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CHAPTER I THE DOCTRINAL BACKGROUND Some nodal points of Saiva outlook. I do not intend to list here the complex conceptual apparatus of Saivite thought. In fact, such an endeavour would fail due to limited space of a chapter. Therefore, we will touch on only a few and disparate problems which are connected some now with the tantric topic. a) Linguistical speculation. Both for Saivism and for tantra the linguistical apparatus has It can not be a great importance in so far as it is conceived as an instrument for the supreme self-awareness. Inasmuch as the ego (Aham) is subconsciousness, potential thought, it is equally potential language and word. Language is not only a muscular and acustical fact, but it is thinking itself which speaks inside us. stopped or abolished to emerge into the waking state (Brihad-vimarshini, II, 195; Shivadrishti, II passim). The zone of thought is inseparable from that of the word and both are found in the depths of our subconsciousness. Thus, language is our subjectivity itself. This latent cause of manifestation in the waking state is defined as follows: "Thinking is made up of a flow of sounds which is arranged in an inner speech. This flow of sounds is free of conventions and consists of a continuous wonder%3; it can be compared with a signal inside the head; it is also the vital principle of all the conventional words which are thrown out by the action of maya and which are made by different letters, A etc." (Laghu-vimarshini, I, 205). mantra (Raniero Gnoli Aham as flow of sounds is the supreme mantra, the power of Vac, Serie Orientale, Roma, 1959, p.170). The mantra is, according to Saiva schools, an aspect of language very close to subconsciousness

- 22 that has little in common with ordinary words. The latter are separated from subconsciousness by a screen of convention, while the mantra is non-conventional, irrational, and expresses an independent state of awareness from logical thought, viz. the awareness of subconsciousness. We will employ the term "subconsciousness" for denominating generically the "pure world" of Saivite speculation. Aham, abysmal thinking, is identified with the mantra par excellence, i.e. the supreme mantra or the power of mantra. Aham gives rise, maintains and absorbs all mantras. The whole existent rises from and resides inside Aham. Under this mantric aspect, the ego is designated by the name Sabdarasi or Sabdagrama which means the totality of sounds implanted in our irrationality. In this case, the sounds mean the fifty phonemes of the sanskrit alphabet. They are the origin of both the lexic and the concepts, and further, of the whole multiplicity of the external world by different combinations between them. Thus, by these means, phenomenal multiplicity is nothing else but the very expression of Aham's freedom that realises itself as power thinking of itself. The fifty letters of the alphabet are conceived as instruments of the ego's awareness. Through the agency of the alphabet the ego may affirm itself not only as a static unity, but as an unexhaustible movement and exteriorized variety. Germinal thinking has a fundamental ambiguity which ties or unties worldly links at a certain time, according to the spiritual state the individual has attained. The same ambivalence is found at the level of letters which are the "body" of thinking. They will cause the ignorant individual to sink deeper into ignorance, while he who is searching salvation will take them up as helpful powers leading him toward the supreme self-awareness. Language is felt as mantra by the initiate who becomes a geometrical point where sacredness and profanity, irrationality and reason, subconscious and waking states will interfere, loosing their specificity. Thereby the initiate crosses from the objective universe to the functional universe.

- 23 Philosophy of language and grammatical speculation had important links with Saivism. Panini was considered a Saivite. The first fourteen sutras of his grammatical work are conceived as articulate representations of the inarticulate sounds produced in fourteensets by Siva through his hand-drum, known as Dhakva. The philosophical aspect of Panini's phonetics was further developed in the Nandikesvara's Kasika. Nandi brings out two analogies which characterize Siva - Sakti unity. The couple is imagined like the moon and her light, and it intends to point out the relationship between language and meaning "candra yoryadvad yatha vagarthayoriva" (Nandikesvara, Mysore, 1936 Was candrikaverse 11). Somananda was the founder of the Recognitive (Pratyabhijna) School of Saivism in Kashmir and a critic of Bhartrhari's Vakyapadiyam. According to Bhartrhari, "there is not perception in this world without being accompanied by speech and every cognition is penetrated by speech; if this eternal flow of speech separated away from cognition, the light would not shine. This flow of speech arises from thinking in fact" (Vakyapadiya, 124,125). Bhartrhari considers that between the pure data of observation called "light" (prakasa) and the reflected thought it is not a break in continuity (K.A.Subramania Iyer Bhartrhari, A study of the Vakyapadiya, Poona, 1969, p.94). A world of pure sensations and observations opposite each other is only a differentiation made by our mind and has no reality. There thought and speech germinant in every perception. Without the unifying movement of thinking (which is identical with language for Bhartrhari) that gives life and correlates the heterogeneous data of light, speech would be void (M.Biardeau - Theorie de la Connaissance et Philosophie de la

- 24Parole dans le Brahmanisme Classique, Paris, 1964, p.209 ). Somananda and Utpaladeva, during their criticism of the the Buddhist conception, resumed Bhartrhari's point of view. They consider that between the two moments of consciousness in the process of perception discursive, liable to errors, and the pure perception beyond the reality there is a gradual and not a qualitative difference. The discursive moment is contained in the other as the splendid fethering of the peacock pre-exists in latent unity of the egg. The Kashmir Saiva schools venerate Bhartrhari as a great master. Light without thinking, says Utpaladeva, is like a crystal in which the immobile and discontinuous shadows of things are lifelessly reflected (Pratyabhijnakarika, I, 5 verse 11 and commentary). Somananda presented the monistic point of view on Bhartrhari's philosophy of grammar. Siddhanta Saiva Dualism upholds the dualistic tradition of the same. According to Siddhanta Saiva Dualism, the first category is siva, which is also called Para Bindu, and the problem of the Philosophy of Grammar concerning the four apects of speech, is discussed in the context of this category. Rama Kantha II in his Nada Karika and Srikantha in his Ratna Traya deal with this problem from the dualistic Saiva conception. Very similar to, if not identical with Monistic Kashmir Saivism, is the conception expounded by Nandikesvara in his small Kasika of twenty-six verses, to which I referred earlier. In the course of his interpretation of the first aphorism of the Mahesvara Sutras, he speaks of the metaphysical reality, which is identical with the first letter "A", as Brahman (Nandi Kasika, 5-6), which is free from all gunas, that is present

- 25 the source in everything and in all forms of speech, Pasyanti etc. It is, at the same time, or origin not only of all letters, but also of the entire universe, including many different words. This Brahman becomes or manifests himself as the universe through his power, technically called "citkala" or "cit-sakti" and therefore, it is called Isvara. The letters "I" and "U" in the aphorism signify the "power" (citkala) and the Lord respectively. ' Panini's aphorism "RLK" implies a monistic view that the relation between Brahman and its power is the same as between R and L. According to the grammarians, there is the relation of identity between two, R and L similar to that between one "A" and another "A"- "Rivarnayormithah savarnyam vacyam "(Siddhanta Kaumudi, 6). Then, it is admitted the identity of the mind and its potentiality and activity, i.e. Siva and Sakti, or Brahman and Citkala.