who are the siddhas anyway?

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Dear spiritual brothers and sisters,who are the siddhas

anyway?...the reply to this question is....

They form a distinctive part of a larger

movement which spread throughout South Asia, from Sri Lanka in the

South to Tibet in the north, between the seventh and eleventh

centuries. Siddhas everywhere share common practices, cosmology, and

symbols derived from Tantrism whether the practitioner is Hindu,

Buddhist, or Jain. All are part of a "pan-Indian tantric yoga

movement" which Eliade described as formulating over a five hundred

year period, between the 7th and the 11th centuries, but fully

flowering only after the 12th century.

Excluding perhaps the Buddhist Siddhas, all such groups are

considered radical, if not dangerous, by the orthodoxy.

An intriguing aspect of the Tamil Siddha cult is that it shares with

the orthodox Saiva Siddhanta sect a common text which defines the

philosophy of both groups. Since each sect emphasized different

aspects of the teaching they quickly became widely divergent, with

the two orders often at odds.

The Siddhas would be scoffing at temple worship, reliance upon

Brahminical authority, and proclaiming the injustice of caste; while

the Saiva Siddhantins would berate the Siddhas much as M. Srinivasa

Iyangar did in 1914 when he wrote that the Siddhas are "mostly

plagiarists and impostors" and in addition, "Being eaters of opium &

dwellers in the land of dreams, their conceit knew no bounds".

At times the Siddhantins have even engaged in an organized effort to

eliminate the Siddhar faction.

To the Tamil Siddhas, Shiva is the unqualified and ultimate reality

beyond form or comprehension, but Shakti, the Goddess, is immanent

and accessible as the divine force abiding within the body itself.

There she can be coaxed & subdued, manipulated & directed. As the

serpent power Kundalini, flowing through the subtle body, she can

propel the consciousness of the Siddhar into union with the

Absolute. Though the orthodox Saiva Siddhantin may content himself

with the worship of Shiva in the temple through the rituals of the

priest, the Siddha placates the goddess to intercede on his behalf

and expand the consciousness of the Siddha beyond all limitation,

where he may become Shiva himself. Notions, such as this, being

fundamental to the Tamil Siddha, has struck the Shaivite orthodoxy

as heretical.

Within the context of Hindu myth the name Siddha originally denoted

one of the eighteen categories of celestial beings. These beings of

semi-divine status were said to be of great purity and their

dwelling was thought to be in the sky between the earth and the sun.

Later they became associated with a class of more adept human being,

often an accomplished yogi. The term had been derived from the

Sanskrit root sidh meaning "fulfillment" or "achievement," so the

noun came to refer to one who had attained perfection. Because the

Tamil language lacks the aspirated consonants of Sanskrit the word

has been written and pronounced by the Tamils as cittar. This has

lead the Tamils to associate the word more with the Sanskrit term

chit, meaning "consciousness."

All of the writings of the Tamil Siddhas, whether defining

philosophical viewpoints, yogic practices, or presenting alchemical

recipes for herbal tinctures and base metal amalgams were presented

in poetic form, often employing the more difficult meters that

harkened back to the ancient Tamil Sangam Age. These works are also

riddled with tantric imagery, references to Kundalini, and clues to

control the dangerous feminine power through breathing practices or

the recitation of the Goddess's secret names. Because of the

enigmatic nature of the Siddha imagery, and their philosophy

structured in direct defiance of human logic, few scholars have

ventured to address the Tamil Siddhas and then often only as mere

curiosities. Needless to say, the vast majority of the Tamil Siddha

works have never been translated, as has been the case with some of

the verses presented here.

One of the most basic characteristics of Tamil composition, and one

that is particularly relevant to Siddha poetry, is the tendency to

layer the work so that each word or image builds upon the last.

Because each component image is presented so as to be viewed

autonomously and in relationship both sequentially and to the

totality of the verse, the images of the poem may seem slightly

disjointed and contradictory. Though this may at first seem to

undermine the aesthetic quality and over-complicate the simple act

of enjoying poetry, the Tamil Siddha compositions pattern the

imagery to expound the subtle complexity of their philosophical

concepts or to map out the terrain of the inner landscape which is

dominated by the dormant serpent energy.

As we can see in verse 730, the Siddhantins were confronted with the

tantric orientation of their philosopher Tirumular, when he relates

that it is the human body itself that is the temple of the Goddess

Shakti...

Tirumular discusses the basis of Kundalini Yoga whereby the breath,

carrying one of the vital airs known as prana, flows into the solar

and lunar currents which run from the right and left nostrils down

to the base of the spine and are there brought into union. The point

of this union is at the root chakra Muladhara, the first of six

chakras or nerve plexuses through which the Kundalini energy will

flow. This energy is moved by the solar and lunar streams of vital

breath that have entered the central current at Muladhara and will

ascend upwards through the six chakras, each corresponding to a

higher and more expansive state of consciousness. The individual

awareness is sublimated into divine union at the crown of the head.

It is a kind of inner journey towards the infinitude of the Divine,

but begins only after the two streams flow into the central current

as we learn from verse 801 of the Tirumantiram...

In an effort to demonstrate that the macrocosm is reflected within

the microcosm, Tantra began to emphasize that the universe, in all

its totality, is contained within the body of the individual. It

superimposed universal symbols over the human body to help

demonstrate this relationship. The spine, along which the Shashumna

or central channel ran, became the cosmic axis. All the Gods that

oversaw the mechanism that is this universe we-re hidden in the

lotus centers of the body's chakras, like blossoms flowering on the

vine of the spine. But it was the portly god Ganesha, who guarded

the gate to the inner world. He became a patron of Kundalini yoga in

the South and was invoked by the female Siddha mendicant Avaiyar, in

this excerpt from her 14th century work Vinayagar Agaval. Here she

relates how the elephant-headed god has reconciled the dualistic

nature of the universe as the various manifestations of Shiva were

taught to be part of her inner savoring.

In about 1661, as Aurangzeb set about to expand his kingdom

throughout the subcontinent and free the land of heretics, he was at

the same time extending his protection to an obscure Hindu monastery

in the Punjab. At the time in question Aanand Nath, the abbot of the

monastery and a Natha Siddha alchemist, was providing history's

great persecutor of Hinduism a regular supply of treated mercury

which promised to confer longevity.

In the modern era, the Siddhas have had a profound influence on

contemporary Tamil society because of the impact of a single poet

who lived in the last century. Ramalingar was born in 1823 near

Chidambaram, the greatest of all Shaivite temples. Naturally, the

heretical nature of his teaching and the growing number of his

disciples caused the protest of temple officials and a variety of

Saiva Siddhanta institutions throughout the region. Eventually they

were forced to call in Arumuga Naalavar from Jaffna to put an end to

Ramalingar.

Although Ramalingar's hymns were penned in praise of the God Shiva,

they were often addressed to a feminine audience with unqualified

personal designations such as 'Amma' or 'Akka', 'Mother'

or 'Sister'. Perhaps indicating that the hymn was meant for an

internal and distinctly feminine force that could propel the

invocation along the proper channels of the inner cosmos, towards

Shiva's divine abode.

The fact that his songs began to be sung in the schools, villages

and even the temples of 19th century Cennai, began to outrage the

orthodox Shaivites in the area. He, as all other Tamil Siddhas, was

somewhat iconoclastic, not adequately deferential to temple or

Brahminical tradition. He did not worship the linga. Forgoing all

such images, he perpetrated the greatest of heresies by blatantly

revealing the true face of God veiled within volumes of tantric

lore. At the shrine he established at Vadalur, behind the curtain

that housed the holy of holy's, he established a single flame's

light to illuminate a mirror that would reflect the image of the

worshipper as the secret face of god and final mystery of the Tamil

Siddha cult.

Yours yogically,

Dattu