Evolution of early Shaivism
In this paper, historical and philosophical positions through the process of evolution of one of the most popular religious movements in India - Shaivism - are considered. We present the genesis of Shaiva tradition of indigenous tribal beliefs to the national religion. We analyse the origin and development of the image of Rudra-Shiva deity from Harappan “proto-Shiva” till the modern Hindu God (Puranic, Epic and Agamic tradition). Archaeological findings of the 20th century in the valley of the Indus (modern Pakistan) have en-riched the science of extremely valuable information about the existence of the III-II millennia BC highly developed civilisation, called proto- (pre-) Aryan or Harappan. The religious ideas of people of Harappan civilisation is most often determined by fertility cults: the cult of the mother goddess, the cult worship of ani-mals, phallic worship, etc., which, according to some scientists, clearly manifested in a variety of Saivite tra-dition and the many images of Shiva the god. With cultural and chronological sequence, what is highlighted, are the key periods (pre-Aryan, Vedic and sacred traditions) and direction (atimarga and mantramarga) of development and formation of Shaiva tradition, they are traced.