The Sanskrit Alpabet

According to the Saradatilaka, based on the traditional Indian view of its alphabet, there are 50
letters, 16 vowels (chess number), 25 consonants and 10 vyapakas. So here in regards to vowels
we see 16.  Furthermore, there is mention that these vowels are lunar, as the Sanskrit alphabet is
composed of solar, lunar and fiery at least in the traditions upon which the Saradatilaka is based
which stems from Kashmir before the late 900′s AD, and which found themselves those used in
the contemplations of sevitas or servants and their associates in and a round the Jagannatha
temple. The  24 tattvas or truths of creation gather around the central letter M, which is seen as
the Purusha, (whom we have looked at a little previously in relation to the golden Chaitanya) and
these are the 25 consonants (M and the rest= 24+1=25) so even here the 24 = 3×8 (888 as we
have previously seen) and its central 1 are side by side with 10 vyapakas and 16 vowels. The
consonants are solar. The 10 vyapakas are fiery. The 16 vowels lunar. Didn’t Moses receive ten
commandments on the fiery mount, letters if fire too? One can see harmony here if one is
imaginative and one can also see chess too! 16 vowels either side of the board dance and play
with the consonants placed on the squares in between the pieces, with central rectangular 8 (2
sets of 2×2) left alone (perhaps 10 vyapakas with 2 left out, and of those left out, each one being
each player). Whether or not this was actually done, and oracular games tracing Sanskrit, I do
not know. Anyway, each letter is a quality, a divine quality associated also with the creation too.
This is the India’s Kabbalah in a sense, and one can see similarity to the western in so many
ways. Furthermore, the 16 vowels are also Shakti, of the Shaivite tradition, with which this
alphabet division into three categories (as is the Greek) is associated. It must also be mentioned
that 24 tattvas means 24 categories of creation which the Sankhya Yoga tradition has elaborated,
but in certain parts of the Vaishnava tradition these 24 are also added to another 8 to make 32
tattvas, and in parts of certain Shaivite traditions, added to another 12 to make 36.

The alphabet is also in the Saradatilaka is a Goddess and also a tree, like how the Hebrew letters
are gathered on the Kabbalistic tree, and in the Christian traditions are associated with Sophia.
Here the Sanksrit letters too gather on their tree named Lipitaru, or ‘tree of letters’ underneath
which the Goddess sits. This tree of letters is beautifully described in regards to its seed, tap
roots, branches, leaves, sprouts, flowers and fruits, seven categories (7 days creation in
Bereshith), with each of these seven categories associated with wisdom as Paramsamvit, being
the seed, the bindhu point of eternity, centre of mandala and deity, and nada in the temple-body.
The sound currents divine are the two tap roots, branches the earth letters, leaves the water letters
of the three worlds, the sprouts are fire letters bright like gems, the flowers the air letters and the
fruits the ether letters. Thus a further dividing up into penta-element or five fold elements and
their roots, 3 and 5. Honey of heavenly nectar is the 8th principle and this is showering down on
the Goddess below, honey itself in cultures east and west, from Scandinavia to Greece and from
Persia to China and elsewhere, has an interesting history, but that is another topic. Anyway this
trees height and its’ beauty is compared to the various scriptures, associated with Shakti and
Shiva, and it is said to give shelter to great souls and all the living entities. I shall quote from a
translation of a translation as regards the contours and details of the goddess who sits under this
tree.

“She is like the effulgence of ten million stainless moons and her breasts are large and high. On
her head is the crescent moon and her three eyes are half closed due to the libations of nectar, of
amrta, which she has partaken. In each of her four hands she is carrying the gestures of boons, a
rosary-mala of beads for chanting mantras on, the gesture of wisdom, and a skull. She is here in
the pride of youth as her body is composed of the letters of the alphabet. She is the queen of
speech.”

Note the crescent moon on the forehead as this is sometimes translated as wearing a ‘digit’ of the
moon on her or his forehead, depending on the Deity, in other parts of the Saradatilaka. This
feature of moon digits is important to chess, in that the total number of the squares on the four
sides of the edges of the board, its rim so to speak, consist of 28 squares associated with the 28
digits of the moon. Note that she has four arms. The chess board has four corners, four sections
and four sides of the board too. The Goddess here is the Goddess of wisdom, Lady Wisdom
Sophia of the east, known as Sarasvati and here she is involved with amrta, with nectar, an
aspect overlooked which is more central than is commonly assumed. Let us look at other
examples in the Saradatilaka for nectars and chess number.

There is a goddess called Syama, mentioned in the Saradatilaka whose associated with the tails
of a peacock, red gunja seeds, leaves and 8 serpents entwining her body, two coloured as fire,
two as yellow, two as blue and two as white. One of her mantras has sixteen letters. She has an
eternal spiritual form and is also of the colour of gold and with the customary digit of the moon
on her forehead, seated on a red lotus with four arms. I wonder if there was once an ancient
board game wherein each of the 28 squares of an 8×8 had one such as her upon it? Ancient
gameboard oracular co-ordinates of the 8×8 pattern for temples?

In regards to another goddess called Nitya, who seated on a red petalled lotus of 12 she holds in
her six arms, the bow of Madana, or Kamadev-Cupid. Her colour is the colour of a golden lotus,
adorned with various jewels and surrounded by handmaidens carrying various things like boxes
of betal leaves, (a psychoactive substance common and associated with many of these facets of
deity and we have already seen honey and alcohol) and mirrors. Three couples and two sacred
gems surround her, making eight in all. One of the couples is Laxmi and Vishnu, the other Gauri
and Hara (Shiva), and the other is Cupid (named as Smara here) himself with his consort Rati.
She sits under a sacred kalpa vrksha tree in the middle of a forest of sacred parijata trees and we
have already seen the tree of alphabet and its 16 moon nodes. Of course we astro interlinked
themes but its much more than coded astrology when we consider the nectar features. Here we
have betel usage. In this Indian Edenic plane or scape, we thus have chess numbers too, as well
as Kamadev-Cupid in the garden of the sacred kalpa vriksa and parijata trees famed and sharing
also in the Krishna tradition too.

Also in Saradatilaka, the Goddess Durga, who ties up with Subhadra in Jagannatha trinity (whom
we have seen to be associated with Kamadev and his 16 and 16 yantra) in form of
Mahisamardini, is sat on a buffalo and has eight hands holding disc, conchshell, sword, shield,
arrows, bow, spear and threatening gestures. She is the colour of emerald, and like many of the
goddesses out of which we have touched on a few, she has three eyes, two and a ‘third eye’. She
sometimes is seated on her carrier as a lion when she is in her raincloud colour form, carrying a
lotus, noose, a mace instead of a shield, the conchshell and with the threatening gesture.
Raincloud colour is also the colour which is Krishna. She is attended by four maidens. In these
forms she wards off evil with her powers and weapons, and with all these she protects those who
think on her with devotional love, although of benefit even to those who simply see or think of
her, or imagine her, as is the case with this varied alternate multi-verse Deity of deity realm.
Sometimes she also holds a skull and a trident instead of a noose, mace, spear or threatening
magical powered gesture. When holding the skull and trident in two of her 8 arms, she is usually
associated with the fire of the final dissolution of the universe (as time is measured in association
with various cycles of dissolution in this tradition). She is a lady of eight in this way, a protector,
the fiery purifying form of the Divine also in a way like the martial aspects of western regal
queen’s chess.

The Goddess Durga

Surya, the demigod of the sun is also mentioned here in the Saradatilaka. Surya has a mantra
consisting of eight letters and is a red coloured deity like the bandhuka flower and sat on a red
lotus with a ruby crown upon his head with a lotus in each of his two hands one dispelling fear,
the other granting boons. Here he sits with his eight letters. Another figure of eight.

Bhairava Shiva is a curious deity associated with the early part of the Jagannath tradition, as both
he and Jagannatha resemble each other in their pillar like forms and share features that suggest a
string possibility that once Jagannatha was worshipped as Bhairava before the Vaishnavas came
with their traditions of Vishnu Purusottama and Jagannatha-Krishna. Bhairava’s one legged
pillar form, Ekapada Bhairava, a one footed Deity, was a Deity also took on board by certain
royalty who governed the area at some point in its history. Of course any Vishnuization of a
Shiva Deity would have kept Shaivaic elements also. Perhaps not all but something. We shall not
get into the links between Ekapada Bhairava and Jagannatha here.

In Saradatilaka Bhairava has 4 faces and 8 arms. 4 sets of 8, like chess, like Kama and
Subhadra’s yantras. In his form of Martanda in the Saradatilaka he carries a bow, lotus, disc, and
holds a feminine counterpart, or Shakti with one side of 4 hands of the 8, one the other side of
his torso he has the other 4 arms and hands, carrying a noose, goad, japa-rosary beads and a
skull. Eight arms and eight principles. His body is half female and half male, the left being that
of his main beloved principle Shakti. This indicates a link to the Ardhanaishvara Shiva whom is
both God and Goddess combined in one form. Chaitanya too was Radha Krishna combined in
one form also. Again we shall not get into this form of Shiva and stick to the Saradatilaka.

Martanda also has a jewelled crown and garland and has 3 eyes on each one of the 4 faces,
making 12 as well, no doubt somehow link with the 12 zodiac on a certain grosser level. There is
mention in the Saradatilaka of a few Shiva mantras consisting of 8 letters. Also another
presentation here of Shiva, with his terrifying heavily laden rain cloud colour image, with three
eyes, fangs, and red raiment smeared in various unguents, holding the battle axe, small drum,
sword, shield, bow, arrow, trident and skull this time in his eight arms, and is also accompanied
by a serpentine circle which surrounds him, as befitting the master of time ouroborus like and
transcendent of the sphere of the serpent, the serpent tamed and mastered. Shiva’s name in this
role is Aghora. In regards to the darker aspects of Shiva, one of his three forms of the three
modes of nature, (his form associated with the tamasic or mode of ignorance phase) has him
holding in his eight hands; a serpent, a bell, goad and noose, along with a fear dispelling gesture,
and instead of the battle axe the trident, as well as a shield, bow and arrow. Another of the
Aghora forms in the text has the skull, sword and the small drum instead. This form is adorned
with serpents and a garland of heads, as it transcends the realm of the multitude of deaths and is
chief amongst all heads so to speak. Shiva both in tradition, and in a hymn in the Saradatilaka,
specifically, is mentioned as having destroyed the pride of Kama, turning him into ashes, and
according to the Vaishnavas, these ashes rose and became merged in the body of Vasudeva and
then were later associated with the son of Rukmini and Krishna, Pradyumna as we have seen.
Kama seems to have been incorporated into both the Vaishnava and Shaivite traditions it would
seem, in something that is in various stages of purifying the realm of human love, almost
alchemically, at least in my opinion and hints from the tradition. Shaiva is associated with earth,
fire, air, water, ether, sacrificer, moon and the sun, in this hymn in Saradatilaka. There are eight
tattvas usually grouped together and associated with the eight directions as well. The ancient
Vedic tradition which derived its anushstup mantra of 32 letters, from the Rg Veda, and the
ancient division of siddhis or mystic powers into eight, and the eight ashtangas of yoga, and the
version of sixteen chakra systems, are all very Shaivite like aspects of categories which contain
the chess numbers to revealing the depth of the love! On the edges of the ravages of time and
transcendence, on the heights and from the ashes of spring love times is transmuted Kama anew,
and in another Shaivite tradition, Kama is raised from the ashes to become various pervading
things, such as the mango tree, honey-mead called Madhu associated with the spring time of
year, in the moon, in all other flowers and in black bees, and lastly in the amorous cuckoo. The
tradition of the Goddess, Devi has Kama’s burning up into ashes to be raised as first appearing 
as the demon Bhadasura whom she defeats and transforms from the death of this second phase of
Kama, Kamadeva himself again but this time as her devotee. The burning of Kama into ashes by
Shiva has intimations of some alchemical process in a certain sense, well at least in my opinion.
But we see how Kama associates with Purusottama Trailokya Mohan and Krishna aspects of
Vishnu on one hand and on another with Shiva and ashes and resurrection on another side.

 
Ekapada Bhairava, Siva form associated with Jagannatha, as both share pillar like structure as
well as same region

Another set of eight is the eight arms and qualities of Agni, he who is the sacrificial fire and its
flames, with a golden garland, a mass of tangled flames for his head, compared to matted locks
and adorned with red garlands and red sandal paste, dressed in light bright white rainment
carrying in each of his eight arms; a shakti or feminine quality, a four armed cross, something
I’m not currently able to translate but called a darbha mushti, a rosary-japa set of beads for
mantra chanting, a sacrificial ladle which is usually used to pour ghee and other substances into
the fire, a spoon for similar uses, and a two gestures, one for dispelling fear and the other to grant
boons. He has two eyes and one third eye.  Thus, in the Saradatilaka the tongue of the fire
sacrifice of Puri has also eight categories as well.

These chess numbers in the Saradatilaka are found associated with these things explained, fire,
ash, nectars, flowers, mead, honey, trees, metals, gems, sugar….but there are other deities, gods
and goddesses with different numbers and the same gods and goddesses above with different
numbers as well. But as we can see the chess numbers are associated with the major limbs of
these various examples, and we can trace the vein of love and chess number therein. Yet the
chess numbers do feature in an important part of the Chaitanya tradition as they do in the
Saradatilaka.