* சைவ சித்தாந்த ஞான போதம்
9
strongly coloured either by the atheistic system of the Buddhists or by the pantheistic system of Sankara and his cult, except where the most wholesome teachings of professor William James have pervaded, that almost all lines of inquiry either into the realm of matter or into the realm of spirit, might be said, without exaggeration, to end themselves either in a materialistic monism or in an idealistic monism that is to say, they affirm simply that in the end (the end of what is not clear from what they affirm) there exists nothing but what appears to be a form of energy whether you call it matter or spirit.
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In whatever way this kind of monism so stubbornly help in the teeth of all human experience, may seem to satisfy certain "tough-minded" people, certain it is that it cannot satisfy the cravings of the "tender - minded" people, as the two types, namely the monists and the pluralist, have been so pertinently called by Prof. James. We who live in the world of both mind and matter, we who acquire all our knowledge and experince by our contact with so many intelligent beings higher and lower, with so many products of matter which minister unto our wants cannot rest content with such a nameless and formless and therefore such an incomprehensible monism, but need a system which would meet our wishes and aspirations in entire harmony with out past and present experiences.
1
While our worldly experience is thus manysided, it has yet a unity that underlies all its variety. In the words of James, “It is both one and many”, and therefore “let us adopt a sort of pluralistic monism" Now the Saiva Siddhanta furnishes us with such a pluralistic monism as is evident from the following quotation taken from one of the fourteen authoritative works in Tamil which treat of the Saiva Siddhanta system. According to this system.
"There are six entities which have no begninning. The first of these is the Lord (Pathi) Who is One. The second is the aggregate of all Souls (Pasu) with their undeveloped potentialities of thought and act, interpenetrated by a divine but hidden influence. The third is the impurity of Anavam wearing
