SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

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Sabash
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SAIVAISM IN ITS RELATION TO OTHER SYSTEMS. 357
read out the verse which was to this effect.
The Lord with
braided hair and His spouse with pencilled brows, live in the
burning ground of Kafichi. He knows no sin. He is not one of
the mortals. He has no one as His equal. No town claims Him
as its citizen. He is beyond compare ;
unless we with the eye
of His Grace perceive His true nature, we can t
paint Him, and
show Him as of such form and figure."
The Nabob nodded his head and said to the other party,
! This is a great Raja";
but told the Saivites, Yours
is God." My Mahomedan friend to whom I related the story
said, "True, if the Nabob did not know the nature of God, would
he have recognized yours as God." And that is the moral I am
trying to bring out by means of the story. The God of the Sai
vites who form the bulk of the Hindu people and whose doctrine
is the most ancient form of Hinduism, is not an anthropomorphic
conception. That they hold strictly with Mahomedans that God
cannot be born, as a man, through the womb of the woman,
attests this truth. Siva, (Sivam, Santam, Advaitam, Chaturtam)
who by the way is not one of the trinity, in all His revelations to
man, never was born and could never be born. He is therefore
called birthless (Aja) and deathless (Amrita) immortal, even in
the Rig Veda. In the higher regions of philosophy and mystic
ism, there is very close approximation. We also that
bejieve
the famous Kaaba of Mecca is nothing but a Siva Liiiga. I
quote very frequently from Sadi and other writers
J5haik
to
iUustrate the higher truths of Saiva philosophy. Here is a rose
picked from the Gulistan. certain person took his basket
and told his friends that he would go into his garden and bring
them fine flowers. He went in and the moment he came amidst
the flowers, he was so overpowered by the strong scent, he fell
down unconscious. He forgot himself, he forgot the promise
given to his friends, and the basket slipped from his hands un
noticed." This is the condition of the Jivan Mukta according, to
Saiva philosophy. There is
joy in heaven and endless bliss but
one will not be conscious he is so enjoying. This is
pure
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advaita bliss. There is no return from there, no return is the
refrain of the Upanishats. One of our sages sings: we have
not -heard, nor learnt from those who had cast their eyes on