Shaiva Traditions of Southern India: Tamil Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta

This chapter provides an overview of the history of Shaiva traditions of southern India, particularly Tamil Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta, beginning with the earliest evidence in Vedic and Tamil Sangam sources. The chapter shows how Tamil Shaivism emerged against a historical background of veneration of the Vedic god Rudra, the old Tamil cult of Murugan, pan-Indic liṅga worship, and devotional Sangam literature of the early 1st millennium. In discussing developments of the 6th to 9th centuries, we differentiate between three broad classifications of Shaivism, namely “lay Shaivism”, “ascetic Shaivism”, and “Agamic Shaivism”. Turning to the 9th to 14th centuries, we survey Chola-period temple culture and discuss major developments in Shaiva literature in Sanskrit and Tamil. A look at developments of the late medieval period shows how the caste-class basis of regional Shaiva monastic institutions changes  after the 14th century with an important shift toward non-Brahmin control. Finally, an overview of the origins of the Dravidian movement and neo-Shaivism in the 19th and 20th centuries highlights the role of colonial power dynamics in the construction of Tamil Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta today.