This double religion, combining the Vaidika religion and Śaivism under royal authority, was from the point of view of all Śaiva theoreticians a two-tiered hierarchy with Śaivism on top and the Vaidika religion below. The theoreticians’ ahistorical and fundamentalist presentation depicts no overlap between the two levels, no encroachment of one upon the other, or rather it uses theory to outlaw any such encroachment.
Nonetheless, when we see that the Vaidika domain has been so comprehen sively accommodated we are bound to look for evidence of a weakening of the orthoprax Vaidikas’ rejection of Śaivism and also of a commensurate adoption by Śaivas themselves of a view of their religion that surrendered the doctrine of its transcendence. We may well imagine Śaivas who had abandoned all sense of their religion as a path above the Vaidika, who saw themselves simply as Śaivas by birth, who claimed for their scriptures no more than that they apply to them as Śaivas, that there is nothing special about initiation, that it is merely a rite of passage into ritual activities peculiar to their group, and that these activities are much like the practices of other groups, Vaiṣṇava and orthoprax Vaidika, of similar social standing.