SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

THE PEKSONALITY OF GOD
ACCORDING TO THE SAIYA SIDDHANTA.*
It will be interesting to note that, it was about 12 years
ago, we brought out our first work in English on the Saiva
Siddharjta Philosophy from Tiruppattur, and we have continued
ever since, to work hard at it, and, our translations of Sivajiianabodham.
Sivajnanasiddhiyar, Tiruvarutpayan/ along
with our contributions to the Siddhanta Dlpika, during the last
ten years, and Dr. G. U. Pope s Tiruv^agam form the only
bibliography on the subject in English. And we are glad to
note that, within the last few years, considerable interest in the
subject has been awakened, and several European missionaries
have made a special study of the subject, and have discussed
it before missionary societies and in the public press. We
quote the latest opinion from the Christian College Magazine,
Vol. XX, 9, from the pen of Rev. W. Qoudie.
"There is no school of thought and no system of faith or
worship that come to us with anything like the claims of the
Saiva Siddhanta,
% "This system possesses the merits of great antiquity. In
the religious world, the Saiva system is heir to all that is most
ancient in South India ;
it is a religion of the Tamil people, by
the side of which every other form is of comparatively
origin.
foreign
"In
the largeness of its following, as well as in regard
to the
antiquity of some of its elements, the Saiva Siddhanta is,
beyond any other form, the religion of the Tamil people and
ough\ to be studied by all Tamil missionaries.
* Reprinted from the New Reformer 1907,