nirvANa sundarI

Excerpts from Indian Esoteric Buddhism - A Social History of the Tantric Movement by Ronald M. Davidson

Because of its thematic and textual continuity with some shaiva scriptures, Alexis Sanderson has proposed that the more extreme branch of the new siddha literature, the <>yoginI tantras , represented an appropriation of kApAlika tantric literature by Buddhists. Based on his examination of mostly unpublished Sanskrit manuscripts, he has concluded that this level of Buddhist scriptures was entirely dependent on prior Shaiva tantras.

Certainly Sanderson is correct about some parts of the picture: the quick and dramatic formation of the extreme practices of the vajrayAna is inexplicable without taking into acount the influence of the kApAlikas. There can be little doubt that items essential to the literature of the yoginI tantras - such as the use of skulls, the employment of the specialized club (khaTvAnga), and the later chakrasamvara-based rhetoric of Heruka’s subjugation of maheshvara - cannot have arisen without sustained kApAlika influence. In the myth, Heruka becomes the emanation of vajrapANi, and bhairava is the form maheshvara takes. The twenty-four locales are sites where bhairava and his consort, bhairavI, are situated causing trouble for everyone. Heruka destroys maheshvara, redefines the bhairava/bhairavI couples as Buddhists, and establishes his maNDala by taking his place at the summit on Mount Meru. In some versions of the myth, Heruka is said to take on the image of maheshvara - the wearing of skulls, ashes, and other adornments - so as to attract to the noble Buddha-dharma those of the lowest moral level.

It is not surprising, therefore, that selected tantras of esoteric Buddhism present an aspect of intertexuality with received kApAlika Scriptures. Yet it is open to question whether the received kApAlika texts are actually the sole or even primary sources for the yoginI tantras. There are problems with Sanderson’s formulation that might mitigate his rather extreme version of a unilateral appropriation, without alternative sources or mutual influence. These problems may be summarized as chronological difficulties, a lack of examination of the sources of shaiva formulations, and an excessively narrow definition of materials available to Buddhists.

The mAlatImAdhava of bhavabhUti presents us with the earliest Buddhist siddha personality - uncharacteristically a woman, saudAminI - who is noticed in non-Buddhist literature. saudAminI represents a Buddhist nun who had trained with one of the female protagonists of this unusual literary work, the nun kAmandakI. However, saudAminI is portrayed as one who had given up her robes to pursue the study of the kApAlika path in the esoteric center of shrIparvata; this may be the same locale referred to in Shaiva literature as shrIshaila or kaumAra-parvata. She has gained siddhis, most particularly that of flight (khecharI), and has come to assist the Buddhists in their struggle with the evil kApAlika siddha, aghoraghaNTa, and his female companion, kapAlakuNDalA. As it turns out, the hero of the play (mAdhava) quickly dispathes aghoraghaNTa, and the play turns into a contest of wills between the nun kAmandakI and her archenemy kapAlakuNDalA. If kAmandakI represents the Buddhist antithesis of kapAlakuNDalA’s kapAlika propensity for violence, saudAminI indicates the redemption of its potential. She moves its brute force away from an obsession on personal gratification at any price to an impulse for compassion toward all beings. bhavabhUti is the first to chronicle one direction taken by Buddhists in the early medieval period and to acknowledge that one specifically Buddhist contribution to extreme ascetic practice was restraint in service of a moral direction.

Extraordinary siddha behavior is apparent in early eighth-century Buddhist scriptures as well, even if its presence has been sometimes glossed over by apologists. The subAhupariprcchA, whose first translation is attributed to shubhakarasimha in 726 C.E., is the earliest example of this known to me; several siddha or kApAlika rituals are found in this text. Sections of this scripture invoke the cemetery-based ghoul (vetAla) practices, the employment of corpses in the center of the maNDala, the selling of human flesh, and its use in ferocious homa rituals. As seen above, it also specifies the attraction of female spirits (yakShI) as sexual partners to confer siddhi and specifies which clothing is appropriate for the rite. Since the well-dressed mantrin wears blue to the ritual, we may suppose that this is the earliest datable attestation of the notorious nIlAmbara mob, whose sartorial preferences became the insignia of their infamous behavior. They are possibly connected to the extremely popular cult of nIlAmbara-vajrapANi, a system enjoying a plethora of Buddhist texts and ritual manuals. The use of bones is also enjoined, specifically the use of a bone vajra when the mantrin engages in rituals of magical murder (mAraNa).

The evidence of subAhuparipricchA is chronologically reinforced by the presence in the eighth century of two texts that eventually came to be classified as yoginI tantras - the sarvabuddhasamAyoga dAkinIjAla samvara tantra and the laghusamvara. A form of the name for the first of those appears in the list of eighteen vajrashekhara tantras that are said to constitute the earliest esoteric canon. Although it is uncertain that the reference there is to the same scripture currently found in the Tibetan canon, the slightly later mention of this title by jnAnamitra as a member of the canon of eighteen gives a measure of credence to a continuity with the text known to amoghavajra (746-774). The sense of authenticity is reinforced by the presence of two recensions of the sarvabuddhasamAyoga, a longer one included in the normative Tibetan canon and a shorter version found only in the nNying-ma rgyud’bum (Old Tantric Canon) of the Nyingma tradition. The Tsamdrak and Tingkye manuscripts contain both recensions and classify them as mahAyoga tantra - indicating its earlier placement, while the editors of the standard canon included only the longer version and identified it as yoginI tantra. Probably, then, some Indic text used as the basis for the Tibetan translation was formalized during the eighth to ninth centuries.

Unfortunately for the proposal that kApAlika scriptures are the exclusive source of Buddhist works, the chronology of the vidyApITha tantras is by no means so well established. We may legitimately question the somewhat speculative chronology that has been proposed by Sanderson. Most affirmations of the earliness of shaiva materials, for example, rely on the Sdok Kak Thom inscription, an important Cambodian bilingual inscription in both Khmer and Sanskrit. The inscription, broken at the end, records various dates, the last being 1052 C.E., probably close to the actual date of composition. Most important, for the history of shaiva tantras, it maintains that, at the moment of independence of kambujadesha from Java, King Jayavarman II had rituals performed by one hiraNyadAma based on the text of the vINAshikhA. He then had his favorite priest, shivakaivalya, learn three texts - the vINAshikhA, the nayottara-sammoha and the shirashCheda - from the oral recitation of hiraNyadAma, and they would be passed down that family. The date given for shivakaivalya is in the early ninth century, and scholars of shaiva tantra have taken this date as veridical, indicating that the texts included therein (at least one of which has been maintained as also within the vidyApITha) must have been composed well before that time.

Yet what the Sdok Kak Thom inscription really says is that three texts, of sufficient importance n the middle of the eleventh century to be included in a Cambodian inscription, were part of a family’s representation about their position in the foundation of a state and proof of their religiopolitical stature. We might have more confidence in the inscription’s content f the texts were not described as entirely oral, if the occasion were not concerned with the origin myth of Khmer independence or if these texts had shown up in any other inscriptions. This latter might be considered when we see that a certain shivasoma appears in the Sdok Kak Thom inscription as an inheritor of shivakaivalya’s position as the royal preceptor and the guru of shivakaivalya’s grandnephew, vAmashiva. Shivasoma is featured in at least one inscription earlier than 1052, the Prasat Kantal Dom north inscription of Indravarman. However, not only are all of the many Cambodian inscriptions before 1052 mute about these shaiva tantras, but there is also no indication that kApAlika behavior had ever been employed by the principals, which would be expected if the works were as central as the eleventh-century inscription claims. Shivasoma himself is described as eternally of the right behavior (sadA dakShiNAchAra), expected in a pAshupata disciple but utterly foreign to kApAlika decorum. Beyond this, the eleventh-century Sdok Kak Thom inscription itself has problems in projecting later events to the earliest period, as noted by Chakravarti in his study.

In reality, the available evidence suggests that received shaiva tantras come into evidence sometime in the ninth to tenth centuries with their affirmation by scholars like Abhinavagupta; all chronologies affirming their extreme antiquity remain largely problematic. Other models of their historical formation require sustained special pleading about single reference citations, a questionable method of arguing history. Were there other, earlier tantras? We certainly have indications that such was the case, and there were assuredly earlier example of shaiva heterodox practice. dharmakIrti in the mid-seventh century specifies that he was familiar with the DAkinIbhaginI tantras and others.

In all probability, the postulation of two and only two possible categories of sources for the Buddhist yoginI tantras - Buddhist and Shaiva - will prove unsustainable and appears to suppose that all cemetery or antinomian rituals must, by definition, be shaiva. Perhaps the greatest problem with the model is that it closes discussion about other potential sources of esoteric Buddhism. One need not postulate a pan-Indic religious substrate (as did Ruegg) in order to acknowledge that Buddhist authors might have drawn on other sources. The two instances cited by Sanderson, that of the secret signs for the recognition of intimates in the esoteric gathering and the twenty-four sites of praxis (pITha, upapITha etc.) are, in reality, excellent examples of why the shaiva scriptures are impossible as unique sources, although they were clearly contributory.

The question about the filiation of such sacred sites (as opposed to lists of them) is their professional clientele. Based on his fieldwork, Gross has shown that modern Indian sAdhus congregate and encounter one another at sites of mythic importance, and it might be expected that such was formerly the case as well. The twenty-four sites represented in the chakrasamvara recasting of the eighth-century legend of vajrapANi’s conquest of maheshvara are certainly not particularly Buddhist, nor are they uniquely kApAlika venues, despite their presence in lists employed in both traditions. Briefly, one list of the twenty-four sites is arranged in the following manner:

Four pIThas: uDDiyAna, jAlandhara, pullIyamalaya and arbuda.
Four upapIThas: godAvarI, rAmeshvara, devIkoTa and mAlava.
Two kShetras: kAmarUpa and oDra
Two upa-kShetras: trishakuni and koshala.
Two chandohas: kalinga and lampAka.
Two upacchandohas: kAnchI and himAlaya.
Two Melapakas: pretapurI and grhadevatA.
Two upa-Melapakas: saurAShTra and suvarNadvIpa.
Two smashAnas: nagara and sindu.
Two upa-smashAnas: maru (meru) and kulaTA.

Although there are many variations in the items, this list is quite peculiar. For example, none of the major Buddhist pilgrimage areas are mentioned (mahAbodhi, rAjagrha, kapilavastu etc.) even though these were of clear concern to esoteric Buddhists. Because the Buddhists pretended that they were claiming the locales from shaivas, we might expect that they would be shaiva, and specifically kApalika pilgrimage venues. A well-attested practice of the kApAlikas, however, is the mahAkalahrdaya, which evidently focused on the mahAkAlapITha in Avanti, a known kApAlika stronghold. Yet neither mahAkAla nor avantI are listed among the twenty-four sites, but only the broader area of mAlava, and even then it is not given a position of importance. Similarly, vArANasI, tripurA, Khajuraho, Bhuvaneshvara and shrIparvata are all well attested as strong kApalika sites, but are not identified in the list. This contrasts with other shaiva tantras, which are much more pointed in listing specifically shaiva sites as their sacred locales.

Among the four great pIThas often found in this list, ODDiyAna is now verified as the Swat valley by the inscriptions published by Kuwayama, and it was clearly a Buddhist site, with little in the way of shaiva representation and none whatsoever of kApAlika that we can determine. Certainly, it was Buddhist earlier than any other formalized Indian tradition, and similar problems arise with many of the other sites in the list. kAmarUpa, for example, indicates indicates the kAmAkhyA-pITha and its environs and is listed as a pITha in the alternate Hevajra list. Yet its prior history as a tribal site of the kirATas is fully acknowledged by the kAlikA purANa, which indicates that case Hindus simply took the expedient of driving out the tribal occupants and pursued the worship of the goddess along the lines established before the Hindus arrived.

Likewise, jAlandhara pITha, where the goddess mahAmAyA (vajreshvarI) is worshipped in the modern town of Kangra; it was probably a Gaddi tribal site before the shaiva sAdhus and brAhmaNas arrived. We have yet to locate the exact position of another of the pITha pulliya-malaya (sometimes identified with pUrNagiri). However, its name malaya seems to indicate that it was located in South India and was probably a Buddhist name for all or part of the Agastya Malai, the southernmost mountain rage of India and very close to the fabled Buddhist pilgrimage site of Potalaka. This is in line with rAjashekhara’s list of four malaya mountainous areas in South India/Sri Lanka, with the sacred one among them being made pure by Agastya’s proximate abode.

Arbuda is also included in the Chakrasamvara lists and is the well-known Mount Abu. While Eklinji, to the north of Udaipur, was a pAshupata locale, the area around Mount abu was originally associated with the Bhilla and Abhira tribes. The language spoken there was peculiar enough to warrant a mention of its imitation by actors in Bharata’s nATyashAstra. The Gurgi stone inscription of Kokalla-deva II identifies arbuda as a place name, and no precise religious associations for the site are specified. Even when it became closely associated with Sanskrit culture, it was apparently first vaiShNava and jaina, rather than shaiva, and it remains today a predominantly jaina center. Its only mention in the twelfth century krtya-kalpataru, for example, was in a quotation from the nrsimha purANa - where the site was recommended for all vaiShNavas - and lakShmIdhara was seemingly unable to place it in a shaiva context, despite his obvious interest in doing so. Since lakShmIdhara was familiar with the skandapurANa of his time, the eventual inclusion of a pilgrimage guide to arbuda tIrtha as the next to the last section of the final khaNDa in some redactions of the skandapurANa is verified as being exactly what it appears, a rather late medieval addition.

The centerpiece of the chakrasamvara recasting of the eighth century myth is the placement of samvara on the pinnacle of Mount Meru. With this in mind, it might be thought that this is actually the replacement of shiva by samvara on Mount kailAsa, a well-known shaiva pilgrimage site just inside the Tibetan border. All the other pIThas, upapIThas and so forth were to be governed by the divinity from the Mount Meru vantage point, and we might be tempted to see the Buddhist appropriation of the shaiva site as indicated by the myth, especially since current Tibetan understanding is that kailAsa is the home of samvara. However, McKay has shown that the literary sources are not so neat as this; kubera, not shiva, was the original inhabitant of kailAsa, and kubera was originally associated with outcasts and criminals.

How should we assess this record? Long ago, Sircar had already noted the tribal affiliation of many of the sites, while for others, Names of the tIrtha, devI and bhairava were often fabricated by the writers who had only vague ideas about some of the tIrthas and often took resort to imagination. This is particularly the case for uDDiyAna/ODDiyAna, which was lost to Islam precisely in the tenth to eleventh centuries, when it became a popular item in pITha lists, a most curious phenomenon. Moreover, many different lists of sacred sites were distributed throughout the yoginI-tantras, and the good scholarly monk shAkyarakShita is forced to go through elaborate hermeneutical gymnastics to try somehow to correlate them all with Buddhist doctrinal and meditative categories in his pIThAdhinirNaya. After trying to explain away the profound inconsistencies in the various lists of pIThas found in the yoginI tantras, he addresses the obvious question - So, are not these various lists mutually contradictory? In the establishment of these places as a pITha or upakShetra, do we not have mutually incommensurate temperatures, properties or absences thereof? In answer - no, the lists are not in contradiction. This is because for one place there may be many identities. So we say here this place may be nagara, pATalIpuTa or malava, yet they are the same place and it is an upakShetra.

shAkyarakShita is being both a good exegete and utterly disingenuous, for there can be no question that there are far more places than twenty-four specified even in the lists he employs, with very few points of commonality among them. The major similarity is that they are unified by the number twenty-four, another demonstration of the general Indian emphasis on numerical form over actual content, as seen in the case of the eighteen tantras of the early esoteric Buddhist canon.

The shaiva jayadrathayAmala list generated to define one version of these sites is as yet indeterminate in origin, though it may prove to be a shaiva appropriation of an earlier Brahminical list, or generated by either kapAlikas or Buddhists. Certainly Buddhists had long since shown their willingness to pursue rigorous demonology by their elaborate schematism of various and sundry nonhumans in the mahAmAyUrIvidyArAjnI sUtra, but by this time they were not the only ones doing so. Buddhists, however, were among the major proponents of specifying a site wherein was located a divinity with specific properties and specific mantras. The manjushrImUlakalpa for example, also has a long list of places, beginning with chIna and mahAchIna. In these two locales, the bodhisattva manjushrI’s mantras may be recited for siddhi to occur and the eight century text continues on through other geographical areas, many of which appear on the chakrasamvara roaster.

The site question is closely related to the issue of the deity bhairava and his Buddhist counterpart, Heruka. Bhairava is unattested in the early shaiva literature, such as the pAshupata sUtras, which mentions many other names for shiva. Even in the seventh century drama mattavilAsa, which is supposed to identify kApalikas, bhairava is not mentioned. At the same time, in the harShacharita, the shaiva character of bhairavAchArya clearly has a relationship to the divinity, even if he is not explicitly identified as a kApAlika. The myth of the twenty-four bhairavas occupying sites attacked by vajrapANi (or heruka) and his retinue appears simply to be an articulation of that these pIThas, and so on, started as place-specific sacred areas, and bhairava seems to have been little more than a local ferocious divinity at one time. He was eventually appropriated by shaivas, much as they aggressively appropriated so much other tribal and outcaste lore for their own end. By the time of the kAlikA purANa, a lingam called bhairava was identified on the side of durjaya hill, in kAmarUpa, and the text provides two birth stories for this figure. The first is that bhairavas are manifestations of the middle part of the sharabha body of shiva, the sharabha being a mythic eight-legged beast. The other birth story provides a discussion of the origin of the two brothers bhairava and vetAla, who are both monkey-faced sons of shiva and possessed of ghostly essence (vetAlatva). Animal-headed divinities are frequently indicative of tribal origins, perhaps again from the kirATas, who were among the original inhabitants of Assam and are identified by Shafer as having been speakers of a Tibeto-Burman language. They are possibly ancestors of the Bodo-Kacharis of modern Assam.

The use of Heruka to destroy maheshvara and bhairava is similarly comprehensible. While Heruka is formed in imitation of maheshvara in the myth contained in the sarvatathAgata tattvasamgraha, the 726 C.E. Translation of the subAhuparipriccha contains an apparently earlier reference to Heruka, there depicted as a local demon like ghost (pishAcha). This is in close consonance with the kAlikA purANa, which identifies Heruka as the divinity of a cremation ground.

And there is a cemetery called Heruka, ferocious and red in color. He carries a sword and human skin, angry, devouring human flesh. Festooned with three garlands of heads, all oozing blood from their severed necks, he stands on a ghostlike corpse, its teeth falling out from the cremation fire. Ornamented with weapons and his vehicle, let him be worshipped only with your mind.

The description of Heruka as a cemetery is also consistent with the curious translation of his name into both Tibetan and Chinese: blood drinker (khrag thung). This is probably not derived from his iconography or from some hermeneutical reading of his name; instead, it is an extension of the fact that cemeteries absorb the blood of the deceased. In December 2001, I visited kAmAkhyA pITha, to see if I could locate the Heruka cremation ground. It appears that the kAlikA purANa refers to the cremation area found approximately two hundred meters east of the current location of the main temple and around three hundred meters from the oldest site on the nIlagiri hill, where kAmAkhyA was located before the most recent temple was built. None of the priests at the site knew of the name Heruka, but the cremation ground is now called Masaan Bhairao (shmashAna bhairava), and a small temple there is dedicated to the ferocious divinity of the site. The name change should not surprise us, and by the time of the composition of the yoginI tantra or the kAmAkhyA tantra, the Heruka designation appears to have become occluded. Although this cemetery may have migrated some, as did the parent kAmAkhyA site itself, I feel confident that it is the lineal descendent of the smashAna that the kAlikA purANa describes as serving those who came with their deceased to the sacred area of the goddess.

In the kAlikA purANa decripton, Heruka is clearly divine, yet is to be worshipped only mentally, rather than with great physical offerings. Moreover, the Heruka origin myth, as recounted in the longer sarvabuddhasamAyoga, describes Heruka in the manner of a cemetery divinity, rather than specifically as the tamer of maheshvara or as his imitation. In this mythic beginning, mAra and other criminal elements are more clearly specified as his opponents. Thus the Buddhists apparently appropriated a local term for a specific Assamese ghost or cemetery divinity and reconfigured it into the mythic enemy of evil beings in general. Because shiva and mAra were at the head of the very long list of criminal gods, they were included and subordinated to heruka’s establishment of his maNDala. His local and possibly tribal background suggests that there may have been a tribal affiliation as well.

The analogous entity of samvara, often called Heruka, further illustrates the complexity of the situation. Shambara, as the name of a quasi-divinity, is well known in the rgveda as the fundamental enemy of indra and agni; he was also the leader of the dasyus and a demander of ransom. In particular, he has many fortresses or castles, either ninety-nine or a hundred, which are conquered by indra in one of those mythic struggles that make vedic literature so interesting. In the course of struggle, indra assaults shambara from a high mountain. Evidently, shambara was still alive enough by the first to second century for him to be noticed in the arthashAstra, where he is described as a divinity who possesses a hundred illusions. I have no intention of arguing that the dasyu leader in the vedas, the divinity in the arthashAstra, the shaiva employment of the designation as a name for shiva, and the Buddhist vajrayAna divinity are somehow the same. It is remotely possible that a cult to a local god of this identity survived for two millenia; I know of no evidence for this, however. It is probable, though, that the resonance of opposition to the Hindu varNAshrama dharma as sustained in this name, which was still available to the literate, and that the designation was eventually used by the Buddhists in the eighth century, when the figure of samvara was described. The earliest employment appears to be in the sarvabuddhasamAyoga, where the author discusses the term as samvara, the highest bliss. At the same time, the author introduces the name as the application or involvement of all illusion (mAyA), which works well in the context, yet also resonates with the arthashAstra’s employment of the name. So, although Buddhists clearly abstracted from shaiva sources certain iconographic features for the composite samvara, it is likely that other sources were also tapped.

Finally, shaiva literature was heavily influenced by other forms of Hindu and non-Hindu myth and ritual and was as involved in opportunistic appropriation as the Buddhists. Evidently, village or tribal divinities like tumburu have been appropriated by both the shaiva tantras and esoteric Buddhist works. Buddhist practices are paralleled in such places as the end of the vINAshikhA tantra where we encounter the doctrine of a unique syllable (ekAkShara) other than OM; in esoteric Buddhism the ideology and attendant practices of ekAkShara developed around the figure of ManjushrI at least since the 702-705 translations of several dharaNI scriptures. In the middle of the shaiva tantra, the rudrayAmaLa, moreover, are four chapters on vaiShNava worship - not the hallmark of a self-contained shaiva corpus. In addition, the kAlikA purANa relies heavily on vaiShNava forms and frequently references a vaiShNavI tantra.

In the area of myth as well, Bhattacharya long ago pointed out that the tArA tantra, the brahmayamala, and the rudrayAmala all depict discussions about how vasistha received instruction from the Buddha on esoteric ritual, and the received texts of these demonstrate a concerted awareness of the Buddhist contribution to shaiva practices. It would be remarkable, indeed, if some vidyApITha literature were to prove the sole exception to this shaiva syncretism, particularly since the practice of penance by carrying a skull precedes the formation of the kApAlika lineage, which must therefore be minimally based on dharma shAstra decision systems. In reality, one of the kAlikA purANa myths of the origin of bhairava, the result of shiva’s having split his sharabha body, is shown as following a lengthy struggle with viShNu. The vaiShNava connection is further emphasized in a later version of the twenty-four pilgrimage sites’ origin as found in gorakShasiddhAntasamgraha:

Why was the kApAlika path proclaimed? To answer this question, it has been said that the twenty-four enumerated incarnations of viShNu were born and, at the completion of their tasks, they each went crazy. How is that? Creatures born into the womb of animals end up playing around without purpose, and the same happened to the incarnations - who ended up creating fear of their habitats, the earth, jungle, and forest. Some attacked cities and villages, while others fell on the ocean. krShNa, especially, went around indulging in seduction. parashurAma destroyed many kShatriyas because of the fault of a single kShatriya. So, the Lord Shiva became angered by all this degenerate activity, and the twenty-four kApAlika forms were sent onto the twenty-four incarnations of viShNu. They struggled together, and the kApAlikas cut off the heads of all the incarnations and carried them around in their hands. Thus the kApalikas were born.

Like the other forms of the origin myths, this late one has no great claim to an accurate record of the source of the kApAlika tradition, even though vaiShNava influence is occasionally visible. It simply demonstrates that shaiva traditions engaged in the hermeneutics of superiority with the adversary of the moment, not because it is an articulation of the actual foundations of the system. We might expect that the Buddhists acted similarly in their description of iconographic and ritual sources, which communicate a plethora of involvements and interactions. Thus it is premature to jump to the conclusion that the received shaiva tantras were formulated without appropriating any material from the Buddhist tantras or oral tantric traditions. A more fruitful model would appear to be that both heavily influenced the final formulation of the agnostic other and that each had alternative sources as well.

There are occasional records of Buddhists becoming shaivas, for example, the nine nAthas mentioned in the kubjikAmata system. This would probably be the reason that the jayadrathayamala, one of the works claimed as the origin of Buddhist yoginI tantras, cites the Buddhist guhyasamAja, suggesting both its dependence on Buddhist tantras and its probable final editing well after the middle of the eighth century. We also have records of shaivas becoming Buddhists, reflecting the fact that the Buddhist proselytization of ascetic traditions had been going on at least since the mythic conversion of Urubilva kAshyapa and his five hundred dreadlocked followers by the Buddha. What is different with the Buddhist siddha system of the early medieval period is that these converts no longer necessarily gave up their previous modes of behavior.

People today seem to be impatient beyond any measure. A certain elderly upAsaka from the guhAnanda maNDalI called up last week to relate some personal problem and seek a solution. We reminded him of the ukti, kalau ChaNDI-vinAyakau and reiterated that durgA-saptashatI is the best solution to all problems of the material world today. In fact, our Guru Brahmasri KPS reminded us to give as much importance to chaNDI as mahAShoDashI and mahAprAsAda for durgA alone is capable of destroying various kleshas that cause obstacles on the sAdhanA-patha. The response from this gentleman was something like this - "H-ji, who has the time to recite 700 verses with pUrva and uttarAngas? Instead, I will follow the instruction of a New Age Guru (who is not even faintly associated with guhAnanda maNDalI) who states that saptashlokI durgA grants the complete fruit of saptashatI and will simply recite the seven verses". We decided it was pointless to argue with him and point out the fact that thousands of upAsakas who spent lifetimes reciting and perfecting saptashatI were not fools if they could have attained the same result through the seven verses. The argument is similar to the ones where people claim bAlA or panchadashI to be superior to ShoDashI and so on. While not ignoring the fact that the same parAshakti pervades all mantras and devatA-s, one must think from the perspective of energetics and analyze carefully the hierarchy that unmistakably exists within mantras and the corresponding dIkSha methodologies. If panchadashI or bAlA were to be the end of it all, why would the tantras speak of them as preparatory stages for ShoDashI? It must also be noted that many who trash ShoDashI-s and pAdukAs and higher dIkShA-s are the ones who have no experience in any of these and have Sadhana Grantha Mandali or Rajesh Dikshit or something similar as their source of esoteric knowledge. All roads lead to Rome is a much exaggerated quote effectively misused by the bookish parrots of this kind.

So the message to members of our maNDalI is clear - No shortcut navAvaraNa pUjA-s, no saptashlokI replacements or quickfix methods supposedly revealed by kAmAkshI or kAmAkhyA or someone else. Stick to what you've been taught. There is NO replacement for hard work, be it upAsanA or otherwise. Apaddharma cannot replace nitya krtya and it does not take a genius to figure that out. Anymore queries that attempt to crosscheck such prescriptions from New Age Gurus will promptly be trashed as it is of no interest to us and presumably to most of our readers.

This reminds me of the saying by the Venerable Monk Hsuan Hua who comments thus on the ways of the New Age teachers:

The dumb transmit to the dumb,
One is teaching but neither has any idea.
The sifu goes to hell.
Where will the student end up?

namaH shivAbhyAm

Last weekend, I addressed a small group of academicians at Berkeley, most of them with a vajrayAna background. A certain well-known scholar famous for his work on the kAlachakra tantra came up to me and asked why Hindu tantra had very few scriptures, associated luminaries, and well-known personalities. I was taken aback but could see that he was trying to showcase the contrast between Buddhist and Hindu tantra. Moreover, he probably chose to ignore a theravAdin’s view of mainstream Buddhism. Also, what one may consider as ‘few’ is probably relative.

Tantra, or specifically shAkta-mata, is a part of even those scriptures which are not specifically considered as tantra or Agama. For example, the umA-brahma svarUpa of kenopaniShad indicates ancient shAkta roots. brahmANDa, kUrma, mArkaNDeya, kAlikA and other purANas are abundant with shAkta concepts.

Interestingly, mahAkAla samhitA makes an attempt to quantify the shAkta cannon and according to this work, there are:

- 64 shAkta Agamas
- 321 upa-tantras
- 30 samhitA-s
- 100 chUDAmaNis
- 9 arNavas
- 4 DAmaras
- 8 yAmaLas
- 2 sUktas
- 6 purANas
- 15 upavedas
- 3 kakShapuTi-s
- 3 vimarshinI-s
- 8 kalpas
- 2 kalpalatA-s
- 3 chintAmaNis

In addition to these, it also names six sUtras:

1. Agastya sUtra
2. parashurAma kalpasUtra
3. durvAsa sUtra (samhitA)
4. dattAtreya sUtra (samhitA)
5. pratyabhij~nA shakti sUtra
6. shrIvidyA ratna sUtra (this being the reason why many shAktas from Bengal and Odissa reject gauDapAda’s authorship of this sUtra.)

shabda vinyAsa-s of great peculiarity are frequently employed by shAktas to use the same word with qualifiers to convey different specifics at different times. For example, sarasvatI generally means the wife of brahmA. A krama mArgastha however knows that aniruddha-sarasvatI refers to bhagavatI kAlikA, sampat-sarasvatI to shrIvidyA parameshvarI, nIla-sarasvatI to ugratAra etc. Similarly, chaNDikA means durgA or chAmuNDA in general but ugrachaNDikA means tArA, prachaNDa chaNDikA means ChinnamastA, ghora chaNDA means guhya-kAlI and so on. Krama tantra survives on the basis on symbolism. The symbolism here is not superficial, solely theoretical or preposterous as in the case of some vedAntic/vaiShNava works. The shAkta does not spend endless cycles in understanding what these symbols ultimately mean in theory as these symbols are practical tools to get him to experientially realize the underlying tattva. He may note in a dhyAna shloka that the three eyes of parAmbA represent agnIndudyumaNi or that the yoni-tattva of bhagavatI represents far more than a mere female organ. But there is no deliberate effort to dwell on theory, expand on these concepts in ways unrelated and spin humongous tales of philosophical gibberish. When great mean like bhAskararAya have elaborated on the theoretical aspects, it has mainly been to eradicate misrepresentation of shAkta-mata in society and to balance one's practice with some added theoretical input. However, post British rule, pseudo-intelligent perusals championed by the likes of Ramakrishna and Chinmaya mission have crept into shAkta tantra leading to the introduction of pessimistic, passive, escapist and irrelevant philosophy into shAkta mata. While traditional vedAnta cannot be blamed for the state of affairs today, contemporary vedAnta certainly needs to take some blame. Philosophical background or the darshana underlying the shAkta mata is important to understand (and understand correctly within relevant context), but a shAkta's primary goal is to realize the truth himself and not accept another's statement. The path of a shAkta is not primarily tattva vichAra in the vedAntic sense though it gets popularly and incorrectly packaged that way. A great contemporary upAsaka from the lineage of Sarvananda, who I consider to be fully enlightened, said: "We need a vibrant, powerful and uplifting path today to see us through difficult times and it needs to be much more than mere philosophy or dealing solely with the chaturtha puruShArtha. It cannot be a mind-only, body-only or emotion-only path but instead has to be a synthesis of all the three. Taoist sages of the yore express a similar attitude towards mainstream or mind-only Buddhism. Visionaries such as satyAnanda sarasvatI (of shaktivAda school), mahAmahopAdhyAya gopInAtha kavirAja (who taught akhaNDa mahAyoga) and others have tried to point us to the same truth. During the annual oracle received by a great upAsaki of bhuvaneshvarI, similar instruction was received through Lord nrhari. In essence, one needs to correctly grasp and safeguard the right spirit behind upAsanA without falling into the trap of either irrationality or of pseudo-intellectualism. After all even the tathAgata preached a middle path free from extremes!

Coming back to symbolism, for example, each of the sixteen vowels in sanskrit alphabet represent something specific. In terms of krama-tantra of shrIkula:

a – kAlikA
A – ugratArA
i – mahA-kAmakalA or parA-kuNDalinI
I – shrIvidyA
u – mahAkAmeshvara
U – navanAtha-s
R^i – ShaDAmnAya gurus
R^I – ShaDanvaya shAmbhava mayUkhAH
lR^i – divyaugha gurumaNDala
lR^I – siddhaugha gurumaNDala
e – mAnavaugha gurumaNDala
ai – bAlA tripurasundarI
o – mAtR^ikA and mAlinI
au – ChinnamastA
aM – bagalAmukhI
kSha – bhuvaneshvarI etc.

Each of the consonants may be used to symbolize one of the tattvas, AmnAya groups, dIkShA variations etc. based on the context. For example, a certain group of letters indicate the vidyA-s of UrdhvAmnAya:

काली तारा छिन्नमस्ता तथा कामकलापि च |
श्रीमहाषोडशी चेति ऊर्ध्वाम्नायः प्रकीर्तितः || [kAlI kula]

पराप्रासादमन्त्रश्च श्रीविद्या-षोडशाक्षरी |
कालिका दक्षिणा चैव मालिनी श्रीगुरोर्मनुः |
चतुःषष्टिमहामन्त्राः ऊर्ध्वाम्नाये व्यवस्थिताः || [sundarI kula]

By understanding the specifics of shAkta shabda-vinyAsa, one begins to notice how deep-rooted shAkta mata is in every aspect of Hindu religious and cultural life.

The influence of shAkta mata is evident in places like pashupatinAth and others, where Adi shankara is known to have re-established the worship procedures. The chief object of worship over the shIrSha of pashupatinAtha linga is a shrIyantra and that receives the mukhya pUjA in Kathmandu. In kShetras like badarI and jagannAtha purI, though the mUrtis are of viShNu, the procedures are based on shAkta tantra and the devatA invoked through these mUrtis is parAmbA. If one pays attention to the samkalpa, archA etc. for these deities, it becomes clear that shrIvidyA shAstra is the chief guiding light in these shrines and the deity worshipped in shakti.

Secrecy may be one reason which gives the distant observer an impression that shAkta tantra is not a part of mainstream Hindu religion. The shAstras insist on discretion and secrecy based on adhikAra-bheda:

१. प्राकट्यं न कुर्यात्
२. कौलप्रतिष्ठां न कुर्यात् [kaulopaniShad]

namastripurabhairavyai

shrIkamalAmbike shive pAhi mAm lalite ||

मदम्बिका हृत्कमलासनस्था |
तनोतु सौख्यं कमलाम्बिका मे ||

उद्दामकामपरमार्थसरोजषण्ड-
चण्डद्युतिद्युतिमुपासितषट्प्रकाराम् |
मोहद्विपेन्द्रकदनोद्यतबोधसिंह-
लीलागुहां भगवतीं त्रिपुरां नमामि ||

There have been many queries on mantras, ajapA etc. There are various ways to explain the workings of a mantra: using mImAmsA, using the sphoTa theory, the spanda approach of the Agamas etc. We would rather rely on yoga-shAstra, the one we are more familiar with.

A human being is composed of five layers: the sthUla sharIra (the gross physical body), li~Nga sharIra (the etheric body), sUkShma sharIra (the astral body), kAma sharIra (the mental body) and kAraNa sharIra (the causal body). parAshakti pervades and illuminates all these bodies through different aspects of prANa assimilated through different mechanisms e.g. breathing for the sthUla sharIra. The energetic link between the lower and higher bodies is the breath or prANa and the path to transcendence lies in its neutralization. Every technique of upAsanA is in one way or the other aimed at modifying the breath current or prANa so as to refine it and intensify awareness of the subtle and inner breath currents connected with the higher bodies. The simplest way to accomplish the same is through the might of unmoving attention directed towards an external or internal object, breath itself being an important option. The acts of silencing the mind and the breath are interconnected and mantra is an important way to accomplish both. The generally chaotic mind is regulated through powerful waves of energy generated by the mantra and the focused attention of the sAdhaka on the mantra or iShTa acts as a means to sublimate the breath and the mind.

A quick parallel one would now think of would be the Buddhist practice of Shamata, practiced commonly through techniques such as Zazen, Anapanasati etc. Buddhist votaries such as Shinzen Young go on to describe the superiority of mindfulness methods over mantras with the assumption that mantras completely fit the definition of Buddhist samata, its practice and goal. That however is not completely true. Mantra practice accomplishes not only the shamata aspect (i.e. the cessation of thoughts resulting in trance or absorptive states on account of mindfulness or attention to breath or another object) but more. While the shamata-vipassana categories of meditation focus on the now, mantra has the capability to transform the now and hence everything else. The prevailing conditions before and after the perfecting of a mantra are not the same and that is the key difference between mantra-based and simple mindfulness practices. With shamata/vipassana kind of practices, you observe things as they are, but with an activated mantra, things are as you want to be or how they should be. The transformative effect of the mantra should not be underestimated.

The generally chaotic mind has its own pattern of radiation and energetic imagery, and that keeps changing infinitely. Similarly, mantra, which has an energetic mind of its own, also has a specific energetic pattern associated with it. This pattern is generally traceable to a deity or a seer associated with the mantra. As the mantra is repeated over and over in the mind, more importantly with utmost mindfulness, the ripples of energy produced in the mind by the mantra slowly begin to transform the energetic make of the subtle bodies, molding them to resemble the energetic make of the mantra, and eventually of the deity represented by the mantra. While the tamo guNa of parAshakti acts chiefly on the sthUla sharIra, rajas or activity characterizes the astral and mental bodies, making them active and restless. By using focused attention and the energy generated by the mantra together, one is able to effectively neutralize the chaos of these bodies, integrate them and gain access to the causal realms. The state of unmanI is the goal of both mantra and prANAyAma if one analyzes both carefully.

For those that would like to approach deities or devatAs neutrally, these can be viewed as archetypes of energy existing at the higher causal realm. Mantras, when received through a lineage master via dIkShA, establishes a link to this archetype and recitation further strengthens this link, eventually allowing the sAdhaka to use the archetype as a vehicle to ascend to higher realms of formlessness. The same is true w.r.t nAmasmaraNa as reciting the names of great avatAras such as rAma, krShNa or nrSimha allows access to those archetypes.

The kind of mantra one picks for recitation is also of significance. For example, the bIja mantras, mahAvidyA-s etc. have an embedded energy structure in them that link them to the archetype without the need for a specific intent. Let’s say a person receives the mantra of jagadambA kAlI from sadguru and recites it regularly as taught. Firstly, the act of dIkShA establishes the link to the archetype (which is kAlI) here and the practice of mantra intensifies this link. Even if there is no specific intent on the part of the sAdhaka to imagine kAlI, meditate on her specific form and request to connect with her, all that happens automatically due to the inherent energy field embedded within the mantra. When the intensity of the mantra is heightened to a suitable level, the archetype or deity begins to reveal herself to the sAdhaka in all her glory. Intention or contemplation, if used along, amplifies the practice. bIja mantras are prelingual sounds which transcend the boundaries of fixed sound, concept or meaning. On account of this, their nature cannot be completely comprehended and conveyed through words or thoughts that are limited by a fixed scope. bIja represents purity of the divine thought expressed as nAda that pre-dates language as we know today. Lord parashurAma hence qualifies the power of bIja mantras as simply achintya or unimaginable.

In the case of nAma smaraNa, the phonetics of the mantra may not have direct connection withs the associated divine archetype, but the intention and mental association on the part of the sAdhaka does the trick. When the name of a certain archetype like an avatAra or a siddha is invoked, the essence or energy of the corresponding archetype is awakened in the sAdhaka, serving as a catalyst to allow the deity to come forth in its higher spiritual significance. When both the embedded phonetic of the bIja mantra and the intent to connect to the divine archetype (as in the case of nAma-mantra) are combined, the results are phenomenal.

Every deity is roughly an energetic pattern within the Universal Mind of parAshakti and it is that Supreme Source one is trying to connect to through these archetypes. In the case of impersonal and passive techniques such as AnApAna or zazen, this entire piece of ascension through the archetypical energy-vehicle is absent. Though the TheravAdins fail to note that, the practitioners of vajrayAna and mantrayAna borrow this knowledge from their Brahmin counterparts and attach great importance to mantra and deity practices. Those with an appropriate level of clairvoyance can psychically see the effect of a mantra when recited – the etheric form of the associated archetype, the color and intensity of the energy radiated etc. It is also easy to note that though different archetypes or deities are all impressions within the one Universal Mind of the paramAtman, they have very specific structures in the domain of names and forms and hence grant different fruits at different speeds. samskAra/vAsanA determines the affinity of an upAsaka to a particular archetype and the degree of success in connecting to it. The mind of the sAdhaka (through the transformation of the underlying subtle bodies) is replaced by the luminescence of the deity or archetype as a result of dedicated upAsanA and one gradually accesses the Universal Mind through the archetype.

However, for the deity or devatA to manifest within the mind or subtle bodies, relying merely on the phonetics of the mantra is quite insufficient except when the mantra embeds in itself a massive energy imprint or is imparted fully energized by the Master. An example would be the ucChiShTa gaNesha mantra which requires no samkalpa, dhyAna, nyAsa etc. for siddhi and can be perfected merely through the power of phonetics when the mantra is received through authentic dIkShA. In most other cases however, focused attention on the mantra and thus on the deity are required without which the phonetics alone do not generate sufficient energy to manifest the archetype within the subtle bodies. Various techniques such as nyAsa, maNDala dhyAna, akShamAlA etc. serve the purpose of attaining focused and sustained attention on the mantra and hence regulate the breath and energy bodies. The ultimate siddhi of the mantra is when the lower mind of the upAsaka and the higher mind of the archetype of the deity (which serves as a vehicle for ascension or transcendence) are both dissolved into the Universal Mind of the paramAtman like a wave that arose and subsided, realizing the state of abheda with the One. At the brim of savikalpa samAdhi, the state of the lower-causal consciousness is reached and the archetypal deity, which is now identified as one’s own Higher-self, dissolves into the Supreme One, with the current state of subtle audible-luminosity of the mantra transforming into grand silence and self-luminescence. The self, which moved through a series of identifications starting with the body, thoughts, mind, subconscious mind, higher self/deity etc. is eventually revealed to itself as The Supreme and the final perfection is attained. Some may choose to describe a further stage where the Supreme or God-Self is also dissolved into formlessness or its own essence or ground (bhUmi) resulting in no deity, no meditator, no meditation, no mantra, or an awareness of the absence of any of these! This is described as pUrNa brahma, mahA-shUnya, the great radiance etc.

At some level, mantra does not differ much from the process of tattva-vichAra or self-enquiry. It is frequently pointed out by vedAntins and the likes that one would need to indulge in exclusive tattva vichAra after reaching a certain level through the mantra. This, however, is neither true nor representative of the true intent of the seers of mantra yoga. The mantra begins by acting on the coarse thoughts, regulating them and facilitating the sAdhaka to look beyond them. Due to the radiance of the mantra and the effect of focused attention, the increased vibratory state of the sAdhaka enables him to look behind the thoughts, at the screen or canvas of the mind on which the various thoughts appear and disappear. The awareness, riding the energetic vehicle of the radiance of the mantra, progresses to the subconscious and further towards the mind itself, noting its movements and activities as a witness. Thus, one progresses from being unaware to being aware of the thoughts, followed by a stage of identifying the self with the thoughts and eventually identifying oneself with the mind. The first spark of mantra-siddhi is kindled at this stage and the transformative effects of the mantra on the sUkShma, linga and kAma sharIras become evident. With further kindling of the mantra chaitanya, limited identification with the lower mind is lost and a sense of identification with the deity’s Higher Mind becomes established, eventually leading to the dissolution of mind-concept. With each progressive step, the activity of the mantra also begins to sublimate and refine, at some point resulting in a state where nothing but the awareness remains. When all that remains is undifferentiated awareness, one is awakened to the truth that all that is – is the Universal Mind. This can be described as the highest level of shaktyaNDa. There is yet another step to ascend to achieve complete non-differentiation and that involves the sUtrAtman. That being a pathless path and requiring no paraphernalia of the physical, mental or energetic worlds, there is not much one can write about it here. Once you get there, you know what needs to be done. It is this stage that the great avadhUtas refer to when speaking of no path, no activity and no doing. Till that point, there is doing, there is a path and there is activity – gross and refined, internal and external.

A few words on dIkSha is necessary here. The act of planting the seed is what dIkShA is all about and the birth of the baby or the first sprout from the seed is the initial sign of mantra siddhi. Without dIkShA, no amount of tilling, watering or fertilizers help as the seed capable of germination is missing to start with. As evident, the entire process of mantrayAna or the vehicle of mantra follows a systematic step-by-step process i.e. is krama-baddha. Based on the needs of the upAsaka, multiple mantras may be used to facilitate the ascension of the consciousness through the different levels or energy bodies, as in the case of krama path involving specific mantras at specific stages. For example, when the consciousness enters the ‘dark night of the soul’, the samayeshvarI named kAlarAtrikA is invoked to transform darkness into luminescence by first identifying the self with the darkness and using the deity-archetype to achieve the required transformation. Some mantras are relevant at certain planes whereas others are multi-dimensional; they reveal a new aspect of reality at every plane and can lead the sAdhaka from the beginning to the end. The four mantras that can be quoted as belonging to this category are kAlikA, ShoDashI, praNava and prAsAda (specifically parA-prAsAda and prAsAda-parA) or the shAmbhavAmnAya manus to be specific. When the sAdhaka goes through the difficult stage of kR^ipAshUnyAvasthA where one’s Karma are burnt by a state of complete absence of the iShTa’s grace, one is able to surge forward to higher energetic realms propelled by guNa, shIla and the bala of earlier upAsanA (i.e. virtue and merit of practice).

वन्दे गुरुं शङ्करम् ||

The soul as a spiritual atom thus makes its first appearance when the freedom of divine will is lost behind its own self-created veil through the transition of shakti from parA-kuNDalinI to prANa-kuNDalinI. This transition is effected by a graded process in which shakti-kuNDalinI coils itself more and more tightly through the evolution of mAtrikAs and varNas and reaches the level of prANa and shUnya. It is a truism that samvit is first changed into prANa before the regular course of subsequent creation represented by the emergence of the first principles or tattvas can possibly take place.

The universe of experience consists of a number of bhuvanas or planes of life and consciousness made up of tattvas. In the shAkta-shaiva Agamas, thirty-six tattvas are recognized, out of which twenty-four counted from below are considered impure, the next seven as mixed and the remaining five as pure. In this scheme, prakR^iti marks the end of impure, mAyA that of mixed, and shiva that of pure tattvas. Each tattva has a series of bhuvanas affiliated to it. The bhuvanas, in spite of their mutual differences in detail, have the common characteristics of the tattvas concerned as predominant, though it is recognized as in the pAtanjala school that everywhere everything is to be found (sarvaM sarvAtmakam - refer to the vyAsa bhAShya on the yoga sUtra). The bhuvanas are the abodes of living beings, endowed with bodies and organs made of the substance the materiality of which corresponds to the nature of their karman or jnAna and the degree of their perfection. The bhuvanas of the prthvI-tattva represent the sphere, known as brahmANDa, the bhuvanas of the tattvas up to prakR^iti form the prakR^ityaNDa, those of the tattvas up to mAyA represent the mAyANDa and the bhuvanas of the tattvas up to shakti beyond mAyA constitutes the shaktyaNDa which is the widest sphere. The different aNDas are evolved and destroyed by different powers. Thus the brahmANDa is destroyed by kAlAgni and created by brahmA or shrIkaNTha. The prakR^ityaNDa and mAyANDa are destroyed and created by the Lord of kAla tattva. The highest aNDa of shakti is destroyed and created by aghoresha. Beyond shakti-tattva, there is no limitation and consequently no sphere, though bhuvanas are said to exist even in shiva-tattva which is identified with bindu and shAntyatIta kalA.

The tattvas are generally supposed to be the ultimate principles but they are not so, as they are constituted by kalAs and shaktis which represent the multiple units of energy underlying the entire creation, and which considered in their totality represent the ground of self-expression of the transcendent paramashiva. Thus the stuff of the universe is shakti and in the manner shown earlier, prakAsha with hArdha-kalA constitutes the substance out of which the tattvas are formed.

The divine attributes of the Self are all diminished in its atomic condition, when the cit appears as chitta. Of the three well-known impurities or malas, this is the first, called ANava. It is the state of a pashu in which the sense of limitation is first manifested. This limitation makes possible the rise of vAsanas through experience. These vAsanas constitute kArma-mala. The mAyIya mala is the name given to the source of the triple body namely:

The causal or the kAla sharIra
The subtle or puryaShTaka, i.e. The tattva sharIra
The gross elemental or the bhuvanaja sharIra

In fact everything which reveals itself in our experience as knowable and objective comes under mAyIya mala. The function of this impurity is to show an object as different from the subject (sva-rUpa). All the principles from kalA down to prthvI represent the fetters of mAyA or pAshas. These give shape to body, senses, bhuvanas, bhAvas etc. For fulfilling the experience of the soul. Hence what is popularly known as samsAra extends from prthvI upto kalA, and not beyond the latter. These three impurities persist always in the worldly soul.

Note: One may refer to pratyabhijnA-hrdaya, saubhAgya-bhAskara, shivasUtra-vArttika, shivasUtra-vimarshinI etc. for more details on the three malas. The ANava is two-fold according as it refers to the loss of pure ahamtA in the Self and appearance of the impure in the not-self. The self loses svAtantrya and retains bodha as bheda representing the appearance of multiplicity in unity. It consists of mAyA and the thirty-one tattvas produced from it. Karma-mala is adrShTa and may be regarded as merit or demerit (puNya-pApa). In different texts, the meaning of the malas is sometimes found to be slightly different. hare krShNa

contd ...

The Egyptian god Anubis figure’s ascent on the right side of the wheel represents the upward movement of the Governing Vessel along the spine. His spine is against the wheel to highlight this point. The golden serpent’s descent on the left side of the wheel reflects the downward movement of the Conception Vessel. Note that the snake slithers along the front centerline of the body upon the wheel. Together these two figures complete the microcosmic orbit. Yin and yang are in balance within the self for health, wellness and spiritual illumination. The serpent in the image is golden in color. The immortal Golden Dragon Body known to Daoists can be internally cultivated and realized by anyone actively using the revolving wheel or spiral of the Ouroborus. Once the golden body is perfected, the still point of God can be known as symbolized by the motionless celestial Sphinx. Soul united with Spirit, the world continues to turn but the individual retains a deep sense of peace and centeredness.

By Christina Bjergo

The above kept flashing in my mind today, like drops of blissful light trickling down the crystal palace and it is no coincidence considering the previous month spent in a practice for Ra and Osiris. Egyptian alchemy is not for the consumption of the lay but one can certainly begin by taking a peek at Taoist and Tibetan alchemy which retain in some form or the other, the Fire practices of Egyptian school of Anubis.

The rainbow body, referred to specially in the Tibetan Dzokchen school, frequently thought of as superior to what is attained through anuttara yoga, is explained thus by Namkhai Norbu:

Rainbow body is unlike the illusory body of other teachings in that the rainbow body has no dependence on very subtle wind. Inasmuch as wind (which is after all form) is thought to be a relative dimension, it is held to be not involved in the very highest attainment. The Dzokchen masters who attain the rainbow body, at death, dissolve the elements of their bodies into light, which is held to be the pure essence of elements. Often stories of Dzokchen masters concern simple folk, unlearned, unpretentious, frequently married lay people, but quietly advanced in yoga. One, as recently as 1952, gave instructions that he should be closed up in a tent for seven days. After that time it is said that all that was found in the tent were his nails and hair. Many are said to have seen this including the Chinese communist officials. Hair and nails are always left behind when rainbow body is attained as they are thought to be body’s impurities, too impure to purify into light. Thus the rainbow body is held to be the result of purifying into light the actual body of the meditator, which continues to exist in its subtle light aspect. The practitioner is therefore thought not really to have ‘died’. He or she remains active in a rainbow body, helping sentient beings and can be seen by those who are sufficiently advanced.

The Nyingma school lists three kinds of rainbow body, sometimes also called the diamond or vajra body: jalus, odsku and the rainbow body of the great transfer. Jalus is the state which Namkhai Norbu talks of, where hair and nails are left behind. Radiant Body or odsku is achieved through Thogal and here nothing remains due to the complete transformation of the body into pure light. In the case of the great transfer, the body is transformed into an indestructible form composed of pure light and continues to remain for centuries, visible and present, for the benefit of sentient beings. Mahasiddhas are examples of this attainment.

Based on what little I have understood from two great teachers, Sifu Wang Liping (whose presence in itself is a great teaching) and another unnamed one, the Daoist golden dragon body is the same as the returnable rainbow body or the body of the great transfer - a physical mark of true enlightenment at every level, not confined to the mind alone like in Advaita or Theravadan Buddhism. Cultivating virtue is as important to attain this body as the actual practice of alchemical techniques.

Edit: An elderly Tibetan monk, well-known for his disagreements with the Dalai Lama (not even remotely connected to the Dorje Shugden controversy) had been our teacher and mentor for Trul Khor and the fascinating Thogal (Thod-rGal). His guidance has been the primary reason for our current day familiarity with various Tibetan tantric practices preserved with great secrecy. This accomplished monk who had great admiration for Mother India chose to discard his mortal presence in March this year as reported by a friend earlier this week. He attained the Rainbow Body or Jalus, leaving behind his hair and teeth. This was witnessed by eleven of his students and we have been sent some photographs of the holy relics which we may choose to share with our readers at a later time. It must be noted that his own teacher had taught Tantra to the well-known Siddha of Kashi, Paramahamsa Sri Vishuddhananda.

Longchen Nyingtig is the work of Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa, written about two centuries ago in Tibet. It is one of the classic texts of Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) or the Great Perfection. Certain sections of the text can be of use to non-dualists even outside the context of Dzogchen, mahAyAna or even Buddhism. The following text is based on Sam Schaik’s translation of the work.

“So right now, through the Guru’s instructions, gnosis is instantaneously complete. Nothing is built on top of your natural state, which comes out of gnosis alone. Therefore at no point are you distracted, and at no point do you engage in meditation. This is the teaching that illuminates the nucleus of the enlightened mind of the original Buddha, Samantabhadra”.

This unequivocal statement asserts that enlightenment occurs instantaneously upon the recognition of the gnosis. Any further activity is rejected, since the result has been attained. The practice of meditation or any other activity in the belief that it will bring about the state of enlightenment is frequently criticized in the Longchen Nyingtig. This criticism is aimed at two general kinds of activity. The first is meditation with techniques rooted in cause-effect structures; the second is intellectual analysis, both in the context of meditation and in scholastic activities.

Causal Meditation

While the general idea of meditation as the cause of Enlightenment is rejected, the rejection is based on the nature of the nirvANic state which is placed outside of cause-effect relationships. An example of this rejection is the following from YLG:

“Buddhahood is not obtained by meditating and one does not wander in samsAra through not meditating”.

Jigme Lingpa states that once the nature of the Great Perfection is understood, “the desire for causal meditation is purified”. Effort becomes something to be rejected because of its basis in a belief in causation. Thus, the mechanism of cause and effect is identified with the samsAric, and the ground is placed outside of this mechanism, the transcendence of cause and effect is stated to be the path itself.

The idea of freedom from effort goes back to the earliest of the Dzogchen texts Rigpai Khujug and in LN, this ethos of non-effort is elaborated into the rejection of various types of practices or methods. A phrase one comes across frequently is freedom from accepting or rejecting. At one level, accepting and rejecting refers to the renunciation of sin and the practice of virtue. Samantabhadra says: “I have discarded the establishment of virtue and sin, actions and their result”. He states:

“Because I know that the great fault that is the supporter if kArmic actions and imprints is to associate with the great demon of grapser and grapsed, I Samantabhadra, never performing even the merest particle of contaminated virtue, am the buddhahood that is the ancestor of all buddhas”.

This kind of assertion, where contaminated virtue is a dualistic form of virtue based on the distinction between virtue and sin, is similar to the antinomianism of vajrayAna. Dzogchen texts tend to speak of, unlike vajrayAna texts, rejecting the distinction between good and bad in the sphere of one’s own mind, rather than encouraging unrestricted behavior. In other words they deal with moral relativity in the realm of thoughts and emotions than activities. The identification of thoughts as either good or bad is seen as a barrier to the process of meditation in which, all thoughts, whatever their nature, are liberated as they arise.

The benefit of good thoughts is considered as much an entrapment as the harm of bad thoughts, benefit and harm being a part of the cause-effect mechanism. The specific meditative practice associated with the identification of good and bad that is singled out for critique is the use of meditative antidotes – that is techniques for dealing with harmful states of mind. One can see a criticism of Shamata in texts in which mindfulness and recollection are cultivated as antidotes to undesirable mental states:

“Shamata is like a person without sensory faculties:
Vividness is dulled, dispersed, and stultified;
Mindfulness is held firm, and recollection is fixed on an object”.

It is argued that this practice leads to rebirth in the form of formless realms. Texts go on to criticize those meditators who turn their ambition into a path of controlling the mind. The ideal, a meditation that is not technique based, is expressed with the term “non meditation”. Non-meditation is when, having entered the womb of the natural state, the desire to meditate or not to meditate is purified, and there are no fabrications or fixations whatsoever in the mind.

Intellectual Analysis

In the LN, the rejection of intellectualism is applied to both purely intellectual pursuits (scholastics) and to the subtler applications of the intellect in meditation. The intellect and concepts are almost universally conceived of as negative in Great Perfection texts. This is expressed in terms of transcending the intellect, non-conceptuality, and being inexpressible, which are applied to nirvANic terms like gnosis and the ground. In essence, analysis is rejected outright: gnosis is not to be sought after as an object of knowledge. Such activity is dismissed with the analogy that it is like looking for the end of the sky. The knowledge gained through study is often compared unfavorably with the experiential knowledge gained in meditation. Scholar (kushala) and philosopher (tArkika) are usually derogatory names in Jigme Lingpa’s writing. He states:

“Nowadays clever thinkers analyze endlessly
With their non-conceptual vipashyana and become proud,
Reckoning the number of months and years they have been on the path.
I teach his so they may engage in the path free of such falsity”.

In non-analytical meditation, as we have seen, the discrimination of arising thoughts as good or bad is rejected. It is specified that in the first moment when a thought arises, it is to be seen nakedly, and in the subsequent moments it is not to be analyzed or examined. In the spirit of non-duality, even the distinction between view, meditation and activity can be rejected as false conceptualization.

The Lower Vehicles

The Nyingma school traditionally divides the Buddhist canon into nine vehicles. The first three are non-tAntric. They are:

1. shrAvaka
2. pratyeka Buddha

- representing the texts subsumed under the “lesser vehicle” hInayAna by mahAyAna doxographies.

3. Bodhisattva – representing the mahAyAna literature

The next three are the outer yogas:

4. kriyA
5. upa and
6. yoga

- which correspond to the kriyA, charyA and yoga classes of the tantra. The final three are the inner yogas:

7. mahAyoga
8. anuyoga

- which are roughly equivalent to the anuttarayoga

9. atiyoga – which represents the Great Perfection of Dzogchen corpus.

In the LN, the first chapter contains a critique of the modes of practice associated with the other eight vehicles. Here each vehicle is associated with a particular kind of misperception of mind itself. The non-Buddhist is associated with the extremist positions of eternalism and nihilism.

a. The shrAvaka is criticized for making mind itself a cognizable phenomenon.
b. The pratyekabuddha is criticized for selfishly attending only to his consciousness.
c. The bodhisattva is associated with a conceptual belief in the two levels of truth (remember the advaitic parlance here).
d. The practice of kriyA is associated with the acceptance and rejection of good and bad.
e. Upa is associated with a code of activity or means that prescribes ways of behaving.
f. Yoga is criticized for constructing a seal upon luminosity.
g. Anuyoga is associated with causal meditation.
h. Mahayoga is associated with the conceptualization of appearances and sounds as the deity’ body and mantra; however in this case it is an error in the practice of mahAyoga that is rejected, rather than the vehicle per se.

The Rejection of Stages in Realization

For mahAyAna, the most common structures that define the steps in the gradual progress toward enlightenment are the five mArgas and ten bhUmis. The latter was also incorporated into the Tantric literature with their numbers sometimes increased. It is these structures that are explicitly and frequently rejected within Dzogchen texts:

“On the stage that is without progressive purification of gnosis, there is no need to train on the ten stages, nor on the paths and stages achieved by accomplishing the exertions of development and completion in the outer and inner mantrayAna. This is because they are all combined in the single essence of wisdom”.

- Selections from An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism

Introduction

A critical study of the nature of Tantric Buddhism will reveal that there is no organic relation between Tantra and Buddhism of any form. It is not a fact that Buddhism, in the course of evolution in any of its aspects, developed within its arena the composite practices known as Tantra; on the other hand, Buddhism, in the later phases of mahAyAna, seems to have adopted these practices, which were a growth of the soil and as such a common heritage both of the Hindus and the Buddhists. In short, Buddhism did not evolve them out of its own materials. We have said that as a religious science Tantra has its independent history; its association with Buddhism may historically be explained with reference to the spirit of catholicity which characterizes mahAyAna Buddhism as a whole. It will be more correct to say that the tAntric theological speculations that are found in the Buddhist Tantras represent the gradual transformation of later mahAyAnic ideas, effected through the association of the various tAntric practices, than to say that the practices are there because of the theological speculations.

There seems to be no essential difference between Tantra within the province of Hinduism and that within the province of Buddhism. Apart from the multifarious accessories, to judge by the essentials, Tantra, both Hindu and Buddhist, lays stress upon a theological principle of duality in non-duality. Both the schools hold that the ultimate non-dual reality possesses two aspects in its fundamental nature – the negative (nivrtti) and the positive (pravritti), the static and the dynamic, and these two aspects of the reality are represented in Hinduism by shiva and shakti and in Buddhism by prajnA and upAya (or shUnyatA and karuNA). It has again been held in the Hindu Tantras that the metaphysical principles of shiva-shakti are manifested in this material world in the form of the male and the female; Tantric Buddhism also holds that the principles of prajnA and upAya are objectified in the female and the male. The ultimate goal of both the schools is the perfect state of union – union between the two aspects of the reality and the realization of of the non-dual nature of the Self and the non-self. The principle of Tantra being fundamentally the same everywhere, the superficial differences, whatever these may be, supply only different tone and color. While the tone and color of the Hindu Tantras are supplied by the philosophical and religious ideas and practices of the Hindus, those of Buddhist Tantras are supplied by the ideas and practices of the Buddhists.

If we analyze the Buddhist Tantras, we shall find three elements in them:

a. The unsystematized metaphysical fragments taken from the different schools of Buddhistic thought, particularly from mahAyAna Buddhism and also from cognate Hindu thought.
b. A Tantric theology, which, though substantially the same as found in the Hindu Tantras, utilized relevant later mahAyAnic ideas.
c. Practices.

Apart from the fundamental theological position, we find in the Hindu Tantras the ideas of vedAnta, yoga, sAmkhya, nyAya-vaisheShika, the purANas and even of the medical sciences and the law books – all scattered here and there; so also in the Buddhist Tantras we find fragments of metaphysical thought, which are all taken from the leading schools of mahAyAna Buddhism as influenced by upaniShadic monism. Ideas are often put side by side indiscriminately without knowing their import and importance, and as a result we find shUnuavAda, vijnAnavAda and vedAnta all confusedly jumbled together. The leading tenets of early Buddhism also lie scattered here and there side by side with the mahAyAnic and Brahminic ideas and other Indian systems like sAmkhya and yoga also have been frequently introduced in a rather distorted form.

mahAyAna and hInayAna

Buddhism has been historically as well as philosophically divided into two schools, hInayAna and mahAyAna. By hInayAna is generally meant the Pali Buddhism of the earlier period and it is also popularly known as the Southern Buddhism and its followers are found in the Southern countries like Sri Lanka, Burma, Siam, Java, Sumatra etc. By mahAyAna Buddhism on the other hand is meant the later Sanskrit-heavy Buddhism current in the Northern countries like China, Japan, Tibet, Nepal etc.

The later Buddhists would style their school as the mahAyAna of the Great Vehicle in contrast to the narrow and orthodox school of the Buddhists of earlier times, whom they would designate as belonging to the hInayAna or the Lower Vehicle. Many mahAyAna scholars however claim that the mahAyAna view is as old as the hInayAna. In the mahAyAna sUtrAlankAra of Asanga, the hInayAna has been condemned as very narrow because of its five points of difference with the mahAyAna:

1. The narrow aim of self-liberation
2. The narrow teachings to realize that aim
3. The narrow method applied for realization
4. Insufficiency of equipment
5. The shortness of time within which final liberation is guaranteed

आशयस्योपदेशस्य प्रयोगस्य विरोधतः |
उपस्तम्भस्य कालस्य यत् हीनं हीनमेव तत् ||

In fact the mahAyAna school is always characterized by a broadness of outlook, and deep sympathy for the suffering of beings. But it may be observed in this connection that as on the one hand this freedom of thought, broadness of outlook and the spirit of liberalism saved Buddhism from the walls of narrow scholastic dogmatism and raised it from the selfish hankering after personal liberation to the sublimity of a religion for the suffering humanity, on the other hand, it contained also germs of indiscipline and revelry of wild thoughts which were responsible for the incorporation of all sorts of practices in Buddhism.

The word mahAyAna, as we find mentioned in the mahAyAna shraddhotpAda sUtra of ashvaghoSha, meant the highest principle or reality, or the knowledge which is the primordial source of the universe as a whole; and all the objects, animate and inanimate, are nothing but the manifestations of that one unchanging and immutable principle, and only through it final salvation becomes possible. But historically mahAyAna refers to the school of Buddhism which is styled by its adherents to eb the great way to salvation because of the universality and generosity of its tenets. It is held traditionally that after the death of Buddha, there arose a great controversy among his disciples as to the correct interpretation of the sayings of the Master and also about the rules of discipline indispensible for a monk. Great councils were convened to settle these controversies. It is said that in the second council held in vesAli the controversy finally ended in a split up among the Buddhists and the dissenters convened another great assembly (mahAsangha) to have a separate school of their own and they were known as the mahAsAnghikas. In this way, as time passed on, the controversy between the radicalists and the orthodox elders (thera) began to be gradually accelerated and it finally resulted in the growth of the two separate schools; the canonical tenets of the elders being styled as hInayAna, and that of the latter as mahAyAna.

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