Four monastic centers serve Siva in South India and manage temple wealth
By Kay Koppedrayer, PhD
The fertile kaveri river basin in tamil Nadu has long been a center of Saivite religiosity. For millennia, the region has produced Saiva saints, mystics, siddhars and scholars. Included in the religious sites found in the region are a set of Saiva Siddhanta institutions that have been caretaking the wisdom of Lord Siva for centuries.
These are the Dharmapuram, Suriyanarkoil, Thiruppanandal and Thiruvavaduthurai Aadheenams. Aadheenam is the Tamil term for a traditional monastic center. Located relatively close to each other in the Thanjavur district, they are independent, each headed by an initiated preceptor and organized around a spiritual lineage rooted in Saiva Siddhanta teachings. Saiva Siddhanta is one of the six schools of the Saivite sect of Hinduism. The centers participate in a range of ritual and secular activities. They manage substantial land and wealth, value education and scholarship, serve the needs of lay followers, maintain strict schedules and sustain many other activities. They are part of a larger social network that makes up the religious culture of Tamil Nadu. All have unbroken histories since the mid-sixteenth century and are still thriving.
The aadheenams give expression to South Indian religious experience. Research for my doctoral dissertation in the early 1980s took me to these complex centers immersed in both sacred and temporal realms. Much of what I write in this article is based on what I learned then. They were fascinating places for a young scholar. Even today, some forty years later, I feel immense gratitude to the many people attached to the Saiva centers who welcomed me into their lives.
The Aadheenams
At their core, each of the aadheenams is made up of a group of initiated ascetics who embody the tenets of Saiva Siddhanta. However, the institutions are hardly secluded from the world. Their worldly involvement includes land holdings and the management of numerous temples. The scope of their activity is reflected in the many structures found on the grounds of these Saiva centers. With similar physical configurations, the aadheenam layouts are extensive: feeding halls, reception areas, guest houses, schools, research libraries, printing presses, offices, residences, places of worship and gardens. The guru pitham, “seat” of their guru, is where each center’s gurumahasannidhanam receives visitors and conducts religious and secular business.
Each aadheenam adjoins a temple. At Dharmapuram, both appear to be one complex, for the aadheenam’s buildings are directly accessible from the temple; the walls of the two are connected. Physical contiguity is matched by administrative powers. The aadheenam is the trustee of the temple, overseeing its various activities. The same is true for the other three aadheenams. In all cases, the temples existed prior to the aadheenams and were important religious sites in their own right. Thiruvavaduthurai is known as navakoticittarpuram, “the abode of nine hundred thousand mystics.” Within the temple complex is a shrine for Rishi Tirumular, whose Tirumantiram is a sacred mystical text for Tamil Saivites. Suriyanarkoil is a rare temple to Surya, built by the Chola king, Kulottunga I.
Though the aadheenams have administrative powers over their temples and are virtually contiguous, the ascetics do not conduct the temple pujas. That is the domain of temple priests. Rather, the aadheenams are separate institutions defined by their spiritual lineages. At each aadheenam, religious activity is focused on its current preceptor and the founder of its spiritual lineage—and, by extension, the lineage as a whole.
Each aadheenam’s central ritual consists of daily rites conducted at the samadhi shrine of its founder and to the Linga form of Siva worshiped by him. In accordance with tradition here, initiated ascetics are not cremated. When they attain the “fullness of Siva” (passing away), their bodies are interred. According to Saiva Siddhanta as taught here, not only is God eternal, but also individual souls and matter. Souls attaining liberation never quite lose their individuality while merging into the essence (or fullness) of Siva.
The head of an aadheenam, gurumahasannidhanam, meaning “sacred presence of the guru,” conducts the daily puja at his lineage founder’s samadhi shrine. The current gurumahasannidhanam at Dharmapuram is the 27th in succession. At Thiruvavaduthurai, the current head is the 24th.
The gurumahasannidhanam oversees the aadheenam’s worldly activities, no small task. With the exception of Suriyanarkoil, the Saiva aadheenams have considerable endowments. At Dharmapuram, all the agricultural lands in its immediate surroundings, both irrigated and dry, are under its control. The settlements of the laborers who work this land are likewise owned by the institution. It also owns thousands of hectares of productive land elsewhere. It has considerable investment properties in nearby Mayiladuthurai and other cities, including Chennai, Trichy, Chidambaram and Madurai. The situation is similar for Thiruvavaduthurai and Thiruppanandal aadheenams.
Those endowments are related to the temples and rights that each aadheenam administers, the result of gifting in earlier times. Thiruvavaduthurai has sixteen temples under its control; Dharmapuram has twenty-seven. In their role as landlord and temple overlord, the Saiva aadheenams are connected to a large network of people: farmers of the endowed lands, temple priests, overseers and accountants supervising their finances, and the many people involved in their religious and fiscal activities.
The chamber housing the guru pitham is called otukkam, meaning “self-control” and “place of seclusion.” It is regarded as a spiritual sanctum. Entry is controlled by the gurumahasannidhanam’s closest aides. Here, the gurumahasannidhanam receives reports and considers requests from the center’s manager, treasurer, accountants and all employees whose offices and residences are within the aadheenam’s compound.
The research libraries contain hundreds of palm-leaf and paper manuscripts in Sanskrit and Tamil, and thousands of published works in Sanskrit, Tamil, English and other languages. Particularly important are the halls where, during festivals, the rite of maheshvarapuja, honoring and feeding of the faithful, takes place with the gurumahasannidhanam presiding.
The aadheenams are often referred to as Saiva mathas. Though related, the two terms, matha and aadheenam, are not interchangeable. In Tamil usage, matham carries a connotation of “place,” as in the site where ascetics reside. It can be applied to a wide range of monastic sites, religious centers and rest houses. In contrast, aadheenam designates an independent institution that has its own internal structure of authority.
Shared Lineage and Service
Thiruvavaduthurai, Dharmapuram and Thiruppanandal share a common distant lineage. They all trace back to early Saiva Siddhanta preceptors known as the Santana Acharyas and beyond, through a celestial line, the line of Kailasa, to Siva Himself. All of these centers agree that their lines originate with Lord Siva, who in turn enlightened one celestial figure after another. Sometime in the 13th century, a spiritual young boy caught the attention of one of the celestial sages. That sage, Rishi Paranjyoti, descended from Lord Siva’s abode on Mount Kailasa to initiate the boy into the eternal Saiva teachings, giving him the name Meykandar, “he who has penetrating vision.” With that initiation, the earthly lineage begins.
There are four Santana Acharyas, beginning with Meykandar, whose concise Sivagnanabotham, a text of twelve terse aphorisms, lays out the underpinnings of Saiva Siddhanta philosophy. Meykandar’s disciple, Arulnandi Sivan, composed further elucidation of his teachings. Arulnandi’s disciple was Marai Jnana Sambandar, who in turn was the preceptor of the fourth Santana Acharya, Umapati Sivan. Collectively, their compositions make up the Meykandar Shastras, one canon of Saiva Siddhanta teachings in Tamil.
The lineages continued, with initiated preceptors in turn anointing disciples and sending them to religious sites to spread their teachings. Each current aadheenam measures its lineage in recent centuries from the time a preceptor settled at the site where the center is now located and began to teach and initiate disciples there. At Thiruvavaduthurai, Sri-la-Sri Namasivaya, living in the latter half of the sixteenth century, is the first guru. At Dharmapuram, the first preceptor is Sri-la-Sri Gurujnanasambandar, also a sixteenth century ascetic. The aadheenam at Thiruppanandal identifies early seventeenth-century Sri-la-Sri Kumara Guruparar as its lineage founder.
In the 1980s when I was doing field research, Thiruppanandal was an affiliate of the Dharmapuram Aadheenam in what members of both institutions referred to as a guru-sishya, or teacher-disciple, relationship. It was then known as the Kashi Matha. That label reflected the life of Kumara Guruparar. He was a disciple of Dharmapuram’s preceptor, who directed the young devotee to go north to Kashi (Varanasi) and establish an outpost for the sake of Saiva teachings. Kumara Guruparar did so, attaining the fullness of Siva in Kashi after a thirty-year stay. The outpost remains today. A century and half later, the matha following his lineage at Thiruppanandal was established. Today it is recognized as an independent aadheenam with close ties to Dharmapuram.
The founding preceptor of the Suriyanarkoil Aadheenam was the guru known as Sivagra Yogi, whose disciple was the famous scholar of the same name. The scholar Sivagra Yogi was a contemporary of Thiruvavaduthurai’s Namasivaya. Though now affiliated with Thiruvavaduthurai, Suriyanarkoil identifies its line of descent as coming from Lord Siva through Skanda. Thiruvavaduthurai, Dharmapuram and Thiruppanandal trace their lineage from Lord Siva through Nandi on Mount Kailasa. Theirs is the Kailasa Paramparai (the line of Kailasa); Suriyanarkoil’s is the Skanda Paramparai.
The aadheenams are further defined by shared caste affiliations. Only members of four groupings of the Velala caste and one of the Chettiar, all of which are considered by their members to be high-ranking but non-Brahmin castes, are eligible to be initiated into their lineages. Velala leadership has been a hallmark of these centers and has figured strongly in Saiva Siddhanta tradition and scholarship.
Lay people who frequent any of these aadheenams usually come from families with a long history of association with that center. Lay people, both men and women, are eligible to receive formal diksha, initiation, if they demonstrate the requisite spiritual qualities. That initiation allows them to conduct their own Siva puja. Though there are occasional shifts of loyalty between one or another aadheenam, the general rule is that a relationship with one of the center’s lineages is part of one’s inherited religious tradition. Lay supporters are welcomed at the aadheenam’s public rites, which serve to deepen their devotional life. Through audiences with the gurumahasannidhanam, they receive spiritual guidance. Some even give family members to the aadheenam’s ascetic order.
The rites conducted in the aadheenams are not different in expression from those conducted in Saiva temples. At the same time, the weave of religious tradition at the aadheenams includes the devotional expressions of the Tamil Saivite saints. Tamil poetry echoes in their halls, along with the tales of the Nayanmars and other Saiva saints. The core of their religiosity is found in Tamil devotional tradition.
As for other concerns, education is part of service to their communities for Saiva religious formation and upliftment. When I was there, Thiruvavaduthurai Aadheenam maintained the village schools. It had an active research library where scholars worked, and it ran a Saiva Siddhanta correspondence course. Dharmapuram likewise maintained a nursery, primary and secondary schools, an Oriental college and a post-graduate Saiva Siddhanta research institution. They still run a Devaram padasalai, where young boys are trained to memorize the poetic songs of temple oduvars, hymn-singers, and an Agamic padasalai, where young aspiring priests are trained in temple rituals from a Sivacharya.
Students trained in each of these schools are eligible to serve in the many Saiva temples throughout Tamil Nadu. Brahmin students serve as temple priests, and the oduvar students serve as temple singers, whose renderings of devotional hymns mark the culmination of the devotees’ religious experience.
These Saiva aadheenams maintain clinics and hospitals as well. In 2021, during the Covid spread, Dharmapuram donated two oxygen concentrators to a government hospital. It also donated considerably to the relief fund and opened a 100-bed Covid care center at one of its colleges in Mayiladuthurai. The resources supporting these community and educational endeavors come from the revenue generated by their land holdings.
The aadheenams also bestow spiritual gravitas to national political leaders. On August 14, 1947, drawing on the ancient Chola-dynasty custom of enthroning a new king, the aadheenams presented a golden sengol scepter to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, symbolizing transfer of power from the British. In the post-colonial Nehruvian establishment’s determination to secularize India, the event was suppressed and the scepter forgotten. For 75 years, it languished in the Anand Bhavan Museum in Allahabad. In 2023, it was accorded its prior glory when the heads of 20 aadheenams helped install it in the Lok Sabha government chamber.
Though the members of these centers are celibate ascetics who have renounced desire for material gain, they control much land, immovable property, investments and so on. Though seemingly odd for a group of ascetics to control such wealth, the role of the aadheenams in temple adminstration is not at all contrary to their religious formation. Rather, it is a celebration of the presence of Lord Siva here and now. The ascetics sever ties with their birth families, while affirming the physical world as an arena of operation for both the Deity’s powers and for devotees who aspire to supreme states of knowledge.
This outlook goes straight to the heart of their Saiva Siddhanta teachings. As the head of Dharmapuram expressed repeatedly during my stay, “pati-pasu-pasam” summarized their religiosity. Siva (pati), the souls of humans and other sentient beings (pasu), and the physical world, the stuff of existence (pasam) are intrinsically bound together.
Bestowing Diksha
The Saiva Velala ascetic lineages are based on a preceptor-disciple relationship which resembles the kin-based relationship of a father and his sons. The preceptor is the father, while the disciples, known as tampiran, are the sons. The “sons” must be “born” into the family through diksha, initiation. The qualifications for diksha include proper caste background and demonstration of sincere spiritual yearnings. Such yearnings are shown, for example, by frequent attendance of the aadheenam’s functions, a reputation for pious behavior and familiarity with Saiva Siddhanta. A further qualification is life-long celibacy, naishtika brahmacharya. Yet this rule, like any other rule, has its exceptions. There are stories of tampiran who previously had been householders, a status they renounced prior to receiving diksha.
The dikshas administered by each aadheenam’s gurumahasannidhanam are rooted in the Saiva Agamas and their Tamil summaries. These texts define spiritual competence. There are three initiations—samaya diksha, vishesha diksha and nirvana diksha. A special fourth rite, acharyabhisheka, is administered to those destined to become preceptors. Dikshas occur linearly and only when the recipient is ready. The progression of the three rites is to transform the tampiran, culminating with a shared identity with Siva. Each stage of initiation carries with it duties and obligations.
Prior to entering an aadheenam’s lineage, an aspirant must demonstrate a certain level of spiritual maturity, calibrated in the determination he shows to gurumahasannidhanam. This might be tested by repeated refusal of an applicant’s entry, discouragement and by other frustrating acts on the part of the guru. The aspirant’s background and state of health is carefully considered. Historically, the heads of aadheenams were reluctant to consider any individual with mental or physical defects, or someone who sought the aadheenam as a haven from work.
When the individual is able to satisfactorily convince the guru of his spiritual vigor, he enters a probationary period. He is given a white dhoti to wear and is assigned tasks such as gathering flowers for use in puja, or service in the aadheenam’s library. He is expected to learn the history of the lineage and the tenets of its Saiva philosophy. The length of the probationary period is indeterminate.
When gurumahasannidhanam recognizes that the neophyte is ready, he will administer the first dikshas, samaya and vishesha, back to back. At this time, the neophyte must give up his family and his desire for women and wealth in a formal declaration. He declares before the preceptor that he bestows his body, soul and wealth upon the lineage. In the samaya rite, the guru consecrates the initiate, bringing him into the community of Saivites. Then, with vishesha diksha, he brings about the initiate’s transformation into a child of Lord Siva.
These rites take place in the shrine housing the manifestation of Lord Siva worshiped by the lineage’s founding preceptor. At Dharmapuram, for example, that would be in front of a Linga named Lord Chokkanatha. The guru presents the initiate with one of the diksha names common to the lineage. The initiate is also given golden earrings, a necklace of rudraksha, ochre robes and other insignia that declare him to be a tampiran. Should a tampiran decide to renounce his membership in the lineage, as sometimes happens, he will remove the earrings and rudraksha before Lord Siva in that very same shrine and leave the aadheenam.
The preceptor grants nirvana diksha only when the tampiran shows a preparedness, or ripening of the soul, indications of which are discernible to the guru’s insight. One sign of the ripening is the tampiran’s grasp of the transformative power of puja. How long it takes—if ever—before the tampiran is given nirvana diksha depends on this ripening.
Nirvana diksha is the culmination for most tampiran nowadays. In this rite, gurumahasannidhanam uses mantras to draw out the initiate’s soul, atman, and remove binding obstructions (pasa). He then joins the initiate’s atman with his own which, through his preparations, is pervaded with Siva’s essence. This union gives rise to a new body, created out of subtle elements, that is able to experience conjunction with Lord Siva. The guru makes the tampiran a full member of the religious brotherhood by bestowing permission to utter the lineage’s prime mantra, the Panchakshara—Aum Namasivaya.
The rare fourth rite, acharyabhisheka, ensures continuity of knowledge transmission, and thus the lineage, as it transforms the initiate into a preceptor. This rite involves ritual unction (abhisheka) of the preceptor-designate, using consecrated water charged with the power of Siva. As this water is poured over his head, the preceptor-designate receives Siva’s power. Following this rite, the recipient is presented with the insignia of acharya (preceptor). These emblems include the same insignia—such as umbrella and mirror—and offerings, such as flowers and lamps, that are presented to Lord Siva during puja, as well as the insignia of the preceptor’s office, such as signet ring and special rudraksha.
By giving acharyabhisheka to a tampiran, the aadheenam’s guru has appointed his successor. Succession is not determined by seniority. The most elder of the tampiran, either in actual age or in length of time served as a tampiran, will not automatically inherit the leadership of the lineage upon the preceptor’s passing away. Only when the preceptor sees in the disciple the signs of grace, described to me by Dharmapuram’s guru as the descent of shakti, will he administer acharyabhisheka.
According to their teachings, Dharmapuram’s present gurumahasannidhanam, like his predecessors, is one and the same as their first guru. That he must maintain the worship of Chokkanatha, the 16th-century Gurujnanasambhandar’s personal Deity, acknowledges this equation. Through generations of acharyabhisheka, the essence of the preceptor has been maintained by Dharmapuram’s spiritual lineage–kept alive, as it were, and transmitted from one preceptor to the next. The same understanding is shared by the other Saiva aadheenams.
Administrating Temples
The religious logic of spiritual transformation effected by diksha explains the role of the Saiva aadheenams in temple administration and the responsibility of caretaking vast holdings. In South India, as elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent, Hindu temples are large complexes with towering gateways, main shrines, subsidiary shrines and more built over centuries through acts of patronage, temple endowments and other forms of gifting. At the center of the complex is the temple’s inner sanctum which, in the case of Siva temples, houses the form, usually a Linga, where Lord Siva resides. His dominion extends not only over the buildings and the land covered by the temple complex, but also over the collectivity of endowments that maintain the temple’s activities.
In the past, resources supporting the many ongoing components of temple activity, as well as continuous additions, came through gifts, known as temple endowments, from benefactors. In pre-modern Hindu India, kings, queens, members of royal families, caste groups, guilds, wealthy individuals, tradesmen, temple servants and others gave endowments. Many were recorded by inscribing them in stone on the walls of the temple or on copper plates. An endowment was not a one-time gift of money, but often a grant of income from land that would be turned over to the temple on an ongoing basis for eternity, or as long as the sun and moon shined.
This gift was offered to the Deity of the temple. For Saiva temples that was Lord Siva present in the inner sanctum, or to any of the many other Deities present on that site. But who, on behalf of Lord Siva, was going to ensure proper management of that endowment? The language of an endowment, having both religious and legal form, typically recorded the appointment of an agent to oversee its management and thus guarantee its continuity. Prior to the consolidation of temple administration during British rule, various stakeholders oversaw the management of the endowments for large temples. These groups shared in the supervision and management of the ritual activities at the temples along with revenue from the endowments. In certain temple inscriptions, representatives or members of spiritual lineages were named as trustees of the endowments to ensure their future. After all, who better than the embodiment of Lord Siva to safeguard the gift, or represent the interests of the group offering the gift?
By the eighteenth century, the Saiva aadheenams were being given administrative control over land or income endowments made to temples for the upkeep of specific daily rituals. These endowments effectively controlled the resources needed to maintain the rituals and thus figured importantly in the existence of the temple. Rights to oversee these endowments guaranteed the controlling institutions significant power. In this way, the aadheenams came to have interests in temples located elsewhere. At these sites they maintained outposts, or mathas, that served the religious and administrative needs of the aadheenams and their extended communities.
Balakumar Muthu
Legislation dating back to the mid-nineteenth century under British rule sought some regulation of temple administration, leading to the government appointment of designated trustees. Who or which group should be appointed as the main adminstrator was not always a straightforward decision, particularly where more than one party or institution had competing interests. Over that process of adjudication, in cases where the Saiva aadheenams held well-established rights overseeing management of temple resources, they were designated as temple administrators. From early times to the present, Indian law recognizes that temple ownership rests with the Deity. The aadheenams thus do not own the temples under their trusteeship. Rather, on behalf of Lord Siva, they manage the resources accrued by the temples. Even today, India’s Supreme Court continues to decree that all temple property is owned by the Deity.
Today, one does not find many ascetics residing at any of the aadheenams. At Thiruvavaduthurai, for example, I met only a few. Low numbers of initiated ascetics partly accounted for that, but there were other reasons. The rest of them lived in mathas at temples where the aadheenam served as the temple’s hereditary trustee, or where it administered endowments. This included temples in the Tirunelveli, Pudukkottai and Thanjavur districts. At these sites they represented the aadheenam and looked after its interests. On important dates, such as the annual celebration of Gurupuja, a commemoration of the lineage founder’s attainment of the fullness of Siva, they would return to Thiruvavaduthurai.
Back in the 1980s, the number of ascetics was not large enough for each temple connected with the aadheenam to have a resident tampiran, and not all ascetics had the requisite managerial skills. At those sites, employees of the aadheenam took on the duties of temple administration. Those tampiran and aadheenam employees were all acting on behalf of the gurumahasannidhanam, who in turn was acting on behalf of Lord Siva.
In sum, the Saiva aadheenams are marvelously complex institutions. Their makeup reflects layers of Hindu religious history in South India. Their arenas of religious activity extend far into the temporal world. But grounded in their Saiva Siddhanta religious understanding, those arenas of activity are not in opposition to each other. Rather, they express the totality of Lord Siva’s domain. ∏π
About the Author
Dr. Kay Koppedrayer is a retired university professor of religion and cuture. A Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship supported her field research at the Saiva Aadheenams.
|| namah: sivAya || Thanks Dr. Koppedrayer for a thorough insight into the Aadheenams even many in Tamilnadu itself are unaware of. Their profound long lineage history from sivA Himself and the holy practices that has sustained the spiritual power even in this kaliyugA is inspirational. saiVism is a treasure of eternal dharmA of sivA and thanks to all these efforts of great humans.