Towards an History of Saivasiddhanta

Objectives

Saivasiddhanta is a saivite school, which, since more than a millennium, is a major feature of Indian religious life, especially in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the most complete and strongest religious systems: even today, most of South Indian saivite temples follow Saivasiddhanta rules. Since its foundation, the French Institute of Pondicherry has been the leading institution in the study and publication of Saivasiddhanta texts. Thus scholars attached to the Institute are elaborating the patterns of the complex history of this main current of saivite religion. Saivasiddhanta studies rely on a wide bilingual textual corpus:

• Sanskrit canonical texts (28 main Agamas and numerous secondary texts or Upagamas) describing doctrine, religious practice - either public or private -, temple building, image making, etc.
• Sanskrit philosophical treatises which elaborate Agamas’ teaching
• Tamil doctrinal treatises, for which Meykandar is one of the main instigators.
• Sanskrit Puranas, pertaining to various religious trends. Those texts, with a far wider scope, nevertheless include important elements for the understanding of Saivasiddhanta ideas and history.

Material and Methods

IFP manuscripts collection is one of the most complete in the field of Saivasiddhanta texts, and thus provides the basic material for all projects dealing with it, the approach being philological, historical and anthropological.

Critical editions of unpublished canonical texts: Diptagama and Suksmagama

• Diptagama is one of the 28 Saivasiddhanta main canonical texts and deals especially with installation rituals, from the building of the temple to the putting in place of statues, but it also describe general temple rituals as well as less known ceremonies such as “the cutting of the leaves” (patracheda). Its critical edition, in the line of several others, is not only the publishing of a primary Sanskrit source but focuses on the history of the text marked by successive transformations which are no less than adaptations to the changing religious and social landscape of South India.

• Sûksmâgama, another Saivasiddhanta main canonical text, offers a fairly complete description of temple rituals together with special ceremonies, ordeals of various types or festivals, with a special emphasis on ceremonies involving the Goddess. Its critical edition upon which work has just started will enhance the place occupied by certain ancient features of the Agamic tradition in the domain of deities, mantras and rituals.

• Historical survey of Saivasiddhanta in Tamil Nadu Sivajnanabodbham is the first and the most commentated upon of the doctrinal treatises pertaining to Saivasiddhanta. It is translated along with an up-to-now unpublished Sanskrit commentary (16th century). Pauskaragama, one of the canonical texts well known in Tamil Nadu, is critically edited together with an hitherto unpublished Sanskrit commentary, by Jnanaprakasa, a 16th century theologian, who enlightens the continuity between canonical and later literature, especially in Tamil Nadu.

• Vayaviyasamhita : Saivite doctrine and ritual in a Puranic context Last section of Sivapurana, the Vayaviyasamhita is strongly tainted by Saivasiddhanta (see numerous chapters dealing with ritual, yoga or saivite initiation). Most probably written in South India, this Puranic text give new glimpses on the complex position of Saivasiddhanta school towards other saivite schools flourishing in past South India.

• Parasurama in South India, or local metamorphoses of a Puranic myth Well known character in the Epics as well as in Puranas, Parasurama has it that he is both one of Visnu’s avataras and a strong saivite devotee. The mythical stories dealing with him have been developed in an impressive way in South-western India (Kerala and south Karnataka), an area sometimes deemed as « Parasurama’s land ». This study based mainly on a corpus of local legends attempts at showing how the “panindian” mythology from the Puranas has been adapted to a regional context.

Funding

• French Institute of Pondicherry
• University Paris-III
• C.N.R.S.

Partners

« Mondes Iranien et Indien » (U.M.R. n°2578), a Research team involving University Paris-III, as well as E.P.H.E, INaLCO and C.N.R.S.

Team

Head of the Project

• Prof. (emer.) Bruno DAGENS (Université Paris III/Sorbonne nouvelle)

Research Fellows and Associates

• Dr. Marie-Luce BARAZER-BILLORET (Maître de Conférences, Université Paris III/Sorbonne nouvelle)
• Dr. T.GANESAN (IFP)
• Dr. Vincent LEFEVRE (Conservateur du Patrimoine, Musée Guimet)
• S.Sambandhan Sivacaraya (IFP)

PhD Candidates

• Christèle BAROIS, IFP/University of Paris III, France
• Nicolas DEJENNE, IFP/University of Paris III,France

Main Outputs

Download list of publications

• Diptagama. Tome II. Chapitres 22 à 62.

Edition critique Marie-Luce Barazer-Billoret, Bruno Dagens et Vincent Lefèvre avec la collaboration de S. Sambandha Sivacarya et la participation de Christèle Barois, Collection indologie n° 81.2, IFP / Mondes Iranien et Indien, 2007, 603 p.
Language : Sanskrit, French. 700 Rs (25 €)

Diptagama is one of the 28 canonical treatises pertaining to the Southern Saivite school known as Saivasiddhanta. It deems itself a treatise on installations. The critical edition of this hitherto unpublished text relies on manuscripts kept in the library of the French Institute of Pondicherry. The present edition will comprise 3 volumes.

The first volume released in 2004 dealt with mantras, installation of the main Linga in the temple, and even more with architecture and iconography. The present, second volume is centred on rituals, mainly for the installation of statues, but several chapters also deal with daily ceremonies, fire ritual, baths, etc.

As in the case of the first volume, the Sanskrit text is followed by a chapter-wise summary aimed at facilitating the reading of the 41 chapters published herein.

Keywords: agamas, iconography, Saivism, Sanskrit, temple, ritual

• Anamorphoses - Hommage à Jacques Dumarçay

CHAMBERT-LOIR, Henri & DAGENS, Bruno, 2006.textes réunis par – et - , Les Indes Savantes, Paris, 508 pages.

Architecte et historien, Jacques DUMARÇAY a exercé son activité à travers l’Asie, menant des fouilles en Afghanistan ou au Pakistan, relevant et décrivant des temples en Inde, donnant sa pleine mesure sur les grands chantiers de restauration d’Angkor et de Borobudur. Ses nombreuses publications témoignent par le texte et le dessin de sa rigueur scientifique, de son insatiable curiosité et de sa profonde culture. Dans le présent recueil, ses amis ont cherché à traduire, à travers la diversité de leurs contributions, celle de ses centres d’intérêt. Regroupées sous cinq grandes rubriques – Architecture, Iconographie, Archéologie, Littératures et Histoire –, ces vingt-six études mènent le lecteur des confins de l’Afghanistan à la Chine en passant par le sous-continent indien et l’Asie du sud-est, se voulant, telles de multiples anamorphoses, le reflet personnel et amical du souci de faire connaître et de faire comprendre qui marque l’œuvre de ce maître et ami.

• South Asian Archaeology 2001, Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, held in Collège de France, Paris 2-6 July 2001,

JARRIGE, Catherine & LEFEVRE, Vincent, eds, 2005, Paris (Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations).

Since 1971 the biennial South Asian Archaeology conference is held in a European city and aims at presenting, with the participation of the leading specialists in their field, the results of the ongoing research in archaeology and art history of the Indian sub-continent. Organised for the third time in Paris, the 2001 conference gathered more than 200 participants from nearly 20 countries spread on 4 continents. The proceedings follow the pattern of the conference: the first volume is dedicated to the pre- and proto-historical periods, while the second one covers the historical period and the art history.

• Commanditaires et artistes en Inde du sud. Des Pallava aux Nayak

LEFEVRE, Vincent, 2006, Paris (Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle).

De la fin du VIe siècle jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle, l’Inde du Sud, et tout particulièrement le pays tamoul, a connu un développement ininterrompu de ses différentes pratiques artistiques La confrontation de ces différentes sources d’information permet de jeter un regard nouveau sur ceux qui ont produit ces oeuvres d’art : les commanditaires et ceux que nous sommes tentés d’appeler les artistes mais que l’Inde ne distingue pas des artisans.

• Traités, temples et images du monde indien : études d’histoire et d’archéologie

Bruno Dagens. Articles rassemblés par M.-L. Barazer-Billoret et V. Lefèvre, IFP/Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2005, xiv, 330 p. incl. 42 pages of photos.
Language: French, English. 400 Rs (14 €)

This book is a reprint of several papers by Prof. Bruno Dagens who from the end of the fifties has carried out research on temple architecture and iconography in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and India, and in doing so dealt with several aspects of the history of the Indianised world, its art, its religious practice, its ideology …

The first part of the book comprises two general contributions dealing, one, with the history and the spreading of Indian art and, the other, with results of several joint field and theoretical researches. The second part contains several papers (in French and in English) relating to Indian treatises while the third deals with sites and monuments of Southeast Asia. The book comprises a bibliography and several indexes.

Keywords: India, South-East Asia, architecture, history, treatises

• Dīptāgama. Tome 1. Chapitres 1 à 21

Edition critique Marie-Luce Barazer-Billoret, Bruno Dagens et Vincent Lefèvre avec la collaboration de S. Sambandha Śivācārya, 2004, vi, 449 p. (PDI n° 81.1)
Languages: Sanskrit, French. 600 Rs (22 €)

The Dīptāgāma is a Sanskrit Śaiva treatise pertaining to the southern school (Śaivasiddhānta). It deals mainly with the installation of images of gods in Śiva temples: installation rituals (pratiṣṭ̣hā), iconography, iconometry and architecture. It was hitherto unpublished and the present critical edition (to be published in 3 volumes) is based upon several manuscripts kept in the Library of the French Institute, Pondicherry. This first volume deals especially with mantras and temple architecture as well as with numerous iconographical descriptions and with liṅgapratiṣṭhā. The Sanskrit text is printed in Nāgari script with copious critical apparatus. There is an introduction and a detailed chapterwise summary (in French).

Keywords: āgamas, iconography, Śaivism, Sanskrit, temple