The siddhas, the perfected or accomplished ones, appear in Hindu tradition in two related senses. In the epics and Puranas they are a celestial class, pure beings who dwell in the mid-region between earth and heaven, witness great events from the sky and shower praise on gods and heroes. In later usage the word names human adepts, yogins and tantrics who have attained siddhi, perfection, and with it powers beyond ordinary human reach.
The celestial class
As a class of beings the siddhas are gentle and marginal, listed alongside charanas, gandharvas and vidyadharas among the inhabitants of the upper air. Their role in the texts is largely choral: they gather to watch divine combats and descents, crying out in approval and scattering flowers.
The human adepts
The human siddha is a far more vivid figure. Yogic tradition enumerates eight classical siddhis, including the powers to become minute, vast, weightless and irresistible. The tantric world remembers lineages of great siddhas, and the Nath yogis trace themselves to such masters. In the Tamil country the sittars, or siddhars, form a distinct tradition of iconoclastic poet-adepts associated with alchemy and medicine; the Siddha system of healing still bears their name. Across these traditions the siddha stands for a conviction that perfection is achievable within the body, by discipline rather than by birth.
Further reading
- Coedes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press, 1968
- Doniger, Wendy. The Hindus: An Alternative History. Penguin, 2009
- Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press, 1996
- Samuel, Geoffrey. The Origins of Yoga and Tantra. Cambridge University Press, 2008
- White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. University of Chicago Press, 1996
See also
This entry was last revised on 31 July 2026.