BACK COVER:

 

SAIVASIDDHANTHAM: A HERMENEUTIC AND PSYCHO -ANALYTIC INTERPRETATION

(ISBN:978-81-925287-2-4)

 

 

This book takes a new path in the understanding of hidden themes in the traditional tamil saiva religious texts. It studies the overlap between psychoanalysis and saivasiddhantham. This is an academic text meant for readers who have already some idea about this field.  It may be useful for scholars in tamil,saivism, eastern philosophy, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics and psychiatrists who are interested in philosophy. Tamil diaspora  and Saiva associations worldwide may find it most interesting.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

DR.GANDHIBABU( 48) is a practicing psychiatrist. He is a medical teacher in annamalai university for more than twenty years. He has a long association with Chidambaram. He was a  graduate of MADRAS MEDICAL COLLEGE( 1982-88).

 

MAJOR RESOURCE BOOKS :

1.Philosophy:

 -Problems of philosophy- Bertrand Russell(1912)

- History of  western philosophy-Bertrand Russell(1946)

-Appearance and reality-F.H.Bradley(1893)

- Indian philosophy – S.Radhakrishnan(1923), Oxford university press , Indian edition-fourth impression.

-Cambridge companion series to philosophers, Cambridge university press, first editions 1995.

2.Tamil:

-Saiva siddhantha contact training program publications(14 volumes)-Thiruvavaduthurai adheenam – Thiruvavaduthurai, Tamilnadu, India. (2008)

-Sandhana sastra texts with commentaries(11volumes)- published by Thirupanadhal kasi madam- Thirupanandhal, Tamilnadu, India.( 2008)

Fourteen meykanda sastras with notes-Dharumapuram adheenam publication-2014.

-108 Upanishads , Ramakrishna mutt publications, Chennai (13 volumes),1991

3.Psychiatry:

-Oxford textbook of philosophy and psychiatry-oxford university press. New Delhi (2007) - 1^st edition.

-Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry by Kaplan&Sadock-William&Wilkins, Baltimore, USA (2009)-8^th edition.

4.Websites:

meykandar@yahoogroups.com  (the site has been a guiding force and I have exchanged my ideas with eminent scholars abroad through this group)

www.himalayanacademy.org  (I have taken the English translations of thirumanthiram from their site)

www.stanford.plato.edu : a very useful information resource in philosophy

www.shaivam.org : very useful source for original literatures and explanations by eminent authors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The author sincerely acknowledges and thanks the guidance given by the faculty members and research scholars of the Departments of Tamil, linguistics, history, Philosophy and Psychology,  Annamalai  University , India.

CONCLUSION:

 

 

The fundamental issue in siddhantham study is the metaphysical striving takes route of searching one’s own self. This has resulted in the extensive informations about the mind. This is more like a by-product. Like the ambrosia(amudham)   and “alagaala visham”( poison) emerging when “the cosmic ocean of milk” was churned.

 

 It is the metaphysical core issues matter for a philosophy student. But the byproducts of the self- search have given us a body of thought that has a solid basis for subsequent logical study of manas(mind) and the body. This may have ended up in siddha system of medicine which is still a popular clinical practice in tamilnadu.

 

The core issues of agama philosophy that is pathi, pasu and pasam are well explained in most other works. Therefore I took up the other issues like the  comparative philosophy, psychoanalysis and most importantly the phenomenology in my work. Needless to say there are abundances of improvements that are needed in my task.

 

 The nayanmaar’s life is a good example how religious attachments may go unhealthy if the appropriate steps in the sadhana are not followed. There are ample instructions to follow them systematically in saiva siddhantham especially in the thiruvavaduthurai -pandara texts.

 

What I find is a good similarity between the analogies and symbolisms in both schools. The symbolisms in the folk psychology and scriptures are equalant to the sublimation on psychoanalysis. Study of symbolism is vital for a student of psychology if he ventures into hermeneutics. They are even more essential for the one  who has taken up an in debth study of saiva  siddhantham.

 

 

          It is impossible to say both are same or even attempt at a comparison may be disliked by many scholars. My idea is to find the symbolisms only. Both schools use symbols. The symbols are similar both in terminologies and wider representations in the descriptions.  It is such analogies brought me to speculate both the schools in same light.

 

The siddha system of medicine and  psychology is well known to the world. The social implications it has especially in the sadhana chapters are noteworthy. The sadhana in my opinion are social in their outlook, rather than pure self absorption as many scholars of Hindu philosophy feel.

 

Therefore I make the following final conclusions:

 

1.Siddhantha has a logical scientific message(logical positivism?)

2.it also deals with unconscious dynamics along with core metaphysics.

3.It has hermeneutic, psycho-analytic and phenomenological connotations.

4. it has psychotherapy principles in it to prevent abnormal god attachments.

 

Thiruchitrambalam!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.7:CREATION OF LANGUAGE:

The language develops from the SIVA THATHVA.

They are four types:

1. Sukumai vakku:சூக்குமைவாக்கு this is the intuition we get. It has no thought form

2.Paisanthi vakku:பைசாந்திவாக்கு this is in the form of half intuition and half thought.

3.Mathimai vakkuமத்திமைவாக்கு: here the thought is clearly formed and has a linguistic form but cannot be pronounced.

4. Vaigari vakkuவைகாரிவாக்கு: it is fully formed word that can be communicated in a language.

All the vakku forms are from suddha maya and are from the siva thathva.

The cosmogony chapters in saiva siddhantham have no substantial basis for psycho analytic interpretation to my knowledge. Escept that the creation of mind and language are dealt in small manner. There are reasons to  say  the language came first and it created the other physical bodies- from certain descriptions within unmai vilakkam. These aspects are very hermeneutic in a sense that all out interpretations stem from language and the meanings we attribute to symbols in a language[i]. This is very close to our gestalt models of philosophy and modern philosophical hermeneutic theories[ii].

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[i] Thought, communication, and understanding

Language use is a remarkable fact about human beings. The role of language as a vehicle of thought enables human thinking to be as complex and varied as it is. With language one can describe the past or speculate about the future and so deliberate and plan in the light of one’s beliefs about how things stand. Language enables one to imagine counterfactual objects, events, and states of affairs; in this connection it is intimately related to intentionality, the feature of all human thoughts whereby they are essentially about, or directed toward, things outside themselves. Language allows one to share information and to communicate beliefs and speculations, attitudes and emotions. Indeed, it creates the human social world, cementing people into a common history and a common life-experience. Language is equally an instrument of understanding and knowledge; the specialized languages of mathematics and science, for example, enable human beings to construct theories and to make predictions about matters they would otherwise be completely unable to grasp. Language, in short, makes it possible for individual human beings to escape cognitive imprisonment in the here and now. (This confinement, one supposes, is the fate of other animals—for even those that use signaling systems of one kind or another do so only in response to stimulation from their immediate environments.)

The evidently close connection between language and thought does not imply that there can be no thought without language. Although some philosophers and linguists have embraced this view, most regard it as implausible. Prelinguistic infants and at least the higher primates, for example, can solve quite complex problems, such as those involving spatial memory. This indicates real thinking, and it suggests the use of systems of representation—“maps” or “models” of the world—encoded in nonlinguistic form. Similarly, among human adults, artistic or musical thought does not demand specifically linguistic expression: it may be purely visual or auditory. A more reasonable hypothesis regarding the connection between language and thought, therefore, might be the following: first, all thought requires representation of one kind or another; second, whatever may be the powers of nonlinguistic representation that human adults share with human infants and some other animals, those powers are immensely increased by the use of language.

The “mist and veil of words”

The powers and abilities conferred by the use of language entail cognitive successes of various kinds. But language may also be the source of cognitive failures, of course. The idea that language is potentially misleading is familiar from many practical contexts, perhaps especially politics. The same danger exists everywhere, however, including in scholarly and scientific research. In scriptural interpretation, for example, it is imperative to distinguish true interpretations of a text from false ones; this in turn requires thinking about the stability of linguistic meaning and about the use of analogy, metaphor, and allegory in textual analysis. Often the danger is less that meanings may be misidentified than that the text may be misconceived through alien categories entrenched (and thus unnoticed) in the scholar’s own language. The same worries apply to the interpretation of works of literature, legal documents, and scientific treatises.

The “mist and veil of words,” as the Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753) described it, is a traditional theme in the history of philosophy. Confucius (551–479 bc), for example, held that, when words go wrong, there is no limit to what else may go wrong with them; for this reason, “the civilized person is anything but casual in what he says.” This view is often associated with pessimism about the usefulness of natural language as a tool for acquiring and formulating knowledge; it has also inspired efforts by some philosophers and linguists to construct an “ideal” language—i.e., one that would be semantically or logically “transparent.” The most celebrated of these projects was undertaken by the great German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who envisioned a “universal characteristic” that would enable people to settle their disputes through a process of pure calculation, analogous to the factoring of numbers. In the early 20th century the rapid development of modern mathematical logic (see formal logic) similarly inspired the idea of a language in which grammatical form would be a sure guide to meaning, so that the inferences that could legitimately be drawn from propositions would be clearly visible on their surface.

Outside philosophy there have often been calls for replacing specialized professional idioms with “plain” language, which is always presumed to be free of obscurity and therefore immune to abuse. There is often something sinister about such movements, however; thus, the English writer George Orwell (1903–50), initially an enthusiast, turned against the idea in his novel 1984 (1949), which featured the thought-controlling “Newspeak.” Yet he continued to hold the doubtful ideal of a language as “clear as a windowpane,” through which facts would transparently reveal themselves.

[ii] MODERN LINGUISTICS VERSUSTRADITIONAL HERMENEUTICS* Robert L. ThomasProfessor of New TestamentAn emerging field of study among evan gelicals goes by the name modernlinguistics. Its terminology, self-appraisal, approach to language analysis, andrelationship to traditional exegesis furnish an introduction to a comparison withgrammatical-historical hermeneutics. Indispensable to an analysis of modernlinguistics is a grasping of its preunderstanding—its placing of the language of the Bible into the same category as all human languages and its integration with othersecular disciplines—and the effect that preunderstanding has on its interpretation

of the biblical text. Its conflicts with grammatical-historical principles include aquestioning of the uniqueness of the biblical languages, its differing in the handlingof lexical and grammatical elements of the text, its differing in regard to the

importance of authorial intention, its lessening of precision in interp retation, itselevating of the primacy of discourse, its elevating of the impact of stylisticconsiderations, and a questioning of the feasibility of understanding the text in a

literal way. Such contrasts mark the wide divergence of modern linguistics fromtraditional grammatical-historical interpretation. http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj14b.pdf

9.5:CREATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE SOUL:

 

From the remaining part of the unclean maya the siva employs the sri-kanda-rudhra to stir the kalai principles. From the kalai principle the moola pragrathi appears(fundamental physical bodies).

The fundamental physical matters are also called fundamental bodies, the avyaktha,( sitham, guna,or the maan.)

From the guna(temperament) the buddhi(insight)emerges

From the insight the agankara (ego)emerges

From the ego three principles emerge.

1.saidhasa=brings information to the mind and illuminates சைதச

2.vaigari=communicates with exteriorவைகாரி

3.boodhadhi=sensations=sensory experienceபூதாதி

 

Thr saidhasa are the perceptual organs lik eye,ear,nose,tongue and skin these are the gnana indhriya(knowledge source machines)

 

The vaigari are the arm,leg,mouth,uterus and the rectum. These are kanma indhriyam(machines of action)

The boodhadhi are  the noise, taste,smell,light and the tactile . They are called thanmathra (energy in the  perceivable form).

From, the boodhadhi the boodhas emerge. They are the sky,wind, fire,water and the earth.

 

9.6:CREATION OF THE HUMAN BODY:

 

So far we have dealt with  the creation of the maya(dark force) , the siva thathvas, the vidhya thathvas and the anma thathvas. These issues have detailed the creation of the universe from the dark force of maya. The maya is responsible for the creation of the thought and the thought produces the universe. This point is very important as the primary importance is given to the thought and the mind.  This is is unique to the siddhantham philosophy as opposed to the other hindu schools.

Now we shall go to see how the siddhantha describes the creation of the human body.

 

The human body is described to have five  distinct  layers each over others. The layers are

1.ANANDHA KOSAM ஆனந்தகோசம்( HAPPINESS LAYER)=KARANA SAREERAM

2.VIGNANA KOSAM( KNOWLEDGE LAYER)=விஞ்ஞானகோசம்SANJUKA SAREERAM

3.MANOMAYA KOSAMமனோன்மயகோசம்(MENTAL LAYER)=GUNA SAREERAM

4. PRAMAMAYA KOSAMபிரமயகோசம்(LIFE SUPPORTING LAYER)=SUKUMA SAREERAM

5.ANNAMAYA KOSAM அன்னமயகோசம்(BODYMADE FROM FOOD)=DHOOLA SAREERAM

 

These five layer concept laid one over another is a good model for the understanding of human physiology. It is nevertheless not complete and it has to understood from the complete descriptions of the thathvas and the thathveegas (which we shall see later).

 

This model of human physiology is a primitive human physiology and does not correspond to modern human physiology. But it still has some fundamental correctness and coul well have helped early siddha (antha) medicine system.

 

The karana sareeram is closest to the soul and is made up of maya itself ,it may be the early nervous system or the DNA.

The sanjuka sareeram is is made up of the viddhya principles ” kalai,niyadhi,kalam,viddhai and aragam” and hence may be the cerebral cortex.

 

The guna sareeram is made from the mind, buddhi and ahangaram. it is closer to the modern model of FREUDIAN mind namely the thought, higher mental function and the self.

The sukuma sareeram is one deals with perceptions like eye, ear, tongue…etc. it is the perceptual organs generally.

The last is the dhoola sareeram is one closer to our somatic body consisting of muscles, nerves, blood, heart, lungs, the  basic biochemical foundations of the body like hydrocarbons, proteins, enzymes ,hormones, water, energy bonds, mitochondria…etc.

 

It is the dhoola sareeram which gets destroyed in each birth. The other four sareera are not destroyed and reach the sivam.  This is a common knowledge that our body perishes at death. But our DNA is continued through children. The thoughts and actions do not die as they exist for the benefit of the mankind long after our death.

 

9.3:CLASSIFICATION OF THE UNIVERSE:

 

The universe is classified into two major forms.

1.sabtha prapanjam =word and language realmசப்தபிரபஞ்சம்

2.artha prapanjam= the physical realmஅர்த்தபிரபஞ்சம்

The ‘sabtha prapanjam’ are further classified into vannam, padham and mandhiram

1.Vannam=letters( they are 51;they are also called the bija-vidhai-seeds)வன்னம்

2.Padham =words (they are 81: the details not clear)பதம்

3.Manthram =sentences(they are only11;details not known)மந்திரம்

 

The ‘artha prapanjam’ (physical matters of the universe) are classified as kalai,thathva and the buvanam.

1.Kalai=pradhitai,nivarthi,vidhya,santhi,and santhi adheedham.(5)

2.Thathva= from nadham to earth (36 in number).

3.Buvanam=the geographic areas (224) they are the various lands,mountains,islands and hills.

4.The vannam, padham, manthram, kalai, thathvam and the buvanam are called the ADDHUVA means the openings to reach god.அத்துவா

 

9.4:THE VIDHYA THATHVAM (CREATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE SPHERE):வித்யாதத்துவம்

 

After the creation of suddha maya(clean maya)  the remaining  maya consists of the unclean maya. The unclean maya consists of the anavam and kanmam. The souls which are in this state are called pralaya kalar. They are called so because they get rid of the malam in the  pralaya (apocalypse) phase of the universe.

 

From the unclean maya the kalam(time), niyadhi(logic) and kalai(action) appear.From the action of sivam this process happens. Siva employs anandhar who is leader of the viddhye-asurar(asura of knowledge) for this.

 

From the actions the viddhai(knowledge) emerges.

From the knowledge the aragam(desire) emerges.

Thus the five thathvas that emerge from the unclean maya are

1.time

2.logic

3.action

4.knowledge

5. desire

 

The five principles together form the purudan(man)

Thus in the unclean maya there are seven products

1.Maya, (1)

2.Five thathvas,(5)

3. Purudan(man),(1)

these seven products are also called as vidhhya thathva (knowledge principles).

 

9.2:THREE STAGES OF UNIVERSE:

The layam,  the boham  and the adhikaram.

1.LAYAM: லயம்in this state Siva contracts the universe and merges into himself. In this state the Siva is called LAYASIVAM. The layasivam consists of the nadham and vindhu ( sivam and sakthi)

2.BOHAM போகம்: When the sivam stands in sadhkiya and expands the universe it is called BOHASIVAM. This state also is accompanied by the arulal for the souls.

3.ADHIKARAM அதிகாரம்: In this state the sivam manifest first as mahesan and does the MARAITHAL மறைத்தல்work. The maraithal work is blindening of the soul about its previous births and lives.

In the suddhavidhhai state the bodies of the god are the RUDHRAN,MAAL AND AYAN. They are in a form hence called URUVAM.  They lead the universe to function hence they are called the ADHIKARA SIVAM.

The suddhamaya bodies namely the sivam, sakthi, sadhasivan, mahesan, urudhran, maal and ayan are seven in number and are called as the sambu-pakkam(SAMBU-VARGHA)சம்புவர்க்கம்

Their duties are to perform the five functions for the soul which are in vignana kalar state.  The five duties are the creation, maintanence, destruction, hiding and grace.

The vignana kalar state souls are in a higher state of being and are classified further into

1. ANUSADHASIVAR அணுசதாசிவர்

2. ATAVIDDHESWARAR அட்டவித்தேஸ்வரர்

3. SABTHAKODI-MAHA MANTHRAR சப்தகோடி மகாமந்திரர்

These higher souls are called the ANUPAKKATHAR(ANU-VARGHA)அணுவர்க்கம்

These souls have no anava but the smell of adhikaramalam ( a type of anava)only. These higher souls along with the souls with one malam-that are vignana kalar are in the line for the action from the sambupakka bodies.

The creation of the universe is through a process which involves the Maya and the process goes through the bodies. From higher bodies to lower bodies in an hierarchical manner.

1.The initial bodies are the SAMBU-PAKAM(SAMBU-VARGAM=BODIES CLOSER TO SIVAM).

2.The next line this order is the ANUPAKAM(ANU-VARGAM=ATOMIC BODIES).

3.The sambu pakam bodies are created from SUDDHA MAYA(CLEAN MAYA).

Maya means  darkness, blindness, illusion, nothingness or black force. The dark force concept is not altogether unconceivable. The dark matter of the universe is a good example. The black hole theories are also similar to the Maya concept. Maya and black hole are analogous in a certain extent.

the sambu pakathar joins the souls which are in the vignana kalar state. The vignana kalar state consist only one malam that is anavam.  The suddha Maya of the sambu pakam  bodies help the vignana kalar bodies to expand into the DHANU, KARANA, BUVANA AND BOHA  thathva.

1.DHANU= PHYSICAL BODY OF  THE SOUL தணு

2.KARANA= THE MIND கரண

3.BUVANA= PHYSICAL SPACE=EARTH, SOLAR SYSTEM,GALAXIES,THE UNIVERSE.புவன

4.BOHA= OBJECTS OF ENJOYMENT=FOOD,SHELTER, REPRODUCTIONபோக

Thus the chain reactions are the sivam-suddha Maya-sambupakkam-anupakkam-vignanakalar-suddha Maya thathva-dhanu,karana, buvana and boha .

We should imagine that the sivam creates the dark force and then joins with the clean souls and makes the primordial universe. The soul stands next only to the sivam.  The universe comes next. That is in the order: sivam-soul-universe. If we draw circles one over other, the initial point is the sivam then comes the soul and then comes the universe.

   This model is similar to the CARTESIAN MODEL.    DESCARTES’S  concept of the mind body dichotomy comes closer to this concept( COGITO ERGO SUM “I am thinking therefore I am”). The soul or the ideas comes first and the universe is named by it. That concept gives primal importance to the ideas[i].

    This is in opposition to the empiricist’s view that the universe is created first and the mind perceives them and gets to know it through the senses. The adhvaitha principles are closer to empiricism and the saiva cosmogony is closer to rationalism. However eventually both schools reconcile to a KANTIAN MODEL later.

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[i] Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am), often mistakenly stated as Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum (English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"),^[1] is a philosophical Latin statement used by René Descartes, which became a fundamental element of Western philosophy. The simple meaning of the phrase is that if someone wonders whether or not he exists, that is, in and of itself, proof that he does exist (because, at the very least, there is an "I" who does the thinking).^[2] It forms the bedrock for all knowledge, because, while all things can be questioned as to whether they are from the realm of reality or from some figment of imagination (a dream, influence of a demon, etc.), the very act of doubting one's own existence serves as proof of the reality of one's own existence.
A common mistake is that people take the statement as proof that they, as a human person, exist. However, it is a severely limited conclusion that does nothing to prove that one's own body exists, let alone anything else that is perceived in the physical universe. It only proves that one's mind exists (that part of an individual that observes oneself doing the doubting). It does not rule out other possibilities, such as waking up to find oneself to be a butterfly who had dreamed of having lived a human life.
Descartes's original statement was "Je pense donc je suis," from his Discourse on Method (1637). He wrote it in French, not in Latin and thereby reached a wider audience in his country than that of scholars. He uses the Latin "Cogito ergo sum" in the later Principles of Philosophy (1644), Part 1, article 7: "Ac proinde hæc cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima & certissima, quæ cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat." (English: "This proposition, I think, therefore I am, is the first and the most certain which presents itself to whomever conducts his thoughts in order."). At that time, the argument had become popularly known in the English speaking world as 'the "Cogito Ergo Sum" argument', which is usually shortened to "Cogito" when referring to the principle virtually everywhere else. http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Cogito_ergo_sum.html

 PART-9: COSMOGONY: CREATION OF UNIVERSE:

 

9.1:UNMAI VILAKAM:

UNMAI VILAKAM is a book written by Thiruvadhigai Manavagangadanthar. His book is an important resource for the understanding of the concepts of creation and thathva and thaveehas. We shall see them now.

 

When the destruction of the universe takes place all matters perish. This is sangaaram. This sangaaram leads to creation of the new universe afresh by the Siva.

 

The Siva creates Maya first. In the Maya the Siva stand without any other malam and this state is called SUDDHA MAYAM. சுத்த மாயம்

1.When he combines the gnana power of his grace with the Maya the NADHA TATHVAM emerges.நாத தத்துவம்

2.When he combines his kiriya power with the suddha maya the VINDHU THATHVAM emerges. விந்து தத்துவம்

3.When he mixes the nadham and vindhu with the  suddha maya the SADHAKIYA THATHVAM emerges. சதாக்கியதத்துவம்

4.When the kiriya power exceeds and gnana power decreases they mix with suddha Maya upon which the MAHESWARA THATHVA emerges. மகேஸ்வரதத்துவம்

5. When the gnana exceeds and kiriya decreases the SUDDHA VIDDHYA THATHVAM emerges.சுத்தவித்தியாதத்துவம்

 

Thus five thathvas emerging from the suddha Maya is known as the SIVA THATHVAM

The Siva thathvas are the

Nadham, Vindhu, Sadhakiyam, Maheswaram and Suddha viddhai

The thathvas later take the body form.

1.Nadham=sivam form

2.Vindhu=sakthi form

3.Sadhakiyam=sadhasivan form

4.Maheswram=mahesan form

5.Suddha viddhai=rudhran, maal and ayan forms

 

The nadham and vindhu have no form hence called ARUVAM(AROOPA)அரூபம்

The sadhasivan has a form less form and hence called ARUVURUVAM(AROOPA-ROOPA:LINGAM) அரூபரூபம்

The suddhaviddhai has a form hence called URUVAM(ROOPA)ரூபம்

 

The creation of the universe from maya is similar to the quantum theories, black hole theories and the dark force theories. Even now seventy five percent of the universe consists of dark matters and the universe is still evolving. Dark energy principles in physics are closer to the maya thathvam[i].

 

It is a philosophical speculation of a yester year, that surprises us when it happens to be true on an empirical modern validation. That is the beauty of the human reflective process.

 

 

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[i] Dark Energy, Dark Matter http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

In the early 1990's, one thing was fairly certain about the expansion of the Universe. It might have enough energy density to stop its expansion and recollapse, it might have so little energy density that it would never stop expanding, but gravity was certain to slow the expansion as time went on. Granted, the slowing had not been observed, but, theoretically, the Universe had to slow. The Universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the Universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today. So the expansion of the Universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.
Eventually theorists came up with three sorts of explanations. Maybe it was a result of a long-discarded version of Einstein's theory of gravity, one that contained what was called a "cosmological constant." Maybe there was some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space. Maybe there is something wrong with Einstein's theory of gravity and a new theory could include some kind of field that creates this cosmic acceleration. Theorists still don't know what the correct explanation is, but they have given the solution a name. It is called dark energy.
More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe.
One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the Universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the Universe. 
Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual") particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10¹²⁰ times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.
Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the Universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.
A last possibility is that Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct. That would not only affect the expansion of the Universe, but it would also affect the way that normal matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies behaved. This fact would provide a way to decide if the solution to the dark energy problem is a new gravity theory or not: we could observe how galaxies come together in clusters. But if it does turn out that a new theory of gravity is needed, what kind of theory would it be? How could it correctly describe the motion of the bodies in the Solar System, as Einstein's theory is known to do, and still give us the different prediction for the Universe that we need? There are candidate theories, but none are compelling. So the mystery continues.
The thing that is needed to decide between dark energy possibilities - a property of space, a new dynamic fluid, or a new theory of gravity - is more data, better data.
By fitting a theoretical model of the composition of the Universe to the combined set of cosmological observations, scientists have come up with the composition that we described above, ~68% dark energy, ~27% dark matter, ~5% normal matter. What is dark matter?
We are much more certain what dark matter is not than we are what it is. First, it is dark, meaning that it is not in the form of stars and planets that we see. Observations show that there is far too little visible matter in the Universe to make up the 27% required by the observations. Second, it is not in the form of dark clouds of normal matter, matter made up of particles called baryons. We know this because we would be able to detect baryonic clouds by their absorption of radiation passing through them. Third, dark matter is not antimatter, because we do not see the unique gamma rays that are produced when antimatter annihilates with matter. Finally, we can rule out large galaxy-sized black holes on the basis of how many gravitational lenses we see. High concentrations of matter bend light passing near them from objects further away, but we do not see enough lensing events to suggest that such objects to make up the required 25% dark matter contribution.
However, at this point, there are still a few dark matter possibilities that are viable. Baryonic matter could still make up the dark matter if it were all tied up in brown dwarfs or in small, dense chunks of heavy elements. These possibilities are known as massive compact halo objects, or "MACHOs". But the most common view is that dark matter is not baryonic at all, but that it is made up of other, more exotic particles like axions or WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).