शिवज्ञानबोध (मेय्कण्डार - शैव सिद्धान्त का आधारभूत दार्शनिक सूत्र ग्रन्थ)

INTRODUCTION. vii
obscurity says that "the Vedic writings chance upon them and
as it were go along side of them, during the very period of their
formation."
Of course the difficulty will appear to those who study these
writings and the Philosophy contained in them apart from the
Religion and Religious beliefs of the people, and the religion and
beliefs of the people apart from the writings and the Philosophy
contained therein, and the difficulty will certainly vanish when the
two are studied together and it is perceived how intimately the
two are connected together and how the one enters into the very
whoof and warp of the other. Coming now to the work in ques-
tion, the twelve Sanskrit Sutras in Anushtup metre form part of
Rourava Agama and have been separately styled and handed down
as 'Sivagnana Botham.' The Saivas believe that this is the very
book which was in the hands of the Divine Guru, Dhakshanamurthi
and these were the very doctrines which He taught to the Great
Vedic Rishis, Sanaka, Sanathara, Sanantana and Sanatkumara.
At any rate, as an example of such close and condensed reason-
ing, embracing as it does the whole of the field of Religion and
Philosophy, the work is unparalleled. The Sariraka Sutras of
Vyasa, which contain the same four divisions as the present
work, consist of 555 sutras. There can be no doubt that the
Tamilians, having very early secured a translation of this
work through Meikanda Deva with his invaluable commentary,
cared to possess no translation of any other work on Philoso-
phy from the Sanskrit, and in spite of the great praise that is
bestowed on the Bhagavat Gita, the Tamil reader knows nothing
about it, and it is only recently a Tamil translation has been got out.
Of the merits of this Philosophy, which is discussed here as the
Adwaitha Philosophy, the word Visishtadwaitha having never
come into use with the Tamil writers, I need say nothing here,
following the example of the first translator Rev. H. R. Hoisington
who neither says a word in blame nor in praise of it, leaving the
readers themselves to form their opinions. It is more than