at is probably before 400 A.D. and perhaps
about the beginning of our era) there were two popular religions
ranking in public esteem with the philosophic and ritual doctrines of
the Brahmans. The Mahabharata contains a hymn[497] which praises Siva
under 1008 names and is not without resemblance to the Bhagavad-gita.
It contains a larger number of strange epithets, but Siva is also
extolled as the All-God, who asks for devotion and grants grace. At
the close of the hymn Siva says that he has introduced the Pasupata
religion which partly contradicts and partly agrees with the
institutions of caste and the Asramas, but is blamed by fools.[498]

These last words hint that the Pasupatas laid themselves open to
criticism by their extravagant practices, such as strange sounds and
gestures.[499] But in such matters they were outdone by other sects
called Kapalikas or Kalamukhas. These carried skulls and ate the flesh
of corpses, and were the fore-runners of the filthy Aghoris, who were
frequent in northern India especially near Mount Abu and Girnar a
century ago and perhaps are not yet quite extinct. The biographers of
Sankara[500] represent him as contending with these demoniac fanatics
not merely with the weapons of controversy but as urging the princes
who favoured him to exterminate them.

Hindu authorities treat the Pasupatas as distinct from the Saivas, or
Sivaites, and the distinction was kept up in Camboja in the fourteenth
century. The Saivas appear to be simply worshippers of Siva, who
practice a sane ritual. In different parts of India they have
peculiarities of their own but whereas the Vaishnavas have split up
into many sects each revering its own founder and his teaching, the
Saivas, if not a united body, present few well-marked divisions. Such
as exist I shall notice below in their geographical or historical
connection.[501] Most of them accept a system of theology or
philosophy[502] which starts with three principles, all without
beginning or end. These are Pati or the Lord, that is Siva: Pasu, or
the individual soul: Pasa or the fetter, that is matter or Karma.[503]
The task of the soul is to get free of its fetters and attain to the
state of Siva. But this final deliverance is not quite the same as
the identity with Brahman taught by the Vedanta: the soul becomes a
Siva, equal to the deity in power and knowledge but still dependent on
him rather than identical with him.[504]

Peculiar to Saiva theology is t