Hindu observance; every

year more of the calendrical rites prescribed in the [Nīlamata]purān˙a lapsed; and some merchants,

favouring the Muslims (mausulapriyāh˙), gave up the observances proper for them as Hindus (svoci-

tam· hindukācāram

· tyaktvā ), slaughtering cows and eating their flesh, ashamed of the ways of their

ancestors. For the distinction between Śrīvara’s two works, hitherto concealed by their publicationas successive parts of a single Rājataraṅgin

˙ī (KAUL ), I follow SLAJE . The second work begins

with the third chapter of the consolidated edition (Rājataraṅgin˙ī . as cited here = . of KAUL’s

edition). The evidence of Śrīvara’s learning in Persian, which after the advent of Muslim rule in Kashmirin had replaced Sanskrit as the language of court culture, is his Kāvya Kathākautuka, a rendering inSanskrit of ‘Abd al-Rah

˙mān Jāmi’s celebrated Persian narrative poem Yusof o Zoleykā of .

There may be an earlier use of the word by a non-Muslim Indian author. I merely report the earliestuses that I have encountered, these being a century earlier than the earliest occurrences previouslynoted, namely those in texts of the Gaud· īya Vais·n· ava tradition, beginning with the Caitanyabhāgavata of Vrr· ndāvanadāsa, c. , cited by HALBFASS (, p. ) following O’CONNELL (). There, as in theusage of Śrīvara, the term always appears in contexts of conflict with, or in opposition to, Islam. I notealso that the term does not occur in the Rājataraṅgin

˙ī of Śrīvara’s teacher Jonarāja, which covers the

history of Kashmir from to (the year of his death). When Jonarāja refers to the ancestralreligion of his community he uses the language of the insider, terming it sadācārah

˙ ‘orthopraxy’ ()

and brāhmakriyā () ‘rites prescribed by the Veda’, opposing it to the ‘sinful observances of the Mus-

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, , , . . .

However, the absence of a name does not entail the absence of a correspondingconcept. Tere is evidence, as we shall see, that by the end of the first millenniumof the Christian era the consensus had indeed come to conceptualize a complexentity corresponding to Hinduism as opposed to Buddhism and Jainism, exclud-ing only certain forms of antinomian Śākta-Śaiva observance that could not bereconciled with basic Vaidika values of ritual purity and the separation of castes.

Conservative authorities continued to rail against this soft-focus ‘Hinduism’,with its blurring of the boundaries between the Vaidika and the non-Vaidika,well into the second millennium of the Christian era, the Vaidikas insisting thatthe prescriptions of the Vais

˙n˙ava (Pāñcarātrika) and Śaiva scriptures are in-

valid in their entirety, being based on scriptures that are not part of the Veda

or rooted therein (vedamūla-),

the Śaivas insisting on the absolute superiority oftheir own revelations and the ultimate inefficacity of those of the Vaidikas andthe Vais

˙n˙avas, and the Vais

˙n˙avas insisting that they too were Vaidikas in spite of

Vaidika rejection and in keeping with this insistence fervently condemning theŚaivas, in spite of the fact that the Śaiva and Vais

˙n˙ava systems of observance

lims’, by which, he says, the kingdom of Kashmir had been defiled (kaśmīraman˙d ˙ale mlecchadurācāren

˙a

dūs˙ite [ab]).One may ask whether when the term Hindu was introduced following Islamic usage it was used

to refer to Hindus in the modern sense, that is to say, to Hindus as opposed to Buddhists and Jainas, orwas used to cover the followers of all three non-Islamic religions. It is probable that it was used in thenarrower sense, since several centuries earlier the great Khwarezmian scholar Abū Rayh

˙ān Moh

˙am-

mad b. Ahmad Bīrūnī (Al-bīrūnī, Alberuni) (–) clearly distinguishes Hindus and Buddhists in hisIndological magnum opus Ketāb tah

˙qīq mā le’l-Hend men maqūla maqbūla fi’l-‘aql aw mardūla (entitled

India in SACHAU ’s two-volume English translation []); see, e.g., vol. of that translation, p. .

. An outstanding case of this conservative stance is that of Aparāditya, a twelfth-century ruler ofNorth Konkan, who devoted much learned effort to resisting the drift into acceptance of the initiatedŚaivas in his long comment on Yājñavalkyasmr

˙ ti ., the verse that lists all the valid means of knowing

one’s religious duties (dharmapramān˙āni ) (vol. , pp. –).

. The Vais˙n˙ava stance has been expounded with great clarity by Yāmuna in his Āgamaprāmān

˙ya.

According to Śrīvais˙n˙ava tradition, his life span was AD /–, a barely credible or years.

MESQUITA () has proposed that he lived from / to . The attempt of Yāmuna in South Indiato persuade the deeply sceptical Vaidikas that the Bhāgavatas are real brahmins reflects a wider strug-gle. For the objections raised by the Vaidikas against the Bhāgavatas’ claim as presented by Yāmunaare found in much the same form about a century earlier in Kashmir in Jayanta’s topical play Āgama-d ˙ambara, where they appear on the lips of a disgruntled Vaidika officiant (r

˙ tvik), who complains bitterly



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have much more in common with each than either has with the Vaidika. But themiddle ground saw in Śaivas and Pāñcarātrika Vais

˙n˙avas proper, that is to say,

in those who had taken initiation (dīks˙ā) into these soteriologies and practised

their special rites, only variants of observance applicable to specific communitiesadded to the ancient bedrock of Vaidika religion without detriment to the latter;and this view came, as we shall also see, to be accepted not only by the orthopraxbut also by many, perhaps even most, of the initiated themselves. As for the un-initiated, whose only rite of religious empowerment had been the upanayanamthat qualified a man for Vaidika observance and the recitation of the Veda, theyhad themselves long since developed their own modes of Vaidika worship of thedeities of the initiated and integrated them into their daily rites, privileging one

deity as an expression of personal devotion but generally including the others ina syncretistic approach that, through its daily repetition in countless households,must have done much to express and nourish this sense of the greater unity thatcame to be called Hinduism.

Te thinking behind the concept of this as yet unnamed Hinduism is by itsnature more tolerant than the views that we shall see below of the strict adherentsof its competing components. But it is strictly brahmanical: Buddhism and Jain-ism remain invalid in this thinking.

However, while certain states did at times adopt a hostile attitude towardsthese two non-Vaidika faiths, we may surmise that in general it was not politic forIndian and Southeast Asian governments during the early mediaeval period to

adopt a policy that strongly disadvantaged their Buddhist and, in the case of thesubcontinent, Jaina subjects. As we shall see, this supra-brahmanical perspective,which I see as an answer to the socio-legal question of what forms of religion thestate should tolerate or support and which are truly beyond the pale of the per-missible, also finds its voice in the learned literature of our period. Stopping short

about the attempts of the Bhāgavatas to intrude themselves into the brahmin community by pretend-ing to be brahmins themselves (., prose, ., prose).

. On the intimate connection between the Pañcarātra and the Śaiva tradition of the Mantramārgasee SANDERSON a, pp. –.



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, , , . . .

of accepting that all forms of religion are within the law or, rather, that any formof religion is above the law, since it excludes the most blatant forms of antinomianobservance, it nonetheless requires tolerance of these long-established traditions.

In this perspective it may be said that Indian and Southeast Asian states gen-erally propagated tolerance in matters of religion. But it is not the case that anyof the individual religions that came within the purview of this tolerance weretolerant by nature. Te long-entrenched contrary view, that the Indian religionswere essentially tolerant, cannot reasonably be maintained in the face of the care-fully formulated views of the adherents of these Indian traditions and evidence ofsporadic outbreaks of intolerance and persecution. If the religions that flourishedduring the early mediaeval period in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia

enjoyed in many regions and periods an enviable degree of peaceful co-existence,this must be explained not through an argument from essence, which leads in-evitably to the overlooking or dismissing of contrary evidence, but in terms of abalance of influence in which no one religious tradition was in a position of suchstrength that it could rid society of its rivals, a balance of power sustained by thepolicy of governments.

VAIDIKA EXCLUSIVITY

Let us now begin by looking at the extremes that reject or contradict this unity.Any claim that tolerance of religious diversity is at the heart of Hinduism mustoverlook the view of the Vaidikas, whose theoreticians flatly denied the validity

of any religious practice that was undertaken on the authority of texts lying out-side the Veda (vedabāhyāni), that is to say, outside the Vaidika scriptural corpusof Śruti and such secondary literature (Smr

˙ti) as was accepted to derive from it.

Tus in the ninth or tenth century Medhātithi states in his erudite commentaryon the Manusmr

˙ti:

. On the probable date of Medhātithi see KANE , p. .

. Manubhāsya , vol. , p. , ll. –.



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So all those outside [the Veda], namely the worshippers of the Sun (bhojaka-),

the followers of the [Vais˙n˙

ava] Pañcarātra, the Jainas, the [Buddhist] deniersof the self (anātmavādi-), the Pāśupatas, and the rest, hold that their doctrineshave been authored by exceptional persons or deities who have had direct ex-perience of the truth they teach. Tey do not claim that their religious prac-

tices derive [like ours] from the [eternal and unauthored (apaurus˙eya-)] Veda;

and indeed their teachings contain doctrines that directly contradict it.

Similarly, the seventh-century Mīmām˙

saka Kumārila declares:

Te texts that may not be drawn on, because they contradict the Veda and

because we can detect their [base] motives, are, we are taught, [the following.Firstly they are] these well-known works of religion-cum-irreligion rejected byVaidikas and accepted [as scriptures] by the Sām

˙khyas, the followers of the

Yoga school, the Pāñcarātrika Vais˙n˙

avas, the Pāśupatas, the Buddhists, and

the Jainas. Tese hide in the shadow cast by a screen of pious observance con-

. The term bhojakah˙ denotes the Maga or Magabrāhman

˙a officiants of the Sūrya cult (Old Persian

magu-), descendants of Pahlavas who established kingdoms in Northwest India in the first century BC.It renders Middle Iranian *bōžak, ‘one who saves’ (SCHEFTELOWITZ , pp. –).

. I have emended the edition’s nirgranthānārthavāda- to nirgranthānātmavādi- , since anārthavāda yields no meaning, while anātmavādi- ‘denier of the self’ yields a meaning fully apposite to the context,defining Buddhists as it does in terms of the doctrine that most starkly differentiates from them allother Indian religious traditions.

. Tantravārttika, vol. , pp. , ll. –, l. , on ..–.

. By the time of Kumārila, an approximate contemporary of the Buddhist Dharmakīrti, who was ac-tive sometime between c. and , the Śaiva Mantramārga was well enough established to attracttrenchant criticism from the latter. Its earliest scriptural texts go back to the fifth to sixth centuries,inscriptions recording the initiation of kings following its procedures are attested from the seventhonwards, and epigraphical evidence of its monastic institutions goes back to the late sixth ( SANDER-SON b, pp. –). It is extremely improbable, therefore, that Kumārila was familiar only withthe Atimārga and not also with the Mantramārga. I am therefore inclined to think that he is using theterm Pāśupata here to cover the Pāśupatas and all subsequent Śaiva developments up to his time,understanding it as meaning ‘one who follows what has been taught by Paśupati’, where Paśupati isto be understood simply as a synonym of Śiva (see, e.g., Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana ..–). The samewill apply to Medhātithi’s use of the term Pāśupata in my preceding citation. Both authors are perhaps



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, , , . . .

taining some elements of the Veda’s teaching; but their real purpose is to win

social approval, wealth, veneration, and fame. Tey are contrary to the Vedaand incoherent. Te greed and other [vices of their authors] are manifest.Tey have been composed on the basis of arguments framed within the limits

of [the means of non-transcendental knowledge, namely] sense-perception,inference, analogy, and presumption. Tey are perfumed with the fragrance ofa handful of teachings congruent with Śruti and Smr

˙ti, [advocating such vir-

tues as] non-violence, truthfulness, self-control, generosity, and compassion;but [at the same time] they propagate teachings of a quite different nature,teachings that are little more than means of making a living, by demonstrat-

ing the occasional successes of a handful of spells and herbs able to counteract

the effects of poison, to subject people, to drive them out, to drive them mad,and so forth. And [secondly they are] the works even more remote [from theVeda] (bāhyatarān

˙i) that prescribe [observances] that are contaminated by

[culturally alien] practices proper to barbarians (mlecchācāramiśra-), such aseating from a skull-bowl (kabhojana-) and wandering naked (nagnacaran

˙a-).

using what they considered to be the properly Vaidika expression for the teachings of Śiva, followingMahābhārata ..ab: sām

˙ khyam

˙ yogam

˙ pañcarātram

˙ vedāh

˙ pāśupatam

˙ tathā .

. Here I propose that Kumārila wrote mlecchācāramiśrakabhojananagnacaran˙ādi rather the edi-

tion’s reading mlecchācāramiśrakabhojananagnācaran˙a, and, as my translation shows, I analyse this

compound as mlecchācāramiśra-kabhojananagnacaran˙ādi , taking ka- in the meaning ‘human head’,

‘skull’ (syn. kapālam) (see, e.g., Abhidhānaratnamālā .). In this I am swayed by the testimony of aparallel discussion in Medhātithi, Manubhāsya on .: syāt tādr

˙ śī vedaśākhā yasyām ayam

˙ narāsthip-

ātrabhojananagnacaryādir upadis˙t˙o bhavet, ‘There might well be a branch of the Veda [now defunct]

which is such that in it such [practices] as eating from a vessel made from a human skull and wanderingnaked might have been prescribed’. JHĀ () did not see the reference to the skull-bowl users here,dividing the compound as mlecchācāramiśraka-bhojana-ācaran

˙a and translating it as follows: ‘abso-

lutely repugnant practices fit for Mlecchas, such as the eating together of many persons, and the like’.Similarly KATAOKA , pt , p. : ‘barbarian customs, i.e. the practice of eating together’. Evidentlythis ‘eating together’ renders Kumārila’s miśrakabhojana-. I argue against this interpretation in detailin my forthcoming Śaivism and Brahmanism. Those who ate from a bowl fashioned from a human skullwere the ascetics of the Lākula and Kāpālika traditions of the Atimārga and, in the Mantramārga andKulamārga, persons engaged in the propitiation of Bhairava and/or Cāmun

˙d˙ā/Kālī through the prac-

tice of the Kāpālika observance. On the three Mārgas (Ati-, Mantra, and Kula-) see SANDERSON .Kumārila’s and Medhātithi’s ‘wandering naked’ (nagnacaran

˙am, nagnacaryā ) probably refers to the

practice of wandering Jaina mendicant ascetics. See also Medhātithi on .: ‘The pās˙an

˙d ˙inah

˙ are the



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Concluding his argument he points out that greed and other such base urges(lobhādi) are a sufficient explanation of the source of all these traditions, and thatthey themselves make no claim to be Veda-based (vedamūlatvam). So, he says, it isthese that are referred to by Manu when he speaks of followers of forbidden religiouspractices ( pās

˙an˙

d

inah˙

) and rules that they should not be honoured even with speech:

[Te householder] should not honour even with speech those who followforbidden religious practices, those who practice professions forbidden to

their caste, those who practice religion for profit, deceivers, those who reason[against the teachings of the Vedas], and pious hypocrites.

Te context of this prohibition is the behaviour of householders towards unin-vited guests (atithih˙

), the respectful feeding of whom is one of their cardinal du-ties. Commenting on this verse Medhātithi says that if a would-be recipient offood belonging to these prohibited categories arrives at the home, which in ourpresent context means any follower of the Pañcarātra or of any one of the Śaivasystems, a Buddhist, or a Jaina, he is not to be greeted respectfully, nor to receive

red-robed, the naked wanderers, and others, who adopt the insignia [of religious observances] that areoutside [the Veda]’ (pās

˙an

˙d ˙ino bāhyaliṅgino raktapat

˙anagnacarakādayah

˙). The expression ‘red-robed’

(raktapat˙ah

˙) is commonly used as a somewhat undignified term for Buddhists in non-Buddhist sources,

as in Āgamad ˙ambara, prose before . (bho raktapat

˙a) and . (raktapat

˙occhis

˙t˙am

˙), and Śaṅkara,

Brahmasūtrabhāsya on .., and the pairing of Buddhists and Jainas is standard.. Manusmr

˙ ti ..

. The term pās˙an

˙d ˙in-, often misleadingly translated ‘heretic’, is defined as I have translated it here by

Medhātithi ’s gloss onpās˙an

˙d ˙am, from which pās

˙an

˙d ˙in- is formed by the addition of the possessive suffix,

in his commentary on Manusmr ˙ ti .: pās

˙an

˙d ˙am pratis

˙iddhavratacaryā ‘pās

˙an

˙d ˙am is to practice a for-

bidden religious observance’ and on .: śāstraparityāgena bāhyadarśanāśrayam˙ naraśirah

˙kapālarak-

tāmbarādidhāran˙am

˙ pās

˙an

˙d ˙am ‘pās

˙an

˙d ˙am is to turn one’s back on the teachings [of the Veda] and

thereby to carry the skull of a human head, to wear red robes and the like, [practices] that are properto religions outside [the Veda]’. The term ‘heretic’ is better reserved to denote professed followers ofa religion whose views or practices reject or are seen as rejecting the established norms of that samereligion. From the Vaidika point of view those it terms pās

˙an

˙d ˙in- are apostates rather than heretics,

Vaidika observance being seen as the default and all other faiths as arising through its rejection.

. The South Indian Vais˙n˙ava Yāmuna cites a text without attribution in his Āgamaprāmān

˙ya (p. ,

ll. –) that rules on the authority of Smr˙ti that the term pās

˙an

˙d ˙am covers the whole range of non-



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, , , . . .

the customary enquiries concerning his birth and learning, nor to be offered aseat and the rest. He may be fed, but only as one feeds untouchables and the like.

Tis equation with untouchables is more than rhetorical. For other Smr˙ti

passages tell us that even the sight of such persons is pollutant for the orthoprax,let alone physical contact:

If he comes into physical contact with Buddhists, Pāśupatas, materialists, de-niers [of life after death, the validity of the Veda, and the like], or brahmins

engaged in improper employment, he should bathe fully clothed.

and:

If he sees Jainas, Pāśupatas, Buddhists, Kāla[mukha]s, [Śākta] Kaulas, orperipatetic [mendicants] he should glance at the sun. If he has come into con-tact with any of them he should bathe fully clothed.

Likewise a verse from an unidentified Smr˙ti text cited with approval in the

digest-like commentary on the Yājñavalkyasmr ti attributed to Aparāditya, the

twelfth-century Śilāhāra ruler of North Konkan:

Vaidika systems: the Vais˙n˙ava Pañcarātra, the Śaiva [Mantramārga], the Pāśupata, the Kāpālika, Bud-

dhism, and Jainism.

. Manubhāsya on .: ‘There is certainly no question of respectfully giving them a seat and soforth. Nor may one even speak to them, saying, for example, “Welcome. Please be seated here”. Oneis allowed to give them food [but only] as one would to untouchables and the like (śvapacādivat). Con-cerning this giving of food the venerable Kr

˙s˙n˙advaipāyana has taught the following Smr

˙ti: “One should

not enquire concerning his birth or learning”.’

. The S˙at

˙trim

˙ śanmata quoted by Aparāditya, Yājñavalkyasmr

˙ tit

˙īkā , p. .

. An unnamed Smrti text (smrtyantaram) quoted by Aparāditya, Yājñavalkyasmr ˙ tit

˙īkā , p. .

. There were two Aparādityas among the Śilāhāra kings of North Konkan. The earliest known in-scription of Aparāditya I is dated in AD (CII :), and his reign ended in (CII :). Aparāditya IIhas dated inscriptions from to (CII :–, ). The last known inscription of his predecessorMallikārjuna is dated in (CII :) and the first known inscription of his successor Anantadeva II isdated in (CII :). KANE has argued (, p. ) that the great commentary on the Yājñavalk-



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If he sees Kāpālikas, Pāśupatas, Śaivas [of the Mantramārga], or Kārukas,

he should gaze at the sun [in order to purify himself]. If he has come intophysical contact with them he should bathe.

yasmr ˙ ti is more probably to be assigned to the first of these two Aparādityas on the grounds that the

work is quoted in the Smr ˙ ticandrikā of Devan

˙n˙abhat

˙t˙a. This is because he dates that work c.

(, p. ) on the evidence that it cites Vijñāneśvara and is cited by Hemādri. This would not pre-clude Devan

˙n˙abhat

˙t˙a’s having known a work by Aparāditya II , but it would, he argues, leave uncomfort-

ably little time for the work to have become well enough known to have been cited as an authority.

This is less compelling than it seems, since Hemādri tells us that he wrote while he was a minister ofMahādeva, the Seüna king of Devagiri, who ruled from to , as KANE himself agrees (,p. ). There is therefore no good reason to date Devan

˙n˙abhat

˙t˙a as early as on the grounds that

he is cited by Hemādri, and there is therefore no good reason to doubt that the Yājñavalkyasmr ˙ tit

˙īkā

was by Aparāditya II solely because it was cited by Devan˙n˙abhat

˙t˙a. However, that the author of that

work was indeed Aparāditya I does find some support in a fact not noted by KANE, namely that thecolophons of that work describe the author simply as the Śilāhāra king Śrīmad-Aparādityadeva, whichis as we find Aparāditya I modestly identified in his inscriptions ( CII :– [śrīmadaparādityadeva- orśrī-aparādityadeva-]). Aparāditya II assumed the much grander title of Mahārājādhirāja ( CII :). Afurther point in favour of Aparāditya I is that the author of the commentary on the Yājñavalkyasmr

˙ ti is

uncompromising in his rejection of the non-Vaidika religion of the Pāñcarātrikas and Śaivas, whereasAparāditya II, as we can see from inscriptions, had one Vyomaśiva/Vyomaśambhu, an initiated Said-dhāntika Śaiva officiant, as his chief minister (Mahāpradhāna/Mahāmātya), as did his immediate prede-cessor on the throne, Mallikārjuna (r. c. AD –). See CII :, , and .

. The Kārukas of this passage are a group closely related to the Lākulas and sometimes take theirplace when the totality of Śaivas is intended, as here, through the listing of their four major types:Pāñcārthika Pāśupatas, Lākulas/Kālamukhas, Kāpālikas, and [Mantramārgic] Śaivas. Cf. Bhāskara onBrahmasūtra ..: tatra māheśvarāś catvārah

˙ pāśupatāh

˙ śaivāh

˙ kāpālikāh

˙ kāt

˙hakasiddhāntinaś ceti ;

Vācaspatimiśra, Bhāmatī on Śaṅkara, Brahmasūtrabhāsya on ..: śaivāh˙ pāśupatāh

˙ kārun

˙ikasiddhān-

tinah˙ kāpālikāś ceti. In these two passages the readings kāt

˙hakasiddhāntinaś and kārun

˙ikasiddhāntinaś

yield no apposite sense and are both, I propose, corruptions of kārukasiddhāntinaś ‘followers of theKāruka doctrine’ introduced by later Vaidika scholars unfamiliar with this somewhat obscure Śaivatradition.

. Yājñavalkyasmr ˙ tit

˙īkā , p. . According to Vis

˙n˙udharma ., .cd, and .cd (quoted by

Aparāditya, Yājñavalkyasmr ˙ tit

˙īkā , p. , ll. and ), purification in these cases requires the power

of the Śucis˙ad Mantra: ‘If the learned has spoken with [any of] these persons [following a forbidden

religious practice] he should meditate on Vis˙n˙u Śucis

˙ad . . . If he has seen one he should utter [the Man-

tra] OM˙

NAMAH˙

ŚUCIS˙AD and then glance at the sun . . . If he has come into physical contact with one the

learned will be purified if he bathes while mentally reciting the Śucis˙ad.’



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, , , . . .

He comments:

On the evidence of this further Smr˙

ti [it is established that] the Śaivas andother [sectarians mentioned in it, that is to say] those who adhere to bodiesof [non-Vaidika] scripture such as those proclaimed by Śiva (śaivādi), are con-

sidered by those fully versed in the injunctions of the three Vedas to be aspollutant as the basest of untouchables (antyāvasāyivat) if seen or touched.

It is clear from the discussion in which Aparāditya makes this point that forhim, and no doubt for the Smr

˙ti in question, the term Śaiva here refers to all

branches of the Mantramārga, including the Siddhānta, in spite of the latter’s

relatively innocuous, Veda-congruent observances.Nor was this vituperative rejection of all religious traditions other than theVaidika confined to theory. For Manu goes so far as to exhort kings to put it intopractice by expelling all followers of such religious systems from his kingdom:

[Te ruler] should expel from his capital without delay any gamblers, news-mongers, men of violence, men adhering to non-Vaidika religious obser-

vances ( pās

an˙

d

asthān), men engaged in occupations not in keeping with theircaste, and publicans. For if these are present in the kingdom they are likethieves in disguise for the king. Tey constantly oppress his virtuous subjectswith their deviant activities.

. Yājñavalkyasmr ˙ tit

˙īkā , p. .

. The term antyavasāyī , here rendered ‘the basest of untouchables’ but literally ‘one who makes hisabode in the lowest [of places]’, is defined in the Manusmr

˙ ti as the cremation-ground-dwelling son of a

Can˙d˙āla man born to a Nis

˙āda woman, despised even by the other divisions of the excluded (bāhyānām

api garhitam) (.). Bhāruci comments in his Manuśāstravivaran˙a: ‘Cremation-ground-dwelling

means working and living therein. This being the case he should be recognized as even more sinful(pāpatarah

˙) than the Candāla.’

. Manusmr ˙ ti .–. In his commentary on this passage Bhāruci makes it clear that although Manu

states only that they should be expelled from the capital (purāt), the implication is that they should beexiled from the whole kingdom: ‘He should expel them from the capital. It is implied that these should



12/70

For the Vaidikas, then, there certainly was no Hinduism as defined in ouropening paragraph, since they looked with abhorrence on all systems, includingthe Vais

˙n˙ava Pañcarātra and the varieties of Śaivism, that deviated from their

definition of orthopraxy; and, as we have seen, the Manusmr

ti, far from toleratingthese with indifference, urged the state to banish their adherents. Moreover, it enjoined the orthoprax to avoid dwelling in any place where they were numerous.

It may be doubted that the Manusmr

ti ’s rule of exile was often if ever imple-mented; but the idea that it should be put into effect survived centuries duringwhich the non-Vaidika systems flourished and Śaivism among them rose tobecome the dominant religion of the era. For this survival is gently satirizedin Kashmir around the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries in Jayanta’s play

Āgamadambara (‘Much Ado About Religion’). Tere two Vaidikas – an officiant(r

tvik ) and an instructor (upādhyāyah˙

) – face the failure of the ultra-orthopraxcamp to persuade the state to revert to a purely Vaidika utopia free of Śaivas, Pāñ-carātrikas, Buddhists, and Jainas. Te official protest of its champion, the Snā-taka Sam

˙kars

˙an

˙a, fresh from his long training in the Veda, had met with initial

success. Te government of Kashmir had agreed to ban a particularly antinomianand subversive cult of the Kaula type known as the Black-Shawl Observance(nīlāmbaravratam), a measure whose historicity is confirmed by another source.

be expelled from the whole kingdom too (rās˙t˙rād apy ete ’rthato nirvāsyāh

˙), since the effect of their

banishment from the kingdom [and the capital] is the same.’. Manusmr

˙ ti .: ‘He should not live in any kingdom governed by Śūdras, in one full of people who

neglect their religion, in one occupied by communities adhering to non-Vaidika religious observances(pās

˙an

˙d ˙igan

˙ākrānte), or in one beset by the lowest born.’ Medhātithi gives in clarification of the last the

case of Balkh (bāhlīkāh˙) in ancient Bactria between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus), which,

he accurately reports, was beset by people of alien culture(s) ( yathā bāhlīkā mlecchaih˙).

. On the rise of Śaivism to dominance in early mediaeval India see SANDERSON a.

. That the suppression of the followers of the Black-Shawl Observance was not the theatrical in-vention of Jayanta but a historical fact is attested by Jayanta himself in his philosophical masterpieceNyāyamañjarī . For he writes there (vol. , p. , l. ): ‘King Śaṅkaravarman, knowing the nature of [true]religion (dharmatattvajñah

˙), banned (nivārayām āsa) the Black-Shawl Observance, in which uninhibited

couples would indulge in many [indecent] activities (-aniyatastripum˙ savihitabahuces

˙t˙am) wrapped in

a single black shawl (asitaikapat˙anivīta- em : amitaikapat

˙anivīta- Ed.), because he realized that it was

without precedent (apūrvam), having been invented (kalpitam) by some libertines.’ That this was a



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, , , . . .

But this led to panic among the Śaivas in general, who felt that they too mightbe driven out. Te status quo is restored by the king by summoning Sam

˙kars

˙an

˙a,

finding him a wife, favouring him with the (white parasol and other) insigniaof distinction (mānaih

˙), a golden fillet for his head ( pat

˙t˙abandhena), and the

honorific Śrī- (śrīśabdena), and putting him in charge of the Department for the

variety of Kaula Śākta-Śaivism is apparent from the account of it in the Āgamad ˙ambara, where it is

clearly a cult involving unrestrained sexual indulgence and the drinking of intoxicating liquor, only meatamong the Kaulas’ three M’s (madyam, mām

˙ sah

˙, and maithunam; see Tantrāloka .–b, quoting

the Yogasam˙ cāra) failing to be mentioned here. It is confirmed by the account of the Śaiva scriptural

canon quoted from the otherwise lost Śrīkan˙t˙hīyasam

˙ hitā by Taks

˙akavarta in his Nityādisam

˙ graha-

paddhati, an account that was the locus classicus for the Kashmirians. For this includes a Nīlāmbara in its list of ‘eight Kaula[tantra]s’: nīlāmbaram˙ sutāram

˙ ca sandhyā yoginid

˙āmaram | svāyambhuvam

˙

siddhamatam˙ gan

˙ākhyam

˙ khecarīmatam | as

˙t˙au kaulās tv amī khyātāh sadyah

˙pratyayakārakāh

˙ (Ni-

tyādisam˙ grahapaddhati f. r–). Some of these, including Nīlāmbara, also appear in a list of Śaiva

scriptures in the Kaula Kularatnoddyota f. r: nīlāmbaram˙ ca tārākhyam

˙ gan

˙ākhyam

˙ khecarīmatam.

This is not the only report of action against this cult. According to a story about its followers,the Nīlapat

˙aprabandha, contained in the Puratānaprabandhasam

˙ graha (p. ) compiled by the Jaina

scholar Jinavijaya Muni, King Bhoja, the famous Paramāra emperor who ruled from Dhārā in Mālavafor most of the first half of the eleventh century (on his date see SANDERSON , p. , fn. ), heardabout this cult from his daughter, who told him that she was going to join it. He then invited all of itsadherents, forty-nine couples in all, to assemble in his presence on the pretext that he wished to be-come their devotee, executed all the men, and sent the women into exile. That they were Kaulas isevident from a verse that they recite in answer to Bhoja’s asking them whether they are happy: ‘Therearen’t rivers flowing with wine; there aren’t mountains made of meat; and the whole world doesn’tconsist of women. How [then] can a Nīlapat

˙a [“one of the Black Shawl (cult)”] be satisfied?’ (na nadyo

madyavāhinyo na ca māṁ samayā nagāḣ | na ca nārīmayaṁ viśvaṁ kathaṁ nīlapaṫaḣ sukhī ). For this isa variant of a verse about Kaulism cited by Rājānaka Jayaratha on Tantrāloka .c–b: na nadyomadhuvāhinyo na palam

˙ parvatopamam | strīmayam

˙ na jagat sarvam

˙ kutah

˙ siddhih

˙ kulāgame.

. Cf. the Cambodian Sanskrit inscription K. of AD , v. : sitātapatrādisanmānah˙ (CŒDÈS –

, vol. , pp. –).

. On the designs of the various fillets, also called mukut˙ah

˙, to be worn by the king, the chief queen,

the crown prince, and the general, and as an honour bestowed by the king (prasādapat˙t˙ah

˙), see

Br ˙ hatsam

˙ hitā .–. According to that source all are to be made of pure gold (.cd).

. This transforms him from plain Bhat˙t˙a-Sam

˙kars

˙an

˙a into Bhat

˙t˙aśrī-Sam

˙kars

˙an

˙a; see Āgamad

˙am-

bara, prose imediately before .: ‘Inhabitants of the capital and country, Bhat˙t˙aśrī-Sam

˙kars

˙an

˙a, at the

command of His Majesty Mahārāja Śaṅkaravarman, hereby informs you . . .’ Other Kashmirians namedwith this title are Kallat

˙a (author of the Spandakārikā ), Jayanta (author of the Nyāyamañjarī ), Nārāyan

˙a

(author of the Stavacintāman˙i ), Nārāyan

˙akan

˙t˙ha (author of the commentary on the Mr

˙gendra), Bilhan

˙a

(author of the Vikramāṅkadevacarita), Bhāskara (author of the Śivasūtravārtika), Bhūtirāja (Guru of



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Protection of Religion (dharmaraks˙

ādhikāre niyuktah

˙

) with authority through-out the kingdom. In this office he goes forthwith to the hermitage of the asceticBhat

˙t˙āraka Dharmaśiva, apparently the official representative of all the Śaiva

groups in Kashmir, to reassure him that the Śaivas will not be further targetted.Te officiant laments:

What a disaster! Te way things have turned out is not at all what we en-visaged. We imagined that all the religions outside the Veda would be

suppressed and that in this state of affairs the result would be (vedabāhya-sakalāgamatiraskāren

˙a) that the whole kingdom would become our fiefdom

(sarvam asmadbhogyam eva bhuvanam˙

bhavis yatīti cintitam). But the outcome

is that the alien religions (bāhyāgamāh) are in precisely the same position asbefore ( yathānyāsam eva). For [v. .]:Tese Śaivas, Pāśupatas, Pāñcarātrikas, Sām

˙khyas, Buddhists, Jainas,

and the rest, are all enjoying exactly the same status as before. Damn

the Snātaka [Sam˙

kars˙an

˙a]’s useless erudition!

Te Upādhyāya responds:

My friend, [the Snātaka] has now become the servant of the king, has he not?And the king is entirely devoted to Śiva ( paramamāheśvarah

). So it is inevi-

table that [Sam

˙

kars

˙

an

˙

a] should be directing all his thoughts to winning his

favour. For [v. .]:In the presence of kings their servants habitually do nothing but par-rot their commands and being greedy to enhance their positions they

no more distinguish between what is good or bad than echoes.

Abhinavagupta’s father), Mukula (teacher of Pratihārendurāja), Rāmakan˙t˙ha (son of Nārāyan

˙akan

˙t˙ha),

Vāmana (=Hrasvanātha), Śaṅkara (the father of Cakradhara), Śaśāṅkadhara (the Guru of Cakradhara),Śitikan

˙t˙ha (author of the Kaulasūtra), Śivasvāmin (author of the Mahākāvya Kapphin

˙ābhyudaya), and

Somānanda (author of the Śivadr ˙s˙t˙i ).



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, , , . . .

Te officiant agrees but asks how they can survive as Vaidikas in a society thatunder-values them:

It is indeed as you hold, my friend: it is a rare man that in disregard of hisown interests will impartially restrict his thoughts to what is ordained by the

Veda. But how are we to survive [here] when we can support ourselves only bypurely Vaidika services such as performing sacrifices for others [in my case]and teaching the Veda [in yours]?

Te Upādhyāya says:

My friend, we shall l ive out our future as we have our past, satisfied with noth-ing more than a mouthful of food and cloth to cover us.

Te real world, it seems, no longer pays more than lip-service to the ortho-prax Vaidika position. Te non-Vaidika elements have become too strong to besuppressed, and the Vaidika camp is too weak, and impoverished, to lobby suc-cessfully to diminish their power. Te king, Śan

˙karavarman, is after all a devotee

of Śiva inclined to be indulgent towards all forms of established religion, and hisqueen, Sugandhā, we are told, favours the Pāñcarātrikas, as does, according toreport, one of the king’s functionaries.

THE ŚAIVAS’ INCLUSIVIST VIEW OF THEIR

OWN AND THE VAIDIKAS’ RELIGION

As for the Śaivas, they likewise seem to undermine the unity of Hinduism byinsisting not merely on the validity of their own scriptures but also on their supe-riority to the Vaidika scriptures and indeed to the scriptures of all non-Śaiva sys-

. Āgamad ˙ambara, Act , prose between . and .: ‘For the king, his Majesty Śaṅ karavarman

is entirely devoted to Śiva (paramamāheśvarah˙) and shows compassion to all religious disciplines

(sarvāśrames˙u ca dayāluh

˙).’

. Āgamad ˙ambara, Act , prose after ..



16/70

tems. Tis was already so in the earliest known Śaiva initiatory system, that of thePāñcārthika Pāśupatas of the Atimārga, whose ascetic initiates were to see them-selves as having severed all ties with the Vaidika religion, leaving behind theirformer obligations to the gods and ancestors to focus their devotion on Śiva/Rudra alone; and it continued to be so in the Mantramārga, even though thislater form of the religion, in evidence from about – onwards, expandedthe community of the initiated beyond that of ascetics, important though theycontinued to be, by opening up initiation to householders, allowing them, indeedrequiring them, to remain in this status after they had received initiation.

It might appear, therefore, that Śaivism was as much distinct from, andopposed to, the religion of the Vaidikas as the latter was to the former and as

both were to Buddhism and Jainism. However, while the Śaivas thought theirscriptures superior to the Vaidikas’ and the Vaidikas thought their own supe-rior, the two traditions’ views of each other were not symmetrical, not at leastwhere the Śaivas of the Mantramārga were concerned, these alone having leftus adequate evidence of their views on this issue. For while most Vaidika theo-reticians during this period condemned the Śaiva scriptures as false, the Śaivasof the Mantramārga held unanimously that the Śruti and Smr

˙ti of Brahmanism

are universally and uniquely valid in their own sphere, that of prescribing theconduct and religious observance obligatory for persons in their identity as mar-ried and unmarried members of the caste-classes (varn

˙āśramadharmah

˙), and that

as such they are man’s sole means of valid knowledge both of all actions (karma)

that benefit and harm the soul’s destiny in the domain of recurrent incarnation(sams

˙ārah

˙) and of the nature of the consequences of these actions, from the re-

wards of the heavens to the tortures of the hells.Nor did they deny the reality of Brahmanism’s goal, that of liberation

. See, e.g., Kaun˙d˙inya, Pañcārthabhās

˙ya on .: ‘This brahmin’s qualification and obligation to make

offerings to the gods and his ancestors applied [only] before [his initiation]. Therefore he should [now]withdraw devotion from these gods and ancestors and in place of both fix his heart on Maheśvara andworship him and no other. The word ca here [in pitr

˙ vac ca] expresses prohibition. It implies that the

reason why he should no longer make offerings to the [other] gods and his ancestors is that they lackthe agency that he used to attribute to them.’



17/70

, , , . . .

(moks˙

ah

˙

), offered to those who aspired to escape recurrent incarnation throughknowledge, unmotivated obedience to ritual injunctions, or both. Tey deniedonly that it was ultimate, holding that true, definitive liberation lay beyond it andcould be reached through Śaivism alone, by undergoing initiation in the pres-ence of the Man

˙d

ala of Śiva (śivaman˙

d

aladīks˙ā) and then following the Śaiva ritual

and meditative disciplines, or, in the case of those prevented by incapacity or so-cial responsibilites from taking up those disciplines, notably their royal patrons,through initiation followed by fervent devotion manifest in support of the Śaivareligion and its institutions.

Nor was the validity of the Vaidika scriptures irrelevant to the Śaivas withintheir own world of Śaiva rites and belief. Indeed Sadyojyotis, who is much the

earliest of the commentators on the Śaiva scriptures whose works have reachedus – he flourished sometime between the second half of the seventh century andthe beginning of the ninth, probably no later than the first half of the eighth –insisted that the defence of the validity of the Vaidika scriptures (Śruti and Smr

˙ti)

is essential to a belief in the validity of the scriptures of the Śaivas themselves.He offered two cogent reasons. Te first is that if the Vaidika scriptures were

not the source of valid knowledge in their domain, as the Buddhists and Jains insist,then Śaivism’s central claim that it frees the initiate from the cosmic hierarchy of thelevels of incarnation would be empty. Śaivas must believe that the Vaidika scripuralcorpus is valid because the initiation rituals prescribed in their scriptures and per-formed by Śiva himself through their officiants bring about the progressive freeing

of the soul from a cosmos created and maintained for and by the enactment and con-sequences of meritorious and demeritorious actions, and these actions, as we haveseen, are held by the Śaivas to be good and bad on the authority of the Veda alone.

Te second reason – and it is this that is more weighty in an assessment ofthe lived relations between Śaivism and Vaisika orthopraxy – is that the Mantra-mārga’s scriptures themselves insist that the rules of the Vaidika socio-religiousorder are binding on Śaiva initiates. Śaivas were subject to that order at the time

. See SANDERSON a.



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of their initiation, and to the extent that they chose to continue to live within itafter their initiation they were enjoined to continue to adhere to its rules.

Tat the Śaiva scriptures do indeed require this conformity is well illustratedin the following passage, much cited by the commentators:

So he should not transgress (na laṅghayet) the practices of his caste-class and[Vaidika] discipline (varn

˙āśramācārān) even in thought (manasāpi). He should

remain (tis

t˙het) in the discipline (āśrame) in which he was when he was initi-

ated into the Śaiva religion (dīks

itah

śivaśāsane) and [at the same time] main-tain the ordinances of Śiva (śivadharmam

˙ ca pālayet).

Tere is another respect in which the Vaidikas’ view of Śaivism and the Śai-vas’ view of Vaidika religion were asymmetrical. For while the Vaidika traditionmade no attempt to justify its validity in Śaiva terms, the Śaivas, in their eager-ness to establish themselves in what was by that time a fundamentally brahman-ical society, attempted to persuade the orthoprax that the Śaiva corpus was validnot only because it recognized the Vaidika ordinances as binding on all includingthe Śaivas themselves but also by attempting to undermine the Vaidikas’ attackson the legitimacy of their religious practices by pointing to the abundant evidenceof the promotion of the worship of Rudra or Śiva, by then considered one and thesame, that is found both in Śruti texts and in the secondary Vaidika scriptures.

Tus in his commentary on the Mr

gendratantra the tenth-century Kash-

mirian Saiddhāntika Bhaṫṫa Nārāyaṅakaṅṫha cites the presence of such practicesin the traditions of all four Vedas. Te passage on which he is commenting is thenarrative introduction to the antra. In the hermitage of Badarī, Bharadvāja

. For this argument see Sadyojyotis, Nareśvaraparīks˙ā , .–. I have emended yatnam

˙ sarvam

˙

karoti in b to yatnam˙ sarvah

˙ karoti following Bhat

˙t˙a Rāmakan

˙t˙ha’s paraphrase in his commentary:

sarven˙a . . . yatno vidheyah

˙.

. This passage is cited, for example, by Bhat˙t˙a Rāmakan

˙t˙ha, in his commentary on Nareśvaraparīks

˙ā

.. His father, Bhat˙t˙a Nārāyan

˙akan

˙t˙ha, cites it in his commentary on Mr

˙gendratantra, Vidyāpada p. ,

ll. –, attributing to the Bhārgavottara, which has not, to my knowledge, survived.

. Vidyāpāda .–.



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, , , . . .

and other sages install an image of Śiva and undertake asceticism before it. Tegod Indra comes to the hermitage and asks them why they are not following thereligion of the Veda (codanādharmah

˙). Tey reply that the method of propiti-

ating Śiva with asceticism that they are following is indeed Vaidika and pointout (v. ) that the Veda contains Mantras whose deity is Rudra and proceduresfor causing him to come into one’s presence. In his commentary on this verseBhat

˙t˙a Nārāyan

˙akan

˙t˙ha elaborates, citing a six-month-long ascetic procedure for

the summoning of Rudra into the propitiator’s presence taught in the now lostRudrakalpa that was a supplement (Pariśis

˙t˙a) of the Śrautasūtra of the Kāt

˙haka

Yajurvedins, the use of the long Yajurvedic litany known as the Eleven Rudras(rudraikādaśinī sam

˙hitā), probably its recitation while one inundates the Liṅga

(rudrābhiṡekaḣ), a practice still current among the aittirīya Yajurvedins in theŚiva temples of South India, sacrificial procedures using Mantras and chants ofthe R

˙ gveda and Sāmaveda found in the R

˙ gvidhāna and Sāmavidhāna, and proce-

dures for the propitiation of Rudra found in the Atharvavedic corpus.Similarly, in his commentary on Sadyojyotis’s Moks

˙akārikā Bhat

˙t˙a

Nārāyan˙akan

˙t˙ha’s son Bhat

˙t˙a Rāmakan

˙t˙ha turns to the corpus of secondary

Vaidika scriptures, arguing that these contain abundant historical evidence thatŚaivism was accepted by venerable figures of remote antiquity whose standing asmen learned in the Veda is beyond question. He cites the rule that Śaivas mustremain in their castes and life-disciplines, not transgressing the ordinances ofthose institutions even in thought, and then addresses the Vaidikas as follows:

So this [teaching of Śiva] is not a forbidden form of religion (na pās

an˙

d

atvam)even from your point of view [as Vaidikas]. Tis is because it does not conflict

with the Vedas, and because there is [Vaidika] scriptural evidence that it wasaccepted by men learned in the Vedas. In the Purān

˙as, the Mahābhārata,

and the like we learn that Śveta, Upamanyu, and other great sages under-

took religious practice within this [teaching of Śiva]. In the [Mahā]bhārata

we learn that Nara, Nārāyan˙

a [=Arjuna and Vāsudeva], and Aśvatthāman

. Moks˙akārikāvr

˙ tti on v. ab.



20/70

did the same, in the words ‘Te god that you [Aśvatthāman] have worshipped

in an anthropomorphic image in every age those two have worshipped in theLiṅga,’ and also that it was by propitiating Śiva that the Lord Vāsudevaachieved his goal in Suvarn

˙āks

˙a, as is related in the verse ‘O Kr

˙s˙n˙

a, you will

be the man most dear to me in the world; and the whole world will turn toface you [in adoration]. Of this there is no doubt,’ [and Paraśurāma receivedthe axe with which he slew Kārtavīrya.] Moreover in the Smr

˙tis we have

references to such pious acts for the benefit of the public ( pūrto dharmah

)as that of establishing a temple [of Śiva, as in] ‘He who makes a temple ofŚiva, built with baked bricks’ and ‘in pious acts for the benefit of the public

one should know [that the reward is] liberation.’ Ten there is the evidence

of our own eyes in the form of the Pṙ thukeśvara [of Pṙthu], the Rāmeśvara[of Rāma], and [many] other [Śivas that have been installed in temples byexemplary Vaidikas in ancient times]. Furthermore, the Veda confirms the

validity of the teaching of Śiva in such Upanis˙ads as the Śvetāśvatara and in

Mantra-texts such as the Atharvaśiras. So none of the [three] faults that wouldentail the invalidity [of the Śaiva scripture] from your point of view applies:

there is no disagreement [concerning the omniscience of Śiva, the creator ofour scriptures], there is no lack of proof [of their validity], and they have notbeen adopted by a small minority.

. Mahābhārata ..cd.

. Mahābhārata ..; text and translation in brackets suspect at this point.

. Source not located.

. Varāhapurān˙a .[c]d. The category of pious action termed pūrtam or pūrto dharmah

˙ com-

prises such actions as establishing fountains, wells, step-wells, reservoirs, dams, and gardens, andplanting fruit trees and the like; the installing of deities; and the building and renovation of temples andmonasteries. See, e.g., Varāhapurān

˙a .; .–.

. These three faults are specified by Kumārila in Ślokavārttika-Codanāsūtra as reasons for re-jecting the Buddhists’ argument that their claim that the Buddha, the author of their scriptures, wasomniscient is proved by the existence of an unbroken tradition to that effect from his time to thepresent. For a detailed discussion of this verse and the three that follow and their interpretation byKumārila’s commentators see KATAOKA , pt. , pp. –.



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, , , . . .

So Mantramārgic Śaivism, while claiming to transcend Brahmanism by offer-ing true liberation, was nonetheless closely tied to it. It was the Vaidika worldrather than the Buddhist or the Jaina through which Śaivas rose to salvation; andon their path thereto they continued to be bound by its rules, adding their Śaivaobligations rather than substituting them for the Vaidika. Tey looked, more-over, to the Vaidika scriptural corpus to provide proof of the validity of their ownscriptures. Te evidence adduced as proof is not cogent, since none of it refers tothe specific practices of initiatory Śaivism; it refers only to forms of propitiationthat had long been part of Vaidika observance. Nonetheless, the attempt revealsthe concern of the Saiddhāntikas to be considered valid by the adherents of theVaidika tradition that they claimed to rise above.

THE PROPERLY ŚAIVA ATTITUDE OF ŚAIVAS

TOWARDS THEIR VAIDIKA RITES

Now this extension from the purely Śaiva domain of the ascetic in the Atimārgainto the Vaidika domain of the Śaiva householder added in the Mantramārgaopened the door to a process of Śaiva-Vaidika hybridization, in which rites ofboth kinds were maintained and co-ordinated without a proper sense of theirdistinctness. Te Śaivas’ theoreticians, aware that this development had thepotential to produce a blurring of the boundary between the two domainsthat would undermine the faith of Śaivas in the independence and supremacyof Śaivism, ruled that while initiated Śaiva householders were thus subject to

two bodies of injunction – both the Śaiva and the Vaidika – their attitudetowards adherence to the latter was to differ fundamentally from that of theVaidikas.

wo passages of early Saiddhāntika Śaiva scripture much cited by the com-mentators clarify this attitude. Te first of these is in the Sarvajñānottara. In thecontext of its prescription that only persons in two of the four Vaidika disciplines,those of the unmarried scholar and the married householder, may be consecratedas Śaiva officiants, it tells us that the Śaiva should maintain his Vaidika obser-vances after initiation but without believing that they are fully real. He is to dothem but without subjective commitment. He should not think that by accom-

modating Vaidika rites beside the Śaiva he brings about a doubling of the benefit



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that he will derive or that if he were to omit them he would damage that benefit.He is to see himself as acting in this regard not for his own advantage but so asnot to undermine through a pointless non-conformity the Vaidika order withinwhich Śaivism is embedded.

Te second passage is in the Mataṅgapārameśvara. Tis clarifies the matterin the language of the Mīmām

˙sā by saying that though the initiate should main-

tain his Vaidika duties, here called ‘the mundane observance’ (laukikācārah˙

), hemust not conceive of them as ancillary elements (aṅgam) of his Śaiva observances,which is to say, as elements without which those observances would be incom-plete and therefore inefficacious.

THE ŚĀKTA-ŚAIVA ATTITUDE TOWARDS VAIDIKAOBSERVANCE AMONG INITIATES

Te view seen in the Sarvajñānottara that the Śaiva should conform to Vaid-ika injunction only for the sake of others tended not to be emphasised in thelater Saiddhāntika exegetical literature, which seems to be more eager to stressconformity with Vaidika injunctions than to justify this from a properly Śaivastandpoint. But the Śākta-Śaiva scholars of such traditions as the Krama andrika, whose ritual practice was further distanced from Vaidika norms thanthe Saiddhāntikas’, preserved a strong emphasis on Śaivism’s transcendence, even arguing that the true reason for conformity with Vaidika observance wasspiritual immaturity. Tus Abhinavagupta’s pupil Ks

˙

emarāja (fl. c. –)

asserts that one should continue to perform the Vaidika ritual of venerating the Juncture of the day (brāhmī sam

˙dhyā) before one venerates it in the Śaiva manner

(śaivī sam˙

dhyā) only so long as one’s mind is in thrall to one’s constructed socialidentity as a member of a caste. In support of this position he cites a passagefrom the Saiddhāntika Svāyambhuvasūtrasam

˙ graha to the effect that the Vaidika

. Sarvajñānottara, Liṅgoddhārādiprakaran˙a N f. []r–v; P pp. –.

. Mataṅgapārameśvara, Caryāpāda .–b.

. See, for example, Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka .c–; .c–b; Parātrim˙ śikāvivaran

˙a

p. , l. –p. , l. , edited and translated in SANDERSON , pp. –.



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, , , . . .

ritual of the Juncture is optional but the Śaiva compulsory. But he leaves out thatpart of the passage in which we learn that the option applies only in the case ofascetics. His reason for doing so is evidently that he wishes the text to supportthe view that one should aspire to drop the Vaidika elements of one’s ritual pro-gramme even if one is not an ascetic, seeing persistence in these as symptoms ofa contracted state of mind that a ll Śaivas, householders included, should striveto transcend.

Nonetheless, it is unlikely that this Śākta-Śaiva view of the accommodationof Vaidika ritual had a negative impact on the integration of such Śaivas withinVaidika society. Ks

˙emarāja speaks here of an ideal adjustment within the largely

private domain of the Śaiva householder’s daily ritual rather than a wholesale re-

jection of conformity in the socio-religious domain. And this is in line with otherelements of transcendence that set the Śaivas engaged in Bhairava and goddessworship apart from the Saiddhāntikas. Tus, for example, when a Saiddhāntikaparticipated in a collective meal with other initiates he was not to sit in a line thatcontained persons of a caste other than his own. If he did so he was to do penance,its severity determined by the degree of the caste difference, being doubled if thecontaminator was a Vaiśya and trebled if he was a Śūdra. But according to theSvacchanda, the principal scripture of the non-Saiddhāntika Daks

˙in˙a system of

. Kṡemarāja on Svacchanda .c: ‘This veneration of the Juncture (sandhyāvandanam) is done withthe Mantras of Śiva, but first it is done with the Mantras of [one’s] Veda. That is the duty of those inwhom there lingers the deep-seated mentality of identification with the caste that was theirs [beforethey entered the casteless “caste” of Bhairava (bhairavajātih

˙) through initiation] (anivr

˙ ttaprāgjātivāsa-

naih˙ kāryam). The rest should do it with the Śaiva Mantras [alone], immediately after they have com-

pleted the ritual bath. As has been taught [by Śiva in Svāyambhuvasūtrasam˙ graha .cd]: “He may or

may not do the Vaidika [Sandhyā ritual]; but it is compulsory that he should do the Śaiva”.’ On the earlyŚākta-Śaiva attitude to caste, and other Vaidika dualities, such as that of the pure and the impure, seeSANDERSON , pp. – and endnote ; SANDERSON a, pp. –; and SANDERSON b.

. Trilocanaśiva, Prāyaścittasamuccaya p. : ‘He should always avoid when eating sitting in the sameline (ekapanktih

˙) as persons of a different caste (bhinnajātibhih

˙). A brahmin who eats unknowingly with

persons of a Ks˙atriya, Vaiśya, or Śūdra caste and abandons his meal in the middle as soon as he realizes

this, should declare this, and then [as his penance] repeat the Aghoramantra ten, twenty, or thirty timesrespectively. If he realizes [what he has done only] after the meal has been finished [he should repeatit] one, two, or three hundred times respectively.’



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Bhairava worship, initiates may be arranged in separate rows on such occasionsonly according to their rank as initiates. Tey must never separate themselves inaccordance with the distinctions between the castes in which they were at the timeof their initiation ( prāg jātih

˙). Tey must see themselves as having become equal

members of a single ‘caste’ of Bhairava (bhairavīyā jātih˙

), and they must know thatif they make any reference to the former caste of an initiate they will be guiltyof a sin that will lead them to hell. In short, says the text, if one wishes to attainone’s goal, be it salvation or Siddhi, one must be free of all caste discrimination(avivekī ). But there is no suggestion that this transcendence of caste distinctionsshould be applied on the socio-religious level in such matters as marriage. Tefact that Abhinavagupta cites the Sarvajñānottara with approval for its view of the

necessity of general conformity, and does so even in the context of an argumentthat the considerations of relative purity and impurity that dominate Vaidikabehaviour are subjective ( pramātr

dharmah

˙), makes clear that no such subversive

transcendence was envisaged.

Te same is the point of a Kaula verse cited by the Śākta-Śaiva Jayaratha inthis context and also by the Smārta Aparāditya, though in that case with the con-trary purpose of demonstrating the insincerity of the Śaivas’ conformity:

He should be a Kaula in private (antah

kaulo), a Śaiva in outward appearance(bahih

śaivo), but a Vaidika in his mundane observances (lokācāre tu vaidikah

),

keeping the essence [of his religion hidden behind these two outer layers], just

as the coconut fruit [keeps its milk within its flesh, which in turn is enclosedby its hard outer shell].

. Svacchanda .–.

. Tantrāloka .–. On Abhinavagupta’s doctrine that purity and therefore impurity are subjec-tive and not real properties of things see SANDERSON a.

. Rājānaka Jayaratha, Tantrālokaviveka on .ab. For Aparāditya’s version see Yājñavalkya-smr

˙ tit

˙īkā , p. , ll. –.



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without any of its inconveniences, being required thereafter only to maintain thesupport of the faith that is the duty of any lay (uninitiated) devotee ( śivabhaktah

˙,

upāsakah˙

).Te Saiddhāntikas also developed a Śaiva version of the royal consecration rit-

ual (rājyābhis˙ekah

˙) to be given to a king after he had received this Śaiva initiation.

Te Naimittikakriyānusam˙

dhāna of Brahmaśambhu, completed in /, theearliest surviving guide to the Saiddhāntika Śaiva rituals, states that the purposeof this ceremony is to qualify the king for his office as the guide and guardianof the system of the castes and disciplines. Tis is none other than the role as-signed to him by purely Vaidika authorities; and accordingly the Mantra recitedat the climax of this empowerment, as the water of consecration is poured, is not

Mantramārgic but rather the long-established verse text of the (royal) consecra-tion Mantra prescribed for this purpose by Varāhamihira in the first half of thesixth century on the authority of the Older Garga. But since it is as an initiatedŚaiva that the king is to assume this role, it is evident that the socio-religious or-der entrusted to his care is not just that envisaged by the Vaidika authorities butrather the expanded religion that comprised both the Vaidika and the Śaiva tra-ditions. For the Śaiva literature elsewhere requires him to ensure that the strataof this complex of injunction are maintained in the proper order of relative au-thority, with the Vaidika subordinate to the Śaiva, promising him that to do so

. Naimittikakriyānusam˙ dhāna f. r–v: ‘On the tenth day of the bright fortnight of the first month

of autumn in the th year of the king of the Śakas I, disciple of the abbot of Mattamayūra, have de-clared this procedure for initiation that adheres to the teaching of the Dviśata[kālottara] and should begiven by a Guru to Gurus initiated in his own lineage to terminate his holding of his tenure of office.’

. Naimittikakriyānusam˙ dhāna f. v [.]: ‘I shall now teach in addition the consecration cere-

mony to empower an initiated king as the guide and guardian of the castes and disciplines ( varn˙ānām

āśramān˙ām

˙ ca gurubhāvāya bhūpateh

˙ | yo ’bhis

˙ekavidhih

˙ so ’pi procyate dīks

˙itātmanah

˙).’ See SANDER-

SON a, p. , fn. .

. See SANDERSON a, p. , fn. .

. See Br ˙ hatsam

˙ hitā , especially .c– Varāhamihira himself says only that the Mantra was

‘taught by the Muni’ (.d: mantro ’tra munigītah˙). It is his commentator Bhat

˙t˙a Utpala who in a com-

ment on this statement identifies the Muni as the Older Garga: munigīto muninā vr ˙ ddhagargen

˙oktah

˙.



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, , , . . .

will guarantee him a long reign and the prosperity of his kingdom, and implyingthereby that failing to do so will have the opposite consequences.

We see all this clearly enunciated in a passage of the Mohacūrottara, one ofa number of as yet unpublished scriptures of the Śaiva Mantramārga known asPratis

˙t˙hātantras.

Tese texts, as their name indicates, are concerned to regulate the practicespecific to the class of Mantramārgic Śaiva officiants known as Sthāpakas, whospecialized in the installation ( pratis

˙t˙hā) of temples, their images, and monaster-

ies, and in the planning of settlements and royal palaces, and the layout of thetowns around them. After prescribing the proper disposition of the habitationsof the various castes around the palace of an emperor (mahārājādhirājah

˙) it says:

radition declares that the king is the protector of his subjects. Terefore itis right that he should protect the caste communities and ensure that they areinstructed in their duties, each according to its station. Te sources that con-

vey these duties are Śruti, Smr˙

ti, Purān˙

a, and the [Śaiva] scriptures (āgamāh

).If the king abides by these he enjoys a long reign. [Te correct order of author-ity in which they should be applied is as follows.] Te Vedas [comprising both

Śruti and Smr˙

ti] take precedence over the Purān˙

as, and the [Śaiva] scrip-tures take precedence over the teachings of the Vedas. Tere is the common[Vaidika authority of Śruti, Smr

˙ti, and Purān

˙a] (sāmānyam), and then there

is the special (viśes

am). Te Śaiva [scriptures] (śaivam) are the latter. [So] the

learned should not doubt their authority when they find that they conflictwith [a Vaidika injunction]. Te all-knowing [master] should adjudicate eachcase objectively [by this criterion]. Given the plurality of scriptural authori-

ties, whenever there is a question as to which of two [conflicting] statementstakes precedence, he should adopt that which has been taught by Śiva. He

. On the canon of these texts see SANDERSON , pp. – and fn. .

. The Vedas here must be understood to include Smr˙ti, that is to say, the Dharmaśāstras, if this

statement is not to contradict the preceding assertion that the (non-Śaiva) sources of the knowledgeof duty are not only Śruti (the Vedas in the narrow sense) and Purān

˙a but also Smr

˙ti.



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should reconcile the two, whether self-sufficient or depending for the under-

standing of their meaning on [examination in the light of] other sources of thesame kind, related sources, and [, where they fail,] learned exegesis, by apply-ing such modes of reasoning as presumption (arthāpattih

). Understand this, O

Indra, and thereby attain the ultimate bliss. When the king understands theduties of religion in this way his realm will always prosper.

Tis model, in which the Vaidika ordinances are maintained under the aegisof Śaivism, might be suspected to have been more ideal than real were it to rest onthis prescriptive evidence alone. However, it is in harmony with what is conveyedby the historical records of the period. Tey certainly do not support a position

that the rise of Śaivism during these centuries led to a corresponding decline inthe hold of the Vaidika order. On the contrary, they point to a renaissance in thatsphere; and they show that Śaiva kings were active in promoting it.

A good part of the inscriptions that have come to light from this time con-sists of thousands of copperplate charters in which kings, including those whowere Śaiva, have recorded their establishing Vaidika brahmins in their territoriesthrough grants of tax-exempt land, thus fulfilling one of the principal duties im-posed on them by Vaidika scripture, extending the penetration of Vaidika ober-vance, while facilitating the administration of their territories and promotingagricultural development.

Further, numerous kings, Śaivas prominent among them, have been com-

mended during this period, particularly at its beginning, for having imposed thesystem of castes and disciplines (varn

˙āśramadharmah

˙) in their newly established

kingdoms, this frequently being presented as a restoration after a period of de-cline.

Nor was this promotion of Brahmanism by Śaiva kings restricted to the socio-religious level. It extended on occasion to the commissioning of the horse sacrifice(Aśvamedha) and other solemn (Śrauta) Vaidika rituals. Tese were associatedwith the acquisition and celebration of sovereignty; but their performance was

. Mohacūrottara ff. v–r (.–).



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, , , . . .

also a signal of a king’s desire to be seen as an exemplary supporter of the Veda,dedicated to the revival of Vaidika religion in its entirety.

So the epigraphic record indicates that there were numerous Śaiva kingsthroughout our period who fully accepted their role as the guardians of theVaidika social order and thus conducted themselves in matters of religion in themanner envisaged by Brahmaśambhu and the Mohacūd

ottara. Indeed, in many

cases their panegyrists have portrayed them as zealous propagators of that order,praising them for their efforts to reverse the decline in the hold of the Vaidikaorder on society.

THE LOSS OF TRANSCENDENCE

Tis double religion, combining the Vaidika religion and Śaivism under royalauthority, was from the point of view of all Śaiva theoreticians a two-tiered hi-erarchy with Śaivism on top and the Vaidika religion below. Te theoreticians’ahistorical and fundamentalist presentation depicts no overlap between the twolevels, no encroachment of one upon the other, or rather it uses theory to outlawany such encroachment.

Nonetheless, when we see that the Vaidika domain has been so comprehen-sively accommodated we are bound to look for evidence of a weakening of theorthoprax Vaidikas’ rejection of Śaivism and also of a commensurate adoptionby Śaivas themselves of a view of their religion that surrendered the doctrine ofits transcendence. We may well imagine Śaivas who had abandoned all sense of

their religion as a path above the Vaidika, who saw themselves simply as Śaivasby birth, who claimed for their scriptures no more than that they apply to themas Śaivas, that there is nothing special about initiation, that it is merely a riteof passage into ritual activities peculiar to their group, and that these activitiesare much like the practices of other groups, Vais

˙n˙ava and orthoprax Vaidika, of

similar social standing.

. Space prevents me from setting forth here the epigraphical evidence of the engagement of Śaivakings in these efforts to promote Brahmanism in their kingdoms. It has been presented in detail in myforthcoming Śaivism and Brahmanism.



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JayantaWe do indeed find evidence of both these developments. Te earliest appears on theVaidika side near the end of the ninth century in the Nyāyamañjarīof the Kashmirianphilosopher Bhat

˙t˙a Jayanta, minister of king Śaṅkaravarman (r. c. –) and

author of the Āgamad

ambara, the humorous play about the religious tensions of theday that I have cited above. He states that he undertook the monumental Nyāya-mañjarī in order to protect the authority of the Vedas; and this commitment is ap-parent throughout. Yet he argues for the validity of the Śaiva scriptures:

But as for the scriptures that we see which are other than [those of the Vediccorpus], they too are of two kinds. Some, such as those taught by the Buddha,

are completely at odds with the Veda. But others, such as those taught by Śiva,are certainly not, merely teaching optional modes of religious observance thatdiffer [from those of that corpus]. I declare that of these the scriptures [of

the latter kind, those] taught by Śiva and [Vis˙n˙

u,] are undoubtedly (tāvat) valid. Tis is () because we find in the cognitions that they produce none ofthe numerous defects that give rise [in other cases] to doubt or refutation,[and] () because we are unable to impute any of the motives such as greed and

delusion that might otherwise explain their creation, since both Smr˙

ti textsand inference establish that these too were authored by God (Īśvara). For wefind in them no record of their having come into existence at a specific time

[after the creation]; and we find in them, as in the Veda, numerous instances

of ekadeśasaṁvādah [, that is to say, of] ‘the verification of claims made inpart [of the corpus’, claims which when they have been put to the test and

. Nyāyamañjarī , vol. , p. , ll. –: ‘As for the system of the Nyāya taught by Aks˙apāda, it is the cen-

tral pillar [that holds up the edifice] of all the other branches of learning. This because it is the means ofsafeguarding the authority of the Vedas. For if the Vedas have their authority overturned by the falsereasonings authored by false philosophers, the commitment of the pious would slacken. Why thenwould they devote themselves to the task of putting its injunctions into practice, a task that amongother things requires great expense and exertion if it is to be accomplished successfully?’

. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmān˙ya, ed. KATAOKA , p. , l. to p. , l. , corresponding to Nyāyamañ-

jarī , vol. , p. , l. to p. , l. .



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, , , . . .

found effective evince confidence in the truth of its statements on matters that

must be taken on trust]. So what scope remains for the postulation that theyhave some other source [such as human greed or ignorance]? Nor [, unlike thescriptures of the Buddhists and others,] do they stand in opposition to the

Veda. For they do not abandon participation in the system of the four caste-classes and [four life-disciplines] established by [the ordinances of] the Veda.

Te manner [in which we establish the validity] of the injunctions of

Manu and the other [promulgators of secondary scripture] cannotapply to the Śaiva scriptural corpus. But that does not entail its in-validity. [For] throughout its texts we find clear understanding of the

well-known teachings of all the Upanis˙ads pertaining to the ultimate

goal. Moreover, even the foremost of those who have mastered theVeda, such as Kr˙

s˙n˙

advaipāyana, support the view that the teachingsof the Śaiva scriptures and [the like] are valid. And he has taught that

this validity also applies to [the corpus of Vais˙n˙

ava texts called] thePañcarātra. For they too contain nothing that requires us to dismissthem as devoid of authority.

Moreover, they contain the declaration that Lord Vis˙n˙u is their author; and

he is just God himself (Īśvara) [under another name].Because one beginningless soul with infinite power, the wondrous(kasyacit) cause of the creation of the entire universe, undertakes the

[three] distinct tasks of creating the world, holding it in existence, and

withdrawing it [again at the end of each cycle], it has come to be per-ceived as [three distinct deities:] Brahmā, Vis

˙n˙

u, and Rudra.

Furthermore, at various places within the Veda we have the texts ‘Rudraalone remained. Tere was no second’ (eka eva rudro ’va tasthe na dvitīyah

˙)

. He refers to Kr˙s˙n˙advaipāyana, alias Vyāsa, as the author of the Mahābhārata, which does indeed

assert this validity in the Moks˙adharma provided that one understands the term pāśupatam to refer in

the meaning ‘that taught by Paśupati’ (following As˙t˙ādhyāyī ..: tena proktam) to Śaivism in general

rather than specifically to the Pāśupata system. He anachronistically includes under that heading theSaiddhāntika Śaiva scriptures, and accepts, as some did not, that the passage authorizes not just thestudy of these texts but also the enacting of their injunctions.



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and ‘Vis

˙

n

˙

u strode out over [all] this’ (idam

˙

vis

˙

n

˙

ur vi cakrame); and means of

union with these [deities], [that is to say] methods for their propitiation, arecertainly enjoined in the Veda too. As for the methods taught in the Śaivascriptures and the Pañcarātra, they are certainly different; but this does not

amount to an [invalidating] contradict ion of the Veda, because these [various]methods [Vaidika, Śaiva, and Pāñcarātrika] are alternatives from which oneis free to choose. So these tw

Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity and Persecution in Medieval India (Alexis Sanderson)

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