Tamil Yoga Siddha Research
The Basic Difficulties (Part 4)
by Dr. T. N. Ganapathy, Ph D
Director of the Tamil Siddha Yoga Research Project
The following article, the fourth
and last in a series, is excerpted from our forthcoming book,
"The Yoga of Tamil Siddha Boganathar" by Dr. T.N. Ganapathy.
In the first article, the basic difficulty, the term "Siddha"
itself, was discussed. The present article discusses other difficulties
involved in studying the works of the Siddhas.
7. A trustworthy biographical account
It is very difficult to give
a trustworthy biographical account of the Tamil Siddhas as very
little about their lives is known or recorded in history. A verse
from the sage Agastya says that most of the Siddha works were
lost in the floods (pralaya) and what we have now as Siddha poetry
is only a small collection of verses which have been washed ashore
and preserved.85 Based on this verse there is a view that what
is being circulated today as Tamil Siddha poetry is only a distortion
of the original Siddha poems written by some ordinary human beings.86
If this is the case, then, one must exercise a great caution in
accepting the historical or biographical information provided
by the anthologists and other writers on the Tamil Siddhas. The
biographical information provided by the various writers is a
mixture of life-stories based on tradition, local folk-lore, mythology
and sentimental accounts. All these life-sketches are purely legendary.
There is no historic proof for such legends; yet one cannot reject
them outright, since there must be some basic truth in them, to
which additions were made by later generations. No authentic account
is available since the history and the biography of the Tamil
Siddhas have been handed over from generation to generation in
the form of oral transmission giving rise to numerous variations,
corruptions, interpolations and, in many cases, distortions to
suit one's whims and fancies. It is difficult to separate the
grain from the chaff. One is not sure whether there is any grain
apart from the chaff. In some of the biographical accounts the
imagination of the writers runs riot making it difficult to believe.
A real researcher must be like the legendary swan and able to
separate the milk from the water.
The literature of the Tamil
Siddhas spans many centuries and it is probable that certain details
of the life-history of them are changed, modified, and many times
distorted, to suit the ethos, the occasion, the period and the
time when they were narrated and recorded. Hence it is not possible
to say anything definite about the life, date, i.e., the biography
of the Siddhas. To trace the life history of the Tamil Siddhas
is as difficult as tracing the path of birds in the sky. Just
as boats do not leave any mark on the seas or rivers where they
sail, the Siddhas have not left any autobiographical details in
their poems. In a number of cases factual information such as
dates of birth, or at least the periods in which they lived, the
real (original) names of the Siddhas, the villages where they
were born, and the castes and religions in which they were born
and the places where they lived and attained liberation (samadhi)
cannot be obtained. We may assign two reasons for this attitude
of the Tamil Siddhas; one, as Mircea Eliade has said: "India
is preoccupied with Being; and history, created by becoming, is
just one of the forms of non-being"87. In Karuvurar, a Tamil
Siddha and a disciple of Bogar, we get another reason for this.
According to him a Siddha is an adept in leaving his body at pleasure
and entering into another body.88 Since this device is adopted
by the Siddhas, it is very difficult to identify "who is
who", let alone give a biographical account of them.
According to tradition each
Siddha gets five different names, the first one given by the parents
and the remaining four are appellations for the stages in the
spiritual progress attained by the person concerned. Among these
four names is the name given by the guru (the spiritual teacher)
at the time he initiated the disciple. Just as it is said in China
that the Tao does not have a constant name, the names of the Tamil
Siddhas are also not constant. Many names of the Tamil Siddhas
are symbolic. They are not family names but names bestowed on
a saint when he reaches certain stages of spiritual perfection.
These names refer to some transcendental states of consciousness
attainable through the practice of kundalini yoga; they are the
spiritual appellations given to persons who have attained certain
yogic adeptness. The name Agattiyar (The Tamil version of Agastiya)
means one who has kindled the inner fire in him; (agam = inner;
ti = fire); that is, one who has roused the fire of kundalini
in him. Most of the works on Tamil Siddhas refer to sage Agastya
as a preceptor of the Tamil Siddha doctrine. In Tamil literature
and philosophy there are references not to one but to several
Agastyas.89 Agastya is also called by different names as Kumbamuni,
Kalasamuni, Kudamuni, etc. Further in Tamil literature one finds
more than one hundred and ninety works in the name of Agastya.
Similarly there are more than one Pattinattar mentioned in Tamil
literature. Of course, which Pattinattar is a Siddha should be
decided on the basis of the poems relevant to Tamil Siddha "doctrine".
The recurrence of the same name goes to show that most of the
names of the Tamil Siddhas are acquired ones. Once Siddhahood
is attained, the saint acquires a new name to show that he is
"born" into a "new experience"' and hence
has to shed his old name with all its associations and acquire
a new name befitting the spiritual level that he has attained.
One may safely say that most of the names of the Tamil Siddhas
are not historical names, but only of certain abstract yogic principles
and are acquired ones.
We have already noted how the
name Agastya refers to one who has kindled the yogic fire of kundalini
in him . One who has conquered sex and anger is called Goraksa.
"Matsya" means fish. In tantra it stands for senses.
Matsyendranath means "one who has mastery over the senses"
(indriyas) and stands for one who tears the fetters of bondage.
In the same manner one may construe the name Pattinattar as "Patti"
plus "nathar", that is, a man who can save the souls.
"Patti" in Tamil means " the pound for herding
the cattle"; it may also mean, "herding of souls",
souls wallowing in darkness. Pattinattar is one who helps and
guides these souls by providing a method to get out of the "pound
of the world and the senses" and get liberated.Pambatticittar
is a name of one Siddha. "Pambu" in Tamil means snake.
Snakes are emblems of eternity and the snake skin is supposed
to procure invisibility. In the words of Vogel: "The practice
of casting its skin suggested longevity or even immortality in
the snake".90 The sloughing indicates the freeing of oneself
from evil and liberation from mundane existence. The term "snake"
refers to the coiled kundalini. A Siddha who has perfected kundalini
yoga and attained immortality is a "Pambatti". There
is another Tamil Siddha by name "Kudambai". "Kudambai"
in Tamil means ear-ring, and kundalini is coiled like an ear-ring
and Kudambaiccittar stands for a kundalini yogin. "Kudambai"
stands exactly for what is meant by kan-phata, piercing of the
cartileges of the ear. This term is a pan-tantric Indian term
referring to the Siddhas. A Siddha who takes the nectar (amrta)
secreted at the sahasrara, which is a kamala(lotus) is a Kamala
Siddha. The term "idaikkadu" in Tamil refers to the
space between the eye-brows. A Siddha who has gone through the
middle of the brows, (bhrumadhyaka), and who unites his soul with
the cosmic soul is Idaikkattuccittar. A Siddha who has controlled
the wavering mind referred to as "agappey" in Tamil.
(i.e., the internal ghost), is Agappeyccittar. In Greek, the term
"agappe" stands for pure spiritual love. There is a
Siddha with the name Kambaliccattaimuni. Probably he acquired
the name because he was wearing a wollen upper garment. In this
connection it may be said that the name "sufi" was derived
from the term "suf" which stands for wool and is applied
to these holy men who wore woollen garments and devoted themselves
to a life of renunciation. There can be little doubt that woollen
dress was associated with spirituality in pre-Islamic times in
India.Bogar calls Kambaliccattaimuni as a bear Siddha (Karadiccittar
in Tamil).91 The name Bogar means "one who is enjoying"'
that is, one who is enjoying the bliss of immortality. The name
Sivavakkiyar is an acquired one and not his original name. Probably
he has got this name because he has used "Sivayam" in
more than sixty places in his work.
The above discussion shows that
it is very difficult to have an authentic account of the lives
of the Tamil Siddhas. Yet one finds certain account of the biographies
of the Tamil Siddhas with various details in some works.92 There
is a Tamil work known as Chathuragiriththalapuranam 93 which purports
to give a history of the Tamil Siddhas. Except a chapter on "Padinen
Siddhas" the other chapters are written in the mythological
(puranic) style and descriptions clothed in tradition and folk-lore.
In this book there is no authentic account of the lives of the
Tamil Siddhas. There is another work in Tamil on Siddhargal Varalaru94
which contains a brief history, life and works of more than fifty
one Tamil Siddhas. Marshall Govindan's book Babaji And the 18
Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition 95 gives a brief account of the lives
and teachings of Tirumular, Agastya and Bogar. There is a palm-leaf
manuscript by name Jnanabodhakam,96 which is a work on the religious
history of the Tamil Siddhas. In Bogar's Janana Sagaram-557 97
one finds a list of places of the birth of the Tamil Siddhas.
(See appendix A) He also admits that since the Siddhas themselves
have not revealed their life-stories it is difficult to trace
their origin, just as the origin of the rivers and saints (rishis)
are difficult to be traced. In spite of this difficulty he has
culled out certain facts about them "as far as he knows".98
It would be of interest to know that Bogar in his Saptakandam
( Bogar 7000) has given the longevity of the Siddhas with their
ages. (See appendix B) In the same work one finds a description
of the month, star and the caste in which each Siddha was born
and also about the parentage. (See appendixes C and D).
In this connection it would
be of interest to note that in the internationally known Raja
Serfoji Saraswathi Mahal Library in Thanjavur, a town in Tamilnadu,
there is a hand-written drawing which contains the pictures of
the eighteen Tamil Siddhas indicating their castes and their places
where they lived and attained liberation (See Appendix E for a
reprint of these pictures). In Chathuragiriththalapuranam, the
publisher has included a set of eighteen pictures of the Tamil
Siddhas with the names of the places associated with them.99 In
the book Babaji And The 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition one finds
the drawings of the figures of the eighteen Tamil Siddhas100 One
also finds the drawings of the figures of the eighteen Tamil Siddhas
in S.A.A.Ramaiah's edition of Bogar Kanda Yogam.101
One interesting feature in the
last two books is that Kudambaiccittar is depicted as a woman
Siddha.102 All these drawings are mainly based on the descriptive
accounts that one finds in the various life-stories of the Siddhas
based on hearsay and tradition. As a researcher in the field of
philosophy one is not able to accept or reject all the traditional
accounts and the drawings of the Tamil Siddhas, since one does
not have adequate evidence to do so. The merit of these accounts
can hardly be discussed in the absence of reliable facts. It is
unfortunate that the saints in India do not write autobiographies,
which could be valuable to all seekers; nor do they leave any
record of their activities. They do not do this because they are
not interested in their own personality.
The main difficulty in interpreting
the Siddha philosophy is that it is an open system. By "open
system" is meant that the questions raised by the Siddhas
cannot be put into an "either-or" pattern and their
answers cannot be reduced to any one view. As Dhammapada speaks
of the arhat we can say of the Siddha that his track is as difficult
to know as that of birds in the sky.103 It is not restricted to
a particular group of people; all shades of humanity can participate
freely in the Siddha philosophy. This is enshrined clearly in
Bogar's works especially in Bogar Saptakandam , where he says
that the Siddha philosophy is open to all; Bogar's greatness consists
in teaching his philosophy to the Chinese people. Bogar's expression
"veliyakkinene" means that he has thrown open the Siddha
doctrines to one and all.
A discussion of the philosophy
of the Tamil Siddhas will be incomplete without mentioning their
concept of guru and their "arruppadai" concept. The
place of the initiator, guru, is an important aspect in the method
of Siddhas. According to them kundalini yoga and other esoteric
things must be learned from the master-teachers, gurus, only and
almost all the Siddhas refer to their tradition of gurus (parampara).
In the Chandogya Upanisad, it is said that the gods can give one
the knowledge, even knowledge of the atman but only a guru can
show one the way (4.14.1). The guru is the primary threshold or
the first step in the ascent of the staircase to liberation. The
Sanskrit term "guru" is derived from two roots: "gu"
meaning darkness and "ru" light. A guru removes the
darkness of ignorance or non-truth and leads his pupil towards
enlightenment and truth. There is a proverb in Tamil which says
that a man who does not have a guru does not know the path (or
root) of knowledge (guruvariyan karuvariyan). The Siddhas are
actually the worshippers of their guru. This fact distinguishes
the followers of the tantric faith from the followers of the Vedic
faith who are called devabhaju or the worshippers of the devas.
To the Siddhas of Tamilnadu the guru is invisible to the physical
eye. The guru is also referred to as sunya (vastness of space
or vettaveli) to indicate the spaciousness of freedom (or knowledge)
in which the disciple loses himself. Sometimes the guru-parampara
(the lineage of the previous gurus) itself stands for the guru:
that is, the guru need not necessarily be a living human being.
The guru helps the pupil to look and examine, to think and meditate
and to practice and realize. The guru, according to the Tamil
Siddha tradition, is not a bundle of theories; he is an authority
who has lived his thoughts. He is not a mere fount, a wise man,
but the drink itself, the man who "knows"- one who has
experienced freedom. Tamil Siddha culture is based on diksa or
initiation. Since there is no other way of being initiated into
the method of yoga, except the practical guidance of the guru
, Eliade characterises yoga as "initiatory structure".
Seka, abhiseka are other terms that stand for initiation. A better
translation of diksa is "empowerment", because in it
the teacher carries the pupil in himself, as it were, as the mother
bears the embryo in her body and "empowers" the disciple
with all his jnana energy. The term "diksa" is a compound
of two ideas diyate and ksiyate - giving and weakening, that is,
giving or endowing knowledge and weakening or destroying (removing)
lower impulses and desires which stand as obstructions, thereby
freeing the individual from the phenomenal fetters. Empowerment
effects a spiritual rebirth; it means for the individual a total
transformation. It is no wonder that Socrates claims that his
mission is that of a midwife; for he "delivers" a "new"
man and "aids" in the birth of him who "knows".
During initiation the individual is given a new name and the initiated
is no longer the biological son of his human parents. He has given
up all former associations and is "dead" for all practical
purposes. He is "reborn" to grow up in a new setting.
He has become a dvija, "twice born", that is one who
is born anew, namely, as clothed in spiritual body or body of
light and knowledge. He is a disciple who with full awareness
accepts something on his own.
In tantric literature there
are two processes of initiation called madhura paka and hatha
paka (also called mantri and sambhavi respectively). Madhura paka
is the usual ritualistic, outer process of initiation; it is a
process of elimination of irrelevant elements from one's inner
being by a graduated and slow course of regular practices on the
basis of the teachings of the guru. Hatha paka is threefold: Sparsi,
based upon touch, which tends the disciple in a manner of a bird
nourishing its young ones within the warm folds of its wings;
caksusi , based upon sight, acts like the fish which bring up
their offspring by means of sight alone; manasi , mental, which
builds like the tortoise feeding its infant, by only thinking
of it. All these three types are referred to by Ganapatidasar.104
Tayumanavar goes a step froward and suggests that the mere presence
of the guru or a sage is enough to initiate a man for liberation.
He compares the guru to a ripe plantain fruit in the midst of
the cluster of plantain fruits. The very contiguity of the ripe
plaintain fruit changes the unripe ones in to ripe fruits. As
Kularnava Tantra says: "The form of the guru is the root
of dhyana, the lotus-feet of the guru is the root of puja, the
word of the guru is the root of the mantra and the grace of the
guru is the root of the siddhi"105.
The mantra of the Tamil Siddhas
"Sivayanama" is not merely a philosophico-mystical concept,
but a social one too. "Nama" means tyaga or sacrifice
and "Siva" means bliss (ananda). "aya" means
outcome or result. The term "Sivayanama" means, "the
result of sacrifice is bliss". The Tamil Siddhas felt the
bliss in sacrifice and they construed sacrifice as an opportunity
to serve. To them service and work begin with one's own self-realization.
That is, the social concern of the Tamil Siddhas has provided
them with one more path for the discovery of the Self. The mystic
experience of the Tamil Siddhas has given a new meaning to social
service. The "arruppadai" concept, that we find in Tamil
literature, that is, " the concept of directing or showing
the path to one and all", irrespective of caste, creed, sex,
religion or nationality, has acquired a socio-philosophical meaning
at the hands of the Tamil Siddhas. It is a concept emphasizing
the vow of helping humanity by one's own enlightenment. Their
songs are indicators of the path of self-realization for the seeker
after truth. The Siddhas wanted everyone to enjoy what they themselves
have enjoyed. They have a loving desire to secure the welfare,
happiness and solidarity of all beings. As a Sufi mystic tells
his hearers that they are ducks being brought up by hens, they
have to realize that their destiny is to swim, not try to be chickens.
The same is the attitude of the Tamil Siddhas. In Siddha mysticism
humanity and not God is the point of reference. The "arruppadai"
concept [the method of showing the way] is an expression of the
mysticism of the Siddhas in that it is their commitment to humanity
to indicate the pathway. This concept of Tamil Siddhas to pass
on the torch of spirituality to other men is the highest altruistic
action. They sincerely felt that genuine freedom is not in isolation.
This concept, that is, showing
the path to people, has two aspects in the philosophy of the Tamil
Siddhas-one positive and the other negative. In the negative aspect
the Tamil Siddhas emphasize what one shall not do in order to
achieve realization. To achieve self-realization, the mystic anubhava,
the Siddhas exhort people not to take rest in halfway houses like
caste, scriptures, rituals, ceremonies, pujas, etc. According
to the Siddhas, the cause of the prevalence of delusion in our
lives is institutional rather than personal. The method of kundalini
yoga, their ethical precepts, their system of medicine, above
all their simple language intended to convey what they wanted
to convey, form the positive aspect of the "arruppadai"
concept. The social concern of the Tamil Siddhas is best exhibited
in their system of medicine. This is the loka-sangraha of Tamil
Siddha mysticism, which is not only an experience of Reality but
also a way of living. In short, the Tamil Siddha does not renounce
the world; instead he tries to dedicate himself or herself to
its upliftment, while enjoying perfect freedom. This social concern
of the Tamil Siddhas nullifies the general view of the Western
critic about Indian mystics, that they are not devoted in seeking
unselfishly the welfare of others. The Siddha philosophy, with
its social attitudes as well as its spirituality, may constitute
a new and genuine humanism on a world scale leading all living
beings to live in a world of brotherhood as a big universal family
a vasudeiva kutumbakam, a family of Lord Vasudeva, the Almighty.
Copyright. Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications.
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