The article deals with the biography and scientific achievements of one of the founders of Tamil studies, G.U. Pope. His many years of selfless activity in the field of Indian education, the creation of basic textbooks and anthologies of the literary Tamil, which generations of schoolchildren and students studied, and translation of the main texts of ancient and medieval Tamil literature, have earned well-deserved honor and respect from the Tamils, for whom he is a national hero. His identification and study of the main ideas of Śaiva Siddhānta based on the biography and poems of the Tamil poet Māṇikkavācakar using Tiruvaruṭpayaṉ and Civappirakācam by Umāpati Civācāriyar (which he introduced into academic discourse) have largely retained their scientific significance and today. For the first time in Russian Tamil studies, Pope is shown as the first person to realize the philosophy of Tamil Śaiva Siddhānta value for understanding South Indian Śaivism. The article discusses in detail Pope's analysis and formulae of the main provisions and key ideas of Śaiva Siddhānta based on the comparative method, which allowed him to involve previously unexplored treatises of Umāpati Civācāriyar, and sacred writings of Hinduism, in comparison with the Christian religion, including the Gnostics and the Apocrypha. In conclusion, the author characterizes Pope's main scientific achievements, which influenced not only the development of academic Tamil studies, but also the national consciousness of the Tamils, their awareness of their unique identity, value and originality of own culture.
The author analyses the change in the Tamil Śaiva bhakti concept of corporeality showing that understanding the body of a bhakta as the main obstacle to connecting with the body of Śiva based on the attitude of rejecting one's corporeality has much in common with Buddhist and Jain ideas about the body. Therefore, the main task of the bhakta was to liberate from his body, its elimination or transformation (remelting the physical body as an impure body, as an obstacle body on the way to union with God). They solved this task in various ways, including various practices of ecstatic behaviour and self-harm. The concept of kaya siddhi put forward by Tirumūlar is the idea of a perfect body, potentially immortal and homologous to the body of Śiva. He also formulated and developed sophisticated techniques for using the physical body of a sādhaka as the primary tool for achieving liberation based on yoga techniques and working with the mind of an adept. The result achieved was presented in the description of Tirumūlar's own mystical experience. As a result, he achieved the state of the super material body of yoga-deha , the ideal of which is the manifest body of Śiva as Naṭarāja. The new iconography of Naṭarāja formed in the visionary insights of bhaktas, who described their darśans in their hymns. Then it became the basis for forming a new iconology of Naṭarāja and the cult of images of the bhaktas themselves embodied in the intensive temple construction of the Chola Empire. In combination with new ritual practices, the Tamil philosophy of Śaivism had formed as a tripartite religious and philosophical canon of Śaiva Siddhānta. This canon included the poetic canon of Śaiva bhakti (Paṉṉiru Tirumuṟai), the agamic temple ritual, and 14 philosophical treatises of Śaiva Siddhānta (Meikaṇṭar Shastras).
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