Who are the Śivayogins? Notes from the Tamil South

In the Śivadharma corpus, and particularly in the Śivadharmottara, the figure of the Śivayogin emerges as central, with lay Śaivas encouraged to revere and support them through donations. The idea that great merit is accrued by donating to Śaiva practitioners is also prevalent in early Śaiva Siddhānta texts in Tamil, such as the Civanāṉacittiyār. Indeed, the Tamil reception of the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition incorporated a number of Śivadharmic concepts and practices, culminating in the sixteenth-century Tamil translation Civatarumōttaram, which elaborates on the most opportune times and places for making donations to Śaiva practitioners. However, the terminology surrounding such key figures is inconsistent: while the early Sanskrit texts refer to Śivayogins, later Tamil works use various terms to describe the religious practitioners who should be the recipients of donations. This paper examines this shifting semantic field, drawing on both Tamil texts and the epigraphic evidence mentioning Śivayogins among various Śaiva groups affiliated with temples during the Chola period (10th–13th centuries) and beyond. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to shed light on the figure of the Śivayogin, its history, and its transformations in the Tamil region.