Tamil Siddha

[duhduhdude]

Tamil Siddha Yoga is a spiritual tradition that, broadly speaking, belongs to Tantra. It's the South Indian counterpart to the Himalayan tradition of the 84 maha-siddhas and just as intriguing. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, Tamil siddha is supposed to have been Tirumular, author of the Tiru-Mandiram (Sanskrit: Shri-Mantra). Some scholars place him as early as 200 A.D., others about 700 A.D., though he could have been a few centuries later as well. I had known of this tradition for years, but only delved into it more when Marshall Govindan, head of Babaji's Kriya Yoga organizations in Canada, approached Yoga Research and Education Center (YREC) with a request to collaborate on what became known as the Tamil Siddha Yoga Project. YREC contributed substantially to the project over a two-year period. Much was accomplished, and the first fruit of the team's efforts is crystallized in Prof. T. N. Ganapathy's book The Yoga of Siddha Boganathar, which was published recently by Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications (babaji@generation.net). Govindan also has re-published an Indian edition/translation of Tirumular's work (in three volumes). Both books are worth acquiring.

http://www.yrec.info/postt37.html

[Пламен]

Thank you for this information. I was wondering why the South Tantra is retorting so much on the necessity of a temple (Skt. mandira) and what the word tiru means. :-)