The name of Srimat Sivagrayogin, the reputed author of the magisterial Sanskrit commentary on the Sivajnanabodha of the Rauravagama, must be familiar to all, as being the greatest of the latter-day Brahmin Saints of the Vaidika-maha-pasupata Order, that did so much to expound and propagate the God-taught doctrine of the Agamanta or Suddhadvaita-siddhanta, both by his precept and example. He was a Sivasakshatkarin (='knower of God') and his works bear, as a consequence, the impress of his aparokshajnana ('direct knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven') in every line. The profundity of his attainments in Sanskrit was only equaled by the marvelously limpid character of his utterances in that language, whenever he undertook to interpret or illustrate the higher teachings of the Agamanta. And deservedly has he been styled in all his Sanskrit works as 'Ativarna-asrama-acharya-varya' and 'Saiva-paripalaka', descriptions which are, however, considerably modest in relation to his inner greatness. His knowledge, again, of Tamil in which he has handed to posterity a few works of sterling value, hardly suffers in comparison with his attainments in Sanskrit. His writings in Sanskrit and in Tamil are devoted to the Higher Mysticism, Philosophy and Metaphysics of the Agamanta.

The following is a list of his Sanskrit works:-

    (1)     Sivagra-bhashya alias Guru-tika (on the Siva-jnana-bodha) which deservedly occupies a premier place among the Agamantic classics,

    (2)    Laghutika (on the Siva-jnana-bodha) which was recently published in the pages of the Pandit, Benares,

    (3)    Siddhanta-dipika alias Siddhanta-nirnaya,

    (4)    Pati-pasu-pasa-nirupana,

    (5)    Saiva-sannyasa-paddhati,

    (6)    Kriya-dipika, and

    (7)    Saiva-paribhasha, an independent Sanskrit treatise on the Agamanta.

And the sub pended are his Tamil writings:-

    (8)    An elaborate commentary on the Siva-jnana-siddhi (both svapaksha and parapaksha),

    (9)    a commentary on Sarvajnanaottaragama, and

    (10)    a commentary on Haradatta Sivacharya's Chaturveda-tatparya-sangraha.

The above Tamil Commentaries are interspersed with very large quotations from the Sanskrit Agamic literature.

All these Sanskrit and Tamil writings are, with the exception of (2) and a portion of (8), to be met with only in cadjan manuscripts.

- V. V. Raman.

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