Pashupata

Pashupata, perhaps the earliest Hindu sect to worship the god Shiva as the supreme deity. It gave rise in turn to numerous subsects that flourished in Gujarat and Rajasthan, at least until the 12th century, and also travelled to Java and Cambodia. The sect takes its name from Pashupati, an epithet of Shiva meaning “lord” (pati) of “cattle” (pashus). Pashus are more precisely sacrificial or domestic beasts, the males of five species: goats, sheep, horses, cows, and, theoretically, humans. The “beasts” are therefore human souls, worshippers regarded as the cattle of the god and fit for sacrifice. Shiva himself was believed to have been the first preceptor of the system.

The Pashupata sect is mentioned in the Mahabharata. According to the Vayu-purana and the Linga-purana, Shiva revealed that he would make an appearance on earth during the age of Vishnu’s incarnation as Vasudeva (Krishna). Shiva indicated that he would enter a dead body and incarnate himself as Lakulin (or Nakulin or Lakulisha, lakula meaning “club”). Inscriptions from the 10th and 13th centuries refer to a teacher named Lakulin, whose followers believed him to be an incarnation of Shiva. On analogy with the Vasudeva cult, some historians place the rise of the Pashupatas as early as the 2nd century bce, while others prefer the 2nd century ce as a date of origin.

The ascetic practices adopted by the Pashupatas include the thrice-daily smearing of their bodies with ashes, meditation, and chanting the symbolic syllable Om. The school fell into disrepute when distortions of some of the mystical practices gave rise to two extreme sects, the Kapalika and Kalamukha. Some of the Pashupatas also developed the more moderate Shaiva-siddhanta school, whose philosophical teachings became not only acceptable but also central to modern Shaivism. The Pashupatas and the extreme sects were called Atimargika (“Away from the Path”; i.e., antinomian) to distinguish them from the Shaiva-siddhantas.