1st Anniversary Lectures at the Centre for Shaiva Studies

Sri Karttikeya Sivam has studied the Vedas, Saiva Agamas and the Thirumurais at the Skandaguru Vidyalaya, Thirupparankunram, Madurai in the gurukula method. He has performed the duty of an arcaka at the Viramakaliyamman temple, Singapore for quite long. Since 2006 he has taken the charge of the Agama teacher at the Skandaguru Vidyalaya and has been training young students. He has written articles and books on temple worship and related topics. In 2015 Karttikeya Sivam has been elected as one of the examiners for the selection of temple employees under the Singapore Hindu Religious Board. He has been enthusiastically working quite long for the publication and propagation of Saiva Agama-s and related literature.

Dr. Mark Dyczkowski is a scholar and author of Tantra and Kashmiri Trika Shaivism. Both a scholar and a practitioner, he was initiated by the great Indian teacher Swami Laksmanjoo in the year 1976. He has an undergraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University and a Ph.D. from Oxford University, where he researched Kashmir Shaivism under the guidance of Professor Alexis Sanderson. Mark has published extensively including the 12 volume Manthanabhairava Tantra and is considered to be one of the world’s leading authorities on Tantric Shaivism. He is affiliated with several major academic institutions in India and has lectured in Universities in Europe, the States and India. In addition to his academic pursuits, Mark has studied sitar throughout this period, and his teacher was the great maestro Budhadiya Mukherjee. During these years of musical study he collected over 1,500 compositions for sitar. He has lectured in several countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, including the United States.