Yoga of Tantrism. TARKO YOGANGAM UTTAMAM - P. Muller-Ortega

P. Muller-Ortega

P. Muller-Ortega: There has been much scholarly investigation of different dimensions of Tantra in recent decades. Equally, the so-called ‘classical’ Yoga of Palañjali and its sequels has also received much scholarly attention. However, at the coincidence of the study of Tantra and the study of Yoga, there remains a gap which represents one of the great desiderata of current Indological scholarship: the investigation of the bases, historical derivations, theological formulations, and textual environments of the many forms of‘yoga’ to be found in Hindu Tantric literature.

Scholarship specifically focused on the Yoga of Tantrism has not progressed greatly since Eliade penned his now classic work. "Yoga, Immortality, and Freedom". This seminal and pioneering work has now- introduced several generations of students to the ideologies of Yoga. Nevertheless, it is now well known that Eliade’s depiction of the Yoga of Tantrism in this book is an impressionistic, composite portrait which anachronistically melds together an admixture of materials and practices from historically disparate and quite distant moments of Tantra.

One might comment, for example, on the fact that Eliade’s emphasis on the system of the six cakra-s has assisted in installing and engraving it in popular understanding as the version of the Yoga of Tantra. The system of the six cakras, however, is, as we now know, drawn from a very late Sākta formulation, itself even later formalized in the Bengali Sanskrit text on the six cakras popularized and commented on by Sir John Woodroffe. Perhaps more importantly, Eliade’s book does not take into account much more important dimensions of the Yoga of Tantra, particularly as this was taught and promulgated in the texts of the early,‘high’ Hindu Tantra, of which it appears Eliade was largely unaware.

Thus, further study of the forms of mystical praxis, liberative method, and other instantiations of ‘yoga’ (using the term in its widest and most general sense) that are to be found in the vast literature of Hindu Tantra will add important insights to scholarly understanding.

One approach to such an investigation would examine and trace the specific, philological usages and definitions of the word "yoga" as this Sanskrit term appears in the āgamic and tantric literature, including the works of its important exegetes and commentators. To my knowledge, this remains to be done in any systematic and complete fashion. Another approach would investigate the systematic theological formulations and renderings of the various ‘yogas’ of Hindu Tantra, (here applying the word etically to mean something like its soteriological methods, liberative techniques, and mystical disciplines leading to ultimate realization). It is particularly to this latter task that the present essay seeks to contribute.

In order to limit the scope of this essay, the investigation herein is centered on data drawn from selected textual passages from two important texts of Hindu Tantra: the Tantraloka and the Tantrasāra of Abhinavagupta, the tenth century Śaivācārya of Kashmir. The intent is to touch briefly on issues relating to the ‘Yoga’ of Tantrism, as well as to a Tantric critique of prior forms of Yogic practice, as these are here exemplified. A particular focus in this essay centers on the role of the mind, intellectual knowledge, and perfected reason in the liberative methods prescribed in these two texts.

 The Limbs of Yoga: A Tantric View

The ‘Yoga’ propounded by Abhinavagupta in these two texts (and elsewhere in his massive oeuvre) is not the kriyāyoga, nor the astāhga Yoga of the Yoga-sūtra, though it is clearly related to and informed by both of these (and much else that is found in Patanjali’s text.) Nor is what is taught here particularly centered on the various systems of the cakra-s, later to be so widely associated with Hindu Tantra. Rather, it is a system of four upāya-s or categories of ‘method’, six anga-s or limbs (or ancillary methods), and a single pre-eminent notion of sattarka, the good and perfected reasoning. The soteriological aim of this system can be (somewhat simplistically) stated as two-fold:

1) the recognition and realization of the practitioner’s pre-existing and unimpeded state of identity with Śiva;

2) and the further recognition and enlightened global perception of the omnipresence of Śiva, the ultimate consciousness, to be seen abiding within and arising as all forms of existence everywhere. Such a realization carries many names: jīvan- mukti, liberation in this very life; bhairavībhāva, becoming Bhairava.

Abhinavagupta systematically articulates a liberative Tantric method that is both theistic and nondual in its theological presuppositions, and shot through with its own particular brand of devotional intent and flavor in its practice. In sharp contrast to his Pātañjala predecessors, Abhinavagupta will insist on giving primacy to intellectual knowledge in the path that he prescribes. Hence the Sanskrit title of this essay, which quotes a passage from the Mālinī-vijayottara-tantra which exalts ‘tarka’ or ‘perfected reasoning’ as the highest limb of Yoga. To be sure, Abhinavagupta’s definition of ‘intellectual knowledge’ is both precise and idiosyncratically different from what that phrase usually denotes. It combines in its scope both a soaring transcendent mysticism with a deeply ‘illuminated’ intellectuality. Thus, Abhinavagupta makes an important place both for the transrational or supra-rational states of mystical attainment, as well as for what might be described as the harmonious translation and fitting expression of such states in the active functioning of the mind and the senses. An important clement in Abhinavagupta’s critique of prior forms of Yoga, and of his creative
 reformulation of a Tantric liberative path, will thus center on his insistence that such a form of intellectual knowledge or perfected reasoning does, and must, play a central and highly important role in both the journey of mystical praxis, and in the potently lived experience of liberation that is its goal.

As well, Abhinavagupta’s system gives pride of place to a concept of liberative grace, technically known as śaktipāta, the descent of the Śakti which is understood to empower and make possible every from of liberative method (upāya). The Śakti or potency here is particularly understood to be the svātantiya-śakti, Śiva’s unalloyed power of freedom. In the absence of such liberative grace, all forms of disciplinary engagement or strategic effortful practice are bound to fail, or, what is finally the same thing, to fall short of their ultimate goal. Abhinavagupta will confect a vision of tantric liberative attainment that is radically predicated on this concept of freedom: Śiva’s freedom to create; his freedom to conceal himself from himself and to thus imprison himself in the contracted and limited self; and his freedom ultimately to reveal himself to himself once again. For Abhinavagupta, the state of lived freedom cannot somehow be painfully and effortfully leveraged from the limited domains of bondage. It can only arise as the free and graceful expression of the field of freedom itself. Thus, any liberative method that does not take into account this understanding remains artificial (kritrima), and is final'y incapable of granting the highest attainments. This does not mean that there is nothing to do. Nevertheless, disciplines, methods, and practices based on kriyā—doing, action, performance, ritual—are relegated to the lowest level of the classification of upāya or liberative methods that he prescribes. All of this deeply marks the landscape of the ‘Tantric Yoga’: the disciplines, methods, theories, and techniques that are to be found discussed in these two important texts of Śaiva Tantra.

In the course of setting out the ‘theory of the practice’ of this ‘Tantric Yoga’, Abhinavagupta takes to task his Pātañjala predecessors and criticizes what he sees as both the inadequacy and the incompleteness of what they proposed and taught. He claims that other systems or soteriological methods are incomplete, leading to partial and incomplete forms of spiritual attainment. None of this is surprising, to be sure. What proud ācārya, what teaching or system does not claim their inherent superiority over all previous and other religious teachings? Nevertheless, what is instructive here is precisely the view that we get of a proponent of a medieval system of Tantra vigorously criticizing on various grounds the classical dispensations of Yoga, and in, so doing, creatively fashioning (and asserting the superiority of) the teachings and liberative methods of his time.
Abhinavagupta details (Tantrāloka (TĀ) 4, 86-98; 104-109a) what might be called a ‘Tantric’ critique of the astānga Yoga (admittedly not the sum total of what is found in Patanjali’s famous text) in a passage that begins by exalting the superiority of tarka, ‘perfected reason’, as the highest limb of Yoga. Here he offers an often dismissive yet reasoned critique of the limits and deficiencies of this eight-limbed formulation of Yoga, which is finally demoted by him to a purely secondary role:

evaṃ yogāṅgamiyati tarka eva na cāparam / (86.1)
antarantaḥ parāmarśapāṭavātiśayāya saḥ // (86.2)

Thus, among the limbs of Yoga, there is truly nothing that surpasses tarka [perfect reasoning]. [And by tarka is here meant] an extraordinarily acute and intense cognition (parāmarśapātavātiśaya) [that penetrates]  more and more deeply within.

ahiṃsā satyamasteyabrahmacaryāparigrahāḥ / (87.1)
iti pañca yamāḥ sākṣātsaṃvittau nopayoginaḥ // (87.2)

tapaḥprabhṛtayo ye ca niyamā yattathāsanam / (88.1)
prāṇāyāmāśca ye sarvametadbāhyavijṛmbhitam // (88.2)

Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sexual continence, and non-covetousness—these five restraints (yama-s) or moral precepts, along with the five disciplines (niyama-s), asceticism, and so on, along with the postures (āsana) and the various forms of control of the breath or vital force (prānāyāma), all of these [practices] can serve no useful application (nopayoginas) with regard to the direct grasping of the ultimate consciousness. For they are all [practices that are located in and restricted to] an external, outer level of manifestation (bālyavijrmbhita).

śrīmadvīrāvalau coktaṃ bodhamātre śivātmake / (89.1)

cittapralayabandhena pralīne śaśibhāskare // (89.2)

prāpte ca dvādaśe bhāge jīvāditye svabodhake / (90.1)
mokṣaḥ sa eva kathitaḥ prāṇāyāmo nirarthakaḥ // (90.2)

 

As it is said in the Virāvali [tantra], ‘When the sun and the moon [energies of inhalation and exhalation] are completely dissolved, silenced, and reabsorbed, by means of the reabsorption and dissolution of the ordinary awareness into the nature of Śiva, which is awakened consciousness only, and when the living sun, our very own awakened consciousness, has reached the twelfth level [J = of the dvādasānta], then that alone [merits] being called ‘liberation.’

prāṇāyāmo na kartavyaḥ śarīraṃ yena pīḍyate / (91.1)
rahasyaṃ vetti yo yatra sa muktaḥ sa ca mocakaḥ // (91.2)

The [strategically engaged and effortful practice of the] control of the breath (prānāyāma) is here entirely useless (nirarthakah). Such an [ordinary] process of the control of the breath should therefore not to be practiced, as it pains and afflicts the body. He who knows this secret is both liberated and capable of granting liberation [to others.]’

pratyāhāraśca nāmāyamarthebhyo 'kṣadhiyāṃ hi yaḥ / (92.1)

anibaddhasya bandhasya tadantaḥ kila kīlanam // (92.2)

 

And further, that which is called the withdrawal (pratyāhāra) of the mind and the senses from their objects [futilely attempts] the inward staking or fastening with bonds of what is always already free and unbound. 

 

cittasya viṣaye kvāpi bandhanaṃ dhāraṇātmakam / (93.1)

tatsadṛgjñānasaṃtāno dhyānamastamitā param // (93.2)

 

The nature of ‘concentrativc fixation [dhāranā] consists in a binding of awareness in a particular place or object. While meditation (dhyāna) is the continued flow of knowledge or awareness of that same object. 

yadā tu jñeyatādātmyameva saṃvidi jāyate / (94.1)

grāhyagrahaṇatādvaitaśūnyateyaṃ samāhitiḥ // (94.2)

 

Beyond all this, when all  such meditative objects have vanished, there arises in Consciousness a state of identity with the known object. The absence of the duality of the knower and the known, this is samādhi or profound meditative absorption.

 

tadeṣā dhāraṇādhyānasamādhitritayī parām / (95.1)

saṃvidaṃ prati no kaṃcidupayogaṃ samaśnute // (95.2)

 

These three—concentrative fixation, meditation, and deep meditative absorption—are finally of no utility whatsoever (no kamcid-upayoga) in the attainment of the Supreme consciousness.

 

yogāṅgatā yamādestu samādhyantasya varṇyate / (96.1)

svapūrvapūrvopāyatvād antyatarkopayogataḥ // (96.2)

 

But [if the five] restraints (yama) and the other practices up to and including the meditative absorption have been here described as being limbs of Yoga, this is because each such preceding limb is a means to attain the next, and so on, in order to serve as a means for the attainment of the last [and most fundamental limb of Yoga] which is the perfected reason (tarka). 

antaḥ saṃvidi rūḍhaṃ hi taddvārā prāṇadehayoḥ / (97.1)

buddhau vārpyaṃ tadabhyāsānnaiṣa nyāyastu saṃvidi // (97.2)

 

For what burgeons within consciousness, can be transmitted by that very consciousness into the breath, the body, or the mind by means of repeated and sustained practice

atha vāsmaddṛśi prāṇadhīdehāderapi sphuṭam / (98.1)

sarvātmakatvāttatrastho 'pyabhyāso 'nyavyapohanam // (98.2)

 

But not the other way around, [for imagining that there can be a movement from the external plane of the breath, the body, or the mind] into that consciousness, this is not the right way. Nevertheless, because in our system we accept the universality of the Self (sarvātmakatoa) which blossoms dearly even within the breath, mind, and body, [for this reason we can allow that] the practices that are based on them [i.e., on the breath, mind, and body] do serve to eliminate their opposite.

This rich passage contains many crucial observations. He begins by reviewing and assessing all of the practices of the eight limbs of the astānga yoga. In accord with their accepted designation as ‘external limbs’ of yoga (bahir-anga), Abhinavagupta declares that the first five such limbs or practices belong to an external level of manifestation, and as such they can be of no assistance in the direct grasping of the Ultimate Consciousness. Furthermore, after reviewing the last three limbs, he claims that for the Tantric practitioner, even those practices are finally to be dismissed as having no utility (upayoga) in the attainment of Ultimate consciousness. For, he tells us, it is the ultimate consciousness itself which must arise from deep within to saturate and transform the body, breath, and mind. In other words, to imagine that one can begin to practice from the external planes of existence alone, and then somehow move successfully into the depths of ultimate consciousness, this is something that he rejects, and with it all forms of yoga that are predicated on such a directionality in their application and practice.

Abhinavagupta is here clearly revealing a bias toward a hierarchical tantric view of reality (to be sure, as so much else in Tantric thought, derived and adapted from the Sāmkhyan emanationist scheme of prakrti). The outer, more manifest spheres of being are entirely derived from and dependent on the inner and more subtle levels. What is potent and alive within the supreme consciousness can expand out or descend down or move into the more manifest, outer and lower levels. Only in this way, does the liberative and expansive freedom of the light of supreme consciousness radiate and pulsate ‘out’ to fill and pervade the ‘lower’ levels of reality. When this happens, it will set in motion liberative changes in the mind, breath, and body, and in this way the results aimed at by the various limbs of the astānga yoga will take place spontaneously and manifest themselves without effort in the practitioner.

 

Quoting from an older tantric text, Abhinavagupta gives the example of prānāyāma -  the control of the breath. The passage asserts that the breath can finally be yogically dissolved and silenced. However, this is not to be accomplished by action or effort on the external level of the breath (i.e., by the ordinary, strategically engaged efforts at prānāyāma). Rather, it will arise effortlessly as an epiphenomenon or by-product of the reabsorption and dissolution of ordinary awareness in the nature of Siva. Thus, the passage strongly cautions against the ordinary, forceful practices of prānāyāma which it rejects as both useless and also afflictive and painful to the body. The critique continues (TĀ 4, 104 109a): 

tadadvayāyāṃ saṃvittāvabhyāso 'nupayogavān / (104.1)

kevalaṃ dvaitamālinyaśaṅkānirmūlanāya saḥ // (104.2)

 

With regard to the nondual Consciousness itself, practice is utterly devoid of utility (abkyāso’ nupayogavān). [Practice] can only serve to uproot doubt, the impure taint of duality.

dvaitaśaṅkāśca tarkeṇa tarkyanta iti varṇitam / (105.1)

tattarkasādhanāyāstu yamāderapyupāyatā // (105.2)

 

And, as has been said, the doubts of duality are reasoned away by perfected reason. Thus, if the restraints [and other limbs of yoga] assist and support in the attainment of this perfected reason (tarka), then they also may be considered to be a ‘means’.

 

uktaṃ śrīpūrvaśastre ca na dvaitaṃ nāpi cādvayam / (106.1)

liṅgapūjādikaṃ sarvamityupakramya śaṃbhunā // (106.2)

 

vihitaṃ sarvamevātra pratiṣiddhamathāpi vā / (107.1)

prāṇāyāmādikair aṅgair yogāḥ syuḥ kṛtrimā yataḥ // (107.2)

 

In the Ancient Treatise [the Malinī-Vijayottara Tantra] in the portion of the text that begins with, ‘Neither duality nor indeed non-duality, nor the worship of the linga, and so on,’ the Lord says, ‘All that is prescribed or all that is prohibited, the yogas [taught in these other systems] with their various limbs such as the control of the breath and so on, all these practices are artificial and factitious (kritrima). 

 

tattenākṛtakasyāsya kalāṃ nārhanti ṣoḍaśīm / (108.1)

kiṃtvetadatra deveśi niyamena vidhīyate // (108.2)

tattve cetaḥ sthiraṃ kāryaṃ tacca yasya yathāstviti / (109.1)

 

Therefore, these [systems] arc not worth the sixteenth portion of [ours] which is uncreated (akritaka), and therefore natural and spontaneous. O Queen of the Gods! Here [in our system] the [only] discipline (niyama) that is enjoined is this: Let the heart be made steady in the supreme principle, and that [is to be accomplished] in whatever manner or way [that can be obtained]. 

Most of the agamic and tantric texts which Abhinavagupta considers authoritative formulate an alternate system of the sadanga or six- limbed yoga. Importandy, this formulation, and the theoretical matrix within which it is embedded, may very well have been a contemporary, alternate formulation to that of Patanjali rather than a later derivation from it. If that is so (and pursuing this point is beyond the scope of the present essay), then the critique and creative formulations of Yoga here examined might be seen not just as later historical reactions to a dominant Pātanjala view of Yoga, but as the later reassertion and further elaboration of alternate streams of perhaps equally old forms of yogic practice. As we have seen, Abhinavagupta follows the Mālinī-vijayottara-tantra  in its notion of contrasting the ‘natural’ Yoga of Saivism to what it considers the ‘artificial’ forms of Yoga, and of particularly privileging and favoring the former as an expression of the reception of Śiva’s grace. Abhinavagupta is both critical and dubious of the salvific efficacy of what he views as the artificial (krtrima), strategic engagements of the disciplines enjoined in Patañjali and elsewhere in the earlier darśanic prescriptions of Yoga. As this passage shows, he does finally and somewhat grudgingly allow the eight limbs of Yoga a secondary role. After having dismissed their efficacy as methods (upāya), he backtracks slightly and allows that they can be considered such only in the sense that they support and lead to the attainment of tarka, perfected reasoning. The passage quoted from the MVYT conveys the essential teaching: the heart is to be made steady in the supreme principle, and this is to be accomplished in whatever way and by whatever manner. To an important degree what is here being described is the understanding of Yoga that is based on the notion of samāveśa: the individual practitioner is ‘taken possession of’ by the supreme power of consciousness. Once set in motion, it is by virtue of the spontaneous pull of grace, the flow of the supreme freedom, that the individual is yogically transformed as the varied and complex phenomena of yogic practice are manifested.
As Abhinavagupta asserts, all of the limbs of Yoga are in service of the attainment of tarka. Abhinavagupta expands on the nature of tarka in a passage (TĀ 4, 8-16) which again asserts its superiority as the highest (uttamam) limb of Yoga:

nanu saṃvitparāmraṣṭrī parāmarśamayī svataḥ / (8.1)

parāmṛśyā kathaṃ tāthārūpyasṛṣṭau tu sā jaḍā // (8.2)

 

How, [someone might ask] could Consciousness which is [the supreme subject] which cognizes itself and which is, by its very own nature, composed of reflective cognition, how, we ask, could such a Consciousness itself become the object of such a cognition?

 

ucyate svātmasaṃvittiḥ svabhāvādeva nirbharā / (9.1)

nāsyāmapāsyaṃ nādheyaṃ kiṃcidityuditaṃ purā // (9.2)

 

Indeed, if there were to appear something of such a form, that [consciousness would, in fact, be] inert and unconscious. In response to such a query, and has been already explained (TA 2, 8), it is said: the Consciousness of the Self is, by its very own nature, completely full.

 

kiṃtu durghaṭakāritvātsvācchandyānnirmalādasau / (10.1)

svātmapracchādanakrīḍāpaṇḍitaḥ parameśvaraḥ // (10.2)

 

 Moreover, there is nothing whatsoever either to be added or to be taken away from it. However, as a result of his stainless and resplendent freedom, and because of his capacity to accomplish what may appear to be impossible, the Supreme Lord [J = the Supreme Light], skillfully plays at concealing his very own Self.

 

anāvṛtte svarūpe 'pi yadātmācchādanaṃ vibhoḥ / (11.1)
saiva māyā yato bheda etāvānviśvavṛttikaḥ // (11.2)

 

Even if his essential nature is unconcealed, it is precisely that activity of concealing himself—the play of the All-Pervading Lord—that is [what is known as] Māyā. It is from that [i.c., Māyā, that there arise] the divisions and differentiations that pervade all activities.

 

tathābhāsanamevāsya dvaitamuktaṃ maheśituḥ / (12.1)

taddvayāpāsanenāyaṃ parāmarśo 'bhidhīyate // (12.2)

 

Thus, the way that the Great Lord manifests his appearance is what is called ‘duality.’ Then, what is known as reflexive cognition (parimarśa) is precisely the abandoning or discarding of such a duality.

 

durbhedapādapasyāsya mūlaṃ kṛntanti kovidāḥ / (13.1)

dhārārūḍhena sattarkakuṭhāreṇeti niścayaḥ // (13.2)

 

The wise ones sever the very' root of the tree of evil differentiations with the highly sharpened axe of perfected reasoning (tarka). This is certain.

 

tāmenāṃ bhāvanāmāhuḥ sarvakāmadughāṃ budhāḥ / (14.1)

sphuṭayedvastu yāpetaṃ manorathapadād api // (14.2)

 

The awakened ones call this [perfected reasoning] bhāvanā or meditative realization. It is [one could say] the very cow [that fulfills] all desires. Such meditative realization (bhāvanā) suddenly causes the ultimate reality to burst clearly into view, [this reality which is] beyond all of our imaginings, surpassing our very heart’s desire.

 

śrīpūrvaśāstre tatproktaṃ tarko yogāṅgamuttamam / (15.1)
heyādyālocanāttasmāttatra yatnaḥ praśasyate // (15.2)

mārge cetaḥ sthirībhūtaṃ heye 'pi viṣayecchayā / (16.1)

prerya tena nayettāvad yāvat padam anāmayam // (16.2)

 

As it is taught in the Ancient Treatise, [the Malini-vijayottara-tantra] where it says, ‘Tarka or perfected reasoning is the highest among the limbs of Yoga. All efforts in its application and practice are praised, for it permits one to discern what is to be avoided (and what is to be adhered to).

The Lord’s divine sport gives rise to duality and the concealing of the great Self, the light of supreme consciousness. This ‘impossible’ action is the result of the Lord’s freedom and his desire to play in the fields of differentiation and diversity and is called 'Māyā.' Then, by the process of parāmarśa, reflexive cognition, such duality can be discarded. It is this which is achieved by tarka. Abhinavagupta tells us that tarka is linked to bhāvanā, the meditative realization that brings about the abandonment of differentiated states of awareness and permits access to the experience of the ultimate reality which bhāvanā ‘suddenly causes to burst clearly into view.’ As he says (TĀ 1, 156):

mokṣo hi nāma naivānyaḥ svarūpaprathanaṃ hi saḥ / (156.1)

svarūpaṃ cātmanaḥ saṃvinnānyattatra tu yāḥ punaḥ // (156.2)

 

For what is known as ‘liberation’ (moksa) is really nothing other than the revelatory arising of our true essence. And, in turn, that essence is itself nothing other than the consciousness of the Self, nothing else

 

Thus, there is something that needs to be seen, realized, brought into view, understood, clarified, cognized, and in many ways perceived by the mind of the practitioner. All efforts arc thus to be directed to tarka, the ultimate limb of Yoga, which will sever the ‘very root of the tree of evil differentiations’ and bring about this liberative vision and revelatory knowledge.

 

 Vikalpa and Two Kinds of Ignorance and Knowledge

 

In the theoretical elaboration of this system, the ‘tree of evil differentiations’ here mentioned by Abhinavagupta comprises the experience of the manifest realms of duality, diversity and differentiation, all of which are related directly to the important concept of vikalpa. In the TĀ, a sustained discussion of vikalpa takes place (TĀ 1. 30-42; 1. 47-51) in the midst of a complicated argument about the nature of two kinds of ignorance and two kinds of knowledge. The argument expounded in the following passage brings the central liberative role of tarka and of ‘intellectual knowledge’ yet more clearly into view.

 

 

dvaitaprathā tadajñānaṃ tucchatvādbandha ucyate / (30.1)

tata eva samucchedyamityāvṛttyā nirūpitam // (30.2)

 

Thus, ignorance is the display or the unfolding of duality, which, because of its unconsciousness or emptiness, is regarded as bondage. For that reason, it is to be completely cut off. This is what is indicated by the [possible second] different [reading of the second sūtra as ajñānam bandham].

svatantrātmātiriktastu tuccho 'tuccho 'pi kaścana / (31.1)

na mokṣo nāma tannāsya pṛthaṅnāmāpi gṛhyate // (31.2)

 

[On the other hand], there is no such [separate] reality as the so-called ‘liberation’, either conscious or unconscious, beyond, simply, the Self which is completely free. Therefore, this term ‘liberation’ should not be taken to designate any [separate] reality other than being a name [for the freedom of the Self.]

yattu jñeyasatattvasya pūrṇapūrṇaprathātmakam / (32.1)

taduttarottaraṃ jñānaṃ tattatsaṃsāraśāntidam // (32.2)

 

However, as the knowledge of the [various ascending or progressively more subtle] reality-levels [enfolded within and as] the knowable object (jñeya-satattva) expands and unfurls more and more fully, it [yields] a higher and more subde knowledge of it [the knowable object]. Thus and to that extent, [such a progressively deepened and refined knowledge] brings about the extinction of the various [levels of] transmigratory existence.

 

rāgādyakaluṣo 'smyantaḥśūnyo 'haṃ kartṛtojjhitaḥ / (33.1)

itthaṃ samāsavyāsābhyāṃ jñānaṃ muñcati tāvataḥ // (33.2)

 

‘I am unsoiled by passion, etc.,’ [says the Buddhist Yogācārin]. ‘I am the inner voidness,’ [says the Mādhyamikan]. ‘I am not the performer of action,’ [says the Sāmkhyan], Thus, whether separately or in combination [such different kinds of] knowledge and realization liberate only to a certain degree [but not entirely or completely].

 

tasmānmukto 'pyavacchedādavacchedāntarasthiteḥ / (34.1)

amukta eva muktastu sarvāvacchedavarjitaḥ // (34.2)

 

Therefore, even though one may be liberated from such limiting distinctions (avaccheda) [which create bondage and ignorance as just described], one is still not [fully liberated] because there still remain other, limiting distinctions [in place to bind one].

 

yattu jñeyasatattvasya jñānaṃ sarvātmanojjhitam / (35.1)

avacchedairna tatkutrāpyajñānaṃ satyamuktidam // (35.2)

 

Thus, the [truly] liberated one is one who has abandoned all such limiting distinctions. It is that knowledge of the true nature of the knowable object in its entirety, which is free from all limiting distinctions, and which does not permit any form of ignorance [about the knowable object] whatsoever to remain, which grants the true condition of ultimate liberation (satyamukti).

 

jñānājñānasvarūpaṃ yaduktaṃ pratyekamapyadaḥ / (36.1)

dvidhā pauruṣabauddhatvabhidoktaṃ śivaśāsane // (36.2)

 

Moreover, in the teachings of Śiva, both ignorance and knowledge, as referred to [above], may each be considered and understood under two aspects, namely, the aspect ‘related to consciousness’ or ‘spiritual’ (paurusa) and the ‘mental’ or ‘intellectual’ (bauddha).

 

tatra puṃso yadajñānaṃ malākhyaṃ tajjam apyaya / (37.1)

svapūrṇacitkriyārūpaśivatāvaraṇātmakam // (37.2)

 

The ignorance related to the ‘contentless consciousness’ or ‘spirit’ is called the ‘mala’ or the fundamental, limiting impurity. Though it is bom from that [spirit or consciousness], nevertheless it functions as a veil which conceals our own essential Śiva-ness, which is a fullness of consciousness and action.

 

saṃkocidṛkkriyārūpaṃ tatpaśoravikalpitam / (38.1)

tadajñānaṃ na buddhyaṃśo 'dhyavasāyādyabhāvataḥ // (38.2)

 

 Thus, [‘spiritual’ ignorance] gives rise to a contracted knowing and action appropriate to the paśu or bound, transmigratory individual. Such an ignorance is non-conceptual (avikalpita), and it is not connected to the actual functioning of the intellect or the mind because [within it all of the mind’s ordinary functions] such as determination or apprehension are absent. 

 

ahamitthamidaṃ vedmītyevamadhyavasāyinī / (39.1)
ṣaṭkañcukābilāṇūtthapratibimbanato yadā // (39.2)

‘I know this thus.’ When there arises in the mind such a determinate notion, caused by the reflection [of the light of absolute consciousness] as it arises within the limited indiudual self, confounded by the six limiting sheaths, then such a knowledge is [actually] called [intellectual] ‘ignorance.’

dhīrjāyate tadā tādṛgjñānamajñānaśabditam / (40.1)

bauddhaṃ tasya ca tatpauṃsnaṃ poṣaṇīyaṃ ca poṣṭṛ ca // (40.2)

kṣīṇe tu paśusaṃskāre puṃsaḥ prāptaparasthiteḥ / (41.1)

vikasvaraṃ tadvijñānaṃ pauruṣaṃ nirvikalpakam // (41.2)

 

Intellectual ignorance and spiritual ignorance mutually feed and reinforce one another. When the latent karmic traces (samskāra) of the bound soul diminish, and as a result of an abiding in the attainment of the supreme state, die spiritual knowledge (vijñānam paurusam) which then blossoms is beyond all limiting and dualizing verbal conceptualization (nirvikalpakam). 

vikasvarāvikalpātmajñānaucityena yavasa / (42.1)

tadbauddhaṃ yasya tatpauṃsnaṃ prāgvatpoṣyaṃ ca poṣṭṛ ca // (42.2)

 

That knowledge which abides in harmonious adjustment [aucitya) with the knowledge of the Self - which is itself non-conceptual and fully unfolded— that is the [true] intellectual knowledge. As in the previous ease, these two kinds of knowledge mutually feed and nourish one another.

 

 

tathāvidhāvasāyātmabauddhavijñānasampade / (47.1)

śāstrameva pradhānaṃ yajjñeyatattvapradarśakam // (47.2)

 

 With regard to the attainment of intellectual knowledge (bauddha-vijñāna), the nature of which is a determinate ascertainment [as has just been described], what is primary is the [study of the] sāstra alone, as [it is only in the śāstra] that the true nature of what is to be known [or: of the truth of the knowablc object (jneya-tattva)] is expounded.

 

dīkṣayā galite 'pyantarajñāne pauruṣātmani / (48.1)

dhīgatasyānivṛttatvādvikalpo 'pi hi saṃbhaveta // (48.2)

 

Even if the inner ignorance, spiritual in nature, were to have vanished or been destroyed by the rituals of initiation [into the Śaiva fold], [nevertheless] because of the persistence of intellectual ignorance, dualizing and limited conceptualization (vikalpa) would continue to arise fin the mind].

 

dehasadbhāvaparyantamātmabhāvo yato dhiyi / (49.1)
dehānte 'pi na mokṣaḥ syātpauruṣājñānahānitaḥ // (49.2)

Thus, [even after having received initiation], as a long as the body continues to exist [there persists the erroneous attribution] of the true nature of the Self to the limited intellect. But not [once the body has ceased] after death, for then there is liberation brought about by the coming to an end of the spiritual ignorance.

 

bauddhājñānanivṛttau tu vikalponmūlanāddhruvam / (50.1)

tadaiva mokṣa ityuktaṃ dhātrā śrīmanniśāṭane // (50.2)

 

Alternatively, however, when intellectual ignorance ceases, as a result of the uprooting of the limited conceptualizing [vikalpa], moksa [or liberation in this very life] is certainly attained.  This is what is taught by the Lord in the venerable Niśālana: ‘But one whose mind remains linked or yoked to limited conceptualization (vikalpa) will attain Śiva [only] after the death of the body.

 

vikalpayuktacitastu piṇḍapātācchivaṃ vrajet / (51.1)

itarastu tadaiveti śāstrasyātra pradhānataḥ // (51.2)

 

But another [whose mind is free from limited conceptualization attains it] now [even as the body continues to exist.]’ And, here what is most important [in this distinction between these two kinds of libcrativc attainment is the study of the] śāstra [which grants the intellectual knowledge].

 

In this complex and very rich set of statements, Abhinavagupta describes the systematic process of the attainment of levels of higher and higher (uttarottara) knowledge of the ultimate consciousness as the various limiting distinctions (avaccheda) about the Self arc progressively removed. Though the practices enjoined in various schools and systems may assist their practitioners in removing such limiting distinctions to a certain degree, only the one who has succeeded in removing all such limiting distinctions can be said to be truly liberated. This he equates with the complete knowledge of the true nature of the knowable object (jñeya). The fully liberated and realized practitioner attains the capacity to have complete (purna) knowledge of the object of knowledge, rather than partial or incomplete knowledge. Thus, Abhinavagupta is declaring his fundamental epistemological assumptions: depending on the condition of the knower, knowledge can be either binding or liberating. Ignorance is the condition in which there is both an absence of complete knowledge of the Self as the true identity, and also of the unbounded consciousness that resides hidden as the deepest and true reality of the known object of perception. This incomplete knowledge is binding in its nature precisely because of its incompleteness. Freedom, which as we have seen is the intrinsic and most important characteristic of Śiva, of the absolute consciousness, is to be recovered existentially, experientially, mystically by means of knowledge. In other words, the existential dilemma of bondage and transmigration can only be solved, says Abhinavagupta, by a powerful form of knowledge that combines elements of what we could call sensory or perceptual knowledge with a deeply intellectual kind of knowing.

Abhinavagupta is here involved in the elaboration of a liberative program of cultivating mystical awareness and penetrative knowledge, the progressive refinement of vision, which will ultimately culminate in a series of gradated insights into the nature of Siva, recognitions about the nature of God or Ultimacy. Thus, though he is well familiar, as we have just seen, with the states of isolative, nihilative or extinctional samādhi as part of the journey of Yoga, and though his program certainly includes their cultivation and attainment, he is ultimately opposed to a formulation of a liberative Tantric path that is defined solely in terms of the introversive extinction of all mental activity, all insight, or all knowledge.

In order to further clarify his position, Abhinavagupta takes recourse to a traditional understanding that categorizes ignorance and knowledge according to a two-fold typology: paurusa or ‘relating to consciousness’ and bauddha or ‘relating to the intellect’. Thus, this results in four kinds of interrelated epistemological conditions: intellectual ignorance, spiritual ignorance, intellectual knowledge, and spiritual knowledge.

 

1)

Intellectual ignorance (bauddha ajñāna) is the ordinary unenlightened state of partial and incomplete knowledge. As Abhinavagupta here presents it, it is the limited knowledge that is ordinarily available of the world, as the reality of the perceived or conceived object of perception or conception is incompletely or only superficially disclosed or revealed to the mind.

 

2) Spiritual ignorance (paurusa ajñāna) is of the nature of the mala, the fundamental limiting impurity, the so-called ānavamala or root impurity. This is not a substance or object, but is rather of the nature of a contracted awareness, held in place by Śiva’s will to contract the infinite consciousness into the form of a limited experiencer, knower, and agent.  

Spiritual ignorance is understood to be removed by the initiation. However, its counterpart form of spiritual knowledge (paurusa jñāna), was not usually understood to be revealed until the death of the body. For in the ordinary Śaiva traditions, initiation was not thought to precipitate any form of revelatory, mystical, or extraordinary knowledge. Moreover, even when initiation had been received and the spiritual ignorance had been removed, intellectual ignorance could still persist. Its removal, therefore, was to be occasioned by the systematic consideration of the statements made by Śiva in the revealed scriptures, the śastra. Intellectual knowledge (bauddha jñana) then, is the attainment of the śuddhavidyā: the pure knowledge, the purified wisdom, the pure liberative insight. When the unfolding of intellectual knowledge was completed on the basis of a preceding reception of initiation (the sine qua non and basic prerequisite for all that is to be carried out in the Tantric curriculum and spiritual agenda of these two texts), it was then thought capable of bringing about jīvan-mukti, liberation in this very life. Abhinavagupta thus seeks to make room in his soteriological system particularly for the illuminated intellectual knowledge which abides in harmonious adjustment and conformity (aucitya) to the great and mysterious Absolute, which is both utterly beyond conceptualization in its own nature, and yet which here, at least in Abhinavagupta’s complex treatment of the matter, will still allow for a form of enlightened conceptualization of it.
This is a crucial point with regard to the particular formulation of the Yoga of Tantrism that Abhinavagupta is here elaborating. For, while the common core of Śaiva traditions were content to

aspire lo a liberation that was attainable only after death, the focus of Abhinavagupta’s system is on those extraordinarily graced practitioners, yogic virtuosi, who could actually achieve such a liberation in this very life. Its nature is such that the mind, though no longer limited by superficial or unrefined vikalpa [divisive or limiting conceptualizations] is still ‘intellectually’ active and capable of involving the senses and the faculty of perfected reason in an extroversive process of complete penetrative knowledge of the object of knowledge. Thus, the full disclosure of the reality of the known object (jñeya) is attained through a condition of unconstrained vision, knowledge, experience and realization in which every object of perception is seen as only Siva, only the absolute consciousness. Such an extraordinary state of vision and knowledge, fully achieved and finally stabilized, is what Abhinavagupta terms the ’intellectual knowledge’.

 

 Upaya: Liberative ‘Method' in Four Differential Modes

 

In order to further understand the context within which these long statements are made, we touch briefly on Abhinavagupta’s theory of upāya, liberative method or yogic means. In Abhinavagupta’s formulation of the Yoga of Saivism, the various kinds of samāveśa, the various modes in which the upsurge of liberative grace and of the potency of the absolute consciousness arises within individual practitioners, forms a central component of the overall theoretical map of the yogic journey. For Abhinavagupta, the definitive classification is to be found in the Mālinī-vijayottara-tantra where there are several varieties or degrees of intensity of such samāveśa.' The four different levels of yogic method or means, upāya, for attaining the supreme consciousness are thus arranged in terms of these forms of samāveśa.
At the end of First Ahnika of the Tantrasāra (TS), Abhinavagupta lays out the theory of upāya to be addressed in detail in the first five chapters of this text (and importantly also in the first five chapters of the Tanlrāloka): 

sa eva svātantryāt ātmānaṃ saṃkucitam avabhāsayan aṇur iti ucyate // 

punar api ca svātmānaṃ svatantratayā prakāśayati yena anavacchinnaprakāśaśivarūpatayaiva prakāśate //

tatrāpi svātantryavaśāt anupāyam eva svātmānaṃ prakāśayati sopāyaṃ vā sopāyatve 'pi icchā vā jñānaṃ vā kriyā vā abhyupāya iti traividhyaṃ śāmbhavaśāktāṇavabhedena samāveśasya tatra caturvidham api etad rūpaṃ krameṇa atra upadiśyate // 

 

It is this very light of consciousness [so composed as has just been described] which, as a result of its utterly unrestricted freedom, causes itself to appear contracted. Having done so, it is then termed the ‘atomic’ or limited, contracted, transmigratory self (anu). And by its very quality of freedom, it reveals or causes itself to be illuminated once again, and there appears resplendently as Śiva, as the unlimited and undivided light. In this regard [with respect to this very process of self-illumination or self-revelation just described] by the very force of his own freedom, he can illuminate himself either without any means whatsoever, or by accompanying means. With regard only to the case when he is employing accompanying means, then either will, knowledge, or action constitute the means. Thus, there are three different varieties of illuminative immersion in the absolute (savāveśa), [technically known as] the Śāmbhava ('related to Śambhu or Śiva’); Śākta (‘related to the Śakti or divine power’); or Ānava (‘related to the limited Self’) [means]. It is precisely these fourfold modes [of means to the illuminative knowledge and immersion into the absolute light of consciousness] that are here to be taught and expounded in [proper] sequence.

This passage outlines the argument that underpins Abhinavagupta’s consideration of Yogic method. In the cosmic sense, it is Śiva alone who freely chooses bondage and the subjection to the limited state of the transmigratory entity known as the anu, the limited self. Then, out of his own freedom, Śiva chooses to liberate such limited selves by granting them his grace through the descent of the Śakti (śaktipāta). The reception of this grace causes samāveśa, quite literally the taking possession of Śiva by the limited self. Nevertheless, though the primordial act of granting grace is identical in every case, the experiences of those who receive it vary. Samāveśa spiritually imprints the one who receives it with the mark or seal (mudrā) of Śiva’s liberative grace, which impels the unfolding of various kinds of liberative method or upāya. These range from the so-called Ānava or minute or limited, to the Śākta or empowered, to the Śāmbhava or supreme. As Abhinavagupta tells us each of these is dominated by a particular Śakti or potency of the Lord: the Ānava by the kriyā-śakti or potency of action; the Śākta by the jñāna-śakti or potency of knowledge; and the Śāmbhava by the icchā-śakti or potency of will. Thus, this upāya classificatory scheme becomes a way of gathering and organizing under a single hermeneutical ‘umbrella’ many different levels and kinds of yogic and liberativc practice. Indeed, the scheme of the four upāya-s allows for the gathering and unifying of what, at least to our eyes, might appear to be quite different and even contradictory forms of yogic practice.

As Abhinavagupta tells us, Siva can restore himself to himself either without any form of apparent Yogic method, or with accompanying methods. Aspirants who are liberated without any accompanying means are classified under the so-called Anupāya or non-method, or the method of no-practice. In what appear to be the most spiritually prestigious and advanced forms of Tantric liberative practice and soteriological method articulated here by Abhinavagupta, there is the notable absence of the use or employment of any kind of yogic instrument or form of practice whatsoever. Liberation and illuminative knowledge simply arise unbidden and bring freedom and knowledge without any form of application, method, or effort on the part of the one so graced. At the end of Tantrasāra Ahnika 2, he says: 

 

ucyate yo 'yaṃ parameśvaraḥ svaprakāśarūpaḥ svātmā tatra kim upāyena kriyate na svarūpalābho nityatvāt na jñaptiḥ svayaṃprakāśamānatvāt nāvaraṇavigamaḥ āvaraṇasya kasyacid api asaṃbhavāt na tadanupraveśaḥ anupraveṣṭuḥ vyatiriktasya abhāvāt // 

kaś cātra upāyaḥ tasyāpi vyatiriktasya anupapatteḥ tasmāt samastam idam ekaṃ cinmātratattvaṃ kālena akalitaṃ deśena aparicchinnam upādhibhir amlānam ākṛtibhir aniyantritaṃ śabdair asaṃdiṣṭaṃ pramāṇair aprapañcitaṃ kālādeḥ pramāṇaparyantasya svecchayaiva svarūpalābhanimittaṃ ca svatantram ānandaghanaṃ tattvaṃ tad eva ca aham tatraiva antar mayi viśvaṃ pratibimbitam evaṃ dṛḍhaṃ viviñcānasya śaśvad eva pārameśvaraḥ samāveśo nirupāyaka eva tasya ca na mantrapūjādhyānacaryādiniyantraṇā kācit //  

 

The one who firmly and intensely ‘discriminates’ in this way, always indeed [abides in the] immersion in the Supreme Lord [which takes place] without any occasioning means or methods whatsoever. And, for such a one, there is no need whatsoever for the restraints [of any practice], such as that of mantra, devotional rituals of pūjā, meditation, or the keeping of disciplinary rules, and so on.

 

 

Guruji is a recipient of madhya-tivra saktipat and followed  Anupaya.

Such a no-practice method consists, essentially, in an abiding and spontaneous awakening that takes place at the very summit of the mystical life where the ‘practice’ so to speak, involves abiding in surrender to the Absolute, finally yielding the vestiges of any remaining limited individuality into and as the absolute consciousness. The Anupāya is the purest expression of Śiva’s most potent freedom and its consequences. It shows his capacity instantaneously to reveal himself and to grant liberation in such a way that (at least apparendy) no form of effortful practice or disciplinary application is necessary on the part of the one so graced. Instead, freedom, whole, complete and entire, arises from the depths of consciousness and asserts itself definitively and with no impediments thus completely liberating its recipient. Here, the need for yogic practice strategically and effortfully engaged, for method conscientiously applied, for technique with regard to mantra, mudrā, and breath have all been transcended and obviated in the spontaneous arising of a fully stabilized condition of illuminative awareness. 

When this is the highest ideal of liberative ‘method’ of Śaiva Tantra, it is not surprising that, as we have seen, Abhinavagupta would take a dim view of the many practices, disciplines, restraints, techniques, and other effortful applications of yogic method as outlined and enjoined by his Pātañjala predecessors.

Similarly, at the conclusion of his description of the Śāmbhavopāya Abhinavagupta again insists that the use of strategically engaged practice of mantra and other forms of yogic and ritual practice are also absent in the practice of this particular upāya as well ('TĀ 3, 268-271),

 

saṃvidātmani viśvo 'yaṃ bhāvavargaḥ prapañcavān / (268.1)
pratibimbatayā bhāti yasya viśveśvaro hi saḥ // (268.2)

 

He to whom this universe, the entirety of all existing and manifested things, appears as a reflection (pratibimba) in his very own consciousness, he is truly the Universal Lord 

evamātmani yasyedṛgavikalpaḥ sadodayaḥ / (269.1)

parāmarśaḥ sa evāsau śāṃbhavopāyamudritaḥ // (269.2)

 

He whose cognition (parāmarsa) is characterized by an eternally arising and undifferentiated (avikalpa) [capacity to see and know all things] in this way within himself, he alone [may be said to be] ‘sealed’ (mudritah) or marked or appropriately destined for the way or method of Śambhu.

 

pūrṇāhaṃtāparāmarśo yo 'syāyaṃ pravivecitaḥ / (270.1)

mantramudrākriyopāsāstadanyā nātra kāścana // (270.2)

 

Such a cognition of the perfectly full I consciousness has been discussed by us; here all other [practices or effortful yogic methods or disciplines such as] the use of mantra, the application of mudrā, rituals, worship, and the like have no place whatsoever. 

bhūyobhūyaḥ samāveśaṃ nirvikalpamimaṃ śritaḥ / (271.1)

abhyeti bhairavībhāvaṃ jīvanmuktyaparābhidham // (271.2)

 

The one who again and again resorts to the undifferentiated absorption (samāveśa nirvikalpam) attains the condition of Bhairava which, by another name, is known as liberation while still alive.

 

However, Abhinavagupta emphasizes that the Śāmbhavopāya (and even more so the Anupāya) is limited to a very few aspirants, (TĀ 3, 288-290a),

tadasminparamopāye śāmbhavādvaitaśālini / (288.1)

ke 'pyeva yānti viśvāsaṃ parameśena bhāvitāḥ // (288.2)

 

Only some [aspirants intensely] purified by the [grace of] the Supreme Lord proceed with confidence on this highest of methods which abounds in the nonduality of Śambhu.

 

snānaṃ vrataṃ dehaśuddhirdhāraṇā mantrayojanā / (289.1)

adhvakptir yāgavidhir homajapyasamādhayaḥ // (289.2)

ityādikalpanā kāpi nātra bhedena yujyate / (290.1)

 

Baths, observances of religious vows, the purification of the body, meditative fixation, the use of mantras, the articulation of various paths, sacrificial rituals, oblations, japa recitations, meditative absorption and whatsoever other such differentiated methods can be conceived do not properly belong here [in the Sāmbhavopāya]

 

 

 This highest of the three actual methods corresponds only to those aspirants who have received a very high degree of intensity of śakipāta and who can work entirely with the subtlest energies of the will or subtle intentionality (icchā) in order to see the entirety of existing, things as a reflection within their very own consciousness. Here there is no need for refinement or purification, no need for strenuous restraints or explicit forms of discipline, external practice, or performative methods. Rather, the direct vision of the totality of the cosmos appears as a reflection (pratibimba) in the practitioner’s awareness. Such a cognition (parāmarśa) is here characterized as free or devoid of conceptualization (avikalpa) as a result of an immersive possession (samāveśa nirvikalpa) by the supreme consciousness that is utterly undifferentiated and beyond all forms of limiting conceptualization. For those not so graced, there are two next two upaya-s.

 

Vikalpa-Samskāra: The Refinement of Mental States

 

In the exposition of fundamental elements of the Śāktopāya and the Ānavopāya, Abhinavagupta repeatedly uses the Sanskrit compound expression 'vikalpa-samskāra', (roughly ‘the refinement or purification of conceptual, diversified states of awareness’) in order to articulate the ‘theory of the practice’ of the Śaiva soteriology set out under the rubric of these two forms of method. In a previous passage, Abhinavagupta has quoted favorably from early āgamic texts that recommends the potency of the transcendence of vikalpa, The passage says [TA 1.50-51],   This is what is taught by the Lord in the venerable Nisatana: ‘But one whose mind remains linked or yoked to limited conceptualization (vikalpa) will attain Śiva [only] after the death of the body. But another [whose mind is free from limited conceptualization attains it] now [even as the body continues to exist.]' And, here what is most important [in this distinction between these two kinds of liberative attainment is the study of the] iāstra [which grants the intellectual knowledge]. 

 

 This passage draws a quite explicit and sharp contrast between vikalpa and its transcendence. However, even as Abhinavagupta quotes this strictly binary prescription with approbation, elsewhere he will also be intent on nuancing this distinction. This he will do in order to allow for a slightly different yogic prescription in the context of these two upāya-s: not the utter transcendence of vikalpa, but its transformation into what his commentator Jayaratha will call the śuddhavikalpa, the purified conceptualization, and what might be referred to as the achieved results of tarka in the purified wisdom, the śuddhavidyā.

 

The explication of the śāktopāya (in Āhnika Four of both the TĀ and TS) gives Abhinavagupta an occasion to nuance the place and purpose of vikalpa, and he does so by a detailed explanation of the concept of vikalpa-samskāra. What we see here is a kind of theoretical ‘x-ray’ of those forms of practice that, rather than seeking the immediate extinction of vikalpa, attempt rather to set in motion a process (whether gradual or rapid, whether spontaneous or resulting from effortful and strategic application will depend on the context, as we will see) of the refinement, purification, and expansion of mental states as a path to the attainment of what lies beyond all such conceptuality.

The notion of vikalpa is a complex one with numerous denotations and connotations both within this tradition and in the larger ambit of Indian philosophical and theological formulations. Here, vikalpa seems to mean not just dualizing forms of conceptual thought expressed verbally. It also seems to mean something like entire states of mind or states of awareness comprised holistically. In this textual environment, vikalpa often seems closer in meaning to Patañjali’s notion of vrtti rather than to the specific idea of vikalpa as elaborated in the Yoga-sūtra and its commentaries. The notion of samskāra is here understood as a kind of purificatory working, in the same sense that metals or minerals are ‘worked’ in order to be refined. Thus, vikalpa-samskāra alludes to the process of refinement, purification, clarification, sharpening, and expansion of such mental states or states of awareness. By means of vikalpa-samskāra the fundamental constitutive and even axiomatic presuppositions or ‘holdings’ of the yogin’s mind are systematically transformed and refined. There appear to be two purposes here: to allow the mind to enter into states of awareness in which its fundamentally flawed and limited presuppositional understandings are expanded, illuminated, and refined to a very great degree. Simultaneously, the ‘working’ or refinement of the vikalpa-s is meant to allow access to that which is avikalpa, beyond all such even highly refined or subtle yet still finally limiting states of thought and awareness. The following passage (TĀ 4, 2-7) offers a significant and detailed explanation,

anantarāhnikokte 'sminsvabhāve pārameśvare / (2.1)

pravivikṣurvikalpasya kuryātsaṃskāramañjasā // (2.2)

vikalpaḥ saṃskṛtaḥ sūte vikalpaṃ svātmasaṃskṛtam / (3.1)
svatulyaṃ so 'pi so 'pyanyaṃ so 'pyanyaṃ sadṛśātmakam // (3.2)

caturṣveva vikalpeṣu yaḥ saṃskāraḥ kramādasau / (4.1)

asphuṭaḥ sphuṭatābhāvī prasphuṭan sphuṭitātmakaḥ // (4.2)

tataḥ sphuṭataro yāvadante sphuṭatamo bhavet / (5.1)

asphuṭādau vikalpe ca bhedo 'pyastyāntarālikaḥ // (5.2)

tataḥ sphuṭatamodāratādrūpyaparibṛṃhitā / (6.1)

saṃvidabhyeti vimalāmavikalpasvarūpatām // (6.2)

ataśca bhairavīyaṃ yattejaḥ saṃvitsvabhāvakam / (7.1)

bhūyo bhūyo vimṛśatāṃ jāyate tatsphuṭātmatā // (7.2)

 

 The one who wishes to penetrate into that realm of the divine nature of the supreme Lord (which has just been described in the previous chapter), should quickly and expeditiously carry out the purification of thought and the refinement of mental states (vikalpa-samskāra). One such refined or purified mental state produces another which is refined by itself, and then another similar to it, and then even another, and then yet another mental state similar to it in its very nature. Thus, by degrees and through a succession of four different mental states, thought is gradually purified and refined, beginning with an unclear and contracted state, moving then to a state that is about to become clear, then to one that is yet clearer, and then to one that is blossomed and fully expanded into clarity. Then, an even clearer and more expanded state of the mind ensues, until in the end thought becomes clearest, most refined, and most fully expanded. In each of these states of the mind, beginning with the first and least clear, there are intermediate levels. Then, because of this progressive refinement of thought, consciousness which has thus been fortified by this extremely clear, refined, and noble state of thought finally enters into the stainless condition that lies beyond all such differentiated states of mind and thought. And, as a result, for those who practice and meditate in this way with self-reflexivity (vimrśatām) the splendorous fire of Bhairava, whose very nature is this transcendent consciousness, reveals itself in its highest degree of clarity, expansion, and unfolding

 

The sequence described here moves from those states of mind or awareness that are asphuta: contracted and unclear; to the sphulatā-bhāvī: a state of awareness or thought that is about to become clear; to the prasphuta: to a yet clearer state; to the sphutita: one that has expanded into clarity. It continues then with the sphutatara: the yet clearer state of awareness; and finally, the sphulatama: the clearest state of awareness. Here thought has expanded, it has been refined and clarified and unfolded and the mind stands in a state of expansion. Abhinavagupta further states that there are numerous intermediate phases in between each of these many states of the progressive clarification and refinement of awareness. It is from here that the movement both to an illuminated and completely clarified state of awareness in which the mind somehow holds and reflects and contains the light of consciousness as well as a movement entirely out of the domain of vikalpa can take place and the mysterious traverse into the transcendence of the avikalpa occurs.

 

Thus, the description of vikalpa-samskāra reveals the sequence of liberative attainments that, beginning with contracted, unclear, and limited states of awareness and thought (asphuta), lead progressively and systematically toward the liberative attainment of both the most clear, expanded, and refined level of thought, and from that threshold into the transcendence finally of any form of vikalpa-constructed state of awareness in the attainment of the avikalpa. Though there are many other dimensions to the Śaiva practices of meditative realization (bhāvanā), this remarkable passage describes the great traverse of awareness as the very foundation of any and all such specific liberative practices. Beginning from whatever state and stage of awareness that the practitioner finds himself in, the movement is clear: awareness must be refined, clarified, expanded, made subtle and profound. And this process is a systematic one in which each such state gives rise to the next and the next until the very summit of awareness is both discovered and entered into. Because the śāklopāya, the Empowered method which is here being described, is controlled or dominated by the potency of knowledge, the jñāna-śakti, it is not surprising that both the method of attainment and the summit state of mystical attainment thus reached are here parsed out in terms of forms of illuminated, refined, and subtle knowledge.

As well, the description of vikalpa-samskāra could be seen as offering a theoretical outline of what takes place in both the application of tarka, the attainment of perfected reasoning, and in the practice of bhāvanā, the process of meditative realization. The clarifying and penetrating vision refines by stages until the true nature, the true essence of the perceived, conceived, or meditated object of knowledge is brought completely into view. Here, finally, the clarified understanding of the ‘object of knowledge’ will grant the purified vikalpic wisdom, the śuddhavidyā. As well, it reveals the avikalpic reality of the transcendent, aconceptual, and infinite light of consciousness which is now seen, understood, and viewed as the very object of knowledge itself. Such a vision offers complete knowledge, the achieved intellectual knowledge which is such that the object of knowledge now translucently reveals itself as being composed of ultimacy, even in what might previously have been judged to be its most superficial, external, and gross levels of manifestation.

 

Abhinavagupta makes a further clarification of the nature of vikalpa (TS Āhnika 4) in the following terms:

tatra yadā vikalpaṃ krameṇa saṃskurute samanantaroktasvarūpapraveśāya tadā bhāvanākramasya sattarkasadāgamasadgurūpadeśapūrvakasya asti upayogaḥ // (1.0)

tathā hi vikalpabalāt eva jantavo baddham ātmānam abhimanyante sa abhimānaḥ saṃsārapratibandhahetuḥ ataḥ pratidvandvirūpo vikalpa uditaḥ saṃsārahetuṃ vikalpaṃ dalayati iti abhyudayahetuḥ // (2.0)

sa ca evaṃrūpaḥ samastebhyaḥ paricchinnasvabhāvebhyaḥ śivāntebhyaḥ tattvebhyo yat uttīrṇam aparicchinnasaṃvinmātrarūpaṃ tad eva ca paramārthaḥ tat vastuvyavasthāsthānaṃ tat viśvasya ojaḥ tena prāṇiti viśvam tad eva ca aham ato viśvottīrṇo viśvātmā ca aham iti // (3.0)

 

When, in order to enter into the very form [of consciousness] which has just been described [in the previous chapter], one refines by degrees and gradually the state of the mind and thought, then one should employ the means (upayoga) of meditative realization (bhāvanā) in its various successive levels of application, preceded by the teachings granted by the True Master (sadguru), the True Revealed Scripture (sadāgama), and the True profound insight (sattarka) [into the nature of things as they are.] Consider the following: if living beings suppose themselves to be in a state or condition of bondage, such a supposition on their parts arises entirely as a result of the force of a fundamental thought or state of mind (vikalpa-balāt) on their parts. Moreover, that very supposition [that they are bound] is itself the cause of their continued condition of transmigralory bondage. However, if an opposite mental state or thought arises, it can expel that thought or mental state which is the very cause of continued transmigration and it can thus be the cause of the arising of spiritual goodness. 

 

And such a thought or mental state is as follows: 

THAT WHICH TRANSCENDS THE ENTIRETY OF ALL OF THE PRINCIPLES (TATTVA) OF REALITY WHOSE NATURE IS LIMITED AND BOUNDED, FROM [THE EARTH PRINCIPLE] UP TO THE ŚIVA PRINCIPLE, THAT IS THE SUPREME REALITY COMPOSED ONLY OF THE UNBOUNDED AND UNLIMITED CONSCIOUSNESS. THAT IS THE PLACE WHERE ALL THINGS ARC ESTABLISHED IN THEIR RESPECTIVE DIFFERENCES; THAT IS THE VITAL ENERGY (OJAS) OF ALL; BY MEANS OF THAT EVERYTHING BREATHES, AND THAT ALONE I AM (AHAM) BECAUSE OF THAT I TRANSCEND EVERYTHING, AND BECAUSE OF THAT I AM EVERYTHING.

 

The emphasis on vikalpa here is striking. The practice at this level is clearly involved in the specificities of the vikalpa-samskāra just described. Here Abhinavagupta adds additional details: beings are bound because they hold the vikalpa that they are bound. In order to remove this vikalpa, the yogin must entertain an opposite vikalpa. The method or way of knowledge here involves the attaining to and holding of this opposite vikalpa which is here described as the process of accessing and standing in identification with great AHAM, beyond all limited principles, the supreme reality composed only of consciousness, the place that holds together all different things, the vital energy of all, that which hreathes everything.

On Subtle Knowledge: The Dual Vikalpa

 

In a further clarification, Abhinavagupta makes precise the twofold nature of vikalpa: it is both constructive of intellectual ignorance, and the basis of the intellectual knowledge. He says, (TĀ 4, 109b- 114a),

 

evaṃ dvaitaparāmarśanāśāya parameśvaraḥ // (109.2)

kvacitsvabhāvamamalamāmṛśannaniśaṃ sthitaḥ / (110.1)

yaḥ svabhāvaparāmarśa indriyārthādyupāyataḥ // (110.2)

vinaiva tanmukho 'nyo vā svātantryāttadvikalpanam / (111.1)

tacca svacchasvatantrātmaratnanirbhāsini sphuṭam // (111.2)

bhāvaughe bhedasaṃdhātṛ svātmano naiśamucyate / (112.1)

tadeva tu samastārthanirbharātmaikagocaram // (112.2)

śuddhavidyātmakaṃ sarvamevedamahamityalam / (113.1)

idaṃ vikalpanaṃ śuddhavidyārūpaṃ sphuṭātmakam // (113.2)

pratihantīha māyīyaṃ vikalpaṃ bhedabhāvakam / (114.1)

 

Thus, in order to destroy the cognition or perception of duality, the Supreme Lord constantly abides directly cognizing his own stainless essential being. This cognition of his own true being can either take place completely without recourse to the senses and their corresponding objects fin which ease there is the nirvikalpa). Or, alternatively, it can take place in relation to them. In this latter case, (when his cognition of his own true being is accompanied by or dependent upon or in relation to the senses and their corresponding objects), then as a result of his own supreme freedom, there arises vikalpa (as differentiated states of thought and awareness.) [And that vikalpa can be of two different sorts.] The vikalpa which is known as ‘nocturnal’, that is to say related to māyā, of itself causes difference to appear in and as the stream of all existing things which clearly reveal themselves within the pure and free jewel of the Self. But when vikalpa manifests itself as the awareness, ‘All this am I’, then the unitary field of the Self, heavy or laden with all existing things, then becomes the purified wisdom (suddhavidyā). Such a vikalpa, consisting of the purified wisdom shining clearly is precisely what suppresses the (nocturnal, mayic) vikalpa which causes differentiation.

 

We see here the theme of the ambiguity and ambidextrousness of vikalpa. The contrast could not here be more clear. While acknowledging the nirvikalpa/vikalpa polarity, this passage adds a further distinction: between the ‘nocturnal’ vikalpa which is productive of intellectual ignorance, and the vikalpa that consists of the purified wisdom which suppresses such intellectual ignorance. As he has made clear (in the passage quoted above from TA 1, 32 If.,), intellectual ignorance is not suppressed or eliminated merely by the removal of the spiritual ignorance. For Abhinavagupta, the true illuminative knowledge does not arise when the root impurity or mala (the basis of the spiritual ignorance) is silently destroyed by initiation. Rather, it must be cultivated and made to arise as the expansive and illuminative consequences of that destruction of the mala, the absence of which now permits in the practitioner’s mind a newly given capacity to know.

Moreover, like all the other agents of the constriction of the great Self into the finiteness of the limited karmically bound awareness, the vikalpa itself must ultimately be seen to be composed of nothing other than Consciousness. To admit that it is ultimately or essentially made or composed of anything else is to fatally mar the fundamental nondualism of Abhinavagupta’s theological system. However, if vikalpa is primarily seen here as both an agent and a consequence of limited, constrictive and unclear states of awareness, at the same time, Abhinavagupta makes a place for the notion of subtle, liberative knowledge that retains an intellectual character and which yet does not partake of the limiting nature of ordinary, ignorance-producing vikalpa-s. The theological dance here is to maintain both of these forms of vikalpa in their proper relation to each other. This stake in the way of knowledge, the śāktopāya, is merely the ordinary intellectual knowledge of the constricted self. To counteract such an error, which would reduce the salvific path of the Śaivas to a merely intellectual discovery in the ordinary sense of the word, (in other words, that all that is at stake here is an ordinary form of intellectual realization), Abhinavagupta makes the precision that the way of knowledge is about subtle knowledge, or what is elsewhere known as the purified wisdom, the śuddhavidyā. As he says (in TĀ 1, 144),

 

jñānasya cābhyupāyo yo na tadajñānamucyate / (144.1)
jñānameva tu tatsūkṣmaṃ paraṃ tvicchātmakaṃ matam // (144.2)

 

Moreover, the means of knowledge [the śāktopāya] is not to be regarded as ignorance. Rather, [it is a method that consists of or employs] subtle knowledge. The highest [method, the śāmbhavopāya, described in Ahnika 3] is composed of the will.

 

In other terms, one might say that the movement of the mind that is here being described is not horizontal: from a wrong thought about something to a right thought about it that is still held in a mind that is characterized by limited and constrictive ignorance. Rather, it is about a gross or superficial thought about something (about anything) held within the mind of the initiated practitioner whose root ignorance has silently been removed by initiation. By holding a thought in such a mind, and by allowing the progressive refinement, clarification, and subtilization of that thought to take place, it finally and ever more clearly yields the perception that the object in question is in fact nothing more than the great consciousness. Thus, the nature of the śuddhavidyā or of the refined vikalpa that is in consonance (aucitya) with the great Consciousness is that it allows that consciousness actively to both know and recognize itself within the domain of thought and knowledge, and not just within the transcendent domain of the silence of that ultimacy. This is a fundamental and important shift in the Indian depiction of mystical states of salvific knowledge.
Thus, this vertically penetrating form of knowledge, which moves through progressive layers of refinement to discover the true essence (svarūpa) of consciousness as the essence of every perceived and knowable object, comes to be known as well as sattarka, the true reason.

 

What is ordinarily known as ‘tarka' in the philosophical schools of Indian logical disputation: reasoning, logical knowledge, intellectual speculation, involves what we have termed a kind of ‘horizontal’ confrontation between so-called ‘false’ knowledge and ‘true’ knowledge, between ‘wrong’ views and ‘right’ views. Naturally, Abhinavagupta is well familiar with this and makes full use of what might be called an ‘ordinary’ tarka in his own argumentation with his philosophical opponents. But what is here being labelled as ‘tarka’ as the highest limb of Yoga, is not this sort of intellectually speculative, logically confutational form of knowledge. Rather, the deepest vikalpa, the śuddhavidyā or purified knowledge, which has sequentially entered into the object of knowledge so deeply that it has uncovered and brought to the light of both the senses and the mind the constitutive ultimacy of Consciousness of which it is finally composed, that is the sat-tarka that is so praised by Abhinavagupta, and which is highlighted by him as being the highest and most important limb of Yoga.