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

FIRST SUTRA. 9
of Siva are capable of declension in all the three forms without
change in its denotation and connotation. Siva, Sivah, Sivam;
Iswara, Iswari, Iswaram; Sankara, Sankari, Sankaram; Para,
Parah, Param and so on. And accordingly the images which
he employs in his temples correspond to these forms. All
nature is comprised in the three forms he, she and it. And
when we use human language and forms of Nature to describe
Him, there is no reason why one form should be preferred to
the other, when all forms of Nature are His.
I may note here another peculiar doctrine of this School.
In fact if there is any one doctrine which is more insisted
on in this School than any other, it is this that God cannot be
born in the flesh and He cannot have human Avatars. It is the
height of absurdity to suppose that God who is the inconceivable
and the unknowable and indescribable (வாக்குமனாதீதம்) can
be born as a man when He ceases to be such. (See notes to
sixth Sutra for a further discussion of the point).
(3) This argument establishes the supremacy of Hara and
the One-ness of God.
The commentaries here discuss why God is not Brahma or
Vishnu or Atma or the rest, the answer being that these latter
are all liable to change and possess no Swathanthram; and why
there should not be too many Gods as Aneka Iswara Vathis assert
and several other questions besides.
It should here be noted that Hara or Siva or Isa or Iswara
as used in the text is not to be identified with one of the Hindu
Trinity bearing the same name. In the whole of the sacred
literature we find Him described as the Lord of the Trinity, and
as One who cannot be known even to the Trinity. The Tri-
murthis are themselves regarded as Mortals, being born at the
beginning of each Kalpa and dying at the end of each. And the
Vishnu of the text means only the Puranic Vishnu, clothed with