SIVA, a Hindu deity, the object of worship of the Saiva sect, which is the most numerous of . all the IIindu sectaries. Nearly all the Rajput races, most of the Hindus in the valley of. the Ganges, and three-fourths of all the Hindus of the south of India, worship Siva in some of his emblematic forms, the most received of which is that of the lingam. Magnificent temples have been erected to him all over British India, to each of which from thousands to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually resort. Those in the Madras Presidency, at Conjeveram, Jambukeswara, Tirunamale, Ched ambara, and Kalahasti, are the most celebrated. Siva and his worship are confined to British India, where the name is variously pronounced and written Siva, Shiva, Sivin, Seo, Sheo, Shev, Seb, Shib, Shivu, and Chivin, and there is mention of this god in the book of Amos (v. 25-27), Have ye offered unto me sacri fices ancrofferings in the wilderness forty years, 0 house of Israel ? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chitin your images, the star of your god, which ye made yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus.' And it is evident from this that even then, B.C. 955, the emblem under which Siva is still worshipped, and the marks which his followers put on their foreheads, were both well known. About 500 years B.C. the pantheism of the Vedas became transformed into the respective symbolic embodiments of Siva and Vishnu, and, in later times, Siva has since been accepted as the same with the Vedic deity Rudra. Siva is a god unknown to the ' Vedas ; the name is a word of not infrequent occurrence in the hymns, indeed, but means simply propitious ; not even in the Atharvan is it the epithet of a particular divinity, or distinguished by its usage from any other adjec tive. As applied to him whose title it has since become, it seems one of those euphemisms so frequent in the Hindu religion,s, applied as a soothing and flattering address to the most awe inspiring god in the whole pantheon.
Siva is mentioned by Bardasanes, a Greek author, as worshipped in a cave not far from Peshawur in the early part of the third century. The worship of Siva seems to have been intro duced into India about the beginning of the Christian era, and apparently came front the west, and embodied the sun-worship and the physiologial philosophy of Baal. Colonel Tod tells us that there are numerous temples in Rajasthan of Baalim ; and that Balpur (Mahadeo) has several in Saurashtra, all representing the sun.
One of the great teachers of the Saiva sect was Sankaraeharya, A.D. 850. He was born in Malabar. He extended his teachings to Kash mir and Kedarnath, where he died at the early age of 32. He wrote in Sanskrit many religious works, and has exercised a great influence on the religion of the people of India. He bad ten
disciples, and the appellation Das-namah, applied to the ten Saiva sects, has reference to their names. Of these, six and a half sects have fallen away from Sankara's doctrines. They are called Atith, from a tita,' passed away from worldly cares. They are still religious mendicants, are frequently collected in maths or monasteries, but they are not ascetics, as they use clothes, ornaments, and money, carry on trade, accumulate property, and mix in the business of the world. The Dandi of Sankara, three and a half in number, are compelled to retain his doctrines in a pure form. The doctrines of the Dandi and of the Atith are those of the Vedanta system. What the Sri-Vaishnava are to the Vaishnava secta, that the Handl are to the Saiva sects; ; and m hat Ramanand was to the Sri-Vaishnava, that Gond:!math was to the Dandi.
The attributea of Siva are many. He is named ba or !swam, Rudra, llara, Samblm, Mahadeva, Maliesha. Siva is Time, the Sun ; he is Fire, the destroyer, the regenerator. His consort l'arvati, a mountain nymph, is the symbol of created nature, and in that character named Prakriti. As the deity presiding corer generation, Ids type is the linga, which is the phallic emblem of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. As the gol of justice, which character he shares with Yama and other deities, he rides a bull as his vahan, the symbol of divine justice. Ile holds, as his commonest attribute, a trident, called tlisula, in this Red in some other points resembling Neptune. His colour, as well as that of the bull, is white, and his hair of a reddish colour. Ile is sometimes represented as with two, four, eight, or ten hands, and with five faces. Ile has a third eye on his forehead, pointing up and dotvn, a distinction peculiar to him. As Malladeva, he is abundantly decked with serpents, emblems of innnortality, and common ornamenta to many deities. Ile is often represented with his trisula or trident in one hand ; as also with the pasa, string or rope, also often depicted in the bands of his conscat Kali, for binding and strangling incorrigible offenders. Serpents, emblems of eternity, form his ear-rings, called Nag-Inundala ; his pendent collar of human heads, his Mund Mala, marks his character of destruction or time ; and his frontal crescent points at its most obvious measurement by the phases of the moon. Occasionally, in his hands is represented the warlike mace (Gadha or Parasha), and Mrigu or Sasin, a name for the antelope, given also as an attribute of the god Chandra, the Moon. Frequently Siva's loins are seen wrapped in a tiger's skin, and the river goddess Ganga smiles serenely from his Mugut, or headpiece. His sectaries give various explanations and comments on these symbols.