AGAMAS IN SAIVA SCHOOLS: The agamas form the important earliest phase of the development of saiva siddhantham. The origin of agamas are obscure. The term agama means"from the person". The tradition says agamas came from the lord siva himself. Early agams where written in 4-5 century in Sanskrit. The agams do not contain the messages of Vedas and it contains materials outside the realm of Vedas. The agamas are divided into four sections 1.sarya 2.kiriya 3.Yoga 4.gnana The siva agamas are 28 and the sub chapters (upa-agamas)would amount to about250 texts. There are vaisnava agamas and saktha agams too. The central theme in agamas are the temple and the disciplines related to worship. The agams ephsise on the self=cit. hence they are the precursors of the siddhantha philosophy. The agams are believed by certain scholars to have antedated the Vedas too. They may even have come from Sumerian temple worship practices or from the Indus valley civilization's yogic practices. The siva agamas however are available in part in Sanskrit only. Early agama was kamikam. Thirumoolar has taken nine important agamas for his work SADHASIVA AGAMA in tamil. This book is the most important and the earliest version of tamil agama tradition. Hence it is revered as the THIRUMANDHIRAM. As per saiva tradition the early saiva philosophy was declared by siva himself in the dhakshinamoorthy form. It was told to nandhi dhevar by siva in mand to paranjyothi munivar. Hence we can deduce that these four people have written the earliest siva agams in Sanskrit. These four saints are called dheva tradition as they have been with siva himself.it is to be notrd that the dhakshinamoorthy concept was there in sangam literature too. The saiva tradition hence is believed to have a closer relationship with tamil and tamils. Some scholars affirm this school is originally a southern tradition independent of the vedic schools. It is also possible that agama schools and veda schools mutually benefited each other in the 5th century BC. There is one collection of books called ashta prakarnams written by boja dhevar, sathyajyothi, sreekandar and parama kandar. This book contains the gnana kanda of agamas . they were written in 8-9th century . other books written on these gnana kanda are sidhantha saravali in Sanskrit and thugalaru bodham in tamil. The tamil tradition does not have all the agamas in now. The agamas may have perished during the jain phase of tamilagam. The sivachariyas of tamilnadu carried the information by heart and preserved the concepts in Sanskrit and tamil . They are called adhi saivars The fall of Jainism led to the development of bakthi literature in tamil and the thirumurai phase of saivam. The next phase in the development of saivam in tamilagam was in 13th century AD. This phase traditionally bean with meykandar and his followers like arulnandhi, maraignanasambandhar and umapathisivachriyar. They have written the 14 sandhana texts.These times were politically volatile in north india. South india offered a peacefull recluse for hindu philosophers and saivism had the advantage to continue to flourish. This was followed by the establishment of the adheenams from thiru-avaduthurai first. 18 such adheenams were estabilished. they were the medieval universities in south india. many new books were written under their patronage. They continue to function to this date. They call themselves as nandhi marabu recalling the thirunandhi dhevar who learnt agamas from lord siva from kailash. Hence they are known as thiru kaiyilaya parambarai.