36 |Saivism and the Tantric Traditions Alexis Sanderson ‘The term Saivism here rfersto a numberof distinct but historically related systems comprising theology, ritual, observance and youa, which have been propagated in India asthe teachings of the Hindu deity Siva, A Saiva is one who practices such a system. To understand the termto mean‘a worshipper of Siva’ or‘one whose deity is Siva isless precise; for a Saiva may well bea worshipper not of Siva but af the Goddess (Dev). ‘Though she is commonly represented a8 the consort of Siva and, theologi- cally, as that god's inherent power (ak), itis none theless the defining mark ‘of certain forms of Saivism that she is seen as transcending this marital and logical subordination. ‘The scriptural revelations of the Ssiva mainstream are called Tantras, and those that actin accordance with their prescripions are consequently termed Tantries (inka). ‘The teem tantra means simply a system of ritual or essential instruction; but when itis applied inthis special context it serves to differentiate itself from the tradtions that derive their authority from the Vedas (direct revelation: ru) and a body of later texts that claim to be Veda-based (indicect revelation: smrt). This compus of fut! and smrti prescribes the sites, duties and beliefs that constitute the basic ot orthodox order and soteriology of Hindu society. The Tantrcs however saw their own texts as an additional and more specialised revelation (ieyaasra) which offers a more powerful soterology to those who are born into this exoterc order. The Tantric rituals of initiation (dda) were held to destroy the rebirth-generating power of the individuals past actions (karma) inthe sphere of Veda-determined values, andto consubstanate him with the deity ina transforming infusion of divine power. "The Saivas were not the only Tantrcs. There were also the Vaisnava Tantrcs of the Pafcaritra system, whose Tantras, consid red by them t be the word ofthe deity Vigo, prescribed the situs, duties 660 Seivim and the Tantric Traditions and beliefs of the devotes of Visudeva in his various aspects (eta) and Emnanations (ibhere, svat). In adgition to these two major groups of ‘Tantric there were Saas, followers of Tantras revealed by the Sun (Siy2); Init while we have acces 0 a number of Vaisnava Tantas apd to a vast corpus of aiva material, the Saura trations silent. An early Saiva Tanta {Srskonthiyauaita) hats canon of 85 Tantras ofthe Sun, but not one ofthese these nor any other Saura Tantra has survived, “The production of Tantric revelations was not Timited to those who accepted the supematurl authority of the Vedas. I went on, though on + much smaller sale, among the Jains, while the Buddhists added an enormous Tantric corpus to their canonical literature during the ptiodc. 400-750 ce. By the end ofthis period the system ofthe ‘Tantras, called ‘the Way of che Diamond’ (Vajrayana) or ‘of Mantras'(Man- tcaying), was generally recognised among the followers ofthe Greater Way (Mahayana) as the highese and most direct means to ibeation (urine), and its exoterc deities were enshtined in the monasteries asthe high patrons ofthe faith, The Tibetans, who received Buddhism at this stage ofits development, preserve in the Tantcic section of thee canon, translations from the Sanskrit of almost 500 revealed texts and over 2000 commentaries and explanatory ‘works, Of these moze than three quarters concern Tantra of the most radical kind, those of the Higher and Supreme Yogas (Yogotaretaniras and Yogattaratonas All hese Tans were similarly related tothe tadi- tional forms of religion, the Buddhists tothe monastic discipline and the Vasisuavas and Ssivas to Vedic orthopraxy. They were excluded by the traditionalists because they went beyond the boundaries ofthese systems of practice, But the Tantrcs themselves, while excluding these exclsivist, Included their systems asthe outer level of concentrichierarchy of tuland discipline. ln those communities in which it was possible or desirable to add to the exoteric tradition this second, more esoteric level, there might be forms ofthe Tantric cult which this transcendence entailed the nféingementof the rues of conduct (ira) which bound the performer of sual atthe lower, more public, level of his practice. Thus some rites involved the consumption of meat, alcohol and other impurities, even sextal intercourse with women of untouchable castes (enya). These practices ‘originated at part ofthe magical technology of certain extremist orders of Sziva ascetics, They pasted over into the marred majority; but when hey did 40, they survived unrevised only in limited circles. The general tend—and this was also son the ease of Tantric Buddhism—was to purify the rites by taking in everything except the elements of impurity. Thiele the esental [eructure intact: one worshipped the sume deity, with the same complex of cmanations or subordinate deities, mantras, deity-enthroning diagrams (may- ila), and seve getores and postures (sadn). The spread ofthe Tanle 6stSsiviom and the Tantvie Tradtions cules in Indian religion is largely the history of this process of domestication and exotericisation. ‘The followers of these cuts, even in their undomes- ticated form, should not be seen as rebels who rgccted a situalised social identity fora liberated cult of ecstasy. This popular view of Tantrism over- looks the highly-structured ritual contexts (Tantric end non-Tantric) of these lun-Vedie practices. A person who underwent a Tantric initiation (ksi) was Jess an antiritualist than a super-ritualist, He was prepared to add more ‘exacting and limiting ritual duties to those which already bound him. Indeed he has much in common with the most orthodex of Hindus, the érauta sactficer, who transcended the simple and universal domestic rites pre~ sctibed in the secondary scripture (ti) to undertake the great rituals ofthe primary and more ancient revelation (uti). Though the érauta and the ‘Tantric occupied the opposite ends ofthe spectrum of Hinduism they shared the character of being specialists of intensified ritual above the more relaxed ‘middle ground of thesmartas (the followers of ti). This similarity is carried through into their doctrines of liberation from rebirta (moksa). Both the rauta tradition articulated by the Bhatta Mimamsakas and the Tantric represented by the Saivas stood apart from the mainstream by holding that the mere performance of the rituals prescribed by their respective scriptures is sufficient cause of final liberation (see pp. 691ff.). Its chs ritualism which largely accounts for the rapid decline of the Tantric traditions in recent decades. The complex obligations and time-consuming rituals which the ‘Tantric takes on for life can hardly be accommodated within the schedule of the modern employee. Un-Vedic though it was, the Tantric tradition was destined to havea far greater influence than the aula on the middle ground, While the rauta tradition all but died out, the Tanericcame to pervade almost allareas of Indian religion, The distinction between the Vedic and the Tantric in religion continued to be crucial, and it was drawn in such a way that the ‘Tantric continued tobe the tradition of a minority; but what was called Vedic here was essentially Tantric in its range of deities and liturgical forms. It differed from the properly Tantric principally in its mantras, This became the chief formal criterion: in Vedic worship (puja) che zctions that compose the licurgy were empowered by the recitation of Vediemantras drawn from the Rgveda and Yajurveda rather than by that of the heterodox mantras of the ‘Tantras. At the same time these de-Tantricised reflexes of Tantric worship ‘were non-sectarian. While properly Tantric worship was more or less exclu sive, being emphatically centred in a particular deity, Vedic domestic w. ship was inclusive. les most typical form is the parczyatanapaj, the worship ‘of the five shrines, in which offerings are made tothe five principal deities, Siva, Visnu, Saya, Gapapati and the Goddess (Devi). The scriptural author ity for these neo- Vedic rituals was provided by the indirect revelation (mrt) and in particular by the ever-expanding Purapas, though the exact text of 662 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions ‘worship is generally a matter of unascribed tradition. Such worship is there- fore called smarca (smti-based!) or paurdnika (‘Purana-based’), or, where the properly Vedic or érauta tradition is completely absent, simply vaidika C'Veda-based!), Ite form in particular communiey is largely the product of the history of the various Tantric traditions within that communiey. An example of this will be given below, when we consider the religion of ‘medieval Kashmir (see pp. 701-4). ‘What follows falls into two part. In the first I pre- sent Saivism on the evidence of what survives, mostly unpublished, of its carliestseripearal sources, In most of this material the domestication of which Thave spoken above has yet to begin. We shal therefore be looking in the main at traditions of Saiva asceticism. Here the married man (grhasthe) is altogether absent or at best subordinate, Inthe second part (pp. 690-704) we shall consider what happened to these traditions when they were domesti- cated, Our evidence heres the literature ofthe Saiva community of Kashmir from the ninth century onwards ‘This second body of texts is our earliest datable and locatable evidence for the Saiva traditions. How much earlier than these Kashmisi works the scripcures to which they refer were composed cannot be decided yet with any precision. Atbest wecan say thatthe main body of these carly Tantras must have been composed between about 400 and 800 ce. To this we can add some relative chronology. We know even less about where these Tantras were composed of about the areas within which they were followed, However | incline to the view that when these traditions became the object of sophisticated Kashmiri exegesis between the ninth and thir- teenth centuries they were widely represented throughout India. It is certain that the Kashimiei and the Newars of the Kathmandu valley looked out on. ‘mach the same distribution and interrelation of Saiva Tantric cults 2t this time, and itis highly probable that each community inherited these traditions independently by participating in a more widespread system, which may have included even the Tamil-speaking regions of the far south of the subcontinent. ‘The Kashmiri exegesis considered in the second part is aloca tradition of much more than local impact. In very short time it was acknowledged as the standard both in its theological metaphysics and in its licurgieal prescription among the Saivas ofthe Tamil south. This was the case in the Saiva Siddhanta (See pp. 691-2), the Trika (see pp. 692-6), the Krama (Gee pp. 696-9), and the cults of Tripurasundari (sce pp. 688-9) ind Kubjika (Gee pp, 686-8). Consequently, while the Hindu culture of Kashmir declined in influence and vitality after the thirteenth century with large-scale conver~ sion to Islam and periodic persecutions, the Tantrics of the far south con- tinued the classical tradition, and through their many and outstanding con- tributions to Tancric literature guaranteed ie a pan-Indian influence down to modem times. These southern and subsequent developments are unfortu- 663Saiviem and the Tantric Traditions nately beyond the scope of this essay. The Atimirga and the Mantramirgs ‘The teaching of Siva (ivasdsana) which defines the Suivas is divided between ‘wo great branches or ‘streams! (atrotas). These are termed the Outer Path (Atimarga) and the Path of Mantras (Mantramarga). The fist is accessible only to ascetics, while the second is open both to ascetics and to married hhome-dwellers (grhastha). There s also difference cf goals. The Atimarga is entered for salvation alone, while the Mantramarga promises both this and, for those that so wish, the attainment of supematural powers (siddkis) and the experience of supernal pleasures in the worlds of theie choice (bhoga). The ‘Atimarga’s Saivism is sometimes called Raudra rather than Saiva. This is because itis atributed to and concerned with Siva ir his archaic, Vedic form as Rudra (the “Terrible), the god of wild and protean powers outside the rauta sacrifice, Ithas two principal divisions, the Pisupata and the Lakula ‘The Patupata Division of the timings ‘The ascetic observance (vrata) which is this system's path to salvation isthe Pasupata. Irbears thisname because ts promulgationis attributed to Rudraas Pasupati (the ‘Master [-pati] of the Bound [pa‘u-1’. Pasupati is believed by the followers of this tradition (the Pisupatas) to have appeared on earth as Lakuliga by entering and re-animating a brahmin’s corpse in a cremation ground. Thus yogically embodied he gave out the cults fundamental text, the Patupata Aphorisms (Pasupatasitras). Our principil source for the detail of the tradition is Kaundinya’s commentary on this tet. It has been suggested on slender evidence chat this commentator belongs tthe fousth century. The Pasupata cul itself, a least that form of it which derives itself from Lakuliga, is at least two centuries older. ‘The Patupata observance (pafupate-vrata) was restricted to brahmin males who had passed through the orthodox rite of investiture (apanayana), which gives an individual acess to his Veda and fall ‘membership of his community, The stage of lif (ama) from which such a brahmin became a PiSupata was irrelevant. He might be a celibate student (brahmacirin), a married home-dweller (grhastha), a hermit dwelling in the wild (vdnaprastha), or 2 peripatetic mendicant (Pits). Transcending this orthodox classification he entered a ‘fifth’ Kife-stage, that of the Perfected (iddha-aérama) ‘The final goal ofthe Pasupatas was the end of suffer- ing Gubbhinra)_ tr means jst this, but was alzo corceived positively a6 the assimilation of Rudra's qualities of omniscience, omaipotence and so forth at the time of one’s death. This was the state of final liberation and it was to be 664 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions achieved through four stages of discipline. In the first the ascetic lived by 2 temple of Siva. His body was to be smeared with ashes and he was to wor- ship the deity in the temple by dancing and chanting, boisterous laughter (eyandia), drumming on his mouth (ruddukkara), and silent medication fon five mantras of the Yajurveda, the five brahma-mantras which in course of time would be personified asthe five faces of Siva In the second stage he left che temple. Throwing off all the outward signs of his observance he moved about in public pretending to be crippled, deranged, mentally deficient or indecent. Passers-by being, tunaware that these defects were feigned spoke ill of him. By this means the Pasupata provoked an exchange in which his demerits passed to his detractors and their merits to him, By acting in this way he was simply making ‘unorthodox use of a thoroughly orthodox principle. He was exploiting his ritual status as one who had undergone rite of consecration (dik) to initiate an observance (vrata); for in the sauta system one bound by the observance (vrata) consequent on consecration (dks) for the Soma sacrifice was similarly dangerous to anyone who might speak ill of him. Purified by this period of kerma-exchange, the Pasupata withdrew in the thied stage to a remote cave or deserted building to practise meditation through the constant repetition ofthe fivemantras. When he had achieved an uninterrupted awareness of Rudra by this means, so that hheno longer required the support ofthe mantras, he lefthis place of seclusion and moved into a cremation ground to wait for death. While previously the Pisupata had begged for his sustenance he now lived on whatever he could find there. This fourth stage ended with his life. Entering the stage of ‘completion (aisthé) with che falling away of his body and the lst traces of suffering, he was believed to experience the infusion ofthe qualities of Rudra. ‘The cause of this final liberation was not thought to be any action of his, but simply the grace or favour of Rudra himself ‘The Lakula Division ofthe Atimanga ‘The second division of the Atimarga, that of the Likula ascetics, developed. from within the original Pisupata tradition, It acoepted the authority of the Patypata Aphorisms and maintained both the mantras and the basic practices of its prototype. However, its special discipline required a more radical trans- ‘endence of Vedic values. After his consecration (dots) the ascetic should wander, carrying a skull-topped staff (thayiga) and an alms-bow! fashioned ftom a human eranum, His Br should be bounded up in matted mass (Gott) or completely shaved. He should weae x sacred thread (pavia) [he emblem ‘SForthodox investcare(ypanayana)] made from snakeskins and be should adorn Rimclf with anceklace of men bone: Hle may wete moshing but stip of loth ‘over his private pars, He muntsmear himself with ashes and decorate hirself with the omaments of his God. Knowing that ll things are Rudra in essence he should 665Saivism and the Tantric Traditions hold firmly to his observance as Rudra's devotee, He may eat and drink anything. [No action is forbidden to him, For he i immersed in contemplation of Rudes, [Knowing thie no other deity will ave him. Nijcsatetasambid (MS), eh 4 Here the sere Took on more eiicalespect of "Rudra nature as the outsider within the Wed region, He became Radia thebrahmin-syer For irs uedin onhodex sours that one who i guy oti ene cine tay exonerate imalfonly if seme bmaelf Bon society for twelve yours lives ina erematon ground and cris the le tow! fat) and he sulla sora) when he goes forth to bee for food, Thus the Liksl's observance generally called tht of the skull pila), is ao known as tat of ele, “of thse that 26 outside the word (oktinyaa)- rial referred o asthe Grester Piupata Observance Gnahipatupaerate), Whe the Pasapas ascetics ousidenss was limited 0 the sytem of hfe-sages loyamamat) the Lilla seul-beaet as to shencon the mote bute notin of the pur andthe impe, “The Kamala acts who ae own om many South Indian incisions fom the ninth to thiteerth centres were pat of th Latul division of the Aumatga, Doxogtaphic material ftom this gion records among thelr paces bathing inthe utes ofthe eemated eit milder predecessors hed been conten wi he ashes of eo dng) eating these ues and worshipping Rude in Yeseliled with alcohai que. ‘This mode of worshipwascommonin he sual ofthe Kaula Savas (ep. 6789) but there iso reson to tink tht it Ws connected here there with tual involving sexual inttcouse Ie apes that these followers of odes the sollary peitene were bound by st vows of clbay. ‘Thc Liklas had cir owen cao of eres con- cerned with both theology (ie) and tal), the eight Authors CPramins) Of hese nothing survives bu thet ames anda single quotation ffom one of them, the Prt Praia, inthe wok ofthe Kath Kemardje. For thls doctines welnve an acount of Lika oteology and Ccomogetpy inthe Nvdataasamhid quoted stove, and ew setered iocshon it ater Siva souer from Kashmir: rem is weean see that he Litas had already developed most of te detaed hirrchy of words (Ghuvnddbvan) which chasceies the let Manamarga. ‘The Lika scends ols avai trough succession ef wold each overmed by ts Son manifeation of Rudra, The higher ofthese the world of the Rada Dhruveda. Reaching this he atais Iberian, asta of omniscenee void of In the closely clustered s/stems which form the ‘Mantramainga the soul of the initiate is raised through such a world-hierarchy che dae uf his sonsccration. The difference is that the hierarchy has beet farther extended. It contains that ofthe Lakulas, bit adds a number of new worlds above Dhruvess's, The Likula cosmos wis itself the outcome of such 666 Ssiviom and the Tantric Traditions a process of extension, For immediately below Dhruvesa is the world of the Rudra Tejifa. This was the final goal of the Vaimalas, a superseded group about whom our surviving sources tell us little but this. Further down the scale are the worlds of the Rudras Ksemeéa and Brahmanahsvamin. hese ‘were the cosmic termini of two other obscure Pisupata groups, the Mausulas and the Karukas, ‘The Mantramarga Ie is clear that the cosmos of the Manteamétga grew out of that of the ‘Atimarga by the same process of competitive extension which set the Likulas above the Vaimalas, and the Vaimalas above the Mausulas and the Karukes ‘And there are other continuities beeween the two Paths in che fclds of ritual, iconography, mantras and observances (vata). However, in spite of these continuities, there is a fundamental difference of character between the two rain branches of the Saiva tradition. While the Atimatga is exclusively liberationist, he Mantramarga, though itaccommodates the quest for libera- tion, is essentially concerned ‘with the quest for supernatural experience (bhoga) ‘This difference might be thought to correspond to that between the aspirations of the original ascetics and the newly admitted ‘married householders. On the contrary, it corresponds to that Between two varieties of ascetic. For in the Mantramarga itis the ascetics who are princi- pally concemed with the attainment of powers, the path of liberation being, largely the domain of the men in the world; and its the methods by which power may be attained that are the main subject matter of the Mantra ‘margasseripcures. The gnostic home-dwelles, who would come in time to dominate che Mantramarga, are here the unmarked category of aspiratt. They are defined by the fact that they do not involve themselves with che ‘coneems which generated not only the greater par oftheir texts but also the system's internal diversity. For it was for the sake of the power-seeker that there developed the extcardinary variety of rites, deities and mantras which sets the Mantramarga apart from the purely gnostic Atimarga ‘The history of the expanding hierarchy of the Rudra-worlds shows that the Mantramirgais later than the Atimaega. None the less, the dichotomy between the liberation-secking and the power sccking forms of Ssiva asceticism is more ancient chan the present corpuls of Mantramargic texts. The later contain more archaic strata at which the superior deities ofthe developed Mantramarga give way to the earlier Rudra If we compate these text-elements with the Rudra cult of the Atimargs, we sce that the dichotomy which undeties the later form of the division is, Deeween solitary and celibate Rudra in the Atimarga nd a Rudra ssodated ‘with bands of protean and predominantly female spirit in the background of the Mantramarga. In the flly developed and diversified Mantramirga this 667Saivism and the Tantric Traditions associaticn is but one aspect of that with feminine power (Zaki) conceived ‘mote universally. It is this association which most obviously marks off the ‘Mantramarga from the Saktnless Atimarga. We shall see that within the ‘Maneraznirg te major divisions correspond co different representations of this association, The Tanta of the Saiva Siddha While our evidence forthe Atiminga is very spars, the Mantraminga can be studied in an enormous body of Sanskrit texts, The scriptures of the Maneramirga fill into two groups. On the one hand isthe well-defined and relatively homogeneous canon of texts (the ten Siva-Agamas, the eighteen Rudra Aganas and attached scriptures) that constiate the authority of the triton known to itself and others both inthe scriptures and later 2 the Save Sidihants, On the other hand is 3 mach more divers, numer ous and variously Hated body of revelations known as the scriptures of Bhairava (Bhaiava-Aganas) oF collectively as the Teaching of Bhirsea Bhairevtiara ‘The Siva forms of both are visualised as skull- bearing denizens ofthe cremation grounds. Inthe Saiva Siddhanea, however, the god lacks the aura of terrifying and ecstatic power which is emphasised in his manifestations in the tradition of Bhairava (‘the Fearsome). Similaely, ‘while the concept of feminine power (akt/) is found throughout the Man tramarga, it tends inthe Saiva Siddhanta to move away from personification as the Goddess or goddesses towards metaphysical abstraction. tis seen here principally as the creative power of the male Deity, manifest in the cosmic and soteriological process and embodied in his mantra-forms. In the daily ritual ofthe initiate the deity is worshipped, like the Rudra of the Atimarga, without 2 female consort. Linked to this is the purity of the mode of his worship. There is none of the offering of alcoholic drinks, blood and meat that eypiies che rituals of the rest of the Mantramarga, with its greater ‘emphasis on feminine and transgressive power. The Taniras of Bharava: KipikaSaivim “The Tanwras of Bhairava, so called because they ake the form of his answers to the questions of the Goddess (Dew, Bhairav), have been variously Fisted and clasiied in dfferene parts of the corpus. The classification given here corresponds, I believe, to the main structure of the Saiva tradition outside the Saiva Siddhanta atthe time when the Kashmiri began their work of post= scriptural systematsaion in the ninth and tenth centuries ‘Within these Tantras there is a. primary division beeween those of the Seat of Mantras (Mantrapitha) and those of the Seat of Vidya (Vidyapitha) The later ae either Union Tantra (Yamala-aninas) or 668 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions Power Tantras(Sakti-tantras). Within the latter one may distinguish between the Tanteas of the Trika (or rather of what was later called the Trika) and material dealing with cults ofthe goddess Kali. Tantras which teach the cult of Tumnburu-Diisivava aid lis Cour sisters (Jaya, Vijay, Jayant andl Apacie jit) ae ited into this scheme asa third division of the Vidyapitha. But this is artificial, Te accommodates a tradition whose importance had been super seded by that of the Mantrapitha (¢he cule of Svacchanda-bhairava) to the fextentthatie was no longer part ofthe main structure. No more will said of| this minor tradition here igure 36.1: The Structure of the Mantramrga “Tantra of Kai strikes Seite Yamala-taners Vidya - x Mancrapitha BharaiQonas Ssiva Siddhanes MANTRAMARGA ‘This arrangement is hierarchical. Whatever is above and to the lef sees whatever is below it and to the right as lower revelation. It sees itself offering a more powerful, more esoteric system of ritual (antra) through forther initiation (diksa). As we ascend through these levels, from the Mantrapitha to the Yamala-tantras and thence to the Tika and the Kat cult, we find that the feminine rises stage by stage from subordination to ‘complete autonomy. ‘The Mantrapitha and the Cult of Svacchandabhairava [At the beginning of this ascent is the Seat of Mantras (Manteapitha). This term expresses the fac that chis group of Tantras emphasises the masculine, while in the Seat of Vidyas (Vidyapitha) itis the feminine that predominates (che nouns mana and vidya, which both signify the sacred sound-formulas, being masculine and feminine respectively). ‘The basic cule of the Mancrapitha is that of Svac- chandabhairava (‘Autonomous Bhairava’) also known euphemistically as “Aghora (the Un-terrible’). White, five-faced (the embodiment of the five brahma-mantras) and cighteen-armed, he is worshipped with his identical consort Aghoresvai, surrounded by eight lesser Bhairavas within a circular enclosure of eremation grounds. He stands upon the prostrate corpse of Sadasiva, the now anscended Siva-form worshipped in the Saiva Sid- ahinea 669Saiviom and the Tantric Traditions ‘The traditions ofthe Bhairava Tantra are Kapatika, the basic frm oftheir ascetic observance being chat ofthe skull (ypalavratal ‘mahvvaa). The difference between this and the Likula form ofthis obser- ‘ance is ltgely a matter ofthe basic diterence of the Mantramarga stated above. The term Kapalikais reserved here for thjs Mantramargic segment of the Saiva culture ofthe cremation grounds. ‘This Kapalika background i evident from the icon ography of the divine couple. Worshipped within an enclosure of cremation grounds they themselves wear the bone ornaments and brandish the skull Staff ehapaige) ofthe Kapalika tradition. None th less these features ae not emphasise hereto the extent that they ae in the Vidyapitha, Though the Soachandetanta, which isthe authority fortis cut, teaches the worship of| certain secondary forms of Svacchandabhairava such as Koraakja (the Hollow-Byed’) and. Vyadhibhaksa (the Devourer of Diseases), which, being visualised as trrifVing, gross-bodied and black, are closer to the standard Bharavas ofthe Kapalika tradition, Svacchandabbairava himself, the deity daly worship, has milder elements that make him transitional in type between the calm Sadisiva of the Suiva Sidahinta and the gods of the Kipalika mainstream. In the Saiva Sidahinta, Siva Sadiiva) was wore shippedalone. Inthe Mantrapith hes joinedin worship by his consoreas the personification of fli. Ieonically she is his equal. But the larger stval context shows that she is still subordinate. Her feminine presence i not reinforced by secondary goddesses inthe izcit(varana) that surrounds the couple. Furthermore Svacchandabhairava is worshipped alone after he has been worshipped with his consort. His appearance with Aghoresvar is his lower form. The Vidydpitha ‘With the aicent tothe Vidyapitha the Saiva entered a world of ritual in which these last restraints on Sakti dissolved. He was consecrated in the cults of deities who presided in theirmandalas over predominantly female pantheons, and who passed as he ascended to the let from Bhairavas with consorts, to Goddesses above Bhairavas, to the terrible Solitary Heroines (ckavird) of the cults of Kili. If in the cule of Svacchandabhairava the Kap3lika culture of the eremation grounds was somewhat in the background, here itis pervasive, The initiate gained access to the powers of these deities by adopt- ing the observance ofthe Kapalikas. With his hair matted and bound up with «pin of human bone, wearing earrings, armlets, anklets anda girdle allofthe fame oubstance, with « sacred thecad (ypavite) made of twisted vos pse-ie, smeared with ashes from the cremation-pyres, carrying the skull-bowl, the skullstaff and the rattle-drum (Jamar), intoxicated with alcohol, he alter- 670 Ssivism and the Tantric Traditions nated petiods of night-wandering (uidtana) with worship (pj) in which he invoked and gratified the deities of the mandala into which he had been initiated, This gratification required the participation of adit, a consecrated consort, with whom he was fo copulate in ofder to produce the mingled Sexual fluids which, with blood and other impurities of the body, provided the offering iresistble to cis class of deities. ‘ The Culeof Yoginis, Accesibe from the main clts of the Vidyspitha, and underlying them ina more or less constant form isthe more ancient cule of RdeaBhsiava in association with female spits (ogi). In che Atimarga and thence in the Maneramarga the sexes of| cosmic levels (huvanadhvan is governed by Rudras. When the initiate passed into this subjacent tradition he found that this masculine hierarchy was replaced by ranks of wild, blood-drinkng,skall-decked Yogins, Radiating outfom te heart ofthe Deity san all-pervasive network of power (yogi Jil), they re-populated this vertical order ofthe Suva cosmos, appropriated the cycle of time (ruling as incarnations in each of the four world-ages (go), and irradiated sacred space by sending forth emanations enshrined tnd worshipped in power-sats (pitha) connected with cremation grounds ‘hroughoue the sub-continent. “The goal ofthe initiate was to force or entice these Yoginis to gather before him and receive him int their band (yaginigon), sharing with him their miracslows powers and esoteric knowledge. The ime favoured for such invocations was the fourteenth night ofthe dark fortnight, the night of the day of prt itadina); andthe most efficacious site was the ftemation ground, the foremost of thet meeting places. The Siva wor- Shipped in these rites is Manthina-Rudra (or Mantina-Bhairava), + fout= faced and therefore secondary or archaic form. Not'martied' to the Goddess a in the cults of entry, he i rather the wild ascetic who leads the Yogini hordes (yinigonaniya). pean ™ The cult of Yoginis is not concerned with these protean powers only 2s the inhabitants ofa theoretical nd iturgicl universe, Ind as goddesses enshrined in the cremation ground power-seas, For they were believed also to possess women and thereby 9 enter into the most intimate contact with their devotees, OF these incarnate Yoginis some, having been conctved in the intercourse of the consecrated, are considered divine from bin, Others appeatin gil of eight, twelve or sixteen who ive in the vicinity of the power-seats, thet being of three degrees of potency Gathers are identified in untouchable women from the age of twentyrseven 25 Dikinis and other fooms of assaulting sist ‘All Yoinis Belong to the family Ge) or Hineage (gos) of one or other ofa number of higher maternal’ powers, snd in any {Retance this parentage is ascribed on the evidence of certain pysial and behavioural charactetics, An adept in the cult of Yoginis can identify on9 (eum) aunque uewiny wo posput 20 (vied) spopp uo poxured euay we 20 (opis) 2sodand sxyp 303 paredaxd punos8 yo arenbs *7yepiow: ‘se sottouyp, ans do pur ‘raw pas pur zonby| >qoqonye ype wiBoq asm ep sSuuayo pion paddnysiom axe 2auip axp Aqqearoncy *(oFuratoys) aIES-[IN4s ap ysipuezg hota sonrop eymedey Surdey“] tre 12°96 2B pueagStsoq on esedy pa eedeseg(npmunp) opeegros-g9sj0 210598 9p Eagupespue xn poses poy as poie-oma pe pad afFG e2]059009 pur pgsneng “oy steve “sppol enon ay, "anforgy ayy eu Froud way joan ons jo soar annuum poyauapr Seog UtENs SO: pet oo onoqaup ae ose stony fuga Peay eg anoge peg 8Uy Sasa osoed © yBnouy oes uoResingn tp xp oF Kod ssodERgSON [R. Josie jo pesto otp Buoye won uy posodtuodss sU2pE0 SI, "(eoe sd 299) (epi) emp 30s yp wo 80 3p mR] OP US pouones se posfensta pute searszeyaoampzoqe pn 20 50 pads “fom dy pr dee (ee oma) eg sorarpo ope Soo ang nog soso snase op 3309 ap 01 Spear sodysIOM Sey snbaar uy uopeutae sap jo sone axp Supe kq somod put VOR “bay ovepes sok puma joarede sega. UL “soumoarsc) prmpaes and cep aos ape suoneunoysue ron 0 s9m0d 5p 2p 30 29UEUOSDE Sououu op toy "eogeaorur ausoo jo Aiea op (oul) fruion jo guomsau ayn G0 ApOONp st AS. 2H Jo HOF UL VORP uopypoa, 24061, 249 pur wsrares ws ewp Jo mpwdopsaop e pps st Anu Jo ano 2p 30y seas] Te soweouDd smog Jo 3Im> om (eiuryueviodeliarigeyy “(GSW) PeeHapesoauer, “(SSW) erounvajaRooyppis) EYAL, 2p JO seUEL, 3p Uy “syno es] 3221089 aqp Jo 2eyp Ose pur ‘eg 2¢p pays sy senuey save] sx ur aeqp wa3sAsaxp 10) AaHoMpe fende>6 orp uyeuo> asoqy.“sesueI Byes oMp ase senueT-ryeUreA au 240qY *(29341) a, 2 fone 240 (Souues-nyS) SesueZ, w2m0g 2H, “sopranos somoy 2p stoned ypaye SueonoK>Ep ayeuay-oyeer amp spusoseen spay somod somes + 0 saodie axe “(VHD FreqeyeW pur (VAS) E27yeAeunNYG *(IN) eAMIUE] *({7) FEIN) sa 0 Sows ype ano sp pee (va) PENN PS (WH) SEP “Cad) eee “aVD) FHIEY) sesPPOR any sm CWT eaEsEGaES TES; sayL “(i'** tumedey rptry © **',) VHVAS INIT¥d¥¥ adNVO WOH GWO) stpedey spins Jo rinew Sep Jo SyRTEE I are ATO ‘ep jo wosypurd ap 33 pe eepewsayex8 ajo 9109 99 wy OU EIDP bu apo suneu ai 30 ruouodero peneaes 2yp 203 “uno Seespoqta> “sp a 30 sep Wo rgey Aq papuaosden s sued 2qUON ap Uo Aaetns sup nq “sinieu auiap axp Jo vondooue> wares [eauSA xp pra UEP Sroooe i (omazyennye “ays 2w0d Jo sopton Sensgnen amp se ONITP Aarpuonss son soa ease (euuryet) 1 App stead p30 wooed sopdims spon agp we auoTe pu “dyssom rruore>>x9 "0p poqarer mene potrndod Asuap aip ur soruo> see airmpaogne epi “aetey ye agp Bort Sera pu ares ao pepo ap ut én 2kp Buspnossns ETP ‘aepuooas yy “eudenaeyy agp eaeeyaepueyp>eag 70> 49 (SSA) sinirououpgeeouroag wAgedeyAySons 2yp J SEU PURSMOR. Dao xp es aE “IBSPY) TAS P30 F2PPOD (FED) ano “ang ay, ostomy pe (eaeaegg-mpede -eTeseN ese gFOEH) NOS 28 go pioy ema go ep seas ato edoud ay “Fetue wore ap a e3os Sr Awiononne spat oon Bs yo Hae" J ot yop “rede dP 230 Deroy ype mo mOK sap anoqy “nde sping pu exinygen9de Joi mn (conus) ser, Wes) PKL ‘98paymouy an220 pur sismod emreurodns urene 07 parrdse 3g 04 Suaddnysiom Aq “Aes sty 30 FO & dno 38 03 Sea ane ep saNBOpY ST OF PasDes KHUIIOG FeUNT AHP FO s40P EO) “safoqn ose 210% sIaKpOYY ay ap Jo soHTUTEY 9s0up 203 ‘SruHBO A 2yeUIEDUT OM pur wiry uosmaoq yur © pousyqeas9 sm, Anrugge a1eur ue peg ay WO KES {SaIpOWN 3eep Po|eDAgT TY |IMOY aKp YPIYa OTUTAUIUITIS 4 “ION 289%. Buquorpue eyypiow v oan Moy e 3se> 01 puey sty pasne> Aajap 24130 19mod Sussossod oyp yoy uy ouen e poxoaud ay woResD2st0D 30 9uUN mp 104 suseqeeY Pur FpaMUIES “MIeseA “wbeapuy “eAeaste A “UELINEY 'EAsHE “rauyear (ii) sxoqpoy 2ep yo sats soleus wee aap yn paUs29U09 AeA sour Stang ‘spooyoisis 3pn200 asoup Jo douyp-Aaxs Se AueUE Se Jo S22qUIOUE suompeay, 2am, 29 pur usar.Saivism andthe Tantric Traditions ard has two aspects, for she is worshipped both 2s. fone of the three and as their sum and source. In this higher aspect she i called ‘Matysadbhava (Essence of the Mothers), the summit of the hierarchy of the female powers which populate the cult of Yoginis. Later allthis would be interpreted along more metaphysical and mystical lines. Matrsadbhiva ‘was read as Essence of (All) Conscious Beings ({pra-]matr-) and the three goddesses were contemplated asthe three fundamental constituent powers of 4 universe which was consciousness only. Para was the power of the subject- clement (pramair), Apara that ofthe object-element (prameya) and Parapari that of the cognitive field or medium (pramana) by virtue of which they are related, while their convergence in Matrsadbhava came to express the ulti- ‘mate unity ofthese three within an Absolute of pure consciousness contem- plated as the liberated essence of the worshipper. ‘The Jayadrathayémala and the Cult of Kall. Beyond the ‘ult of the three goddesses, at the extreme left of the Mantramarga, is the Jayadrathaydmelatantra (MSS). Also known as the King of Tantras (Tantrani- Jabhartnaha) ic expounds in 24,000 stanzas the Kaplika cults of over a Ihundred manifestations of the terible goddess Kali asthe Destroyer of Time (Kalasamearsni). There are two main levels in the Tantra, The fist, which is taught in the first quarter of the work (probably composed earlier than the rst) is chat of the cule of a golden-limbed, rwenty-armed Kaloeam= karsint wth five faces of different colours, chat which faces the worshipper being black. Conventionally beautiful but holding such Kapalika emblems as om Sivime and the Tantric Traditions the skull-saff(khayuiga) and the severed head (onda), wearing a tiger skin dripping with blood, trampling the body of Kala (Time) beneath her fet, she hholds a trance-possessed Bhairava in a two-armed embrace in the centre of vast, many-citcuited mandala of goddesses enclosed by cordons of male servant-guards and an outer ring of cremation grounds. Inthe elaborate form of worship both the goddesses and the guards embrace consorts. Here then is Yimala (Union) cole very similar to that of Kapiligabhairava and Canda Kapalini aught in the Picumata-Brahmayamala but centred in Kali zather than Bhairava, Inthe remaining three quarters ofthe text Bhairavais excluded from worship altogether. He is now just the highest of the male deities whose power Kali eranscends, the seventh at the summit of the hierarchy of the dethroned, coming above Indra, Brahm, Vignu, Rudra, Ivara and Sadisiva. Lying beneath her fect or dismembered to adorn her body, Bhairava suffers in his earn the humiliation which he inficted on Sadaéiva in the Mantrapitha. With his fill the pantheons of worship are ‘entirely feminised. But the femininity which remains isnotthat of the Yamala systems. There Sati is worshipped in the form of beautiful and passionate ‘consorts. Here the triumphant Goddess reveals herself to her devotees as a hideous, emaciated destroyer who embodies the Absolute anuttaram) as the ultimate Self which che ‘cannot enter and survive, an insatiable void inthe heart of consciousness. ‘Typical of the conception of the Goddess in this second and mote esoteric part of the Tantra is Viry2-Kali (Kail of the [Fivefold] Power) (see Figure 36.4). Visualised in the centre of an aura of blinding light and contemplated as the innermost vibrancy (panda) of con- sciousness she is black and emaciated. She has six faces and her hair is wwreathed with flames. She is adorned with the severed heads and dismem- bered limbs of the lower deities. She rides on the shoulders of Kalagnirudra (the Rudra of the Final Conflagration). In her twelve hands she carries a noose, a goad, 2 severed head, a sword, a shield, a trident-khatvaiga, a thunderbolt (vara), a ringing bell, a damaru-drum, a skull-cup, a knife, a bleeding heart and an elephant-hide. The Rudra who is her vehicle (hana) is black on one side of his body and red on the other, symbolising the two breaths, the ingoing (ap.ina) and the outgoing (prdna), whose fusion and dissolution into the central axis of power reveals the state of thoughtless (nirvikalpa) awareness that holds the Goddess in its heart. The fivefold power (irya) hat she embodies as the essence of the entire Vidyapith’ is that by virtue of which the ‘waveless'(nisterariga), selluminous ground of reality project itself as content in consciousness, and then re-absorbs this content, ‘etuming to its initial tranquility: this cyclical movement being the pulsation ff comscionienest from moment to moment as well s the pulsation of co! sciousness in cosmic creation and destruction. She passes from pure Light (@hasa(1)) within the Siva-void (divavyoma), through incarnation (avatira (2)) 6sSaiviom and the Tantric Traditions Figure 36.4: Virya-Kali 25 theimpulse toward extroversin, to actual emision (i (3) of content, which appears ap though outside conscousnes, co her Kah phase (kal rama) in which she re-absorbs this content, id finally to the Great ‘Whhel Gasp), wich he ns one nso her a state atthe pre Light. By contemplating this sequence (ama) in worl the devowz of Kas beled to rele he macoccomie proce ith ie own consciousness and thereby to attain omnislence and omnipaten Inthe fourth quarter ofthe Jyadrathayanaatnts we areintroduced to what the ext claims tobe the ulimate form ofthe Ka cut Here Mabiia (Great Ka) is worshipped in a black cre with a vermilion border sounded by a tog of telve such circles containing Kals who 676 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions differ from her in their names but are identical in appearance. The relation of Sependence between the Goddess and Siva-Bhairava has already been trans- ‘cended in the pure Sakti cult of the higher level ofthis Tantra. Now even the [ierarchy of source and emanations which remained within Saki! letself is tually dissolved, inamandala which expresses the perfect identity in essence (Gamerasya) of the Absolute and its manifestations, of the state of liberated transcendental (arvottina) consciousness (nirvaxe) and its finite projections, asthe state of transmigratory existence (bhava, samsira). Worshipped exter- nally in orgiastic rites, the thirteen Klis (12+1) ae to be realised internally in Imystical selfexperience, flashing forth as the ego-less (nirahaikara) void through the voids of the senses during sexual union with the ditt. This system known here as the Kalikrama or Kalikula, links this Tantra with the Kratna to be described below (see pp. 683-4 and 696-9) Figure 36.5: The Trika’s Mandala of the Three ‘Tridents and (Seren) Lotuses (titrialabjamandala) with the twelve Kalis in its centre, as prescribed by the ‘Trikasadbhavatancea aca JaSa Ci iD q iS) SOO SBS ) onSaivism and the Tantric Traditions ‘The Kali-based Tria. The cult ofthe three goddesses and that of Kali were not sealed off from each other in the manner of rival sects. The Jayadrathydmale shows that the devotees of Kali had developed Uicir own versions ofthe cule of the three goddesses. The Trika in its turn assimilated these and other new and more esoteric treatments from the lef. ‘Consequently we find later Trika stratum in which Kalasamkatsni has been introduced to be worshipped above the three goddesses of the trident (Devyayimalatanira) Finally theres a radial reorientation in which a system ‘of sets of deities, worshipped in certain forms of the Kali cule asthe embodi- rent ofthe phases of cognition, is superimposed on to an elaborated version of the ancient triad as the inner structure of the point in which the three ‘oddesses converge into the mystical fourth power, which is their inter- penetration (3X3) in unity. Inthe centre of this convergence are the twelve Klis ofthe Kalikrama (or Kalkula) in their twelve circles (see Figure 36.5). ‘The Vidydpitha and Esoteric Buddhism. By the eighth ‘century cr the Buddhists had accumulated a hierarchy of Tantric revelations roughly parallel in its organisation and character to that of the Mantramirga. ‘Their literature was divided in order of ascending esotericism into the Tantras of Action (briyétantras), of Observance (aryé-tantras), of Yoga (yoge-trastras), of Higher Yoga (yogottara-tantras) and Supreme Yoga (yo sutaretontras). Leaving aside the lowest and miscellaneous category ‘we can compare the relatively orthodox cultof the mild Vairocana Buddhain the Tantras of Observance (Mahdvairocanasitra etc.) and Yoga (Tttvasam- {graha, Paramadya, etc.) with the Saiva Siddhanta’s cult of Sadsfiva, and the ‘more esoteric and heteropracti traditions of the Higher Yoga (Guhyasamsja etc.) and Supreme Yoga (Abhidhinotarotara, Hevaita, Dakinivajrpaiijare tc.) withthe Mantrapitha and Vidyapitha of the Tantras of Bhairava, Just 3s, the Svacchandabhairava cult of the Mantrapitha is transitional between the more exoteric Saiva Siddhanta and the Kapalika Vidyapitha, so that of ‘Aksobhya in the Higher Yoga stands bridging the gap between the Vairocana cultand the feminised and Kapalika-like cults of Heruka, Vajravarshi and the ‘other Whayvtiga-bearing deities of the Supreme Yoga. ‘At the lower levels of the Buddhist Tantric canon there is certainly the influence ofthe general character and liturgical methods of the Saiva and the Piticaritra-Vaignava Tantric traditions. But at the final (and latest) level the dependence is much more profound and detailed. As in the Vidyipitha cults these Buddhist deities are Kapalika in iconic form. They wear the five bone-omaments and are smeared with ashes (the six seals (onudrds) ofthe Kapalikas) They drink blood from skull-bowls (kapdla), have the Saivathird eye, stand on the prostrate bodies of lesser deities. wear Siva's sickle moon upon heir massed and matted hair (jaja). And, just as in the Vidyspitha their cults ate set in that of the Yoginis. Those who ate initiated 678 Savi and the Tantric Traditions by introduction tothe mandala of these Yogini-enctcled Buddhist deities are adorned with bone-ornament and given the Kapalka’s bhai and skull ‘bowl to hold. Those who wish todo so may take on the long-term practice of ‘he Kapaa observance lself(Vaja-Kapilisavata), living inthe cremation ‘rounds, consuming mest and alcobol and offering erotic worship. “The Buddhist-Kapalika Yogini cule which gives these Tanteas of Supreme Yoga their distinctive character and the grater part oftheir subject matter indeed, they fer to themselves as Yogini-tntras on the whole—borrows much ofits detail and vextual material dry from parallel Ssiva sources. ‘Thus most of the material in the Abhidhinowaot {araantra and Sampurodbhavatain isting the characteristies by which Yoginis of different sorts may be recognised, and the sign language and syllabic codes with which they must be addressed (hommd), has been lifted with some Buddhist overwriting from such Vidyapitha texts a the Yoginsamcira fof the Jayadrathayimalatonta, the Piamata-Brahmayémalatanta and the Tantasadbhva The Kaula Reformation of the Yogind Cult ‘The Yogini cule, lke the main cults of entry into the Vidypitha, was the speciality of skul-bearing ascetics removed from conventional society. It might reasonably have been expected to remain so but for Kaulism. This ‘movement within esoteric Saivism decontaminated the mysticism of the KGpilikas so that it fowed into the wider community of married house- holders. In tha of Kashmir it found learned exponents who used itto formu- late a respectable metaphysics and soteriology with which to stand against the Saiva Siddhanta ‘The rites of the Yogini cults and the fruits they bestowed were called kala of kaula in the texts which prescribed them, these terms being adjectives derived from the noun kul in it reference to the families oF ineages of the Yoginis and Mothers. Thus a Kaulika rite was one connected with the worship of these kulas, and a kaulike power (kauliké siddhip) was one that was atained through that worship, above all assimila- tion into these families (hulesimenyata). Kaulism developed from within these Yogini cults It preserved the original meaning of the term hula and its derivatives but it introduced a new level ofesoteriism based on a homonym. For kuls was also taken to mean the body and, by further extension, the totality (of phe- nomena), the ‘body’ of power (kt). Ths ast meaning neatly encompassed the original, for this cosmic ‘body’ was said to consist ofthe powers of the cit families of the Mothers, One was believed eo enter the totality ea) through that segment of its power with which one had a special afinity, determined as before by the casting of a ower during possession (vet). 679Ssiviam and the Tantric Traditions Furthermore, these eight Mothers of the families ‘were made internally accessible by being identified with the eight con- stituents of the individual worshipper's “subtle body" (puryasfake), these being sound, sensation, visual form, taste, smell, volition, judgement and ego. The worshipper was therefore the temple of his deities; the central deity, out of whom these Mother-powers are projected, in whom they are groundec and into whom they are re-absorbed, was to be evoked within this temple at the Lord andlor Lady of the Kula (Kulesvara, Kuleévari), as the blissful inner consciousness which is the worshipper's ultimate and trans- vidual identity In the cults of che Vidyapitha the propitiation of the deities involved sexual intercourse with adi. This practice is continued in Kaulism. Indeed it moves to the very centre of the cult. However while its principal purpose in the Vidyapitha was to produce the power-substances needed to gratify the deities, here the ritual of copulation is aestheticised. The ‘magical properties of the mingled sexual fluids are not forgotten: those seeking powers (siddhis) consumed it and even those who worshipped for salvation alone offered the products of orgasm to the deities. However the ‘emphasishas now moved to orgasm itself. It is no longer principally a means of production. Ie is a privileged means of access to a blissful expansion of” consciousness in which the deities of the Kula permeate and obliterate the ego ‘of the worshipper, The consumption of meat and alcohols interpreted along, the same lines. Their purpose, like that of everything in the liturgy, is to intensify =xperience, to gratify the goddesses ofthe senses. ‘The Kapilika of the Vidyapitha sought the con- vergence of the Yoginis and his fusion with them (yopinimelaka, ~melipa) through aprocess of visionary invocation in which he would attract them out of the sky, gratify chem with an offering of blood drawn from his own body, and ascend with them into the sky as the leader of their band, The Kaulas translated this visionary fantasy into the aesthetic terms of mystical experi- ence, The Yoginis became the deities of his senses (karane‘varis), revelling in his sensations, In intense pleasure this revelling completely clouds his internal awareness: he becomes their plaything or victim (pafu). However, when in the same pleasure the desiring ego is suspended, then the outer sources of sensation lose their gross otherness. They shine within cognition as its aesthe- tic form. The Yoginis ofthe senses relish this offering of nectar’ and geatified thereby they converge and fuse with the kaula's inner transcendental identity as the Kulesvara, the Bhairava in the radiant sky’ of enlightened conscious- ness (cidvyomabhairava). Kaulism developed into four main systems, These were knovwn as the Four Transmissions (amndya) or as the Transmissions of the Four Lodger (ghardmnaya) (easter, western, northern and southern). Each has its own distinctive set of deities, mantras, mandalas, mythical saints, myths of origin and the like, 680 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions The Kaula Trika: the Eastern Transmission (Paired rnaya). The first context in which we find this Kaula esotericism isthe Trika. ‘The Kaula form of the cult of the three goddesses of the trident was well established among the Kashmiri by the beginning of the ninth century; and our first deaailed exegesis of the Kashmiri Trika, at the end of the tenth ceneury, shows that there had long existed a hierarchical distinction between, the lower, Tancric form of che cult (ana-prakriya) and the new Kaula tradition. Kaula sources outside the Trika, such as the Citcinimetasirasamuc ‘aya (MSS), indicate that the Kaulism of tis branch of the Vidyapitha is the closest to the origin of the tradition. ‘The basic Kaula pantheon consists of the Lord andlor Goddess of the Kula (Kulesvara, Kulesvar) surrounded by the eight Mothers (Bruhmi exc.) with or without Bhairava consorts. Outside this core one worships the four mythical unus or Perfected Ones (Sida) ofthe tradition (the four Lords ofthe Ages of the World (Yuganatha)), their consorts (its), the offspring of these couples and their ditts. The couple of the present, degenerate age (kaliyuga) are Macchanda (the Fisherman), venerated as the revealer(avatdraka) of Kaulism, and his consort Koikana. Of their sons, the twelve ‘princes’ (zjaputra), six are non-celibate (adhoretat) and therefore specially revered as qualified (idhikira) to transmit the Kaula cule, They are ‘worshipped as the founders ofthe six initiatory lineages (vali). At the time ‘of consecration one entered one of these lineages and received a name whose second part indicated this affiliation, Hand-signs (¢hommd, hom, chumna) ‘enabled members of the ovals to reveal themselves to each other (a remnant. of the more elaborate code-languages (also called chommui] of the Kapalika ‘Yogini cults and their Buddhist imitators); and each ovali had lodges (natha) for its members in various parts of India, In this las respect they maintained the eatlier tradition of Saiva asceticism, ‘The Trika’s Kaula cult added litle to this matrix. It simply worshipped ies three goddesses Pari, Paripari and Apari at the comers ofa triangle drawn or visualised enclosing the Kulesvara and Kules- vari of he centre. The worship could be carried out externally, on aed cloth ‘upon the ground, ina circle filled with vermilion powder and enclosed with a black border, on a coconut substituted for a human skull, a vessel ied with ‘wine or other alcohol, or on amandala, It may also be offered on the exposed genitals of the dit’, on one's own body, or in the act of sextal intercourse ‘with the ditt. Later eradition emphasises the possibility of worshipping the deities within the vital energy (prina)—one visualises their gratification by the ‘nectar’ of one’s ingoing breath, We are also told that the secker of Liberation may carry out his worship in thoughe alone (samvidt puja), How= cevereven one who does this must offer erotic worship with hisditi on certain special daye of the year (paras) ‘The Kaula tradition of the Trika saw itself as essen sialsing Tantric practice. In this sprit it offered a much condensed form of oatSaivism and the Tantre Traditions the liturgy followed in the Tantra-system, emphasising spontaneity and intensity of immersion (anmayithva, samaveta) over elaborate ritual. Thus the usual preliminary purifications (nna), the internal worship (antarydgs) which always precedes the external in Tantric rites and the offerings tn the sacrificial fire (toma), which follow and repeat the worship of the deities, may alle discarded as superfluous. Moreover, the worshipper may advance from ‘an initial stage in which he worships the fll Kaula pantheon until eventually he worships only the central Kulesvas The same condensation snd intensification deter- ‘mines the form of consecration (kaula-dikja). The guru opens the initiate's path to salvation and power by ritually annulling i advance whatever future ‘experiences other than his present goal might await him atthe various levels. ‘of the cosmos, He unites him with the deity 2t che summit of the subtle levels. ‘ofthe universe and then equips him with a‘pure’ or divine body so that after ‘this elevation to the immaterial plane of the deity he can re-enter the world as an initiate. Inthe Tantra-system of the Trika, asin all Tantra-systems, this destruction of karmic bonds involves an elaborate sequence of offerings in the sacred fire (hautrd diksé). The initiate may be entirely passive during this process. In the Kaula system al thisis achieved wich minimal ritual, while the initiate is required to manifest signs of possession ave%a) and is said to have direct experience during his trance of his ascent from level to level of the ‘The Tantra-system with which this Kaulism is con- trasted is not exactly the Trika-Tantrism of the ascetics. It is rather that tradition’s domesticated form asit was practiced by the married householders from whom the Kaula Trika received its initiates. One might conclude, then, that chis Kaulism, with its emphasis on possession and mystical experience, offered the married Tantric enthusiast an acceptable substitute for the inten sity of the Kapalika Tantric tradition to which he was directly linked through his deities and mantras, but from which he was necessarily excluded by his status as a married home-dweller. ‘The Kaula Kali Cult: the Mata, the Krama and the [Northern Transmission (Uttardmndys). After its appearanceiin the Trika, Kaul- ism next emerges in the Kali cult, We must distinguish here three major traditions, () the Doctrine (Mata, (jf) the Sequence(-system) (Krama), also called the Greae Truth (Mahartha), the Great Way (Mahanaya), oF the Way of | the Goddess (Devinaya), and (ii) the cult of Guhyakal () The Mata, ‘The Kaula Mata is rooted in the tradition of the Jayadratha ‘yamelatantra, Its essence oF culmination is the wosship of the twelve Kalls, the kalitvama which, ax we have seen above, was believed co irradiate or possess the consciousness ofthe adept and his ditt during sexual intercourse, “obliterating the binding structures of differentiated awareness (ikalp 682 Saiviom and the Tantric Traditions This Kaulism, like that of the Trika, rests upon 2 broader base of Tantric practice, but unlike that of the Trika this base is “unrestrainedly Kapalika, The most striking feature ofthis Tantric Matas the prevalence of deities who have the faces of animals, or who have numerous Such face in addition to a principal anthropomorphic face. Inthe centre ofits pantheon ate three terrific goddestes of this second type, Trailokyadimara (errorisee of the Universe), Matacakreévari (Goddess of the Circle of the Mata), and Ghoraghoratari (She who is More Terrible than the Terrible) ‘Our only detailed account of the Kaula form of the ‘Mata isthe Ciliinimatassratamuccaya (MSS). Given there as the Kaulism of the Northern ‘Transmission (Utarimnaya) it is expounded through two rystical texts of twelve and fifty verses respectively associated with the ‘probably mythical gueus Vidyanandanitha and Nigkriyanandanatha. In style dnd content these ate closely related to the Kabikrama section in the Joyadrathayémalatanra (i) The Krama. A nauch more elaborate or rather better documented Kala system of Kali worship is found in the literature ofthe Krama. The outstand- ing characteristic ofthis tradition is that it worships a sequential rather than a simply concentric pantheon. A series of sets of deities (kas is worshipped ina fixed sequence as the phases (rama) of the cyclical pulse of cognition (anit). These phases ae Emission (rthrama), Maintenance ofthe emitted {thtkrama) (also called Incarnation evairaana), Retraction ofthe emitted (Gamakroma) and the Nameless fourth (antyakooma (aso called che Phase of the Klis kilkrama)), in which all trace of the preceding process is dissolved into berated and all-pervading consciousness. Ths sequence dif- fers somewhat feom that seen below in the cult of Viyakall, and considerably as far asthe actual deities who are worshipped in these phases are concerned. ‘The final phase, that ofthe Nameles, is identical to that of the thirteen (1241) Kas sen in the Mata, Indeed this set of deities isthe feature which is ‘most constant dhrough the diferent forms of the Kal cult. “The main scripearal authority for this form of the rama is the Devipaaataka (MSS). However there was a variant Krama tradition based on the Kramasaibhiva (MS). This adds fifth sequence, that of pure Light @hasakrama (se p. 676), 0 the four above. I also worships 4 System of sixty-four ¥oginis (also called Sakinis) in ive phases as the prelude tothe cult ofthe Klis ofthe Nameless. ln the period of the Kashmir exegetes clements from each of these wo traditions were brought together (see pp. {697-8 for the interpretation ofthis eyele of sixty-four Yoginis). None the less there remained permanent division in the tradition between tetradicand pentadic brama-worship, deriving fom the Devipaiaaamaka and. the Romaine expectively. “The scriptures of this tradition considered them- selves to be above the Vidyapitha, and it is que that, though there are 683Saiviom and the Tantric Traditions continuities with the Jayadrathaymalatanra they are more sophisticated ina ‘number of respects, Thus the cule has manias but lacks the grosser level at ‘which the deities take on iconic form. External worship is greatly simplified nd lodked upon as inferior to worsip in the mind, «Being understood that the order of worship (pijkrama) is no more than a reflection of the ever present order of cognition itself Gamvitkrana. 3 “his claim ro superiority i also expressed by the fact that the ewo scriptures mentioned reject the universal convention of the Bhairava Tantras which has Bhairava teach the Goddess, Here the roles are reversed, The Goddess teaches Bhuirava, For she embodies what he eannot know, the cycle of cognitive power which constitutes his own self ‘While on the whole itis not posible co say a present where the majrity ofthe Tantas originated, che scripeural tradition and the later commentators are unanimous in atuibuting the Krama revelations to ddiyana, the Northern Seat of Power (utar-pifha). This was inthe Swat valley i whatis now Pakistan, some 300 kilometres north-west ofthe valley of Kashmir. The same place figures prominently in the hagiographical histories of Buddhism as the major centre from which the traditions of the Yogini-antras (= Yopitaatanras) were propagated. With the advent of Islam and the subsequent collapse of urban and monastic culare in that region il traces ofits Tantric traditions have disappeared. (Gl) The Cult of Gukyakalt.Ivis'a common phenomenon in the history of the ‘Tantric traditions that such refinements 2s those of the Krama are quickly written into the lower, more concretely elaborated rituals which they sought to transiend, So there has flourished, from atleast the tenth century to the present, cultin which the mystical deity-schemata of the Krama are fleshed ‘out with iconic form as the retinue of the Goddess Guhyakal. The source of this consretisation is the Tantric tradition of the Mata. Inher three-faced and cight-armed form, Guhyakali’s faces are worshipped as the three Mata god ddesses Trailokyadimard, Matacakresvari and:Matalaksmi (=Ghoraghorat- ard), Thus she is seen asthe transcendent unity ofthat tradition. Further, in hee principal form she is virtually identical with the third of these goddesses. Eight- and finally fifty-four-armed, black and ten-faced, she dances on the body of Bhairava in the centre of a cremation ground (see Figure 36.6). “The earliest datable evidence of this cult is also our catliest datable example of a Tantric ritual handbook providing detailed instructions on worship with all the mantras to be recited. This is the Kalikslatramarcana of Vimalaprabodha, an author first mentioned ina [Nepalese manuscript dated 1002 ce. This and many other practical texts ‘of hor ene have circulated and circulate still in the Nepal Valley. where she Js the esoteric identity of Gubyesvan, the major local Goddess from our earliest records (€. 800 c8) to the present. The Newars, who maintain the 68s Saivigm and the Tantric Traditions Figure 36.6: Guhyakali carly traditions ofthe region, preserve her link with the Norther Transmis- sion, For them Guhyakali i the embodiment of that branch of Kaulism, Linked with her in this role is the white Goddess Siddhalaksmi (always ‘written Siddhilaksrni in Nepal), one of the apotropaic deities (Pratyaigira) of the Jayadrathayémalatantra and the patton goddess of the Malla Kings (1260-1768 cx) and their descendants. ‘Avversion ofthe cult of Guhyakili seems also to have flourished in Mithila (in nosthern Bihar) on the authority of the [Mahskelesamhita, The connection with the Krama sequence-worship is very attenuated here. Though her icon is as elsewhere, she is unusual in being 685Sivizm and the Tantric Traditions worshipped with a consort and one who is not a form of Siva, as one might hhave exzected, but the Man-Lion (Narasimha) incarnation of the rival God ‘Visou. But that too has its precedent in the Jayadrahayamalatantra, For in its fourth quarter that Tautsa veaches the cule of a Kali Madhavedvari to be ‘worshipped as the consort of this same Visnu-form. Indeed this seems to have been a major tradition in Kashmir, for Abhinavagupta, the great Kash- ‘mini Tantric scholar, gives this cul in his Tantrloke as one of ewo forms of Kaulism connected with the Trika. ‘The Kala Cult of Kubjka the Western Transmission (Paicimsmnaya). lntimately connected with the Trika is the thied form of Kaulism, the cult of the Goddess Kubjika.Itis distinc from the Trika in that itadds the cule of a new set of deities, so that the Trika recedes from the front line of devotion into the ritual, yogic and theoretical body of the system. Its dependence on the Trika is revealed by the fact that much of ts principal and ‘earliest seripture, the Kubjkimara, consists of chapters and other passages taken with minor overwriting from the scriptural corpus of that tradition, Figure 36.7: Kubjika with Navatma on Agni, acording Ssivism and the Tantric Traditions ‘The high deity of the new pantheon isthe goddess Kubjiki che Humpbacked’ ot ‘Stooped), Black, fatbelied, sx-faced and twelve-armed, adorned with snakes, jewels, human bones and a garland of Severed heads, she embraces her comots Navatuia (the Ninc-fold' [embody ing the nine-pate mantra H-S-KS-M-L-V-Y-R-UMD. He is fivefaced and tenarmed, Also black, but youthfal and handsome, he dances with her on a lotus which grows fron the navel of Agni, the god of Fee, who les inthe ceantte of a lotus visualised by the worshipper in his cranial aperture (rakmarandhra) a the summit of an axis of briliant light rising from the power contre (ahra) in his genital region Gvddhighina) (se Figute 36.7, ‘The tradition of the Kujihimate i aka, which ito say that i isa Saiva cult which emphasises the Goddess (ei) rather than SivalBhairava, In this sense all the Transmissions are Sékta. However in the Western Tradition (Pacimaninaya) ther is a parallel system known a8 the ‘Sambhava. It is Sambhava as opposed to sékta because it stresses Sambhu (equivalent to Siva, ie. Navitma) rather than dakti (=Kubjiki. Similarly mmasculinised variants existed in the Trika and the Krama. In the frst theres the Kaula cut, in which Para, Patipari and Apari are worshipped as the powers of Tritrobhairava (Bhairava the Three-headed); and in the second Manthana-bhairava may take the plae of the thirteenth Kali in the Kal- rama, This Simbhavasystem, however, was much more widely propagate. Ie is found in the Sembhunimayatanra (MS) and in. much south Indian postscriptural literature (c.g. Sivanandamuni’s Sambhunimayadipika (MS), Tejanandanatha's Anandakalpalata (MSS), and Umakanta’s Sadanvayadin- Bhavakrama), twas even taken into the mainstream ofthe purified Kaulism propagated by the south Indian Sahkariciryas of Spigeri and Kafiipuram, being the esoteric content ofthe ever popular Anandalahar’ aesibuted co Sankara. In this system Navitma also called Navesvara or Navaka is worshipped as Solitary Hero (¢kavita). Alternatively the divine ‘couple (Navatma and Kubjika) assumes six variant forms to preside over the Six Orders (sadanvaya-) located in the six centres (akras) along the central power-axis of the body and equated with thefive elements (cart, water fire, ‘wind and ether) and mind (manas). These six levels are further populated by six series of divine couples (ydmala), 180 in all (the 360 ‘rays'), drawn from, the pantheon of Kubjika in the earlier cult of the Western Transmission, ‘The system of the six power-centres (okras) (hdra, also called milddhara, in the anus, svidhisthana inthe genital region, mania in che navel, andhata in the heart, véuddht in the throat and dja between the eyebrows) isalso characteristic ofthe yogicritual ofthe Kubjikamara. Laterit became so universal, being disseminated as part of the system of kundalin= ‘yoga beyond the boundaries of the Tantric cults, that it has been forgotten in India (and not noticed outside if) that itis quite absent in all the Tantric traditions except this and the cul ofthe goddess Tripurasundasi. The yoga of 687Saivism and the Tantric Traditions these twe traditions sets them apart from the earlier Kaula traditions of the ‘Trika and the Kali cult, Ie is noteworthy in this respect that these two newer forms of Kaulism also mark themselves off from the earlier by worship- ping ss their founding Siddlus Mianthe, Oddandiha, Sayshanitha and Caryinatha, while the Trika and the Kili cults share the series Khagendsanatha, Kuirmanitha, Mesanitha and Macchandanatha also called Matsyendranatha, ‘The Southern Transmission (Daksinémnéya) and the Cult of Tipuracundard. Under the heading of the Southern Transmission the Cifcinimatasrasanuccaya describes the cult of Kimesvart (the Goddess of Erotic Pleasure), a slim, two-armed and single-faced maiden (kumar() sur~ rounded by a retinue of twelve. Eleven of these are goddesses with such appropricte names as Ksobhini (the Exciter) and Dravinl (the Melter). The twelfth is male, Kamadeva, the Indian Eros. This cult of erotic magic is the prototype or part of the prototype of the Kaula cult of Tripurasundan (the Beautiful Goddess of the Three Worlds), also called Kamesvasi, the Goddess who is worshipped in and as the nine-triangled (zakra, red, red-garmented, garlanded with red flowers, single-faced and four-armed, carrying a noose (paéa), an elephant goad (aribuse), a bow and five arrows (the five arrows of the Love God), and 688 Saiviom and the Tantric Traditions seated above the lower gods Brahma, Vispu, Rudra and Ivara, on the prostrate body of white Sadasiva (ce Figure 36.8) “The classical form ofthis cult remembered thatithad 4 special link with the older Souchern Transroision, but i ad woe w see iself as transcending this quadriparttion of the Kaula traditions. It called itself the Upper or Supreme Transmission and considered the four divisions to be substimed within it. In a later elaboration of the cule known asthe Kali-Doctrine (Kalimata) worship of Tripurasundari incorporated more ot less artificial and inaccurate versions ofthe pantheons ofthese other systems. ‘To these new liturgies corresponded the almost universal ascendancy ofthis form of Kaulism throughout the middle ages down to the present. “The cul of Tripurasundar is certainly the test of the qaditons of the Mantramizga covered here. Is basic scripate, the [Nitpdjodaikirsava, clings to the edge of the Saiva canon, being known in this canon only to itself, The southerners, who took this cult very seriously—it became so powerful thai was adopted, ina purified form, by th orthodox authority of the Safkariciryas of Spiger and Kaficipuram—considered it to bbe Kashmizi in origin. However, this is quite possibly because they filed to distinguish the scriptural dition itself from the Kashmiri theological and excgetial system within which they recived it ftom the north and within which chey continued to work. From Kashmir itself the evidence is inadequate. The Kashmiri Jayaratha (fl c. 1225-75 cx), who wrote learned commentary on the Nityiodastamava (his Vamokefvarimatviverana), refers to a long tradition of local exegesis, but we cannot conclude from his evidence more than that the cule was introduced into Kashmir a some time beeween 900 and 1100 cx. Figure 36.9: Srcakra sn ay} exh) SD 69Saivism and the Tantric Traditions “The Nityéodasikimava is an unsophisticated text which concentrates on external ritual and on the various supematural effects ‘Which sch ritual cn bestow on the worshipper, prticulatly in the quest for Cousl over woe, Fon a deeper meant the tradition had t9 turn co the Yoiniiplaya, Here one could find the internal correspondences ofthe exter= nal clements, the metaphysical meaning of the sequence of creation and re-absorgtion which the dity-sets of the densely populated ‘ricakra were believed to embody (see Figure 36.9). Thus the text ofthe ritual, though apparenly concered with erotic magie—the names of many of the com- seituent goddesses make this clear enowgh—could become the vehicle of tualised, gnostic contemplation. However, although the Yoginihdaya is scripearalin form (a dialogue in which Bhairava teaches the Goddess), chereis no evidence of its existence before the thirteenth century in south India, shorly before Ametinandanatha (fl. ¢. 1325-75) wrote the first known commentary. Certainly it was composed when the non-dualistic Saiva sys- tem of the Kashi exegesis of the Trika and the Krama had become the norm in the reading ofthe Kaula cults in south India, thats after. 1050 cs. ‘hiss cear from the fac chat it feequently echoes such popular texts of the Kashmis tradition as the Pratyabhijiaydaye of Kjemaraia (fle. 1000-50) ‘The Post-scriptural Saiva Traditions of Kashmir from the Ninth Century The Common Base From the middle of the ninth century these Tantric Saiva traditions of the Manteamarga emerged from their scriptural anonymity nto an extensive body of Kashmiri exegesis. In this iterature we encounter two schools. On the lefe were the theoreticians of the Trika andthe Krama, On the eight was the staider and more Veda-congruent Saiva Siddhanta. The doctrines ofthe former reached thie definitive formulation in the works of Abhinavagupta (A. 915-1025 ce) and his pupil Ksemardja. Those of the latter school culminated in the works of their contemporary, Rimakantha ‘The tradition of Abhinavagupta was recent. Ie looked tack to Vasugupta (fc. 875-925 c®) and Somananda (fc. 900-50 €#) asthe founders ofa new and anti-Saivasiddhantin movement among the leamed. The Saiva Siddhanta itself has preserved no records ofits presence in Kashmie beyond Rimakantha the Elder, a contemporary of Somananda. We know that there was an already wel established tradition in Kashmie at that time, bur we donot know how long it had been there. It based itself sbove al ton the works of Sadyojyod (Noreivarspaikys, Mokyakeriks, Paramokia sititeke, ere); and w hw heen secnmed that he ton wae Kashmir, and that he lived shordy before Sominanda. Bur there is no evidence that Kash- tir was his home, and some that he may be considerably older. 690 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions Both schools addressed themselves principally not 10 the specialist seekers of powers so prominent in the scriptures themselves but to the seekets of liberation (mumulsu), to those with no specific goal, who Seek self perfection through conforming Uke physical and mental rituals of the Saiva tradition. This, the unmarked category, was the sect’s broad base in society, the community of matried Saiva householders. It is in accordance ‘with this breadth that Saivism appears in both schools not merely asa system fof doctrines but first and foremost as 2 set of social facts independent of or ‘presupposed by doctrine. Thus beneath the fundamental differences in theol- ‘gy which separate the schools there is complete solidarity in abasic faith that itis enough to bea Saivain a purely ritual sense, thatthe least gnostic (privy to special knowledge) oftheir common audience will atain liberation simply by being processed by the rituals of the community. ‘The Kashmiri Saiva Siddha “The Kashmiri Suiva Siddhanta enclosed and reinfored this exoterc base. I propagated an anti-gnostcrtualism which immunised the consciousness of the Tantric performer ofiual against the mystical and non-dualistictenden- cies of the Kapalkaand Kala left, and encouraged him tointeralise without inhibition the outlook and values of non-Tantric orthodoxy. "According to Rimakantha the scriptures ofthe Saiva Sidhanca tech that salvation can only be attained by ritual, To be bound to the cycle of death and rebirth (sama) isto be ignorant of one’ true nature, but knowledge of that nature cannot bring that bondage to an end. This is because the absence of liberated self-awareness is caused by impurity (nal) ‘This eannot be removed by knowledge, because itis » substance (avys) Being a substance it can be destroyed only by action and the only action capable of destroying i is the system of ritual prescribed in the Saiva scriptures. ‘The rite of consecration (dis), through which one enters upon one’s ritual obligations, destroys al the impurity (mala) which ‘would otherwise be the cause of further incarnations. The daily (tya) and ‘occasional (neimitike) rituals which one is bound to perform after consecra- tion cause, said Rimakangha, the daily decrease ofthe impurity which the rite ‘of consecration has let intact, the impurity which is the support of one's ‘current physical and mental existence. But since the passage of time itself accomplishes this end, bringing one daily closer to the liberation at death which is the promised effect of consecration, it is hard to believe that this theory that situal after consecration has a positive effect can have been in the forefront of the awareness of the Tantrics of the Saiva Siddhinta. More compelling must have been the negative argument offered hy Ramakantha fs by the Bhatga Mimamsakas, that one performs one’s ritual duties in order {fo avoid the evil consequences of not performing them. For if one omits oonSsivism and the Tantric Traditions them, or breaks any other of the rules (amaya) which bind the initiate, one ‘must perform a penance (priyascita); and one is told tha if this penance is neglected one’s liberation guaranteed by the rite of consecration may be postponed by another incamation, even by a period in hell, The Kashmiri Trika ‘The Kashmici authorities of the Trika attacked this rtualism of their Saiva Siddhantin contemporaries, They claimed that they had exaggerated certain tendencies in the scripeures of the Saiva Siddhanta by means of sophistic exegesis. Thus, said the Trika, ehese seriprures place a greater emphasis on tual than those of the left, but they do not go to the extent of claiming that salvation can be gained by no other means. ‘According to the left, the Saiva Siddhnta contains the eruth as modified by Siva for the benefit of those not mature enough to center the less conditioned and more demanding paths of his esoteric revela- sions. The extreme positions of the curtent Saiva-Siddhantin exegesis were believed :o have arisen from failure to see this essential continuity of the Saiva revelation, Thus the left attacked certain interpretations of these seripeures—and it must be said that in the main it criticisms are justified— but it never denied the efficacy of the religious practices of those who followed the prescriptions ofthese scriptures, evenif they accepted the right’s biased exegesis. The lefe was content to believe that the most hardened Saiva-Siddhantin ritualist would attain perfect liberation at death by the power of Siva manifest in the mechanism of ritual. t drew its strength not from exchision but from the propagation of a universally applicable theory of ritual. This theory promised liberation to all Saivas while motivating ascent into the esoteric left through further consecrations in which the meaning of ritual proposed by the theory could be realised with ever greater immediacy and intersty. The culmination of this intensification is iberation, not at death bustin li itself. ‘The left maintained that there are those who have attained this mystical eransformation spontaneously or by means of gradual, ‘tal-les insight. Thus while che Saiva Siddhsntins held chat liberation could not be atuined except dbrough ritual, the authorities ofthe Tika maintained thatliberction, while attainable by ritual alone (Saiva-Siddhantin or esoteric), could also, though more rarely, be attained by mystical experience and gnosis. Further, their theory divided the performance of ritual itselfinto two levels, Ritual without internal awareness would lead to liberation at death, 38 we have seen; but ritual could also be a means of liberation in life. Gnostic ‘caning encoded into the manipelations and formula ofthe ritual could be so intemilised through daly repetition that ie would no longer require his ‘extemal medium of expression in acon. It could become purely mental, a ‘tual ofselEdefinition in thought. The Tantric was exhorted by thelefto sce 692 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions the sequence of ital (pijkrama) asa mirror in which he could perceive and contemplate his ulkimate nature. Thereby he could attain liberation, for to be fally aware ofthis ultimate nature iso beliberatedas this nature. By means of dally repetition he was co achieve «state of mind in which he believed that he ‘was and always had been that which his ritual defines. ‘The ritualist ofthe Saiva Siddhanta maintained chat the scriptures taught no selfbeyond that ofa purified and blislessindividual- ity. For him salvation was not a merging into a transcendental godhead. I svas simply that state ofthe eternally individual self in which itsequality with Siva previously concealed by the substance of impurity had become fully manifest. He did not become Siva; he became Siva, omniscient and omni- potent but numerically distinct. Thus che Kashmiri Saiva Siddhantins Stressed the difference between the Siva who had never been bound, the “original Siva’ (anddsiva) and those who were Sivas through liberation from, bondage, ‘released Sivas’ (nukttivas). The latter were held to be capable of performing the five cosmic functions (peicaktya-: creation, maintenance of the created, retraction of the created, and the binding and liberating of other selves), but to refrain from 20 doing because of the non-competitive spirit inherent in liberation. [Equally absolute in the Kashmiri Saiva Siddhanta was the doctrine that matter and consciousness are entirely separate. Accord- ing to Ramakantha, following Sadyojyot'sinterpreration of the scriptures, selves know and act upon a world whose existence is entirely independent of them, though itis arranged to fulfil their karmic needs. Siva causes the entities of our universe to emerge by stimulating an independently eternal, all-pervasive, and unconscious “world-stuff” (maya). Thus are created the various spheres, bodies and faculties by means of which eternal selves can experience the effects of their past actions (karma) and eventually attain release from their beginningless state of bondage through Saiva consecration (ik), In the Kashmiri Trika the secker of liberation (ums) isto realise through his etual a self which breaks through these exoteri barriers of pluralism, realism and reified impurity. For the self of his, worship and meditation is an absolute and omnipotent consciousness which, bby manifesting contraction of is infinite powers, appears as separate ndi= viduals, their streams of experience, and the ‘outer objects or ‘causes’ of those experiences. He thinks ofthe three goddesses convergent inthe fourth 2s this infinite and ll-containing self, secing thee structure a that of his own consciousness. As this awareness decpens through immersion inthe ritual, his individual consciousness, which is these powers contracted without change of structure, dissolves into ies uncontracted. prototype (ef. P. 673). 693Scivism and the Tantric Traditions ‘The Dectvines of Vibration (Spanda) and Recognition (Pratyabhijta) According to the Kashmiri Trika these doctrines of the ultimate non- plurality of centres of consciousness, of the non-existence of any reality except a8 projection within this all-containing consciousness, and conse quently ofthe immaterality ofimpurity (mala), have been revealed by Siva in all the Tantras of Bhairava. Thisis to say that they were read into this corpus ‘ presupposed in any reading, for the surviving texts themselves hardly support this sweeping claim, "None the less, these doctrines are not entirely post= scriptural, For the view that the Deity is non-dual, dynamic consciousness (Gamvidadvayavida, Siktddvayavada) was already present atthe far left ofthis corpus, in the literature ofthe Kapalika and Kaula cults of Kali (in the Mata and the Krama). From the middle of the ninth century the Trika, which was then permeated by the Kali cult (see p. 678), produced theological ‘metaphysicians who elevated these doctrines towards respectability within the Saivs mainstream by abstracting them from their heterodox ritual con- text, by formulating them in a less sectarian terminology and by defending ‘them philosophically against the doctrines of the Buddhists, This new direc- ‘ion begin precisely during the period at which royal patronage in Kashmir started to shift from Paiicaratra Vaisnavism to Saiviem, ‘The first stage of this development is seen in two ‘works ofthe ninth century: the Aphorisms of Siva (Sivasira) and the Concise Verses on Vibration (Spandakériki). The frst was ‘discovered’ by Vasugupta. ‘The second was composed by Vasagupta according to some, or by his pupil Kallafa according to others. ‘The Sivasita is too briefand allusivea work for usto beable te form a precise picture ofits doctrine apart from its inevitably biased interpretation in the commentaries of Bhaskara (fl «. 925-75) and Kgemardja (A. ¢, 1000-50). We can see only that it sought to outline the non-ritual soteriology of an esoteric Saiva tradition closely related to what we find in the Jayadratheydmelatantra and the Kili-based Trika. ‘The Spandakarika, being mote discursive, can be much more clearly understood independently of the commentaries. ‘The ‘work's filiy-two verses, offered asthe key to the theology of the Sivasira, Proposed that Siva is all-inclusive reality, a single, unified consciousness, ‘which manifests itself as all subjects, acts and objects of experience by virtue ofan inherentand infinite dynamism. This dynamism, the essential nature of the Deity, was termed the Vibration-Reality (pande-tatta). Liberation was to beattained by realising this vibration (panda) in the source, course and end of all staus and movements of consciousness. Ksemarija, the authar aF an important commentary fon this work, was probably right when he claimed thatthe scriptural back {round of this text is the Krama and the Mata with some elements of the 604 Saiviom and the Tanwic Traditions ‘Trika, For the concept of vibration’, or rather the use ofthis term to denote the inherent dynamism of. non-dual consciousness, whichis the signature of this doctrine, is well-established in the Jayadrathay.imala and other texts ofthe Kat cuts, The second stage of this scholarly underpinning began in che early tenth century with che Perception of Siva (Sivadttt) by Somananda (.«. 900-50). While the Spandatariké preserved some of the heterodox favour of the goddessorientated traditions of the far le, Somananda, though he was certainly an initiate in chose traditions, forma lated a Saiva non-dualism along more orthodox and rigorously philo- sophical lines. His pupil Uspaladeva, also a guru of the Teka and the Krama, gave this non-dualism it classical form in his Concie Verses on the Recognition ofthe Deity (Evaraprotyabhijidkrika). Claiming to follow his raster he offered a ‘new and easy path to salvation’ through the recognition (pratyabhija) that its one's own identity (aman) which is Siva, the Great Deity (Mahesvara). This transpersonal Sef (imesvara) is to be seen a that which contains all subjective and objective phenomena, holding this totality in a blissful synthesis of non-dual awareness. Through this recognition, which is forcefully defended against the Buddhist doctrine of impersonal flux, one is released from the eyele of death and rebirth (emsra). For one's true identity is an already-liberated and never-bound ‘T-consciousness out de time, form and location (dhe thre bases of (the appearance of) bondage in the continuum of transmigratory existence). This state of limitation isco be contemplated as the spontaneous play of this 'T-consciousness. The pure autonomy (witanrya) of the slf expresses itself by manifesting its own ‘contraction’ inthe form of limited centres of consciousness perceiving and acting within time, form and location, in accordance with the causal power of their acts (arma). Thus there arises the “binding” appearance of essential differences between a world ‘out there’ 2 self ‘in here’ and other selves. Liberation isthe realisation that allthis is internal to the awareness which represents itas external. Consciousness thereby throws offits stat of extrin~ sicist contraction’, and knows itself oly asthe pre-relational, pre-discursive Unity of manifestation (prakais) and self-cognition (vimaré) “The philosophical position of Urpaladeva's Doctrine of Recognition was analysed and supported in great detal by Abhinavagupta (Jie. 975-1025), a pupil ofhis pupil Lakpmanagupta, ina commentary ofthe Concise Vezs(lvarapratyabhijiivimarin’) andin a much longer commentary ‘on Uspaladeva's own exegesis ofhis verses livarapratyabhijnaviorvimarsini). ‘The Doctrine of Recognition and the Trike ‘The Kashmiri Teika is known t0 ws principally chrough the works of this same Abhinavagupta, particularly through his Tantrdloks, Tantasara, Malinivijayavértika and Pardtriikavivarana. In the first three of these he 695Saivism and the Tantric Traditions expounds the doctrine and ritual ofthe Trika on the basis ofthe Malinvijayot- ‘aratanira. In the fourth he develops a more concentrated form of Trika worship, which focuses only on Para, the highest of the three goddesses Because the goddess is worshipped here as Solitary Heroine (avr, that s without che customary offerings to aspects and emanations, this tradition is sometimes distinguished from the Trika proper as the Ekavira. For the same reason itis known as the Anuttata, “that above which there is nothing’ His exegesis of both of these forms of che Trika is based on the Doctrine of Recognition. Utpaladeva's concepts and terminol- ‘ogy provide his metaphysical groundwork and are fed into Trika ritual. ‘Thus, to give but one example, the phases of the worshipper's divinisation of his person with mantras (xpd2a) is required to be understood within the framework of Utpaladeva’s four levels of contraction in which the self manifests itself in progressively grosser forms as the sensation-less void (firya), internal sensation (prava), the mind (buddhi) and the body ha). Th wus we may speak of a least three major phases in the evolution of the Trika. At the beginning are the Siddhayogesvarimata and related texts (see pp. 672-4) which teach the cut of the three goddesses alone. ‘Then this triad is transcended and subsumed within Kal (see p. 678). Finally ‘we have the Pratyabhijas-based Trika of the Abhinavagupta with its two aspect, the first being the Kali-based cult of the Tantrdloka, and the second the condensed cult of Pari as Solitary Heroine. ‘The Kashmiri Krama ‘The Krama passed from is scriptural phase into chartable history with Jiinaneta lis Sivinanda in the first half ofthe ninth century. Said to have ‘been instructed supernaturaly by the Goddess herself in Oddiyana, he was the source of well-stested gui lineagesin Kashmir and beyond. His tradition is remarkable for the theoretical structure ofits ritual. It synthesised and adjusted the scripearal prototypes (principally those of the Devipaicaataka and the Kramasadbhava (ee pp. 683-4)) to produce a liturgy which could be thought of as the unfolding of the imperceptible sequence of cognition (npr cana ithe perceptible sequence of worship (pia-krama). ‘Aficr contemplating varius pentads as the structure ‘of his bodily and mental existence and secing them as emanations ofa set of| five godiestes representing the cycle of cognitions he consccrates his person asthe true ste of worship and seat of power (piia)—the worshipper proceeds to 4 five-phased worship which enacts the progress of cognition from inal to terminal voidness, Each phase is equated with one ofthese same five poddesses, In the frst, chat of the goddess Vyomavamesvati (She who Emits the [Five] Voids), he worships the whole pentadic cycle (the 696, Saivizm and the Tantric Traditions Five Voids) as condensed within the intial and eternal vibration of thought= less consciousness. In the second, the phase of the goddess Khecari (She sho Pervades the Vold (of Cognition), lie worships the ewelve Lords ofthe ‘Wheel of Light (prekaa-cakra). These ae identified with the twelve faculties of cognition (the introvertive mental organ buddhi] and the five senses) and ation (the extrovertive mental organ [manas], speech, manipulation, locomotion, exctetion and sexual pleasure). He mediates on these as illumi inated by cognitive power as it moves from its inital vibration (panda) in the five voids towards the extroverted representation of objects facing a subject. In the third stage, that of the goddess Bhucari (She who Pervades the [Outer] Field), the constituents ofthe preceding phase have ‘moved outwards and incorporated into consciousness the representation of the five external sense-data (sound, tactile sensation, visible form, taste and odour). This extroversion entails the suppression ofthe introvertive mental ‘organ. Thus there are now sixteen constituents: the preceding twelve reduced, to eleven and increased by five. These he worships as the sixteen Yoginis of the Wheel of Sensual Bliss (dnenda-cakra). The fourth stage is pervaded by the goddess Samhirabhakgini (She who Devours in Retraction). It represents the frst stage in the reversion of cognitive power to its prediscursive source, the internalisation of the object of sensation that occurs in the awareness that one hhas perceived it, The extrovertive mental organ (manas) which was distinct in the preceding phase is now submerged and the introvertive mental organ (buddhi)re-emerges, These sixteen are increased to seventeen by the addition lof ego-awareness(ahaikara). They are worshipped asthe Lords of the Wheel ‘of Fusion (mirt-akra). ‘The fifth and final stage is tha of the goddess Raud- resvari (The Terrible). Here he worships the sixty-four Yoginis ofthe Wheel of the Multitude (vrnda-cokra). ‘The ego-awareness which emerged in the preceding phase is represented as suddenly expanding to obliterate all chat ‘conceals the radiant voidness of the transpersonal Absolute within con- sciousness. This obliteration is worshipped in five stages as sixteen, ewenty- four, twelve, eight and four Yoginis. ‘The first sixtcen ofthese Yogini emanations dissolve the latent traces (pasand, samira) of the field of objective sensation wor- Shipped as the Wheel of Sensual Bliss (dnanda-cakra). In the second stage the traces of the twelve constituents of the cognitive Wheel of Light (prakaéa- (ilva) are obliterated, Twenty-four Yoginis are worshipped here, because teach of the twelve has two aspects, a latent and an active. In the third phase twelve Yoginis penetrate this cognitive field with pure, non-discursive Mvareness. Now there remain the latent traces ofthe subtle body (puryattaka) Consisting of the five sense-data (sound, etc.) and the three internal faculties (the extrovertive and introvertive mental organs together with ego- onSaivism and the Tantric Traditions awareness). By worshipping eight Yoginis here he enacts the elimination of these elements, The four Yoginis worshipped inthe fifth and last phase of the ‘Wheel of the Multitude (emda-cakra) represent the obliteration of a subtle reoidue whic die preveding cight left untouched: the decp latent impression Of the threefold inner mind and of objectivity reduced toa single, undifferen- tiated sensation of contact (aria). He now worships Raudresvari herself as the sixty fifth power, the non-relational ground of these sixty-four Yoginis, con- sciousness in its pristine purity. He identifies her with Mangall alias Virasimha, the goddess incarnate of Oddiyana. He thereby equates the Krama’s Absolute with the lineage of teachers, male and female, who have embodied this Absolute and transmiteed ie to him. For after Masigalé he worships Jinanctra and then the gurus who descend from Jiinanetra t0 himself Finally he worships the four Sequences (krama), those of Emission (arf-), Maintenance (sthit-), Retraction (samhara-), and the Narscless (andkhya-) which pervades the three as their ground, The twelve Kilis of this fourth sequence are to be worshipped during sexual intercourse with the dit, They are understood asthe gradual withdrawal of cognitive power into Kalasamkarsini (KK the Destroyer of Time), the ‘waveles: void of the absolute Self. Here the worshipper realises the absolute autonomy (enitantra) of the Goddess (Consciousness) through which she assumesthe form of the universe without contamination or diminution of her ‘Three major works of this Kashmiri Krama sur- vive, all entitled Mahinayaprakata (kumination of the Great Way), that of Siskancha (in Old Kashmisi with a Sanskrit auto-commentary), that of ‘Arpasintha (MS) and the thicd anonymous. The last isthe source of our ‘exposition of the phases of pentadic worship leading up to that of the four Sequences ‘The function ofthe ital sequence of this ration is sai tobe that it prepares the initiate for the non-sequental okrama) intuition tha willenable him to transcendit Its designed to condition awareness with the image ofits true nature, so that eventually it will provoke a spontancous and instintaneous “swallowing of dichotomising cognition’ (ikslpagriss, the annsilaion (lamgrasa) of the mechanisms of individuation and projec. tion through which the innate cahsja) purity of awareness appearsas though it were sullied in the natural processes Of ideation and perception. The wor- Shipper is to pass through the ritual to reach the liberating conviction that absolute realty is this pure awareness, and that the phases and levels of| ‘ognicion are co-extensive with it as is inate vitality. Liberation (oksa) hereis the resolution ofthe distinction in self-perception between aeanscen dental or internal site ofirvdna and an imminent or external state of finite, ‘ansmigratory existence (bhava, samséra), 698 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions ‘This system of contemplative worship was not the Krama’s only means of enlightenment. Itbelieved that there were those who were capable of reaching the goal without it. For these two higher paths are Gescribed. In the frst, tha of Oral Instruction (kahuna), dae gu was to provoke the disciples intuition through certain mystical aphorisms (eatha, ‘humm, The emphasis here is on sudden enlightenment (hess). In che ‘second path the goal was believed to be attained without any instruction, cither spontancously or through some non-verbal stimulus such as thegum’s glance. ‘Both this intuitionism and this view of situal as a mode ofliberating insight are thoroughly in harmony with the postion which Abhinavagupta expounds for the Trika. Indeed in this respect the Trika was ‘greatly indebted to the Krama. It had already accommodated important elements of this system in the second phase of its development (see p. 678). In the third phase, during which this enriched Trika was grounded in the Doctrine of Recognition, we find Abhinavagupta drawing directly on ‘the postscripeural Krama ofthe lineage of Jlananetra, adapting it asthe basis of the Trika’s claim to be the ultimate in Saiva revelation. Kyemaraja, his pupil, who offered no detailed exegesis in the Trika itself, unambiguously asserts that it isthe Krama that embodies this final truth, Clearly the prestige of the Krama-based Kali cule was widely fele in esoteric Saiva circles. The ‘Manthanabhairavatantra places it above the Trika atthe summit ofthe hierar- chy of the Saiva traditions, allowing it to be transcended only by the Westem ‘Transmission (Paécimamnaya), the tradition of the text itself. Another work of that Transmission, the Ciicnimatesdrasamuccaya, goes further. It gives the realisation of the Krama's Kilis in the Sequence of the Nameless as the highest, internal worship within the cult of Kubjiks itself, ‘The Kashmiri Cult of Svacchandabhairave ‘We have seen that Ssivism in Kashmir was split between two centres of authority, On the right was the ritualistic Saiva Siddhanta with its ani- ‘mystical pluralism and extrinsicism. On che let was the gnostic non~duaism ofthe Trika and the Krama, The right saw the lft as heretical while the lef Saw the right asthe exoteric base of the Saiva hierarchy, leading to liberation ‘but only at death Ie might be imagined therefore that it was the tradi- tion ofthe Ssiva Siddhints which was the source ofthe practice ofthe greater pare of the Saiva community, and that the Trika and the Krama were the preserves of enthusiast dependent on this exoteric or common Saivism both for the candidates for these “higher initiations and as the form oftheir own tore public identity inthe wider society. This then would be the sense ofthe Fequently quoted maxim ofthe left which equites one o be privately Kaula, publicly Suiva and Vedic in one's socal intercourse 699Scivism and the Tantric Traditions However, the interrelation of the traditions was ‘more complex in Kashmir, For the Saiva cult of the majority was not that of Sadasiva aught by the Siddhnta, but that of Svacchandabhairava. Since the latter derived its authority from che Svecchandatanera of che Mancrapisha section of the Tantras of Bhairava (see p. 670), it was, sticly speaking, a tradition of the Kapalika-based left. None the less, the Kashmiri practised a thoroughly domesticated form of the cult, and in the tenth century the Saiva Siddhanta, though not its source, had taken advantage of this to bring it tunder the sway of its doctrines. The Saiva Siddhanta was, therefore, the principal éoctrinal authority among the Saivas of Kashmir, atleast during the tenth ceneary, Ik is hardly surprising, then, that the non-dualistic tradition of the left should have tried to oust the Saiva Siddhanta from this position of power once it had itself attained a degree of respectability during the courteof the tenth century. This vita tsk of establishing the authority of | the new exegesis beyond the confined territory of the Trika and the Krama ‘was accomplished by the works of Ksemargja. While his teacher Abhinavagupta limited himself to the exposition of the esoteric traditions in harmony with the Doctrine of Recognition, Ksemaraja (ft. «. 1000-50) popularised the essential doctrine and applied i through commentaries to the coe of Svacchandabhairava and its annexes. In the first case we have such ‘works a his Esence of Recognition (Pratyabhijtahrdaya) and his commentaries ‘on two popular collections of hymns, the Stavacintamani of Bhatta-Narayana and the Slorivald of Uspaladeva In the second case we have his elaborate analytical commentaries on the Svacchandatantra and the Netatanta In both of these commentaries Ksemardja states that his motive is to free the understanding of these texts from the dualistic ‘exegesis tat was traditional in his day. The importance of the Svacchan- datantra has already been stated. The Netratanira was the authority forthe cult of Amte‘varabhairava and his consort Amstalaksmi. The worship of this pair was dosely inked with that of Svacchandabhairava and Aghoreévar in the Kashmiri tradition, as can be seen from the surviving ritual handbooks (paddhats} in use until recently among the Tantric family priests In purely doctrinal terms Ksemardja's commentaries do violence to both of these texts, at least as much 25 that of which the dualistic commentaries must have been guilty. Neither Tantra fits either exegetical straitjacket. In che area of ritual, however, Ksemarija had a clear advantage. When, for example, he attacked the then current practice of substieuting water for alcoholic liquor in Svacchandabhairava's guest~ offering, he was simply reinstating the text within the tradition of the Bhairava Tantras to which it properly belonged. This recontextualisation ‘would have seemed all the more plausible in the light of the fact that when the deiey-system of the Svacchanda cule of common Saiva worship in Kashmir extends beyond its immediate boundaries, i does so not to the Fight and the 700 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions Sciva Siddhinea but to the left and the goddess cults, Thus we find the PicumataBrahmayamala's Cand Kapilins with her eight Salts (seep. 672), Kalesvari and the eight Mothers with the Bhsiravas (se p. 681), the Kaula slcohol deity Antandesvarabhalrava, che Teka's Para and Mialni (x Goddess of the Eastern Transmission), Kubjika (at Godess ofthe Western Transmis- Son), several aspects of Tripurasundar and numberof goddesses fom the Jayedratheyimela Jersey “The literature ofthis common Saiva worship current in Kashmir shows that tis attempt to throw off the influence ofthe Saiva Siddhana was entirely successtsl. How quickly this was achieved cannot be scen from the evidence so far uncovered. We can say only thatthe corpus of the anonymous texts of Saiva ritual in Kashmiris completely non-dualisticin the manner defined by Abhinavagupta and Kzemarija, that this corpus records a tradition which must go back atleast five hundred years, and that there is no trace of any Kashmiri literature inthe doctrinal or liturgical aspects of the Saiva Siddhanta after the eleventh century. But the most staking indication ofits ascendency is its influence outside the sphere ofthe properly Tantric Saiva Non-Dualism and the Non- Tanti Tradition in Kashmir ‘When the Pratyabbhjaa-based Trika was emerging in Kashmir both the Vedic and the Tantric traditions were fully deployed. The fist was active in both its routs and is smirta forms (see pp. 660-2), while the second could be seen not only in the various forms of Saivism outlined above but also in the Vaisnavism of the Paticarata, ‘At some point, probably during che Muslim period from the fourteenth century, the Kashmiri auta tradition of the Kathaka- YYajurvedins disappeared enttely. All that remained of the Vedic tradition were the domestic ites (following the ordinances of Laugaksi) together with a repertoire of non-Tantrie deity-worship (devapja). In Kashmir, as else- where, this mart tradition of worship mirrors the Tantric ata safe distance, ‘This is co say that it has borrowed Tantric deities and liturgical forms, but uses Vedic rather than Tantric mantras within this framework. ‘The Tantric Vaigpavism of the Paticaratra also dis- appeared, but not without leaving behind clear evidence that it was once a powerful influence in Kashmiri eligion. For the Tantric tradition mirroredin thesmirta worship of the region is not the Suiva as one might have expected, but precisely the principal cult of the eatiest scriptural Paficaritra, that of Vasudevan his form as Vaikuntha (se Figure 36.10), in which amid human faceis flanked by chose of his incarnations asthe Man-Lion (Narasimha) and the Boar (Vardha), with chat of the wrachfal sage Kapila behind, ‘Thus there remained only the simple dichotomy bbeeween asmits tradition influenced by the Pafcacitra and the Tantric Saiva 701Scivismeand the Tantric Traditions Figure 36.10: Vaileunsha tradition which, as we have seen, was itself simplified by the decline of the Saiva Sidchanta, It should not be imagined, however, that the non- ‘Tantric excluded and condemned the Tantric in Kashmir, While this may hhave been the more usual position in the rest of India, a8 earlier in Kashmir itself, the evidence of recent centuries shows a more or less unified commun ity. The Vedic tradition came to be outside the Saiva only in the sense thatthe former comprised the rituals of those who had undergone the common investiture (ypenayana) of the Brahmanical radition but had not yet under~ gone ornever underwent special consecration in the form of the Tantric Siva diksa. Thus they were not bound by the additional and more exacting duties of Tinsic worship, However, outside the special domain of ritual thse brahimins were as Saiva asthe rest. Texts dealing with their duties teach side by side with non-Tantric ritual a thoroughly Tantric form of yoga, This is designed to cause fakti as macrocosmic power within the microcosm of the 702 Saivism and the Tantric Traditions body (kundalini) to rise from her state of latency in the region of the anus (uildhra-cakra), to ascend through the central channel (usunina) imagined along the intemal vertical axis ofthe body, to transcend the body through the ‘ranlal ‘aperture of Brahma (oehmarandira), and finally w corte to Fest it union with iva ata point ewelvefinger-breadths above the head (oadasant) ‘This form of kundalincyoge is derived, as we have seen (sce pp. 687-8), from the ater Kaula tradition of the cults of Kubjki and Tripurasundari. As for duty in the form ofthe culkivation of liberating knowledge (jn), this is the study of the mystical soteriology of the Trika expounded by Abhinavagupta, ‘which is to say the practice of all bu the ritual ofthat system. ‘Thus the whole society of Kashmiri brahmins had become Saiva. Ie was nolonger necessary, asthe earlier tradition hadinsisted, to take Tantric consecration, thereby binding oneself to perform Tantric ‘worship, ifone wished to have accessto Tantric yoga and mystical doctrine This separation, which enabled Tantric Saivism to pervade the community so completely, is ota recent phenomenon. Its roots can be sen at the tum of the millennium in the works of Abhinavagupta and Kemarija themselves, Foritisin the essence of their opposition to the Saiva Siddhanta chat they saw ritual as a lower and transcendable mode of self knowledge (see pp. 700-1). The rule that only those who had been conse crated and bound to Tantric ritual could attain iberation was preserved only in the leeer. For the definition of consecration was stretched into the ‘metaphorical so that it could bypass ritual in the special case of ‘consecration by the deities of one’s own consciousness’. This sort of thinking was justified by appealing to the authority of the most heterodox area of the Saiva ‘Mantramarga; but it served in the end to make a private Tantric identity accessible to all Kashmiri, while the Saiva Siddhaitins, forall their ostenta- tious orthopraxy, declined and disappeared from the scene. For though the Siddhanta argued that it was pure in the sense accepted by the non-Tantec, it did not do so outof any desire to extend its domain across boundaries of tual qualification (ada) nto the wider community. Its concern was rather to claim high social status for its adherents as a distinct and exclusive group within that community. The Saiva Siddhinta has survived to this day in south India among an endogamous community of Saiva temple-prist, the ‘Adisaivas, a the basis oftheir profession and the guarantee of thir exclusive hereditary right to practise that profession. It seems very probable that the Kashmiri Saiva Siddhantins were protecting similar rights. Ifthey died outit may have been because centuries of Islamicisation had deprived them of their institutional base. Cerainly nothing survives in Kashmir that is remotely ‘comparable tothe richly endowed Saiva temples which continue to provide the livelihood of the Adissivas in the Tamil south, Finally just a the esoteric Saiva traditions in Kash- mic flowed into the non-specialised brahmin majority, so when these same traditions went south they took root among the Saiva brahmin community 703Saiviem and the Tantric Traditions shar surrounds the Rdssiva enclaves in that eegion. The cut of Teipurasun- dar (See pp. 688-5) became particulacly well established. In purely Tantric ‘ircles it was propagated within the theological system of the Pratyabhi based Trika; but, miich asim Kashmir, ie came to petvade the wider com munity of Saiva brabmins known as the Smirtas. Purged of its Kaula hieteroprazy, it became there the special cult of the renuncate (arnyasn) Sakarscayas, who are th ultimate spiritual authorities ofthis community. Its emblem, the ales (see pp. 689-90), a installed in the major Saiva temples to assert ther claim 9 pre-eminence even within the domain of the Adissivas. 5 Further Reading (On Pisupata doctrines: Hara, Minera ‘Nakulsa-Pifupata-Darsanam’, in Inde Ionian Jounal, vol. I (1958), Pp. 8-32 (On the PiSnpatas, Kalimakhas and Kipalikas: Lorenzen, David N. The Kipaliks and Kalimulehas: Two Lost Saivit Seas (Thomson ress (ada), New Delhi, 1972) (On the doctines ofthe Saiva Siddhints: Brunner, Hééne, “Un chapitee du Sarvederianasamgraha: Le Saivadarian’, in “Malanges Chinois e Beudahiqus, vol. XX (Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of RA. Sid) (lastint Belge des Hautes Eudes Chinoses, Brussels, 1981), pp. 96-140 (On the mysticism and situa of che Saiva Siddhinta: Brunner, Héne, ‘Le mystcisme dans les gama svaites' in Sula Misionli, vol '26 (1977) (Gregorian University, Rome), pp. 257-314 — Somasinbhupadahas, vols. 1-3 (1963-77 (lastitat Francais dIndologie, Pon- dichery) Se the introductions to these volumes for an excellent account of Sava ritual. The other traditions of Tantric worship (the Paficaata, the Teka, the cult ‘of Svacthandabbairava ete.) differ from this only in their deities, mantras, mandalas, ‘muds ard such consticuent, The ritual framework is largely constant (On the Trika and related systems Gol, Ratiero (rans), Lace delle Sacre Soriture (Tensloks) di Abbinavagupte, (Unione Tipografco-Eaitice Torinese, Turin, 1972) Padous, Andre Recherches su la Symbliue et Emerge del Parole dans certains Tester ‘Tantigu (Instat de Civilisation Indienne, Pars, 1963) Sanderson, Alexis ‘Purity and Power among the Brahmans of Kashmit” in Michael cz, Steven Collin and’ Steven Likes (ade). The Caugory of the Perron (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985), pp. 191-216 708 37 |Modern Hinduism Glyn Richards ‘Any attempt to give an account of Hinduism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within the compass ofa short article must of necessity be selective. What I propose to do in the following essay is to select those leaders of thought who may be regarded as both inheritors of the Hindu religious and social traditions and contributors to the renewal of Hinduism and the development of modem India. It's not without justification that Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) has been described asthe father of modern India. His enthusiasm for reform may be attributed in part to the influence of Islamic thought and Western ideas, but, as his Vedanta grantha shows, he is also indebted to Vedantic teaching concerning the unity and supremacy of Brahman as Eternal Being and One without a second. His defence of Hinduism against the attacks ‘of Christian missionaries is an indication of the influence of his Brahminic upbringing and che part it played in moulding his desire to restore the religious purity of Hinduism. He endeavoured to do this through his jou nalistic and literary activities and through the formation of che Brahmo Samaj, 4 society he founded in 1828 to promote the worship of the one eternal, immutable God and the rejection of image worship so characteristic of popular devotion, Ifthe intellectual bent of the Brahmo Samaj deprived it of popularappeal, i nevertheless succeeded in creating an atmosphere ofliberal- {sm and rationality in which a reinterpretation of the Hindu tradition could take place. Roy’s emphasis on logic and reason is reputed to have characterised one of his earliest Persian works entitled Tuhfaul-ule ‘Muwahhiddin (Gift to Deists), in which beliefin a Creator, the existence of the soul and life after death, are claimed to be the basic tenets of al religions (though such tenets could hardly be atributed either logically or reasonably, eg. to Buddhism). The same work dismisses as irational beliefs in miracles, 705The World’s Religions EDITED BY Stewart Sutherland Leslie Houlden Peter Clarke and Friedhelm Hardy ROUTLEDGErt plished in 1988 by Routledge 11 New Feter Lone, London ECAP © 1988 Rowledge Printed in Gree Britain All right reve. No part ofthis book may be printed o reproduced or lized nay form oF by any elecroic, mechanical, or othr means, now Inown or here invented, tacladingphoocopying snd recording orn any information storage or ‘eoieval syste, thou permision in writing fom the pblhere Brisk Libary Catloguing in Publation Data ‘The Words ligions. 1. Religion —Fltory I, Sutherland, Stewart. 291109 BLAO.2 ISBN 0-115-00524-5 481571357 ei Contents General Introduction Professor Stewart Sutherland, Principal, King's College, London Part 1: Religion and the Study of Religions Editor: Stewart Sutherland 1, Religion and the Religions Peter Byme, King's College, London 2, The Study of Religion and Religions Stewart Suherland 3. Religion and Ideology ‘Anders Jeffer, University of Uppsala 4, Atheism and Agnosticism Anders Jeffner Part 2: Judaism and Christianity ator: Leslie Houlden, Professor of Theology, King’s College, London 5. Introduction Leslie Houlden 6, Isracl Before Christianity RJ. Coggins, King's College, London 7. The First-Century Crisis: Christian Origins John Muddiman, University f Nottingham 8. Judaism “Albrt #1, Pricdlander, Westminster Synagogue, London 9. Christianiey in the First Five Centuries Williams Frend, University of Glasgow 2» a a 8 o m 2