Discipline in Worship

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calls for the largest number of exercises. The exercises here are both physical

and mental, and they are intended to effect bodily and mental purification and

also symbolic purification of the soul. Carya and kriya correspond to the

external worship, while yoga and jnana correspond to an internal worship,

worship in the heart. Siva is all-pervasive and the worshipper has always this

all-pervasiveness in his mind. hence he extends his love to all beings and if

possible serves all beings and never harms any. He cannot therefore be a party

to killing and so abstains from meat-eating. The term Saiva in later day

society, even up to the present day, has come to mean one who obstains from

meat-eating, a vegetarian. The other disciplines for the worshipper are the

sacred ash and the rudraksa

beads. He is expected to smear the ash in the specified places on his body and

wear the beads round his neck at the time of the Siva puja, if not always. He

should always utter the name of Siva, not only during the puja-kriya, but at

other times also. A qualified guru initiates him into the puja. The

qualifying ceremony is called diksa or initiation. The guru teaches him in

detail the ritual of the puja, instructs him in the japa he has to perform for

life, and also gives him a Sivalinga which he shall worship daily for life.

Worship invokes all the three faculties-thought, word and deed. Thought is the

process of the contemplation of God as abiding in the Siva-linga-murti; word is

the mantras uttered during the puja, the name japa and the words of prayer;

deed is the various acts connected with the actual

puja. Even in the matter of this ritualistic worship, the devotion in the

heart is held to be more important than the rituals themselves. To give one

example, Rules regarding the gathering of the flowers are very strict. Buds

which have not yet opened, flowers whose petals have been eaten by worms,

flowers which have fallen to the ground etc., are not to be taken and used.

But yet we find exceptions have been made in the sastras themselves. Arulnandi

Sivacarya, the second acarya of Saiva Siddhanta, in the course of his large

treatise, Siva-jnana-siddiyar, lays great emphasis on the worship of Siva in

the heart and adds: "If one desires to worship God externally, let him just

take the flowers which have fallen from the tree and worship the Supreme Siva

here on some external symbol, just as He is worshipped in

the heart through jnana"(302). We find the rigidity of the rules relaxed here.

Again, fragrant flowers are generally considered the best for worship. But

actually, the erukku, the flower of the poisonous calotropis plant is

considered a favourite with Siva. Says Avvai, in the Purananuru verse of two

thousand years ago: "Leave alone the fragrant and the non-fragrant flowers; the

gods would not refuse even the trivial erukku for Worship; it is well known

that a blade of the common grass is a favourite petal for Siva. These go to

indicate that external worship is merely a token of the great love and

surrender which should reign in the heart.

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