The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0080/00809.txt

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$Title{History Of Religions
Chapter VI}
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$Author{Foot Moore, George}
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$Subject{civa
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$Date{1913}
$Log{See Temple And Mosque*0080901.scf
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Title:       History Of Religions
Book:        Religions Of India
Author:      Foot Moore, George
Date:        1913

Chapter VI

     In all Hindu sects the names of the deity are of much importance; Vishnu
has a round thousand, Civa's catalogue exceeds this by eight.  Many of them
are the commonplaces with which men of all tongues and creeds glorify God -
all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful; or by which theologians define him -
infinite, self-existent, all-pervading, and the like; among the more notable
titles of Vishnu are the holy, or the holiest, the true, the pure spirit, the
way, the truth, the life, the healer, the world's medicine.

     Civa has no incarnations like Vishnu; but the various gods who are
identified with him are said to be "forms" of Civa.  He is, like his prototype
the Vedic Rudra, a destructive deity, and is described as a grotesquely
horrible monster, in imagery drawn in part from the Hundred-Rudra litany in
the Yajur-Veda.  In becoming the supreme god of one of the great branches of
Hinduism he has not lost this character; but other sides of his nature have
acquired greater prominence, while the merely malevolent traits have been
passed over to his female worse half. He is the author of life as well as its
destroyer, and personifies the reproductive forces of nature, for which reason
the bull and the phallus (lingam) are his common symbols.  The orgiastic
features of his cult which led Megasthenes to identify him with Dionysos, his
fondness for hunting, drinking, and dancing, are but one side - doubtless the
older side - of his complex character.  On the other he is the ascetic god,
who sits naked, with matted hair and body besmeared with ashes, under the
Pipal-tree, and as the "Great Yogin," by self-mortification and age-long
meditation, has attained supernatural knowledge and power.  Again, he is the
divine philosopher and sage, and is represented as a Brahman skilled in the
Vedas; Panini's grammar is a revelation from Civa.  In fact, the learned
Brahmans seem inclined to acknowledge Civa as Lord rather than Vishnu, but
stand aloof, for the most part, from sectarian Civaism.

     Civaism has not been so prolific in divisions over doctrinal questions as
the rival faith, and of sects which existed in the Middle Ages the greater
part have lost their separate identity.  The most numerous in the south to-day
are the Lingayits (so called from wearing the lingam as an amulet); they
reject the authority of the Vedas and of the Brahmans, recognise no caste
distinctions, and bury their dead instead of burning them.  There are also
many species of Civaite ascetics, commonly called Yogins, distinguished more
by external peculiarities than by beliefs; they are generally filthy beggars
and often otherwise vile.

     The theological affinities of Civaism were originally with the pluralism
of the Sankhya-Yoga system rather than with Vedantic monism; but the theistic
modification of the Vedanta was equally compatible with their religious
conceptions, and doctrines closely similar to those of the Ramanujas are
attributed to Civaite teachers.  An idealistic Civaism, wholly Vedantic, was
developed in Cashmere between the ninth and eleventh centuries by Somananda
and Abhinavagupta: God is the only substance, objects are his ideas; and as he
is identical with ourselves, these objects are really in us.  What we think we
see outside of us we see within.  The individual ego perceives, or rather
reperceives, in itself, as in a mirror, the ideas of the transcendental Ego,
and cognition is only a recognition.  By inner contemplation, and enlightened
by the grace which it has received through faith in Civa, the soul overcomes
the illusion (Maya) which is the source of all diversity, and attains the
consciousness of self in God.  This system is Civaite only in the sense that
the name Civa is given to the theistic-pantheistic deity.

     Of the gods grouped about Civa in the sectarian pantheon the most
important are Ganeca and Skanda.  The former, represented with an elephant's
head, symbolical of his shrewdness, is, as his name imports, the lord of
troops (that is, the troops of good and bad demons that form the train of
Civa), who can restrain them from harassing men or leave them free hand to
work their malign will.  By thwarting their wiles he gives success to men's
plans, and so becomes the bestower of prosperity.  Skanda is the general who
leads the hosts of good demons in the conflict with the powers of evil, and
thus, as the marshal of the divine allies, is the war-god in the epic,
supplanting Indra, with whom he is identified.  To Civa's company belongs also
Kubera, the god of riches.

     The goddesses play a far larger part in Civaism than in the Vedic
religion or in Vishnuism.  They are, in theory, one, the consort of Civa,
worshipped under many names and attributes: Devi, the goddess; Gauri, the
bright one; Sati, the faithful wife; Parvati, the daughter of the mountains;
Durga, the unapproachable; Kali, the black one; Bhairavi, the terrible;
Karala, the horrible.  The last names indicate the predominating character of
the goddesses, to whom the unfriendly features of Civa's nature have in large
measure been handed over.  They are worshipped as deities in their own right,
and bloody sacrifices and cruel rites belong specifically to their cults.
Another large class of female deities are the "Mothers," local tutelary
divinities, of which each village has its own, or functional divinities with
highly specialised spheres of activity - one causes cholera, another averts
it; one keeps away mad dogs, another sends smallpox, and so on.  They are
often propitiated with the blood of fowls or goats.

     A feature original in Civaism, though not confined to it, ^1 is the
worship of female deities as active powers (cakti) of the supreme God. The god
himself abides, as philosophers say he should, in bliss untroubled by the
administration of a universe; while his "energies" in female personification
are the efficient causes of all that comes to pass in the world.  As a matter
of course, these productive energies are identified with Civa's consort,
Mahadevi, "the great goddess," who is at the same time the great illusion
(Mahamaya) of the Vedantist or the primal substance (Prakriti) of the
Sankhyan. Besides the public cultus, which, except for the offering of bloody
sacrifices to Durga or Kali, conforms to the common Hindu type, there are
sects (Caktas of the left hand) whose worship of the powers takes the form of
mysteries.  These sects have scriptures of their own (Tantras), which chiefly
purport to be revelations from Civa, in the form of dialogue with his wife,
Durga.  Like the Puranas, they are supposed to deal with five subjects - the
creation and destruction of the world, the worship of the gods, the attainment
of supernatural powers, union with the Supreme Being. The last two,
particularly the supernatural powers, are the chief objects of pursuit, and
consequently the magical element is prominent in the Tantras.

[Footnote 1: Tantric Buddhism has its Taras, who are the Caktis of Civa under
another name.]

     These Caktas are strictly secret societies, and in such ill repute that
no one with a shadow of respectability would admit connection with them; in
their own circle they call themselves "the perfect," and speak of outsiders as
"beasts." The members are initiated by a teacher, who communicates to them
certain texts or mystic syllables; the utmost precautions are taken to conceal
the teachings and practices of the sect. The mysteries are celebrated by a
circle of men and women seated promiscuously, without regard to caste or
kinship.  In one of their texts Civa says to his wife: "All men have my form
and