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[Full title: The commentary 鈥�Uddyota鈥� of Kshemaraja; (4) Harmonization and Commentatorial Goals]

In the Saiva metaphysics of sound, the supreme Shiva manifests himself not only in discrete names and formulae, but

113 also in his entire scriptural revelation. 1 This view of revelation has been incorporated into the text of Svacchandatantram in its traditional promulgation of the scripture (tantravatarah) section. 2 According to this scripturally sanctioned and authoritative model, Svacchandatantram, or any particular scripture represents only a fractional manifestation of the totality of revelation. Kshemaraja, naturally, shares this view, in which each scripture, limited by grace in order to offer an accessible means for salvation, becomes, as it were, a chapter in the total book of revelation. Concretely, this entails and 1 Thus just as Sadasivah manifests as the formula, so, the text declares (Bk. 8, p.20, vss.31 b-32 a) he manifests as scripture: "gurusisyapada sthitva svayam devah sadasivah // purvottarapadairvakyaistantramadharabhedatah. "Kshemaraja also bases his introductory remarks (Bk.1, pp.6-7) about the nature of scripture on this verse. On the magical use of etymology, v. Jan Gonda, "The Etymologies in the Ancient Brahmanas," pp. 49 ff.; on formula, v. Gonda, "The Indian Mantra," in Selected Studies 4 History of Ancient Indian Religion (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975): 248-301, esp., 284-285. According to the cosmology found in the Saiva scriptures, the universe has emanated in six interconnected and parallel paths (sadadhva), divided into sonic (nama) and physical (rupa) sets of three, further ranked hierarchically by the size and number of their divisions. Thus the sonic path manifests successively in phonemes (varnah), formula (mantrah), and words (padam), the physical in portions or energy phases (kala), planes (tattvam), and worlds (bhuvanam). Most importantly, each division in some way pervades contains all the others. Thus, an initiation via one path liberates from all the others as well. (V. Brunner-Lachaux, Somasambhupaddhati, troisieme partie, pp. xxiii-xxii. On the pre-Saiva use of the term adhva, v. Jan Gonda, "Ways' in Indian Religions," in Selected Studies 4: 317- 336, esp., 320-322.) 2 V. bk.8, pp.17 ff; cf. supra section 1.1.1 for a discussion of traditional models of revelation.

114 legitimates his commentatorial practice that totalizes and interprets the statements of Svacchandatantram by references to the rest of revelation. Historically, those who used or studied individual scriptures must have, in fact, understood them in the context of other written texts and oral tradition. As noted, Kshemaraja cites these sources throughout his commentary. Usually, the ideal of a unitary and harmonious revelation simply justified and supported his practical commentatorial effort to supply the necesary context for many of the statements of Svacchandatantram. Less often, this same ideal, however, generated problems for Kshemaraja when confronted with real textual difficulties. For contradictions within the text of Svacchandatantram, the Mimamsaka hermeneutics often provided solutions. Ksemaraja's rejection, on the authority of Abhinavagupta, of the distinction between secondary explanatory (arthavadah) and primary injunctive (vidhih) statements, however, greatly limited the general efficacy of this hermeneutic for resolving conflicts. Thus, for those problems, where he could find no specific rule to apply, Kshemaraja had to devise his own solution. When plausible, he glossed words and interpreted phrases in a way that explained away the apparent differences between statements made in different parts of the text. 1 If this procedure seemed untenable, then he rationalized the conflicts as due to mere differences in presentation, mode, and aspect 1 V., for example, bk.2, p. 134, where he attempts to explain away ("na kascitpurvaparavyaghato 'sti").conflicting statements in the text on the location of the Pingala nadi.

115 without any substantial significance. 1 For Kshemaraja, the same monistic insight that sublated external duality, could also account for the variation and redundancy of ritual procedures: the highest perspective not only annulled all differences but revealed them as facets of the ultimate unity. 2 The redactors of Svacchandatantram undoubtedly shared this idea of pars pro toto substitutability, though not in such a theorized form. Coupled with practical considerations, it provided them and ritual practitioners with a convenient justification for their collecting and use of overlapping, redundant, expanded or abbreviated ritual procedures Similarly, when confronted with conflicts between the statements of different texts, Kshemaraja utilized these same rationalizations to uphold the ideal of harmonious revelation. 3 In other cases, however, Kshemaraja attributed the differences to the vicissititudes brought on by human transmission of the scriptures, in the same way that he repudiated some readings 1 V., for example, bk 1, p. 29-31, where Kshemaraja rationalizes conflicting passages about the matrix bhairava by stating that they actually refer to differing superior and inferior aspects of the deity. V. also bk. 10, pp. 430-431. 2 V. bk.4., p.59, where Kshemaraja at length explains away the differences in ritual procedures and texts, according to the maxim ""ekaikatra ca tattve 'pi sattrimsattattvarupata. 333 3 V., for example, bk.10, p. 97, where Kshemaraja explains a discrepancy between Svacchandatantram and the Para about mountains as due to a mere difference in names ("sam jnantarenoktam"). V. also bk.10, pp. 470-471, where he explains a conflict between Svacchandatantram, the Matangasastram, and the Purvasastram, as due to a second difference in ritual procedures ("tantraprakriyabhedah").

116 in Svacchandatantram.1 When commenting upon non-Saiva texts naturally, he could simply invoke the authority of Svacchandatantram and the Saiva scriptures, and dispense with considering those of other traditions. 2 Despite the necessity to engage in this exegetical justification and reinterpretation, at no point did this awareness of the mutability and even inconsistency of the scriptural transmission lead Kshemaraja to question the authority of the Saiva scriptures or to supplant it. Presumably, a work like the Sivasutram, which clearly expressed the monistic theology of his tradition, and which, consequently, his tradition mythically attempted to endow with revealed status, would be rejected by rival Saiva schools. ³ And with the exclusion of logical argumentation, which could be used 1 V. bk. 10, pp. 221, where he explains differences in the order of worlds found in different texts; the order found in the Para, Mrgendrah, and other texts he considers human ("sa tadgrantha-samgrahakartrbhistathanibaddhatvat"), that of the Kiranah, divine ("idam tu saksatparamesvarenoktam"). 2 V., for example, bk.10., p.217, where after rejecting the information found in astronomical texts, Kshemaraja, extending a traditional maxim on the uniqueness of the Saiva cosmology, unequivocally asserts that the Saiva scripture as the complete manifestation of the supreme lord cannot be reasoned or debated with: "sarvasarva jnamahesvaraparidrstametadeveti na tena saha samvadavisamvadadicarca karya / ata eva 'sastrantarairna yaddrstam taddrstam paramesvare / niyatyadi sivante vak kvanyatra paridrsyate. " 3 Kshemaraja relates the myth that Shiva appeared to Vasugupta.in a dream and told him that he could find these sutrani, which were intended to combat dualism, inscribed in rock on a neighboring mountain. (V. the introductory commentary of Ksemaraja's Sivasutravimarsini, Jaideva Singh, trans., Siva Sutras. The Yoga of Supreme Identity (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979), pp.5-6.)

117 against other traditions, but which within the Saiva tradition could play only an ancillary role, only the exegetical demonstration of his doctrine in a text like Svacchandatantram remained to win acceptance from those that accepted scriptural authority. 1 Finding support, even elliptically and embryonically, for his position in Svacchandatantram, therefore, would ease acceptance of the additional scriptures and theological tenets of his sect. The non-dualists explained liberation as identification with the universal conscious subject or knower, realized exclusively by knowledge. Consequently, they interpreted the impurity binding the soul as ignorance of this identity. They repudiated, therefore, the notion that a ritual action removed an objective 1 In his extended commentary defending and reinterpreting initiation in a non-dual perspective (Bk. 5, pp. 73-99), Kshemaraja logically argues (p.78) against his Buddhist opponent that the efficacy of initation can be proven through objective means of knowledge. Inference establishes the interpretation of initiation as the manifestation of Shiva, and perception establishes the power of the formula in many rites that leads to this inference: "kim pramanamiti cet mantraprabhavasampaditatatkalikadehadarsanaprasamanodbhutamanumanam yatha ca santyapyayavasikaradahoccattanasosanamaranadi mantrasamarthyadbhavatyeva tatha diksaphalamapi bhavatyeva iti." While Kshemaraja also uses logical argumentation against the Siddhantins, he takes scriptural utterances as his point of departure, and tries to show that problematic scriptural passages actually do not contradict his position (V., for example, bk.5, p.95, where referring to bk.4, p.61, vs. 105, he attempts to refute misinterpretations caused by Svacchandatantra's declaration that the impurity (malam) is desire (abhilasah). This might erroneously imply that the planes of the kancukam, Ragah, and so forth, were the impurity or bondage, covering individual discrete souls at the plane of Purusah.) Ksemaraja's view of scriptural authority and hermeneutic procedures, therefore, parallels that of the Vedanta. (Cf. Halbfass, Studies in Kumarila and Sankara, pp.27 ff.

118 impurity; a ritual, which acts in a cause and effect relation, could not liberate one from a bondage which itself is the delusion that there exists a chain of cause and effect, or subject and object relations. 1 The logical consequence of this nondualistic philosophy, however, would seem to entail devaluing external ritual entirely, in the manner of the Advaitavedantins. But the weight of tradition, represented by the authoritative scriptures like Svacchandatantram that preserved an entire range of external practices, prevented the non-dualists from eliminating them. Instead, as noted previously, they established a hierarchy of upayah with unmediated noetic realiztion at the summit, and attempted to reinterpret their inherited tradition from this perspective. Accordingly, Kshemaraja devoted a major part of his commentary to reinterpreting, at every suitable occasion, the external ritual presented by Svacchandatantram as a meditation or noetic event. 2 Some of the practices recorded in Svacchandatantram had this dominant if not exclusive noetic dimension, which with minor adjustments supported Ksemaraja's position. 3 An historical continuity may thus be 1 V., for example, bk.5, pp. 79-80: "cidatmaikyaparamarthe yadanatmataya jnanam tadapi bandha eveti sarvatha vigalitasamkocacidekaghanavisvaikatmyamayasivatvabhivyaktireva muktih / tatra cabhedasaram sarvam jnatva samaptameveti tatpraptyarthameva diksapravrttih. 2 In bk.1, p.7, after his extended interpretation of the opening verses of Svacchandatantram, Kshemaraja alludes to apparently standard procedures of reading a text both exoterically and esoterically ("evamantarabahyakramabhyam"). 3 V. bk.2, pp.86-87, where he interprets the elaborate interior worship (pujah) of bhairava, described by the text as a rendering equivalent of interior and exterior

119 presumed to have existed between the non-dualistic exegetes and the tradition of the later redactors of Svacchandatantram. These redactors had already incorporated parts of an interiorizing reinterpretation into the text of Svacchandatantram itself. 1 The text records, for example, a condensed noetic initiation, which apparently liberates with a single formula. 2 Here, Kshemaraja followed the pattern of brahmanical meta-ritualists who used the external Vedic ritual as a paradigm for interiorizing meditations, and as a point of departure for metaphysical speculations. 3 The notion of microcosm and ("sabahyabhyantaram krtva") as an identifying with bhairava, which confirms his non-dual interpretation of all ritual (saha bahyabhyantarabhyam dehapuryastakabhairavatvapadanabhyam vartate yo yaga eka eva na tu karayordehe antasca anyanyarupo bhairavaikyasyaiva prapyatvena " 1 V. the summary of bk.13, pp. 87-88, concerning a nondual meditation on Svacchandah, which may have been added by later redactors. 鈽� 2 V. bk. 4, pp. 316-317, vs.595: "atha vijnanarupena sakrduccaralaksana / heyopadeyapasanam yugapadbhairavena. Kshemaraja connects this rite, found in other Saiva agamah, with the praise of the potency of the Bhairava formula said (bk.1, p.390) to destroy all impurity with a single utterance. (Cf. the simple Bhairava initation discussed in the summary of bk.13, p. 92. Cf. also the initiation via a single plane, bk.4, pp. 256-257.) Brunner-Lachaux interprets this rite as the mirror image of this process, i.e., as a late construct of Saiva ritualists intended to counter the growing influence of those who emphasized the indispensable importance of knowledge. In the scriptural liturgy, however, it follows the regular initiation as a superflous concluding purification. (V. Brunner-Lachaux, Somasambhupaddhati, troisieme partie, pp.14-16) 3 V. supra section 1.1.3. Cf. also bk.2, p. 128, where Kshemaraja explains the worship of bhairava by a single utternance, ("sakrduccarayogena pujayedbhairavena") through a comparison between the grammatical parts (karaka) of the act of

120 macrocosm parallelism formed the conceptual and experiential basis for many of the practices of texts like Svacchandatantram.1 Much of the appeal of these practices probably derived from the way in which they offered access to direct religious experience in the form of inducible psychosomatic events interpreted as transpersonal and cosmic realizations. The non-dualistic interpretation sought to preserve the attractive immediacy of these experiences, by removing their concrete and problematic structure and recasting them in a defensible and plausible theoretical mold. Thus, in his commentary, Ksemaraja rationalized these practices in a universal monistic system by thematizing their latent conceptual structure, exemplified in the notion of micro- and macrocosmic parallelism. Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka offers numerous examples of the assimilation and speech and the components of the sacrifice. (V. here Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri, ed., The Tantrasara of Abhinava Gupta, Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, 18. (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1918), bk 13, pp. 135-136.) 1 V., for example, bk.7, p.213, where commenting upon the results of the breath meditation that recreates and mirrors the external astro-temporal cycle and the rites conducted according to its rhythm, Kshemaraja formulates this principle explicitly: "iha yadantastadbahih iti sthitya yadyadantare dinaratritatsandhyapaksamasadike phalamuktam tatadbahye 'pi tatra tathaiveti mantavyam. "V. also bk. 10, pp. 259-260, vss. 621-622) where the text, presuming this parallelism, suddenly switches from an external cosmological description of the egg of Brahma to an internal meditative prescription about initiation: "satarudravadhi jneyam sauvarnam parivartulam / vajrasaradhikasaram durbhedyam tridasairapi // humphatkaraprayogena bhedayettu varanane. " On the importance of this principle v. Edward C. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), p.137 "The essence of Tantric thought is that man is a microcosm. He contains within himself all the elements of the universe; he is a part that contains all the elements of the whole."

121 integration of other heterogenous magical practices and cultic rituals through the same hermeneutic reinterpretation.1 The apologetic reinterpretation of ritual reflects psychological and heuristic considerations; though not thoroughgoing, the tendency to reserve external rituals for those incapable of higher attainments had already partially influenced the earlier scriptural systematiztion of initiation. 2 Undoubtedly, not only the weight of tradition, but also a recognition of the requirements of a functioning Saiva community contributed to maintaining a plurality of religious practices. For a thoroughgoing rationalization of praxis and subsequent elemination of all lower means would have dramatically restricted the appeal of the non-dualistic school, and ceded the general support and patronage of Saivism to the Siddhantins. Similarly, this restriction, particularly in the elimination of rites leading to superhuman enjoyments and attainments, would have rendered the non-dual Saiva liberation virtually identical to that of the Vedantin opponents. The same monistic hermeneutic, therefore, that accommodated the lower means of liberation, also provided a way to rehabilitate enjoyments. In the non-dual Saiva system, the supreme Shiva, unlike the 1 V. supra section 1.1.3 for a discussion of the Kaula stratum; cf. also section II.15 for the summary of bk. 15, pp. 140- 143, which elaborates the micro- and macrocosmic aspects of the adept's encounter with the yogini. 2 V. bk.4, pp. 44 ff, for the division of the nirvanadiksa, into a sabija form, which requires post initation discipline from the initiate, and a nirbija form, which requires only devotion to the master (gurubhaktih), and which is therefore suitable, Kshemaraja explains, for the young, aged, mentally defective, and so forth. Cf. M.K. Shastri, ed., Tantraloka, 18-21, for a larger collection of condensed initations to be administered in special circumstances.

122 brahma of the Vedantins, is not only sheer passive luminous consciousness (prakasah), but also consciousness of consciousness (vimarsah), in the active manifestation through Saktih as the universe. 1 And liberation that is identification with the supreme Shiva, therefore, necessarily participates in this multiple enjoyment of union with Saktih. If the strictly hierarchical model devalued enjoyments, by equating them with the identification with deities, and thereby, limited levels of consciousness assigned to specific stages in the universe, the monistic philosophy restored enjoyment as a concomitant of liberation through identification with the supreme Shiva. Using this monistic hermenutic, Kshemaraja could, to a degree, apologetically reclaim the naive equation of liberation and enjoyments depicted by the original ritual practitioners of Svacchandatantram, and theoretically maintain some continuity with their experiential vision of power and liberation through identificatory possession by the divine. However, in perhaps the most important of his selfprofessed commentatorial goals finding direct and unequivocal assertion of non-dualism in the text of Svacchandatantram - Kshemaraja appeared to have little success. The interiorizing reinterpretation and sectarian non-dual exegesis of specific rituals could rely on actual historical links in tradition and the implicit assumption of universal interconnection that provided the foundation for magical and yogic practices. Explict nondualism or dualism, by contrast, lay outside the chronological 1 V. bk.5, p. 98, for his brief refutation of the Vedantins over the nature of the liberated self: "nacasyeyadvimarsatmataptau parinatibrahmavadipaksoktadusanavakasah kascidvisvatmakasvasvarupavijrmbhamayatvena vivartaparinamapaksayoranabhyupagamat. "

123. and intellectual circuit of the ritual or meditative practice that directed early compilers and redactors of the text. The implict layavada philosophy of Svacchandatantram, while seemingly at odds with systematic dualism, at best provided inconclusive evidence for non-dualism, and thus apparently was not immune to a dualistic elaboration. 1 Later classifications of the Bhairava scriptures as non-dual attest at least to a limited success for the viewpoint represented by Kshemaraja, if not for the entire canon of agamah then at least for Svacchandatantram. This non-dual classification was later historically strengthened by default through the loss of the dualistic commentaries and the preponderant transmission of the text, Svacchandatantram, with Ksemaraja's commentary alone. 1 Cf. the simile, for example, used to describe the final state of the soul (jivah) of the initiate, at the end of bk.4, (pp. 252, vs. 398.): "supradipte yatha vahnau sikha drsyate cambare/ dehapranasthito hyatma tadvalliyeta tatpade. "The next pair of verses (pp. 252-253, vss. 399-400) describe the same state from the viewpoint of the contemplation of the ritual master, who has functioned as Shiva in the rite that has just extracted and dissolved the self of the initiate: "tadvadevabhirnanastu kartavya daisikottamaih/aham eva paro hamsah sivah paramakaranam //matprane sa tu pasvatma linah samarasigatah. " (V. also supra section 1.1.5 for a discussion of the imagery used in the text.)