Gurumūrtē tvāṁ namāmi kāmākṣi ||
On the sacred day of Gurupūrṇimā, it is the duty of every śrīvidyā upāsaka to propitiate the lotus feet of Krōdha Bhaṭṭāraka, who is verily the form of Paraśambhunātha. The Jagadguru is the most accessible Mahāsiddha available to guide sincere upāsakas in Kaliyuga. The Great Guru, in our personal experience, perfectly fits the epithet – smartr̥gāmī.
Among the great teachers of śākta and śaiva darśana, sage Durvasa finds special mention along with Lopāmudrā, Agastya, Dattātreya and Paraśurāma. Sri Durvasa is the praśiṣya of Lord Svacchandabhairava who manifested as the great teacher śrīkaṇṭhanātha on kailāsa. The secret of Tantra śāstra was imparted by this great Guru to umāpatinātha, or the Lord of umā, and the dweller of kailāsa, who is the third among the trinity. Sri Durvasa is the direct disciple of umāpatinātha. While the mūrti of śrīkaṇṭhanātha is considered to be jnāna pradhāna, that of Umāpatinātha is kriyā pradhāna. Sri Durvasa is the essence of both, jnāna and kriyā.
Lord Durvasa is the repository of all sacred knowledge, which includes both jnāna and vijnāna. Having existed from time immemorial, this immortal Avatāra has appeared time and again as the light of knowledge when the earth was shrouded in the darkness of ignorance. On account of having used his sāttvika krodha at times to reform the ignorant, he is famous as the Krodha Bhaṭṭāraka.
His image as the angry sage is due to various factors. Sectarian Purāṇas of Vaiṣṇava leaning are mainly responsible for painting such a picture, and quite understandably, on account of his status as the foremost śaiva teacher. Even the great poet Kālidāsa stretched the ākhyāna of śakuntalā from Mahābhārata through his imagination and held the great sage responsible for the woes of the central character of his epic work. In order to present the hero Duṣyanta in a positive light, his shortcomings are ascribed to the great sage and this becomes clear if one examines the original Upākhyāna from Bhārata. Well, he had to justify his hero, who he visualized as dhīra-lalita, didn’t he? Similarly, the great Bāṇabhaṭṭa makes the sage responsible for the birth of Sarasvatī. If this is the case with poets with śaiva leanings, one can only imagine the case of Vaiśṇava, Jaina and Bauddha poets who were in constant conflict with the powerful śaivas of yore.
The anugraha of the great sage has been experienced by several great men even in recent times. The great Shaivite teacher from Kashmir, ācārya Amṛtavāgbhava writes of the akāraṇa anugraha of Sri Durvasa that he experienced, in his works, Siddhamahārahasya and Deśikadarśana.
Moved by compassion towards a young devotee of Mahātripurasundarī, the great Sage Durvasa appeared before him in a vision and imparted to him the correct and the perfect method of the highest variety of Trika Yoga. As the result of practice in such Yoga, known as śāmbhava, the young man, named Vaidyanatha Varkale, had an intuitional revelation of the main principles of śaiva Advaita. Afterward, when he studied the ancient works on Shaivism under Mahāmahopādhyāya śrī Gopīnātha Kavirāja, he found that such works agreed with his own revelations of the truth. After a few years, he left his home and hearth and started roaming about the sacred places as a wandering Sadhu and visited Kashmir. He had several divine visions in the Valley. When he studied at Srinagar some works by the ancient masters of Kashmir Shaivism, his happiness knew no bounds as he found the same truth in such works by the great ancient Siddhas, as he had already discovered as a result of his practice in śāmbhava yoga. He wrote several works on his darśana under the pen name Amṛta Vāgbhavācārya.
While no darśana granthas composed by the sage are available today, we get a glimpse of his philosophical and poetic genius through the Stotratrayī – Tripurā Mahimna stotra, Paraśambhu Mahimna stotra, and Lalitā stavaratna.
The shrine situated in front of śrī Kāmākṣī’s garbhagr̥ha is of Sage Durvāsā, also known as Krodha Bhaṭṭāraka. There are thirty-two chief upāsakas of Parāmbā, like Manu, Candra, Kubera etc. Among them, Kāmarāja, Lōpāmudrā, and Durvāsā are the chief upāsakas. Durvāsā praṇīta vidyā is called Sādi vidyā. Srī Durvāsā represents the power of sāttvika krōdha of Bhagavatī, used to protect and correct her devotees, and thus her limitless kriyāśakti. It is Srī Durvāsā who established the Kāmakōṭi Pīṭha by consecrating a Bhūprastāra śrīcakra in front of Kāmākṣī Parābhaṭṭārikā at Kāñcīpura. He composed Lalitā Stavaratna, also called āryādviśatī, describing the śrīnagara, abode of Rājarājēśvarī. He also composed Traipura Mahimna Stotra, a complete mantra śāstra in itself, as also the Paraśambhu Mahimna Stotra.
Another specialty of this pīṭha is Parāmbā’s presence as Yuganātha and Yuganāthāmbā svarūpiṇī (whose names have to be learned from Svaguru through the Mahāpādukā), blessing upāsakas not only as śrīmātā, but also as Gurumūrtisvarūpiṇī. Jagadambā blessed a deaf boy with nectarine speech and he burst into a set of five hundred verses known as āryāśataka. This incarnation of Durvāsā is called Mūkaśaṅkara. Among the various modes of dīkṣā imparted, like śāktī, śāmbhavī, māntrī, kriyāvatī, gaṇḍuṣī etc., Anugraha is the highest form of dīkṣā, as described in Sanatkumāra Samhitā of the ṣubhāgama Pañcaka. śrīmātā herself granted Anugraha dīkṣā to Durvāsā, making him the first ādiguru for śāmbhavāmnāya in Kaliyuga.
Sage Durvāsā is the author of Saubhāgya Cintāmaṇi Kalpa, also known as Durvasa Samhitā, composed specially for the ritual worship of Dēvī Kāmākṣī. It is a lesser-known fact that Brahmaśrī Chidānandanātha of Guhānanda Maṇḍalī received explicit instructions from the great sage on restoring the nitya kaiṅkarya of Kāmākṣī as per śrīvidyā Tantra. For the previous cycle of Dēvīmāna Guruvarṣa, sage Durvāsā was the Guru, whereas for the current cycle, the infinitely compassionate mother Bhagavatī Lōpāmudrā is in charge. It is a sāmpradāyika rahasya that those who recite Parāprāsāda vidyā in the shrine of Durvāsā, receive his blessings and guidance. In Kāmākṣī’s temple, not a single blade of grass can move without his permission and nothing escapes his sharp vision.
A student of ours from Trichy once had a wonderful experience. She was initiated into śrīvidyā by her father-in-law at an early age and she visited the shrine of Goddess Kamalāmbikā frequently. Her Guru passed away while she was still young and she knew nothing but the Mulamantra given to her by her Guru. She practiced the same sincerely for years and longed for further guidance. A few years ago, while she was reciting śrī Lalitā Sahasranāma in the Sannidhi of Kamalāmbikā, an old man with surprisingly sharp features appeared before her and instructed her to have the darśana of śrīvidyā Paramēśvarī at Kāñcī, where she would get nyāsa, etc., for her mantra. After she reached Kāñcī and had the darśana of Parāmbā, she was surprised to see the same old man in the sannidhi of the Goddess. The old man pointed to another gentleman and the lady rushed to fall at the feet of this gentleman. Surprised, the gentleman asked her who she was and she narrated the entire story and pointed to the old gentleman who still stood in Ambā’s sannidhāna. The gentleman was Srī Yajñanārāyaṇa śāstrī, a great upāsaka from Mysore, and as śāstrigal watched in awe, the old man lifted his hands in blessing and disappeared. Later, when they were going around the maṇṭapa and bowed in front of Durvasa sannidhi, the very same face appeared in the idol. Srī śāstrī attained Siddhi in Bangalore in 2004 but Smt. Meenakshi Ammal visits Kāñcī every year and is blessed with the darśana of the great Guru without fail.