der that Sambandha cannot
have lived later than the beginning of the seventh century. He was an
adversary of the Jains and Appar is said to have been persecuted by
the Buddhists. Of the other works comprised in the Tirumurai the most
important is the Tiruvacagam of Manikka-Vacagar,[532] one of the
finest devotional poems which India can show. It is not, like the
Bhagavad-gita, an exposition _by_ the deity, but an outpouring of the
soul _to_ the deity. It only incidentally explains the poet's views:
its main purpose is to tell of his emotions, experiences and
aspirations. This characteristic seems not to be personal but to mark
the whole school of Tamil Saiva writers.

This school, which is often called the Siddhanta,[533] though perhaps
that term is better restricted to later philosophical writers, is
clearly akin to the Pasupata but alike in thought, sentiment and
ritual far more refined. It is in fact one of the most powerful and
interesting forms which Hinduism has assumed and it has even attracted
the sympathetic interest of Christians. The fervour of its utterances,
the appeals to God as a loving father, seem due to the temperament of
the Tamils, since such sentiments do not find so clear an expression
in other parts of India. But still the whole system, though heated in
the furnace of Dravidian emotion, has not been recast in a new mould.
Its dogmas are those common to Sivaism in other parts and it accepts
as its ultimate authority the twenty-eight Saiva Agamas. This however
does not detract from the beauty of the special note and tone which
sound in its Tamil hymns and prayers.

Whatever the teaching of the little known Agamas may be, the
Saiva-Siddhanta is closely allied to the Yoga and theistic forms of
the Sankhya. It accepts the three ultimates, Pati the Lord, Pasu his
flock or souls, and Pasa the fetter or matter. So high is the first of
these three entities exalted, so earnestly supplicated, that he seems
to attain a position like that of Allah in Mohammedanism, as Creator
and Disposer. But in spite of occasional phrases, the view of the Yoga
that all three--God, souls and matter--are eternal is maintained.[534]
Between the world periods there are pauses of quiescence and at the
end of these Siva evolves the universe and souls. That he may act in
them he also evolves from himself his energy or Paracatti (Sk. Sakti).
But this does not prevent the god himself in a personal and often
visible form from being