The Canon · No. 056
Shaivism
The tradition of Shiva
c.2nd c. BCE – present · Dharmic / Indian · Living · India, especially Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Nepal; diaspora
V. THE MEDIEVAL WORLD — c.500 – 1500 CE
How many
Roughly 250–290 million, around 25% of Hindus.
Who began it
No founder. Key figures: the Nayanar poet-saints, Abhinavagupta (c.950–1016) in Kashmir, Basava (1105–1167) for the Lingayats.
What it is for
Union with or recognition of Shiva, understood as consciousness itself.
What it worships
Shiva — the ascetic on Mount Kailash, the destroyer who is also the transformer, Nataraja the lord of the dance whose dance creates and dissolves the cosmos, and the lingam, an aniconic pillar which Shaivas understand as a symbol of formless divinity rather than as the phallic image outsiders often read it as. Parvati, Ganesha, Kartikeya/Murugan, Nandi the bull.
What it holds
Extremely varied. Kashmir Shaivism (Trika, Pratyabhijna) is a non-dualism in which the world is not illusion but Shiva's free and joyful self-expression — a significantly more world-affirming position than Advaita Vedanta, and its recognition doctrine holds that liberation is simply recognising what you already are. Shaiva Siddhanta, dominant in Tamil country, is dualist: God, souls and bondage are three eternal realities. Three bonds hold the soul — ego, karma and illusion — and grace releases it. Lingayats reject caste, temple worship, priestly mediation and rebirth-based fatalism outright.
What it does
Temple worship; abhisheka, pouring milk, water, honey and ash over the lingam. Sacred ash (vibhuti) in three horizontal lines on the forehead and rudraksha beads. The mantra Om Namah Shivaya. Maha Shivaratri, the great night of Shiva, kept with all-night vigil and fasting. Asceticism is prominent: the Naga sadhus, ash-covered and often naked, and at the extreme the Aghoris, who deliberately break every purity taboo — living in cremation grounds, using human skulls — on the reasoning that if all is Shiva, nothing can be polluting. Lingayats wear a small lingam on the body at all times and bury rather than cremate their dead.
After death
Rebirth until liberation. In Shaiva Siddhanta liberation is the soul attaining Shiva's nature while remaining distinct, like salt in water. In Kashmir Shaivism it is the recognition that one was never separate. Dying at Varanasi, Shiva's city, is held to grant liberation directly — Shiva is said to whisper the liberating mantra into the ear of everyone who dies there, which is why the dying travel to it and why its cremation ghats burn continuously.
Its texts
The Shaiva Agamas; the Tamil Tirumurai including the Nayanars' hymns; the Shiva Sutras and Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka; the Tirumantiram; Basava's vachanas, short vernacular poems attacking ritual and caste.
Its branches
Shaiva Siddhanta, Kashmir Shaivism (Trika), Pashupata (the oldest, now extinct), Kapalika and Aghori, Nath yogis, Lingayat/Virashaiva, Tamil Shaivism.
Of note
Shiva absorbs the Vedic Rudra, various local and tribal deities, and probably something from the Indus Valley. He is the clearest example in the dossier of how a Hindu deity is built up over three thousand years rather than revealed at a moment.
Its timeline
- c.2nd c. BCE Patanjali mentions Shiva-worshipping ascetics.
- c.6th–9th c. CE The 63 Nayanars compose Tamil hymns; devotional Shaivism spreads.
- c.850–1250 CE Chola dynasty; the Brihadeeswarar temple at Thanjavur (1010) and the great Nataraja bronzes.
- c.850–1015 CE Kashmir Shaivism: Vasugupta, Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta.
- 1105–1167 CE Basava founds the Lingayat movement in Karnataka — anti-caste, anti-temple, with an assembly open to all including outcastes and women. It is one of the most radical social movements in Indian religious history.
- c.13th c. CE Meykandar systematises Shaiva Siddhanta in Tamil.
- 1947–present Lingayats, roughly 20% of Karnataka, periodically campaign for recognition as a religion separate from Hinduism.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.