sary to write a commentary on
the Brahma-sutras to prove that they support his doctrine and the
Sivaites too have a commentator, Nilakantha, who interprets them in
harmony with the Saiva Siddhanta. There is also a modern commentary
by Somanaradittyar which expounds this much twisted text agreeably to
the doctrines of the Lingayat sect.

In most fundamental principles the Sivaite and Saktist schools agree
with the Visishtadvaita but their nomenclature is different and their
scope is theological rather than philosophical. In all of them are
felt the two tendencies, one wishing to distinguish God, soul and
matter and to adjust their relations for the purposes of practical
religion, the other holding more or less that God is all or at least
that all things come from God and return to him. But there is one
difference between the schools of sectarian philosophy and the Advaita
of Sankara which goes to the root of the matter. Sankara holds that
the world and individual existences are due to illusion, ignorance and
misconception: they vanish in the light of true knowledge. Other
schools, while agreeing that in some sense God is all, yet hold that
the universe is not an illusion or false presentment of him but a
process of manifestation or of evolution starting from him.[784] It is
not precisely evolution in the European sense, but rather a rhythmic
movement, of duration and extent inexpressible in figures, in which
the Supreme Spirit alternately emits and reabsorbs the universe. As a
rule the higher religious life aims at some form of union or close
association with the deity, beyond the sphere of this process. In the
evolutionary process the Vaishnavas interpolate between the Supreme
Spirit and the phenomenal world the phases of conditioned spirit known
as Sankarshana, etc.; in the same way the Sivaite schools increase
the twenty-four _tattvas_ of the Sankhya to thirty-six.[785] The first
of these _tattvas_ or principles is Siva, corresponding to the highest
Brahman. The next phase is Sadasiva in which differentiation commences
owing to the movement of Sakti, the active or female principle. Siva
in this phase is thought of as having a body composed of _mantras_.
Sakti, also known as Bindu or Suddhamaya, is sometimes regarded as a
separate _tattva_ but more generally as inseparably united with Siva.
The third _tattva_ is Isvara, or Siva in the form of a lord or
personal deity, and the fourth is Suddhavidya or true knowledge,
e