Insight Editions · No. 362
Introduction to the Tantraloka
A Study in Structure
Navjivan Rastogi
Navjivan Rastogi's structural study of Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka: why it was written, who Abhinava and his commentator Jayaratha were, how they handled their sources, the problems of the printed KSTS edition, the plan of the thirty-seven Ahnikas, the web of cross-references, an agenda for research and a guide to the appendices.
A study guide to Introduction to the Tantraloka: A Study in Structure, by Navjivan Rastogi (Motilal Banarsidass, 1987). Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the author or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
CORE CLAIM
The Tantraloka is four books in one (compendium, manual, scripture, hymn). Rastogi gives an anatomy of the book: its makers, its sources, its text and its plan, rather than its doctrine.
SCOPE
All five chapters, the Prefatory Note, a guide to the twenty appendices, a master glossary, FAQ and master synthesis: about 29,000 words.
KEY FIGURES
Abhinavagupta and his teachers; Jayaratha and the Viveka; Ksemaraja; Sambhunatha; Siddhanatha and the Kramastotra; editors Mukund Ram Shastri and M. S. Kaul.
BEST FOR
Readers who want to read the Tantraloka itself with orientation: where each topic lives, how chapters link, what the commentator adds, and where the printed text goes wrong.
How to Use This Guide
The Tantraloka ("Light on the Tantras") of Abhinavagupta (c. 950 to 1025 CE) is the largest and most authoritative work of Kashmir Saivism: thirty-seven chapters (Ahnikas, literally "daily portions") of Sanskrit verse that set out, in a single plan, the whole of Tantric knowledge, yoga and ritual as the Trika school understood it. It survives with one great commentary, the Viveka of Jayaratha (second half of the twelfth century), and was printed in twelve volumes in the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies (KSTS) between 1918 and 1938.
Rastogi's book does not explain the philosophy of the Tantraloka. He says so openly. Others, above all K. C. Pandey, had already written on the doctrines, and he lacked the time to add anything new to them. What he offers instead is a study in structure: an anatomy of the book as a book. He asks why Abhinava wrote it, how he gathered and handled his sources, who he was and who taught him, who his commentator was and how that commentator worked, what is wrong with the printed edition, how the thirty-seven chapters are organised, and how the chapters point to one another. Eighteen appendices then turn the Tantraloka and its commentary into lists: every text, person and doctrine they name or quote, followed by a detailed Sanskrit table of contents of the entire work, verse group by verse group.
The result is less a doorway into the meaning of the Tantraloka than a toolkit for reading it. A student who knows what the book is trying to be (a digest, a manual, a scripture and a hymn at once), how its author fused quotation into his own verse, where each topic is announced and where it is resumed, and what the commentator adds or alters, can then read any chapter with far better orientation. That is the value of this volume, and it is why it is still cited in scholarship on the Tantraloka.
The book has five chapters and a long run of appendices:
- Exploring the Tantraloka (pp. 1 to 17): the traditional view of the work, the four motives behind it and its five objectives.
- About the Author (pp. 19 to 85): Abhinavagupta's name, pupils and family, place and time of composition, ancestors, teachers (with a table of nineteen), works cited, and his methodology of selection, interpretation and presentation.
- About the Commentator (pp. 87 to 153): Jayaratha's two genealogies, his teachers, his motives, his handling of sources across four historical layers, his quarrel with Ksemaraja, his services to the reader, and his methods.
- About the Text (pp. 155 to 243): editorial and printing lapses in the KSTS edition, metres, the topical organisation of the thirty-seven Ahnikas, and a chapter-by-chapter study of internal cross-references.
- Agenda for Future Research (pp. 245 to 252): what still needs to be done.
- Appendices 1 to 20 (pp. 253 to 589): indexes of texts, persons and systems named or quoted by Abhinava and by Jayaratha, the sixty-four Bhairava Tantras, unspecified citations, a detailed Sanskrit table of contents, a word index, corrections, and a conversion table between the KSTS and the Motilal Banarsidass (MLBD) reprint.
The table of contents counts this as six divisions, the five chapters plus the appendix block, which is how the publisher's blurb speaks of "six chapters" and "eighteen appendices" (the word index, corrections and conversion table make the total count twenty).
The Shape of the Whole Book in One Page
- What the Tantraloka is (Chapter 1). Later tradition called it the "Trika-sastra", the representative text of Trika. Ksemaraja said it was composed in a state of absolute absorption and that it opens the secrets of all Agamic literature. Abhinava himself called it a Vartika (an explanatory gloss) and even a mixture of Vartika, Bhasya and Vrtti. Rastogi isolates four motives: to write a compendium (Samgraha), a procedural manual (Prakriya or Paddhati), a scripture (Sastra), and a hymn (Stuti). He then names five objectives: Bhairavahood for author and reader, the teaching of the fourfold saving knowledge, the creation of a final textual authority, easy access to Tantric wisdom, and the restoration of a damaged tradition.
- Who wrote it (Chapter 2). "Abhinavagupta" was a title given by his teachers. He wrote the book in the suburban house of his disciple Mandra, cared for by Mandra's aunt Vatsalika, at the request of his brother Manoratha, his brother-in-law Karna, and several cousins including a Ksema who is probably Ksemaraja. His ancestor Atrigupta was brought from Kannauj by King Lalitaditya. His mother Vimala died when he was a child; his father Narasimhagupta (Cukhalaka) taught him grammar, logic and literature. His teachers fall into two groups: lineage teachers (Mathikagurus) such as Bhutiraja, Laksmanagupta and above all Sambhunatha, and general teachers (Jnanagurus) such as Bhaskara, Udbhata and Dharmasiva.
- How he worked (Chapter 2, part III). Abhinava had stated rules of explanation. He sorted sources into basic, general and specific; chose by utility, relevance, faithfulness and consistency; edited readings before interpreting them; fused quoted scripture into his own verse; spread esoteric topics across chapters so they would not appear in one place; and used brief, detailed and mixed styles on purpose.
- Who explained it (Chapter 3). Jayaratha came from a family of ministers and scholars, learnt from two groups of teachers, and wrote the Viveka to attain Godhead, revive the tradition, rescue the Tantraloka from corrupt readings and fill the chronological gap after Abhinava. He used four layers of material and was sharply critical of Ksemaraja.
- What state the text is in (Chapter 4). The KSTS edition was a great achievement, but it has two types of anarchy (in titles and in verse numbers), printing errors and numbering errors. The Tantraloka is divided into Ahnikas, grouped by topic, and its primary and secondary topics can be mapped. It is not organised into the four Agamic quarters of knowledge, yoga, ritual and conduct.
- What remains to be done (Chapter 5). A critical edition, a full study of sources, a concordance, a study of Abhinava's own contribution, and much more.
Why This Book Matters
- It is the first full-length structural study of the Tantraloka in English, and it remains the standard reference for the internal geography of the work.
- It shows the Tantraloka as a deliberately designed book, not a loose anthology. Every apparent digression has a reason, and Rastogi brings those reasons to the surface from Abhinava's own words and Jayaratha's comments.
- It is the most careful sifting of the biographical evidence inside the Tantraloka itself, correcting earlier views (including Pandey's and Rastogi's own in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir") on Abhinava's brother, sister, uncle, teachers and dates.
- Its appendices are a research instrument. For decades they were the only easy way to find which lost Tantra is cited where, and how often.
- It treats the commentator Jayaratha as an author in his own right, with his own aims and quarrels, rather than as a transparent window onto Abhinava.
How This Guide Is Laid Out
Each chapter section follows the same pattern:
- The Core Argument: the thesis of the chapter in plain words.
- Numbered sections that follow Rastogi's own divisions, with explanations of every technical term.
- Insight boxes: what the chapter teaches beyond its surface.
- A note for readers: critical-lens notes where the evidence is thin, where Rastogi changes his earlier view, where later scholarship has moved on, or where the printed text contains errors.
- Key Terms: a short glossary.
- Reflection: questions for study or practice.
At the end come a treatment of the appendices, a master glossary, a master synthesis, a section of common questions and a list of sources.
Reading Strategy
Read Chapter 1 slowly; it is short and it frames everything else. Read Chapter 2 as a portrait of a working scholar as much as a biography. Chapter 3 rewards readers who already use Jayaratha's commentary. Chapter 4 is best read with a copy of the Tantraloka nearby, since its value lies in letting you see where each topic begins and ends. Chapter 5 is a short list of tasks, many of which are still open. The appendices are for consulting, not for reading straight through, and this guide explains what each is good for.
An Introduction to the Study, Not to the Text
Rastogi opens with unusual candour. When the publishers asked him to write an introduction to the Tantraloka, he welcomed it, and then, "face to face with the text", realised the size of the task. He did not read Italian, the language of the only complete translation then available, Raniero Gnoli's "Luce delle Sacre Scritture" (Turin, 1972). He was short of time. His conclusion is that he has written "an introduction to the study of the Tantraloka, instead of being an introduction to the text itself": a structural analysis and a groundwork for future work.
Teaching Notes
1. The challenge of the Tantraloka. He calls the work "both an inspiration and a challenge for the students of the tantric lore". No study of Tantra can be complete without it. It is written "on very scientific principles", gives the most up-to-date account of Tantric material for its period, and is "the most important single source of authentic tantric information". The difficulty lies in identifying the sources it cites and deciding where they stand on the issues involved.
2. Gnoli's translation and its limits. In a long footnote Rastogi reproduces a letter from Harvey P. Alper (Southern Methodist University, Dallas, dated 15 July 1983) who translated the table of contents of Gnoli's introduction for him. Alper observed that most of Gnoli's introduction to the Tantraloka was taken "virtually verbatim" from his earlier introduction to the Tantrasara, and set out a table showing the matching pages for seventeen subsections (scriptures, schools, the Recognition school, light and reflective awareness, will, images, the I, language and mantra, Maya, scriptural authority, method, breath, the wheel, initiation, the thirty-six principles). Rastogi adds Teun Goudriaan's judgement in "Hindu Tantric and Sakta Literature" (p. 162): Gnoli's translation was "a pioneer work of great merit", but the translator took "too much freedom on some points" and sometimes paraphrased Jayaratha without telling the reader.
3. Earlier aids. He names the works he will lean on: K. C. Pandey's "Abhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study"; the Ph.D. thesis "The Philosophy of the Tantraloka in the First Three Ahnikas" (cited as "Philosophy"); and, most usefully, Braj Vallabha Dwivedi's Upodghata (Sanskrit introduction) to the Luptagamasamgraha, a collection of fragments of lost Agamas, whose proof copy Dwivedi sent him. Dwivedi's first part is historical, the second doctrinal, and he will be cited throughout, often to be disagreed with.
4. What he deliberately leaves out. He avoids philosophical and doctrinal questions because "something must be said over and above what has already been said by Pandey and other learned scholars", and he did not have time for the deep study such issues demand. He also had to drop a planned chapter on the Agamic sources of the Tantraloka, promising a separate monograph.
5. The publishing context. This introduction was written as Volume One of the Motilal Banarsidass eight-volume reprint of the KSTS Tantraloka with Jayaratha's commentary, and is issued separately because general readers might want it without the text. That reprint did not attempt a critical edition. Because the new edition was not ready when printing began, the references in the chapters are to the KSTS volumes; the appendices were redone with both KSTS and MLBD references, and Appendix 20 gives a conversion table.
6. Overlaps in the appendices. He warns that the same word may appear in the lists of texts, persons and systems, for three reasons: uncertain data, a word naming both a text and a school, and a word naming both a person and a school.
7. The problem of verse numbering. Abhinava follows what Jayaratha calls the sancaya-nyaya, "the rule of accumulation": he usually begins a new idea in the second half of a verse. So the topics in the detailed table of contents (Appendix 17) do not always break cleanly at verse numbers. Rastogi follows the printed numbering, accepts occasional overlaps, and aims to give both the content and the place of each idea.
8. The thirty-first Ahnika. He singles out this chapter, which deals with the mandala (the ritual diagram used in initiation), as "most enigmatic". Even his structural mapping found it hard to settle.
9. Thanks. The acknowledgements form a small map of the field in the mid-1980s: the Jain brothers of Motilal Banarsidass; Braj Vallabha Dwivedi; Thakur Jaideva Singh, "a great authority of our times on Kashmir Saivism"; Harvey Alper; Andre Padoux, who gave him a copy of Naudou's book; his Lucknow colleague Ashok Kumar Kalia, whose idea it was to gather all information on the texts cited by Abhinava and Jayaratha; and Mark Dyczkowski, who let him photocopy extracts from manuscript catalogues, which led to a full revision of Appendix 1.
Insight: Humility as Method
The note is not false modesty. Rastogi is drawing a line between two kinds of introduction. One explains what a book says. The other explains how the book is built, so that its readers can find their way through it. For a work of the Tantraloka's size, density and textual uncertainty, the second kind has to come first. His closing quotation from the Tantraloka (36.45) and his appeal to Abhinava's maxim that "each small step forward brings us nearer the goal" make the point in traditional terms.
A note for readers: what has changed since 1987
Several of the gaps Rastogi names have since been partly filled. Selected chapters of the Tantraloka have been translated into English and other languages, and Dwivedi's Upodghata has been published. Scholarship on the Saiva Agamas, especially the work of Alexis Sanderson, has revised the picture of the sources the Tantraloka draws on. A complete critical edition and a complete annotated English translation remain, as far as this guide can tell, the great unfinished tasks. Rastogi's structural observations are largely unaffected by these developments; his historical identifications (for example of Laksmanagupta with the author of the Saradatilaka) should be checked against later work.
Key Terms
- Ahnika: "daily portion", the term for a chapter of the Tantraloka; there are thirty-seven.
- Viveka: "discrimination", Jayaratha's commentary on the Tantraloka.
- KSTS: Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, the Srinagar series in which the Tantraloka was first printed.
- MLBD: Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, publisher of the reprint.
- Upodghata: an introductory study; here Dwivedi's Sanskrit introduction to the Luptagamasamgraha.
- Sancaya-nyaya: "the rule of accumulation", the practice of starting a new topic in the second half of a verse.
Reflection
- What is lost and what is gained when an introduction refuses to explain doctrine?
- Why might a translator's paraphrase of a commentary, without notice, be a serious problem for a work like the Tantraloka?
- If you were planning a study of a thirty-seven-chapter work, which would you map first: its sources, its structure, or its ideas?
Exploring the Tantraloka (pp. 1 to 17)
The Tantraloka is, strangely, Abhinava's only major "original" work; his other great books (the Abhinavabharati on the Natyasastra, the two commentaries on Utpaladeva's Isvarapratyabhijna, the Locana on the Dhvanyaloka) are commentaries. Yet he called the Tantraloka itself a gloss. Rastogi's chapter explains this paradox by showing that Abhinava had several purposes in mind at once, which together made the book a new kind of text: a digest of all Agamic material, a manual of practice for his own school, a scripture in its own right, and a hymn of devotion. Behind these motives stand declared and undeclared objectives, from the reader's transformation into Bhairava to the rescue of a tradition that was breaking up.
1. The Traditional View of the Tantraloka
Rastogi first collects what the tradition said about the work:
- Sivananda, author of the Rjuvimarsini (a twelfth-century commentary on the Nityasodasikarnava), calls it the Trika-sastra and Trika-sarasastra, and the verses he quotes can be traced to the printed Tantraloka (3.94 to 95 and 15.285 to 287). By then it was the representative text of the Trika.
- Ksemaraja, Abhinava's pupil, gives it two characteristics: it was composed in a state of absolute absorption (a trance in the highest reality), and it is the key to the secrets of the entire Agamic literature.
- In the Tantrasara, his own shorter summary, Abhinava repeatedly refers the reader to the Tantraloka for detail, describing it as containing all positive and negative injunctions from Vedic, Saiva, Tantric and Trika sources, and even recording internal disagreements among them. The image of the Tantraloka as a single authoritative source book was therefore projected by Abhinava himself.
- In the Locana, Abhinava says the central theme of the Tantraloka is the transcendent reality called Brahman, or Anuttara (the Unsurpassed).
Why a "gloss"? Abhinava calls the work a Vartika (gloss), a Slokavartika (versified gloss) and a Sadardhaslokavartika (versified gloss on the "half of six", that is, the Trika). Rastogi suggests the model of Katyayana's Vartikas on Panini, defined as rules that explain "that which is said, that which is left unsaid, and that which is imperfectly said". This fits the Tantraloka exactly: it explains the Agamas, fills their silences, and corrects their obscurities. Elsewhere Abhinava says the work combines all three kinds of gloss (brief, regular and large), so that it is at once a Vartika, a Bhasya and a Vrtti. The work was also known as the Tantravaloka.
A revised view. In "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir" (p. 159) Rastogi had treated the "Slokavartika" as possibly a separate text. Here he withdraws that view: there is overwhelming evidence that the names refer to the same work, and no separate Saiva Slokavartika has been found.
2. Four Motives Behind the Composition
(a) A compendium (Samgraha-grantha). The first and most obvious intention is to digest the Tantric literature of his time. Abhinava wants to handle not only the Trika material but also non-Trika Agamic sources; his stated aim is "to introduce all the agamic material in its varied sources". Jayaratha accordingly calls Abhinava the Samgrahakara (compiler) and the work a Samgraha.
(b) A procedural manual (Prakriya or Paddhati). The second and, for Rastogi, more significant motive is to produce a Prakriya or Paddhati, terms Abhinava seems to use as equivalents (compare Tantraloka 1.14 and 1.15). He was troubled that his own system, which he calls the Anuttara-sadardharthakrama (the method of the meaning of the Trika of the Unsurpassed), had no Paddhati, while other systems had many. Four observations follow:
- This Prakriya is based entirely on the Malinivijayottara Tantra (MVT).
- Within the monistic fold there were two Prakriyas, Kula-prakriya and Tantra-prakriya.
- Kula-prakriya is the higher of the two, and together they make up the Trika-prakriya.
- Many learned people followed the system but lacked an unbroken tradition; they needed a guide on what they did not know.
What, then, is a Prakriya text? The grammarians' sense of an etymological work does not fit. The lexicons help: the Vacaspatyam defines it as a section that lays down an order, the Sabdakalpadruma as a "definite procedure" (niyata-vidhi), and both, citing Hemacandra (only about a century after Abhinava, and familiar with his work), take Paddhati as a treatise that brings out the essential meaning. Abhinava calls his Paratrimsikavivarana an Anuttara-prakriya, and elsewhere uses Prakriya in a sense tied to sadhana, practice. He notes that in the Svacchanda Tantra knowledge does not involve action or practice, and Jayaratha says that differences among Tantras, even within one sect, come from the practices they enjoin. So a Prakriya is a text laying down a code of practice, both within ritual and beyond it.
Rastogi then asks what Paddhatis Abhinava might have known. He refers to a Paddhati by an Isanasiva that set out the procedure of the Devyayamala, a Krama Agama. This Isanasiva is different from the later author of the Gurudevapaddhati (after 1073), whom Dwivedi identifies with the great-grand-teacher of Somasambhu, author of the Karmakandakramavali. Dharmasiva, one of Abhinava's teachers according to Ksemaraja, wrote a Paddhati on indirect initiation, alluded to in Tantraloka 21.50 to 55. These, Rastogi suggests, were the Paddhatis whose existence made Abhinava lament the lack of one in his own system. He notes later examples: the Siddhasiddhantapaddhati of the Natha tradition (much later, and full of Pratyabhijna ideas), Dwivedi's Udayakara and Varuna Paddhatis, and a Mahanayapaddhati mentioned by Mahesvarananda. His conclusion: the Tantraloka was a complete manual for followers of the Trika way of life, in the Paddhati tradition.
(c) A scripture (Sastra-grantha). The third intention was to present the work as a full Sastra or Sasana (teaching, scripture). It thus became a Prakriya-sastra, a manualistic scripture. Jayaratha often calls Abhinava the Sastrakara, and in summing up the opening section (Tantraloka 1.1 to 1.21, which he calls the adi-vakya, the "initial sentence") he highlights its formal Sastric character. Abhinava also says that the competent person able to receive such a teaching is hard to find (35.43). Jayaratha adds that because it is a Tantric scripture it must open with homage to Ganesa and Vatuka.
(d) A hymn (Stuti-grantha). Finally, Abhinava treats the whole work as a hymn of praise. He makes this explicit in the closing part of the opening section and in the last verse. In his eyes the whole subject matter becomes meaningful only when it leads, through Siva's grace alone, to Sivahood; the Tantraloka outlines the path for invoking that grace, after which "the clouds of nescient doubts disappear and one shines in one's pristine splendour". This, Rastogi says, supports scholars who read Kashmir Saivism as a theology aiming at a personal Godhead, not as pure metaphysics about an abstract Absolute. The placement of the devotional theme at the beginning and the end (upakrama and upasamhara, in traditional terms) signals its importance. Only from this religious point of view can the manual character of the book be properly understood.
3. Five Objectives Behind the Composition
(a-i) Attainment of Bhairavahood. The fundamental aim is the same as that of the whole discipline: Bhairavahood, "the divination of the mundane". Abhinava declares that one who constantly practises the teachings of all thirty-seven Ahnikas becomes Bhairava. If a reading of thirty-seven chapters can bring this about, then the finite being is capable of cosmic personality.
(a-ii) Teaching the fourfold redemptive knowledge. The Tantraloka's original commitment is to understand absolute awareness. Its four kinds of saving knowledge (the four upayas, means: the means without means, the divine, the Sakta, based on power, and the individual or Anava) are designed to secure both worldly success and spiritual transcendence. The descent of grace (saktipata) is the driving force; so bondage and liberation take priority over other issues. The basic purpose is to cultivate intuitive awareness (pratibha-samvitti), which transforms the divided human perspective into a unified one. Abhinava and Jayaratha both reject the charge of arrogance for such claims; to them they are statements of fact.
(b) Presenting the final textual authority. Self-realisation is the goal of all disciplines, and their standard tool is the power of the Godhead. No text drives this home more than the Tantraloka, because Abhinava combined, in this order, his own judgement, an unfailing sense of right reasoning, a vast command of Saiva scripture, and deep insight into Trika thought. Knowledge, to become transcendent, must pass three stages: it must come from scripture, be investigated under a guide, and become the core of one's own experience. Rastogi suggests that the familiar threefold method of agama, yukti and pratyaksa (scripture, reasoning and direct experience) arose from these three sources: scripture, teacher and self.
(c) Easy comprehension of Tantric wisdom. Abhinava focused on issues useful to everyone, leaving the more technical controversies to his other works.
(d) Restoration and preservation of the tradition. This objective is treated in a low key but is unmistakable. Three expressions stand out: sampradayojjhitaih ("by those cut off from the tradition") near the beginning, and vidambitah ("misled") and bhraste vidhau ("when the rule is lost") in the middle. The first refers to learned people who lacked the unbroken tradition and so had no access to the doctrinal secrets. The second refers to people who neither knew the text nor had studied with a teacher, and were misled by similar-sounding expressions. The third implies that some procedures had been lost or corrupted beyond recognition. For the first two cases Abhinava sets out the tradition he inherited; for the third he prescribes an alternative, the Malini nyasa (ritual placement of the Malini alphabet on the body). Jayaratha's remark that whenever Abhinava quotes an Agama and gives a particular reading he does so to remove doubts about that source strengthens the point.
4. Rastogi's Summary Table
| Declared | Undeclared | |
|---|---|---|
| Motives | To compose the Tantraloka as (i) a compendium, (ii) a manual, (iii) a prayer | To produce a scriptural treatise (Sastra) |
| Objectives | (i) To realise the self and help others realise it; to teach the fourfold redemptive knowledge; (ii) to make the abstruse traditional secrets easy to grasp | (i) To create an overriding textual authority; (ii) to restore Tantric learning and practice |
Insight: One Book, Four Genres
The heart of this chapter is the idea that the Tantraloka belongs to four genres at once. As a compendium it looks outward, to the whole range of Agamas. As a manual it looks to practice: what the follower must do, in what order. As a scripture it claims authority equal to the Agamas it digests. As a hymn it looks upward, offering the whole work to Siva and asking for grace. Most readers of the Tantraloka feel these pulls without naming them; the long ritual chapters seem to sit uneasily beside the luminous metaphysics of the first chapters and the devotional verses scattered throughout. Rastogi's frame dissolves the tension. A single book can be all four because, in Abhinava's view, knowledge, ritual, authority and devotion are expressions of one awareness. A reader who keeps the four genres in mind will recognise, at any point in the text, which voice is speaking.
A note for readers: how far do the labels fit?
Rastogi's classification is persuasive but partly his own construction. The terms Samgraha, Prakriya, Sastra and Stuti come from Abhinava and Jayaratha, but the neat division into declared and undeclared motives is an interpretive scheme. In particular, the claim that the Tantraloka was not originally intended as a Sastra rests on silence; Abhinava's own language in the opening verses already has a strong scriptural tone. The lexical argument from the Vacaspatyam and Sabdakalpadruma is suggestive but late (both are nineteenth-century dictionaries), even if they cite Hemacandra. And the "theology versus metaphysics" remark points to a real debate in modern scholarship that the chapter does not try to settle.
Key Terms
- Vartika, Bhasya, Vrtti: three kinds of commentary, roughly gloss, extended commentary, and running explanation.
- Samgraha: compendium, digest.
- Prakriya / Paddhati: a procedural manual laying down the order and method of practice.
- Sastra / Sasana: authoritative teaching, scripture.
- Stuti: hymn of praise.
- Anuttara: "the Unsurpassed", the highest reality in Trika.
- Bhairavahood: identity with Bhairava, the absolute form of Siva.
- Saktipata: the descent of divine grace.
- Pratibha-samvitti: intuitive awareness.
- Kula-prakriya / Tantra-prakriya: the two monistic lines of practice, the first higher, together forming the Trika-prakriya.
- Malini: the non-sequential arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet, central to the Trika.
Reflection
- Which of the four genres do you notice most when you read a chapter of the Tantraloka? Which is easiest to overlook?
- What does it mean for a commentary to explain "what is left unsaid"?
- Rastogi links agama, yukti and pratyaksa to scripture, teacher and self. Which of these three is weakest in your own study, and how might it be strengthened?
About the Author, Biographical Data (pp. 19 to 55)
Abhinavagupta tells us a great deal about himself, his family and his teachers, mostly in the first and last (thirty-seventh) Ahnikas. Rastogi restricts himself, as far as possible, to what the Tantraloka itself says, using Jayaratha and Abhinava's other works only to fill gaps. The result is a closely argued portrait which corrects several earlier assumptions: that Manoratha was Abhinava's younger brother, that Vamanagupta and Vamanaka were the same person, that Bhutiraja taught Krama, that Sambhunatha wrote the Tantrasadbhava, and others. The section also places Abhinava in time through the generations of the family who hosted him.
1. Name
"Abhinavagupta" was not his birth name but a title given by his teachers in recognition of his devotion to and reflection on Siva. Jayaratha says the name implied authority, and Abhinava repeatedly calls himself competent, the one person able to undertake a digest of the entire Trika literature.
His birth itself, in Tantric terms, explains this. The very first verse, which refers to his parents, implies that he was yoginibhu, "born of a yogini". This is a Kula idea, discussed in the twenty-ninth Ahnika under the rite of the female messenger (duti): when parents unite identifying themselves with Siva and Sakti, the child is Siva incarnate and a ready vessel of knowledge (Tantraloka 29.162 to 163). The parents' attainment of Bhairavahood is transmitted to the child. Since the purpose of the Tantraloka is to lead readers to Bhairavahood, there is a fitting link between the author's birth and his book.
Jayaratha adds evidence from the thirteenth Ahnika, on the degrees of grace. The Sripurvasastra (the Malinivijayottara) lists the signs of one who has received madhya-tivra saktipata (middling-intense grace):
- unshakeable faith in God;
- mastery of mantras;
- control over the principles of existence;
- success in whatever is undertaken;
- poetic creativity;
- sudden, spontaneous knowledge of all disciplines.
Jayaratha says, on the authority of his teachers, that all six were clearly visible in Abhinava. Such a person, whose wisdom (sattarka, right reasoning) dawns by itself, is said to be initiated by his own divine awareness and to have universal authority. This is why Abhinava speaks as an acarya (teacher) throughout. Rastogi notes that Pandey listed only five signs, leaving out poetic gift, and that this needs correcting.
2. Pupils, Colleagues and Family Circle
Two factors led Abhinava to write the Tantraloka: the entreaties of his students and colleagues, and the instruction of his teacher Sambhunatha to write a complete manual and bring out what the heretics could not see.
At the end of the book he names the pupils who moved him to write:
- Manoratha, his brother, foremost among them. Before Abhinava could grant his request, others came with the same appeal. Pandey called Manoratha the younger brother; Rastogi thinks that hard to maintain.
- Karna, son of Sauri: young, but he had grasped the essence of Saiva doctrine and was averse to worldly attractions. With Mandra he repeatedly asked Abhinava to comment on the Malinivijayottara. He had a son, Yogesvaridatta. His young wife Amba turned to Siva worship after Karna died "at an advanced age". Karna did not live to see the Tantraloka finished.
- Mandra, Karna's boyhood friend and cousin, son of a minister; wealthy and learned in equal measure. Abhinava stayed at his suburban house, where the whole household, children included, was devoted to worship.
- Ksema, Utpala, Abhinava, Cakraka, Padmagupta, all cousins (pitrvyatanayah, "sons of a paternal uncle").
- Ramagupta, called Ramadeva in the Paratrimsikavivarana, devoted to Saiva scripture, who had mastered the details of ritual (vidhi) and mandala in the Trika scriptures, and from other sources was also expert in grammar, Mimamsa and logic.
Amba as Abhinava's sister. Rastogi argues that Amba was probably Abhinava's own sister. Abhinava says she regarded him as her teacher and Siva personified, though he was her "real brother", and that she managed to keep sisterly feelings at bay. He, in turn, justified her trust by his conduct. This explains the attention he gives to Karna and his family.
Ksema and Ksemaraja. Was the cousin Ksema the same as Abhinava's great disciple Ksemaraja? The Tantraloka does not say, but "all the circumstantial evidence tends to favour this identification". The uncle whose sons they were is not named in the Tantraloka; Pandey identified him from the Abhinavabharati as Vamanagupta, apparently a man of letters. Rastogi suggests Ksema's father and Vamanagupta may be one person.
Fellow students. Abhinava mentions requests from his pupils' "fellow students". Rastogi wonders whether this means their classmates rather than his own, since Abhinava says nothing of fellow students of his own.
Abhinava compares his readiness to write to a dancer who longs to dance and steps out the moment an instrument begins. The request of his students was only the occasion; the desire was already there, and his teachers' advice confirmed it.
3. Place of Composition
The Tantraloka was written at Mandra's suburban residence, where Mandra's aunt Vatsalika looked after Abhinava with such care that he found her name ("affectionate") equal to her merits and credited her with the success of the work. She was the wife of Sauri, a royal minister who resigned when devotion to Siva had purified his mind. (Rastogi corrects the printed word "bhrata", brother, to make Sauri her husband, as other evidence requires.)
4. Time
The Tantraloka gives no date, but the family of Sauri provides a clue. Abhinava saw three generations: Sauri, Karna and Yogesvaridatta. He was the contemporary of Karna, his brother-in-law, and saw his death at an advanced age when his son was grown. From the Paratrimsikavivarana we learn that Sauri was the son of Vallabha, a Brahmin and senior (or prime) minister of King Yasaskara, who "definitely ruled in the year 939 A.D.". Abhinava, belonging to the third generation from Yasaskara's reign, must have written the Tantraloka at a mature age. His accepted dates (c. 950 to 1025) stand. Rastogi revises his statement in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir" (p. 159) accordingly.
| Generation | Persons |
|---|---|
| 1 | King Yasaskara (939 CE), with his minister Vallabha |
| 2 | Sauri, married to Vatsalika |
| 3 | Karna, married to Amba, sister of Abhinavagupta (c. 950 to 1025) |
| 4 | Yogesvaridatta |
5. Ancestors and Parents
- Atrigupta, the earliest known ancestor, was born in Madhyadesa (identified, with the help of the Paratrimsikavivarana, with Antarvedi, the land between the Ganga and the Yamuna, roughly modern Kannauj, then a centre of learning). His surname was Gupta; his personal and lineage (gotra) names were Atri. Rastogi asks, from an unclear line (37.38), whether he was also called Agastya because he "swallowed the waters of scripture".
- He was brought to Kashmir by King Lalitaditya-Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty (725 to 761), probably when Lalitaditya conquered Yasovarman of Kannauj (730 to 740), out of love and respect. Abhinava pays glowing tribute to Kashmir as a land of learning, beauty and bliss.
- Atrigupta was settled in Pravarapura, founded by King Pravarasena (fifth or sixth century) on the Vitasta (Jhelum). Lalitaditya built him a house on the bank facing a Siva temple with a Siddhalinga, and granted property and wealth for his upkeep. (Pandey reads "bhumisampat", land grant, for "bhurisampat", ample wealth; both readings are possible.) Whether this Pravarasena is the poet of the Setubandha Abhinava does not say.
- After a gap of about 150 years, about which nothing is known except that learning and devotion continued, came Abhinava's grandfather Varahagupta, an eminent scholar.
- His son Narasimhagupta, also known as Cukhalaka, was Abhinava's father: sharp of intellect, pure of mind, devoted to Siva.
- His mother was Vimala, as Jayaratha tells us; Abhinava himself hints at her name in the first word of the Tantraloka, vimalakala ("of pure digits"). (That verse also opens the Paratrimsikavivarana and the Malinivijayavartika.)
- She died when Abhinava was a child, and he was raised by his father, who though young was unmoved by youthful distractions and turned wholly to Siva. Abhinava says that his mother's death removed "the staunchest cause of attachment" and that he attained liberation in life.
Who was the youngest? The Tantraloka mentions Manoratha and Amba, but not their birth order. Rastogi reasons that Abhinava may have been the youngest. As a yoginibhu, he was born from a union undertaken not for desire but as a spiritual necessity, and his parents would have taken time to reach such a frame of mind; the brother and sister would have been born in the earlier "evolutionary" phase. But the gaps must have been small, since the father was young when he renounced the world and the mother died early. From the Isvarapratyabhijnavivrtivimarsini we know that Abhinava was celibate all his life, with no wife or children.
6. Teachers
His father taught him grammar, logic and literature. While studying literature he was overtaken by "irresistible devotion to Siva" and went to serve many teachers at their own seats, even accepting servitude to them. He was criticised for moving from teacher to teacher, and he twice quotes the Matasastra: as a black bee goes from flower to flower to gather scent, a student eager for knowledge should go from teacher to teacher. He studied with logicians, Mimamsakas, Buddhists, Jains (Arhats) and Vaisnavas, and gives the order: first Vaisnavas, then Buddhists, then Siddhanta Saivas, finally Trika scholars.
Rastogi divides his teachers into two groups:
- Mathikagurus: teachers who represented a Mathika, a lineage school with a definite spiritual approach.
- Jnanagurus: teachers who imparted knowledge in a particular field.
In the opening verses of Ahnika 1 Abhinava names the Mathikagurus (except the Amardaka line); at the end of Ahnika 37 he names the Mathikagurus first and then the others.
The Mathikagurus:
- Vamanatha, son or pupil (the word atmaja can mean either) of Eraka, taught him the dualist Tantras of the school founded by Amardaka (or Ananda). He is mentioned only once (37.60). This Eraka is not the earlier Krama hymn-writer of the same name (850 to 900); Rastogi revises his earlier view in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir".
- Bhutiraja (900 to 950) and his son represent the Natha Mathika, the dualist-cum-monist school initiated by Srinatha. Bhutiraja is named at the beginning of the Tantraloka, his son at the end; the son may be Helaraja, commentator on the Vakyapadiya and brother of Induraja, Abhinava's teacher in literary criticism. Rastogi corrects his own earlier description of Bhutiraja's system as purely dualist. Abhinava regards Bhutiraja as "another form of the Godhead". He taught Abhinava the size of all the worlds (bhuvanas) and how they are purified, the theory of the hundred Rudras (Satarudras) under the path of worlds and the Pratistha kala, the Brahmavidya (mantras which, recited at death, bring instant self-realisation), and three esoteric disciplines of Pranava, Maya and Bindu under the discussion of mantra potency (mantravirya). Some later scholars, misled by references in the Tantrasara, thought Bhutiraja also taught Krama; Jayaratha says there is no substance in this, and rejects the idea that Bhutiraja was a pupil of the Krama teacher Cakrabhanu. Dwivedi made Bhutiraja Cakrabhanu's son; Rastogi says the facts do not support this.
- Laksmanagupta, in the Traiyambaka lineage, taught him the whole of monistic Kashmiri thought, Krama, Trika and Pratyabhijna (the Tantra-prakriya), except Kula. He was the direct disciple of Utpaladeva, who was the disciple of Somananda: so Somananda was Abhinava's great-grand-teacher and Utpala his grand-teacher. Laksmanagupta advocated a special nyasa (Tantraloka 15.247 to 254), one of the six original ones used to invoke Kalasamkarsini, and differed from Sambhunatha on Sakta nyasa. He also held a different construction of mantras from "the ancients". From the Isvarapratyabhijnavivrtivimarsini we learn he wrote a Srisastra, which Rastogi, subject to further research, identifies with the Saradatilaka Tantra. (Its author calls himself Laksmanadesika; Dwivedi takes them as two different people without giving reasons.) Rastogi notes that it is odd that Abhinava never quotes the Saradatilaka, and explains this by its not belonging to the disciplines Laksmanagupta taught him.
- Sambhunatha, "the prime force and motivation behind the Tantraloka", his teacher in Kula or the Ardha-traiyambaka school, which came from Traiyambaka through his daughter. He is compared to the sun that removed the darkness of ignorance from Abhinava's heart, the sun in the sky of Traiyambaka's lineage, and the moon over the ocean of the Trika. His other name or title was Bhattanatha. Abhinava was favoured through his consort, Bhagavati, who served as his duti, since in Kula practice knowledge is transmitted through her. His lineage ran Sumatinatha, Somadeva, Sambhunatha, Abhinava; when Abhinava speaks as if Sambhunatha learnt directly from Sumati, Jayaratha says "teacher" there means the lineage teacher. A source quoted by Jayaratha says Sambhunatha came from a seat called Jalandhara "in the south" and was an authority in the system of "five sources" based on Atimarga.
Sambhunatha's teaching in the Tantraloka. Rastogi gathers, with Jayaratha's help (the name "Sambhu" can mean the deity or the teacher), the many places where Abhinava acknowledges him:
- Dhyana (meditation), placed first among the Anava means.
- Uccara, the articulation of the vital breath, including the series of blisses from nirananda to jagadananda.
- The day-and-night division under the path of time (kaladhvan), with criticism of inferior views.
- The five states of experience (waking and so on) under the path of space.
- The fifteen internal varieties of every principle, and the principles as symbolised by the breath in the Khecari-cakra.
- The criteria for choosing between a yogin and a jnanin as teacher (Ahnika 13), and the rejection of the dualist view of gradation in the descent of grace.
- General and special nyasa in the Samayi initiation, with the reconciliation: first the six Sakta nyasas of Laksmanagupta, then the six Saiva nyasas of Sambhunatha.
- The all-round worship of the cycle, and the fire rite as made up of sacraments (samskaras).
- Jalayoga, a key part of indirect initiation.
- The examination of death and the removal of fear of it, under occasional rites.
- The whole of Ahnika 29 on Kulayaga, especially the ten aspects of homa.
- The harmonising of scriptures in Ahnika 35.
The Tantrasadbhava question. Pandey assigned a Tantrasadbhava to Sambhunatha on the basis of Tantraloka 30.99, and Dwivedi agreed. Rastogi disagrees. "Sambhunatha" in such contexts usually means the divine source; in 20.12 Abhinava ascribes the Tantrasadbhava to the Godhead, and in 30.59 and 30.101 he reaffirms its revealed character. So it is a scripture, not a work by his teacher. None of Sambhunatha's own works survives. Some have identified him with Siddhanatha, author of the Krama Stotra; Rastogi finds this hard to maintain.
Where was Jalandhara? Rastogi raises a historical point. Krama is said to come from the northern seat. Jalandhara is described not as the southern pitha (sacred seat) but as a seat "in the south". The modern town of Jalandhar lies south of Kashmir. Could Sambhunatha have belonged there, with Abhinava travelling to him? He leaves the question open. He also asks whether Atimarga here is close to the Tripura system; if so, it is odd that Jayaratha never mentions Sambhunatha in his Vamakesvarimatavivarana, a Tripura text.
The Jnanagurus. Abhinava lists twelve main teachers, apparently of secular or general subjects: Sricandra Sarma, Bhava, Bhaktivilasa, Yogananda, Abhinanda, Sivasakti, Vicitranatha, Dharmasiva, Vamanaka, Udbhata, Sribhutesa and Bhaskara. Rastogi notes several differences from Pandey's list: Pandey has Candravara where the text has Bhava; reads Sivabhakti for Sivasakti; splits Dharmasiva into two; and reads Bhutisa for Sribhutesa. The phrase might also mean "Bhaktivilasa, son of Candra Sarma".
- Aniruddha taught him the Matanga Agama of the Saiva Siddhanta, and wrote a commentary on it, a long passage of which Jayaratha quotes on Tantraloka 8.433 to 434.
- Dharmasiva taught on indirect initiation (paroksa diksa); his views differ slightly from Sambhunatha's (21.50 to 55). Dwivedi takes him as a Siddhanta Saiva author of a Paddhati.
- Vamanaka is probably Vamanadatta, author of the Samvitprakasa (per Jayaratha), who taught that instrumental knowledge varies without breaking the unity of divine consciousness. He was Abhinava's teacher but not his uncle. Dwivedi identified Vamanadatta with Hrasvanatha, author of the Advayasampattivartika, and listed manuscripts of the Samvitprakasa (with Vaisnava leanings), the Subodhamanjari and the Svabodhamanjarimatrka at Banaras Hindu University. Rastogi says this needs further examination and notes that Dwivedi rejected his own distinction of two Hrasvanathas without giving reasons.
- Bhaskara, author of the Varttika on the Sivasutras, the Vivekanjana and the Kaksyastotra; son of Divakara; pupil of Srikantha in Spanda and of the hymn-writer Siddhanatha in Krama.
- Bhava might be Bhavabhuti. Abhinava names a line of commentators on the Paratrisika: Somananda, Kalyana, Bhavabhuti. Bhavabhuti would stand exactly where "Bhava" would, counting from Somananda. Rastogi wonders whether the text should read "Bhavabhutivilasayogananda".
- Udbhata: not the poetician of King Jayapida's court (779 to 813), but a later Krama teacher, the successor of Ujjata and grand-disciple of Bhanuka (850 to 900). Rastogi draws an important conclusion: Abhinava possessed both Krama traditions, one through Govindaraja, Somananda, Laksmanagupta, the other through Bhanuka, Ujjata, Udbhata. Since he followed the first, he mentions Udbhata only once; "his heart did not lie there".
Other teachers. The words "guru" and "guravah" are used loosely: sometimes for a mythical figure, sometimes for a distant ancestor in the lineage, sometimes for Krsna, sometimes for earlier commentators including opponents. There must have been teachers in Buddhism, Vaisnavism and Jainism whom we cannot name.
7. Rastogi's Table of Teachers
| No. | Teacher | Subject taught |
|---|---|---|
| Mathikagurus | ||
| 1 | Narasimhagupta (father), alias Cukhalaka | Grammar, literature, logic |
| 2 | Vamanatha | Dualistic Saivism |
| 3 | Bhutiraja | Dualistic-cum-monistic Saivism, Brahmavidya, the three Vidyas, the Satarudriya |
| 4 | Son of Bhutiraja (Helaraja?) | Dualistic-cum-monistic Saivism (and perhaps philosophy of grammar) |
| 5 | Laksmanagupta | Tantra-prakriya (Krama, Trika, Pratyabhijna, the Traiyambaka school of monism), the Devipancasatika, Sakta nyasa |
| 6 | Sambhunatha | Kula-prakriya (the Ardha-traiyambaka school), the Sripurvasastra, many other matters |
| Jnanagurus | ||
| 7 to 13 | Sricandra Sarma, Bhaktivilasa, Yogananda, Abhinanda, Sivasakti, Vicitranatha, Sribhutisa | Not known |
| 8 | Bhava (Bhavabhuti?) | The Trisika scripture (?) |
| 14 | Dharmasiva | Indirect initiation (in part) |
| 15 | Vamanaka (Vamanadatta?) | Varieties of the means |
| 16 | Udbhata | The sister tradition of Krama |
| 18 | Bhaskara | Sivasutras and the Spanda school (?) |
| 19 | Aniruddha | The Matanga Agama |
(Rastogi's table lists Narasimhagupta under the Mathikagurus, although his text treats the father as a teacher of general subjects.)
Insight: A Life Assembled From a Book
Most of what we know of Abhinava's life comes from the closing verses of his own works. Rastogi shows how much can be drawn from the Tantraloka alone if one reads it closely and lets Jayaratha supply context: a family history of nearly three centuries, a household of devotees, a sister who was also a disciple, a teacher reached through his consort, and a scholar who wandered from school to school in a fixed order, from Vaisnava to Buddhist to Siddhanta to Trika. The order matters. It mirrors the ladder of views Abhinava sets out in the Tantraloka itself, where every lower system is accepted as a partial truth and placed beneath the Trika. His biography and his doctrine of graded revelation reinforce each other.
A note for readers: weighing the identifications
Several of the links in this section are probable rather than proven, and Rastogi is careful to say so:
- Ksema = Ksemaraja: widely accepted, but rests on circumstantial evidence.
- Amba as Abhinava's sister: rests on one verse saying she treated him as teacher "though he was her real brother"; it is a reasonable reading.
- Abhinava as the youngest child: an inference from the Tantric idea of the yoginibhu birth. It is an interpretation of a doctrinal claim, not historical evidence, and should be held lightly.
- Bhutiraja's son = Helaraja: plausible, from external sources.
- Laksmanagupta = author of the Saradatilaka: Rastogi's own bold hypothesis from "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir". The Saradatilaka is usually attributed to a Laksmana Desika, and many scholars date it later; the identification is not generally accepted.
- Jalandhara as modern Jalandhar: a surmise, which Rastogi presents as a question.
- The 939 date of Yasaskara: Rastogi's dating of Abhinava by generations is sound in outline, but generational reckoning always leaves a wide margin.
- Two Krama traditions in Abhinava: an attractive claim that depends on Jayaratha's account of Udbhata's lineage.
The chapter also contains a small inconsistency: it gives Abhinava's dates as "around 950-1020" in one sentence and "circa 950-1025" in the next. Both are approximations, and the difference does not affect the argument.
Key Terms
- Yoginibhu: one born of a yogini; a child conceived in Siva-Sakti union, regarded as born enlightened.
- Madhya-tivra saktipata: middling-intense descent of grace.
- Acarya: teacher with authority to initiate.
- Mathika: a lineage school; Mathikaguru, a teacher representing one.
- Jnanaguru: teacher of knowledge in a particular field.
- Traiyambaka / Ardha-traiyambaka: the lineage from the sage Tryambaka through his son (the Tantra-prakriya line) and through his daughter (the Kula line).
- Duti: the female ritual partner or messenger in Kula practice.
- Nyasa: ritual placement of mantras on the body.
- Paroksa diksa: indirect initiation, performed for someone absent or dead.
- Brahmavidya: here, mantras that grant liberation if recited at death.
Reflection
- Abhinava moved from Vaisnava to Buddhist to Siddhanta to Trika teachers. What might be the value of such an order in one's own study?
- Why might a lineage teacher's consort be the channel of knowledge in the Kula tradition?
- Rastogi distinguishes the deity "Sambhu" from the teacher "Sambhunatha". How could such ambiguity distort the history of a tradition?
About the Author, Works and Methodology (pp. 55 to 85)
The Tantraloka mentions few of Abhinava's own works, and some only obliquely, but these references show that he thought of several texts as one connected body of Tantric exposition. The more important part of this section is the study of method. Abhinava stated his rules of explanation, and Rastogi shows him applying them: in how he selected sources, how he interpreted them, how he spread and joined topics, how he used brief and detailed styles, how he chose his words, and how he handled esoteric matter. The Tantraloka emerges as "a masterly compendium written in a glossorial style".
1. Works Cited in the Tantraloka
- Anuttaraprakriya: identified by Jayaratha with the Paratrimsikavivarana (PTV). Abhinava does not say it is his, but Rastogi gives three reasons to accept it: Jayaratha's identification matches the published title; Abhinava refers the reader to it for the relation among the principles (each later one the power, each earlier one the powerful), which the PTV treats at length; and the word purogamah ("precursors") implies his commentary was preceded by those of his teachers Somananda, Kalyana and Bhavabhuti. The Paratrimsika is called the Trikasutra and serves as an index to the whole Trika.
- Malinislokavartika: the same as the Malinivijayavartika (MVV), a verse commentary on the Malinivijayottara, the Sripurvasastra, scriptural backbone of the Tantraloka. Abhinava refers readers there for the five sources and their origin in the transcendent. Pandey established the order MVV, PTV, Tantraloka.
- Pancika: a verse commentary, referred to indirectly at Tantraloka 23.75 (Rastogi prints "23.752"; the context suggests a misprint), known to Jayaratha, who elsewhere calls it Abhinava's work. From the context it was probably an exposition of the Sripurvasastra, the same as the Purvapancika in Pandey's list. Since the PTV alludes to it, the order becomes MVV, Purvapancika, PTV (Rastogi writes "Pratyabhijna Vimarsini" at this point, which seems a slip for the PTV), Tantraloka. It is now lost. The MVV was written in the same house as the Tantraloka, to please Sambhunatha, at the request of Karna and Mandra; the PTV too was written under Vatsalika's care and at Karna's request. The opening verse is common to all three. Ideas treated in one are skipped in another. They form one whole.
- Prakirnakavivarana: referred to as "elsewhere" (anyatra) and so identified by Jayaratha. Abhinava says he treated there the question of the causative suffix (nic) with insentient agents: does causation apply to an action already begun or yet to begin? "Prakirnaka" means "miscellaneous", so the work probably dealt with grammatical issues with philosophical implications. Whether it is the same as the Prakaranavivarana is unresolved.
- Stotras: Abhinava refers to his own hymns at least twice. In Ahnika 26 he quotes one Arya and two Sardulavikridita verses (26.63 to 65), and one again at 29.76; they are not quoted but absorbed into the text. Rastogi had translated them in his Hindi postgraduate dissertation on Abhinava's stotras.
- The "Tantrasara" puzzle. The Tantraloka says the occasional rites are dealt with in the Tantrasara. But Abhinava's Tantrasara is a shorter version of the Tantraloka and must be later. How can the earlier book cite the later? Rastogi's answer: this must be another work of that name. The PTV quotes a Tantrasara and a Trikatantrasara, apparently a scripture of the Trisika branch of the Kaula discipline. Dwivedi gives it other names (Sadardhasastra, Sadardhasara, Sadardhahrdaya, Sarasasana, Sarasastra). Rastogi thinks the Tantrasara and Trikatantrasara were one unit, while Sadardhasastra and related names refer to the Paratrisika itself, which the Tantraloka calls Trikasutra and Sadardhahrdaya.
- Anupratyabhijna: Jayaratha's wording might suggest a book by Abhinava of this name, but Rastogi now reads the phrase differently and concludes it was someone else's work, about which nothing is known. He revises his earlier view.
2. Guiding Principles of Explanation
Abhinava does not leave his rules to guesswork. In Ahnika 28, under the occasional rites, he devotes the tenth and eleventh topics to the methods of explaining and listening, on the authority of the Devyayamala Tantra:
- Interpret each sentence in the light of the whole text, taking into account aphorism, phrase, sentence, chapter and section.
- Handle the material selectively or as a whole, as the occasion demands.
- Distinguish the item at hand from others by tantra (common application), avartana (separate application), badha (negation), prasanga (incidental discussion), tarka (exploring options) and atidesa (transference of an attribute). (The Tantrasara substitutes samuccaya, aggregation, and vikalpa, option, for prasanga and tarka.)
- Scrutinise every statement, and make the opposing view as strong as possible before refuting it.
- Refuting a strong prima facie view leads to quicker understanding, free of doubts.
- A teacher may use whichever of these suits the student: bhasa (linguistic variants), nyaya (rules and conventions), vada (debate on pros and cons), laya (regular study), krama (a particular order of interpretation).
From another of his works Rastogi adds Abhinava's definition of the scholastic author: he must condense, enlarge, insert and omit, and only then does he become a Sastrakara.
3. Multi-tier Handling of Sources
Abhinava's sources fall under three heads:
- Basic: the Malinivijayottara.
- General: the Svacchanda Tantra and the Spandakarika.
- Specific: the many other texts relevant to particular items.
He chose from them by four criteria:
- Utility (upayoga), which includes relevance. Even if a topic is discussed at length in the source, he skips it if it does not serve the purpose.
- Restriction to the relevant. He insists he could write at length but will not.
- Faithfulness to the facts. He records a position even when it seems at odds with his own stand.
- Consistency with the general theme, for which he will rearrange the whole material.
Examples:
- The opposed approaches in Ahnikas 16 and 19 fit two different contexts (purifying the principles, and the "instant departure").
- In the Anava means the Agamic order is uccara, karana, dhyana, varna. Abhinava changes it to dhyana, uccara, karana, varna, by their relative efficacy.
- He prefers to treat difficult material and omit what is easy, but never sacrifices authenticity for convenience. He will not attribute a thesis to an Agama unless it is stated unambiguously; thus he does not give water thirteen forms, as he does earth, because the Sripurvasastra does not clearly say so. "Authenticity guides enumeration, easy comprehension guides omission."
- Jayaratha adds practicality: he could not record all views in one place.
- Occasionally he is casual (uttana, "shallow"): he describes Ananta, the deity of the earth regions, as seated on a boat "within" the waters, although "within" must mean "above" or refer to the gradual presence of the hundred Rudras. Jayaratha explains that, as a compiler, he took material at face value when it did not affect his logic.
- Constraints of space lead to three courses: he admits further material exists and sometimes refers the reader to the original; he confines himself to the basic sources; or he skips topics that branch into endless personal preferences (for example, the bhautavesa, elemental absorption, which follows fifty varieties of Rudrasakti-samavesa in the Malinivijayottara).
- When his basic sources are silent, he draws on related ones.
4. Interpretation and Its Norms
Abhinava has three obsessions: authenticity, unambiguity and communicability. His order of work:
- Find the meaning of the word; decide whether it is literal, etymological or implied.
- Grasp the sentence.
- Find its implication.
- If still unclear, give an illustration.
Where no scriptural authority is available on an etymology, he asks the reader to use common sense, since not everything can be written down; he asks intelligent readers to infer from the logic of the texts.
He is a textual critic first. He settles the reading before interpreting, especially when there are variants. He then reviews existing interpretations and puts his stamp on one. Example: whether Avyakta (the unmanifest) springs from Maya or from Kala. The Rauravasamgraha of Brhaspati says Maya; the Sripurvasastra says Kala. Abhinava sides with the Rauravasamgraha and calls the other views inconsistent.
He sometimes replaces the original Agamic phrase to remove confusion. He identifies difficult portions, a word or a long passage, and explains only the difficult part: one reason he calls the work a Vartika. At 8.171 to 178 he spends eight verses explaining the first of two verses he has quoted from the Raurava Vrtti (8.169 to 170). At 13.164 to 195 he quotes a long passage of the Nandisikha Tantra word for word so that even an ordinary reader will understand.
His investigation is internal (analysing the whole text and arranging its contents logically, as in Ahnikas 13 and 15 for the Sripurvasastra on grace and initiation) and external (comparing basic and related sources both ways). He follows the Nandisikha or Svacchanda when they are fuller but in tune with the Malinivijayottara, and notes divergence when he finds it. Thus he treats the five gross elements as part of the sixteen modifications of Prakrti rather than after the threefold ego, as the Svacchanda does.
5. Presentation: a Multi-ended Style
- The organic whole. Abhinava weaves every section into a continuing purpose. He uses two strategies. First, he does not treat an issue in one place but spreads it across related contexts. The karanas (Tantraloka 5.129 defines karana as "intelligent practice"), which belong to the Anava means in Ahnika 5, appear in at least five other chapters (11, 15, 16, 29 and 32). Second, he lets each chapter flow into the next by the sancaya-nyaya: the first half of a chapter's last verse ends it, and the second half begins the next. He breaks this only once, at the end of Ahnika 36, where a single half-verse marks both end and beginning.
- Fusion of quotation. The third strategy is the complete absorption of quoted Agamic text into his own verse. Without Jayaratha we would often not know which lines are source and which are Abhinava's. Rastogi's example is Tantraloka 1.168 to 170, a reproduction from the Malinivijayottara compared with an extract from the Nisatana quoted by Jayaratha.
- Four ways of using a source: simple reference; verbatim reproduction (to remove confusion); a summary in his own words (to sum up or to introduce the next topic); and partial quotation with partial summary. He can reverse subject and predicate to make an Agama support his stand, as with the Matanga. He changed "na dvaitam napi cadvaitam" to "na dvaitam napi cadvayam" (4.106) for the sake of metre.
- Meaningful omission. He omits what is obvious. He presents the Sivatanusastra as teaching the same as the Sripurvasastra but drops kala and niyati from the five sheaths so as to open the way for purification through three sheaths. He does not say that homa is covered by his definition of puja because homa has been and will be discussed. He does not discuss mala (impurity) in Ahnika 13 because he did so in Ahnika 9. He does not take up mantravirya in Ahnika 30, where it would naturally belong, because it has been treated. He skips the cycles of power with one to a thousand spokes in the Traisiras Agama for fear of "fruitless compilation".
- Three styles. Brief (samksepa, samasa), detailed (vistara, vyasa, vikasa) and mixed. The six paths (sadadhvan) under Anava are treated in great detail; the "collection of worlds" (purasamgraha) briefly, after the measure of worlds and arrangement of principles in detail. Ahnika 8 opens by announcing both styles. He can condense a long treatment into a couple of verses, as for the paths of pada, mantra and varna under the path of sound.
- The three-tier detailed treatment. He first presents other views, then examines them, then states his own. In Ahnika 13 on grace: opposing views, chiefly Samkhya, in verses 3 to 36; criticism in 37 to 101; his own thesis from 102. He keeps related matters in view, which explains his frequent returns to "the subject in hand". In the rite of Sivahasta he digresses to the types of initiate (putraka, acarya, daisika) and returns. Subordinate topics (anujoddesa) follow the general one (purvaja uddesa), always with background: in Ahnika 15, before the types of ritual bath, he gives the necessary preliminaries.
- Mixed style with a twist. In the Samayi initiation, detail applies to the content, condensation to the text. Brief and detailed may refer to either.
6. Purpose-oriented Diction
Because he is writing a Sastra, his vocabulary is exact:
- Atha signals that what follows explains his own statement (making the work partly a self-commentary) or marks a fresh start.
- Samyak ("properly") signals a clear difference from the dualist texts of Sadyojyoti, the Bhogakarika and Moksakarika.
- Repeating a word clarifies: a lunar eclipse occurs at the junction of full and new moon, not in a pure new moon, and the reuse of purva makes this point.
7. Presenting Esoteric Matter
When the subject becomes esoteric, language and style change. He reveals in part and conceals in part, as the Tantrasara also says. Such matter belongs to personal experience and should be passed on orally from teacher to student; yet he writes it down to preserve it, dispersing it over several chapters, as with the karanas. He also avoids direct language. A system has four "pedestals" (especially in the primal worship, adi-yaga): vidya, mantra, mudra and mandala. After mantra and mudra he discusses vidya and implies that mandala is included in it and needs no open description. He uses a guarded style to indicate mantras for esoteric rites, as in the mantra "Nairti bhoh". The amount revealed depends on utility.
Insight: The Tantraloka Teaches How to Read Itself
Rastogi's methodological section shows something easy to miss: the rules by which the Tantraloka should be read are written into the Tantraloka. Abhinava's six imperatives of explanation (whole-text interpretation, selectivity, contextual devices, steel-manning the opponent, refutation for clarity, and a teacher's choice of method) are his own reading instructions. Once you know them, the "scattered" treatment of topics, the half-verse transitions, the unannounced quotations and the meaningful silences stop looking like defects. They are the method. This also means the Tantraloka cannot be read in excerpts without loss. A single chapter makes full sense only when its threads are followed into the chapters where they continue. Chapter 4 of Rastogi's book, on cross-references, is the practical tool for doing exactly this.
A note for readers: authorship and dating puzzles
- The Tantrasara reference inside the Tantraloka remains a genuine puzzle. Rastogi's solution (an older scripture of the same name) is ingenious. Another possibility, which he does not discuss, is that Abhinava revised the Tantraloka after writing the Tantrasara, or that the line was added later. Without a critical edition the question cannot be settled.
- His reading of Anupratyabhijna as someone else's work depends on how one Sanskrit phrase is construed; it is a reasonable but not compelling interpretation.
- The order of works (MVV, Purvapancika, PTV, Tantraloka) builds on Pandey and is broadly accepted, but the Purvapancika is lost and its place in the series is inferred.
- The fusion of quotation that Rastogi praises also creates a real risk: modern readers can attribute to Abhinava ideas he took verbatim from earlier Agamas. Jayaratha is indispensable here, but even he does not mark every borrowing.
Key Terms
- Upayoga: utility, the first criterion of selection.
- Uttana: "shallow" or "expanded" choice; taking material at face value.
- Samksepa / Vistara: brief and detailed style.
- Anujoddesa / Purvaja uddesa: subordinate and principal topics.
- Avyakta: the unmanifest, first product in the evolution of matter.
- Kancuka: "sheath", one of the five limiting powers (kala, vidya, raga, kala as time, niyati).
- Sadadhvan: the six paths of the cosmos (varna, mantra, pada; kala, tattva, bhuvana).
- Adi-yaga: primal worship, the Kula rite.
Reflection
- Choose a topic you know in the Tantraloka. Where else in the book does it reappear?
- Abhinava strengthens the opposing view before refuting it. Where in your own thinking would that practice help?
- What is the difference between concealing a teaching and dispersing it? Which is Abhinava doing?
About the Commentator, Jayaratha's Life (pp. 87 to 102)
Jayaratha is "next to Abhinavagupta alone in importance". He is no ordinary commentator: he follows his master's method and produces what amounts to an independent text that explains, supplements, completes and defends the Tantraloka. "But for the Viveka we would never understand the Tantraloka." Since Rastogi had already used most of Jayaratha's biographical data in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir" (pp. 209 to 215), he gives a summary here, adding new information and combining the commentator's two genealogies into a single chart. The section shows a man formed by ten generations of ministers and devotees, and by a second, stronger group of teachers whose influence he openly prefers.
1. Ancestral and Preceptorial Lineages
The family line. Jayaratha belonged to the tenth generation from his earliest named ancestor, Purnamanoratha, a minister of King Yasaskara (939 CE). "Ratha" seems to have been the family title, since all his ancestors carry it, just as the suffix "Datta" marks every member of his lineage of teachers. Purnamanoratha was a colleague of Vallabha in Yasaskara's court: the same Vallabha whose son Sauri was Abhinava's senior contemporary and whose grandson Karna married Abhinava's sister. So Jayaratha's family and Abhinava's circle were linked from the start, by court service as well as by learning.
Jayaratha stresses that every generation before him combined good conduct, power, wealth, fame, learning and devotion to Siva, and that his line of teachers combined spiritual power, practice, systematic scholarship and virtue. He recalls several family episodes:
- Amrtaratha and Utpalaratha II, six generations back, founded two seminaries to support virtuous Brahmins, at a site where a school or a metal workshop had stood.
- Utpalaratha II was a minister of King Ananta (1028 to 1063), whose rule reached Trigarta (modern Jalandhar region) and who crushed the king of the Darads. He received teaching from his maternal uncle Vibhutidatta. Vibhutidatta's elder son had died within seven days of initiation; grieving, he did not consecrate his younger son, and at a divine prompting transmitted his knowledge to the younger son through Utpalaratha instead. Utpalaratha learnt the whole doctrine of melapa (spiritual union) of Kaula knowledge and passed it to Sricakra, a pupil of Vibhutidatta. From Sricakra it went to Visvadatta, whom Utpalaratha brought to his house after his teacher died, and who was later given a permanent residence in a convent in the forecourt of a temple built by a Kanakadatta (perhaps of the same Datta clan), with property for its upkeep.
- Utpalaratha II, though a minister, gave himself to liberation. So did his eldest son Sivaratha, minister of King Ucchala, who dedicated his inheritance to the salvation of others and resigned his post.
- Gunaratha, Jayaratha's great-grandfather, built a new convent, the Acalasrimatha, which survived when the whole city of Pravarapura (Srinagar) was engulfed by fire.
- His grandfather Gungaratha died young, while his father Srngararatha was still a child; Srngararatha was raised by his grandmother Sattva and became minister of King Rajaraja.
Dating. King Rajaraja is not certainly identified, but is generally taken to be King Jayasimha (1127 to 1155). Jayaratha flourished in the second half of the twelfth century (1150 to 1200); Rastogi refers to "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir" (pp. 210 to 212) for the evidence.
His father. Jayaratha writes eloquently about Srngararatha. He was as close to the king "as mind to soul"; the king relied on him in everything, from revenue collection through intermediaries to the management of rivers such as the Ledari. As supreme officer (sarvadhikarin) he commanded all the infantry and the armies of tributary princes, and introduced the innovation of keeping regular troops and mercenaries separate. He promoted the welfare of ordinary people, rewarded excellence with grants, created "an atmosphere free from terror", and grew devoted to Siva. He was initiated by Subhata Datta, who later initiated Jayaratha, and learnt statecraft from Srngara, son of Dasi Rajanaka (a different person from Srngararatha), who seems to have taught Jayaratha too. Distressed by the ruin of new buildings through natural causes, he carried out five renovations on the Mahadeva mountain.
His mother and brother. Srngararatha and his wife Kamala had two sons, Jayaratha and Jayadratha, born "exactly as nectar and the moon came out of the ocean, the abode of Kamala" (Laksmi). Jayaratha was the elder, by a small margin, and the brothers were equal in learning. Jayaratha says little about his mother and much about his grandmother Sattva, who as a young widow formed his father. He does not mention his own other works in the Viveka. (The Haracaritacintamani is ascribed to Jayaratha in its title but to Jayadratha in almost all its colophons.)
2. Two Groups of Teachers
Jayaratha names four teachers in two pairs.
First group: Subhata Datta and Srngara.
- Subhata Datta, the official lineage heir, performed Jayaratha's initiation and had earlier initiated his father. He wrote a commentary on the Tantraloka (a Vivarana) for Srngararatha. Jayaratha makes clear that Subhata Datta was his father's teacher and only his initiator. He was the son of Tribhuvanadatta and grandson of Visvadatta, whom Jayaratha seems to call his paramesthiguru (great-grand-teacher) and to present as a Krama author.
- Jayaratha once invokes his paramaguru (grand-teacher) for the view that one's choice among several traditions finally depends on one's own teacher's position. Rastogi thinks this probably means Tribhuvanadatta, since Subhata Datta, though in the generation of a grand-teacher, was technically Jayaratha's guru.
- Srngara taught his father politics; Jayaratha's word "also" (api) implies he learnt some statecraft from him too.
The Krama transmission. Jayaratha claims direct lineal access to the Krama tradition from Bhanuka (850 to 900). While Bhanuka's fellow student Govindaraja passed the tradition through Somananda, the parallel line came down to Jayaratha through Ujjata and Udbhata. Since no one else in his lineage of teachers is known to have mastered Krama apart from Visvadatta, Rastogi conjectures that the regular vehicle of this transmission was the Datta line starting from Laksmidatta, ruler of a place called Ganja (perhaps 975 to 1023), close in time to Udbhata (900 to 950) and Ujjata (875 to 925), with some missing links.
Second group: Kalyana and Sankhadhara. This pair had the "stronger formative influence", and Jayaratha says so.
- Sankhadhara (perhaps also called Sangadhara) taught him all the secular sciences: grammar, the Mimamsa of Jaimini (the science of interpreting sentences), logic and other empirical disciplines.
- Kalyana, "an embodiment of the divine", gave him all his Saiva learning. To Kalyana alone he owes his experience of oneness with Siva and the removal of impurity and mental restlessness. In the opening verses of the Viveka no other teacher receives such praise: Kalyana is an ocean whose drops of compassion made Jayaratha self-realised "without the fall of the mortal frame", and whose teachings kings carried out like crowns on their heads.
- Commenting on Tantraloka 13.342 ("blessed is the disciple who finds a teacher perfect in wisdom"), Jayaratha cites his own case: Kalyana taught him the monistic-dualistic Saiva spirituality and Sankhadhara the secular sciences.
- He cites his teacher's view only three times: on the meaning of mula in the Tantraloka, on his preference for the Devyayamala over the Trisirobhairava on the sikhabija (crest-seed mantra), and in support of Abhinava's account of true homa. Only the third is a direct quotation; the context suggests all three are Kalyana's.
- From his teacher he gained three things: freedom from distracting thoughts, invulnerability, and personal Kaula experience.
3. Personal Achievements
Jayaratha presents himself as a jivanmukta (liberated in life), constantly in a state of harmony and divine joy, "blessed" by an intense descent of grace, an accomplished yogin with command over the contemplation of the upward and downward breath, free from doubt, serene, and resigned from worldly affairs. In the last verse of the Viveka he calls himself an encyclopaedic genius, a blend of empirical and spiritual learning, unmatched in Trika philosophy and Krama metaphysics. The colophon gives him the same title of super-teacher in the Mahesvara cult that Abhinava bore. He lived a long life and says he was "quite ripe in age" when he finished the remaining part of the Viveka. His royal patron Rajaraja (Jayasimha) was the real force behind the commentary.
Insight: The Commentator as Heir
The genealogy is not a digression. By tracing his family back to a colleague of Vallabha at Yasaskara's court, Jayaratha shows that his ancestors stood beside Abhinava's hosts. By tracing his teaching line to Bhanuka through Ujjata and Udbhata, he claims the "other" Krama tradition that Abhinava knew but did not follow. He is presenting himself as an heir in two senses: of the social world in which the Tantraloka was written, and of a parallel spiritual line that gives him independent authority. This double inheritance explains both his reverence for Abhinava and his confidence in correcting others, including Abhinava's own disciple Ksemaraja.
A note for readers: dates, names and kings
- The identification of Rajaraja with Jayasimha is generally accepted but, as Rastogi says, not finally established.
- Ten generations from a minister of 939 to a writer flourishing 1150 to 1200 implies about twenty to twenty-five years per generation, which is plausible.
- The idea that the Datta line from Laksmidatta carried Bhanuka's Krama tradition is presented as a surmise "not absolutely off the mark". It is a hypothesis built to fill a gap.
- The ambiguity between Jayaratha and his brother Jayadratha as authors of the Haracaritacintamani remains unresolved.
- Rastogi modifies his earlier view (in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir", p. 213) that Subhata Datta was Jayaratha's model as a commentator.
Key Terms
- Paramaguru / Paramesthiguru: grand-teacher and great-grand-teacher.
- Melapa: the union of yogins and yoginis in Kaula practice; here the doctrine of spiritual union.
- Matha: a convent or monastic residence.
- Sarvadhikarin: chief officer with authority over all departments.
- Jivanmukta: one liberated while still embodied.
- Sikhabija: the "crest seed", a mantra syllable.
Reflection
- Jayaratha honours his initiator but credits his formation to another teacher. What is the difference between the teacher who initiates and the teacher who transforms?
- What might a minister's son bring to the commentary on a ritual and philosophical text that a monk might not?
The Tantralokaviveka (pp. 102 to 146)
The Viveka was Jayaratha's life work, the fruit of long, persistent labour in uncovering the essential meaning of Abhinava's book, and "not just a commentary" but "the continued extension of the Tantraloka". Rastogi studies it under five heads: its relation to the Tantraloka, its title, its motives, its handling of source material, and its services as a guide. The longest and most striking sections show Jayaratha as a textual critic: recovering sources, correcting readings, preserving otherwise lost Agamas, and conducting a sustained attack on Ksemaraja's text of the Svacchanda Tantra.
1. An Extension of and Supplement to the Tantraloka
Jayaratha knew the size of the task: it required familiarity with almost every source of knowledge, and the "impassable jungle" of Saiva discipline was made worse by conflicting sources. He takes full responsibility for his failings and asks for the reader's indulgence.
Earlier commentaries. He used at least two:
- the Vivarana of his family preceptor Subhata Datta, which enlightened his father but had "little impact" on Jayaratha, who followed Kalyana instead;
- perhaps an Unmesa by an unknown author, whose views he ignored (if, as Rastogi thinks, it was a commentary on the Tantraloka and not on the Mrtyunjaya-siddha Tantra).
There were also numerous oral or written interpretations of particular passages. Criticism of existing commentaries was one of his methods.
His audience. He wrote not to make a name or to show his style, but so that his thoughts might culminate in perfect awareness through reflection on the meaning. He had three audiences in mind: the ignorant, the hostile or envious, and the doubtful. He is educator, critic and umpire at once. He searched for every text that had the slightest bearing on his subject, by "innumerable devices", until he could write "the greatest or the most exalted commentary". Rastogi notes that he states his purpose in the commentary on Ahnika 1 and his method in Ahnika 2.
2. Title
The commentary is commonly called the Viveka ("discernment"), as in its opening lines. But most chapter title lines and colophons call it the Prakasa ("light"); some keep Viveka, and once he calls it a Vivarana. Jayaratha was not particular about the name.
3. Fundamental Motives
(i) Attainment of the Godhead. His basic aim is Abhinava's: to build the intellectual framework needed to attain the Self-Absolute. But where Abhinava wants grace for all creatures, Jayaratha would be content if his work enlightened just one person. He dedicates the work, like his master, as an offering to the Godhead.
(ii) and (iii) Resurrecting the tradition and restoring the Tantraloka. The deeper purpose was to rescue the Tantraloka from the confusion that, by his time, had spread through all ranks of scholarship. He is often harsh with "confusion-mongering elements". On the chronology of Krama teachers he tells the reader to ignore those who lack scholastic tradition, have not applied their minds to scripture or the teaching lineage, and lack common sense. The text had acquired alternative interpretations, some equally weighty: on sadrsa ("similar", Tantraloka 3.5) and kathinyabhavatah ("because of the lack of solidity", 3.20) he admits two explanations each. There was internal opposition to Abhinava's views, which Jayaratha had to answer, and opposition to the theory of tattva-bheda (subdivisions of the principles), especially the fifteen subdivisions. There was "complete anarchy" among commentators over the reading and order of certain passages.
Rastogi gives three controversies:
- The number of Kalis. Abhinava championed twelve Kalis in the Tantraloka, following Siddhanatha's Kramastotra. The confusion came from misunderstanding his approach. His aim was to present the samvit-krama (the sequence of consciousness), whereas the Pancasatika and some commentators on the Kramastotra concealed the samvit-krama and presented the puja-krama (the sequence of worship). The trouble began when Abhinava placed Raktakali instead of Sthitikali after Srstikali, and excluded Sukali, which made him adopt the twelve Kalis of the Anakhya-cakra according to the Sardhasatika. Jayaratha examined the objection from every angle (scriptural authority, textual testimony, doctrinal consistency, chronological continuity, contextual propriety, scribal authenticity, collateral evidence) and concluded that Abhinava's twelve is unimpeachable. He also corrected the historical record, saying with irony that his contemporaries "do not know anything" about Abhinava's lineage, and supplied missing links on Cakrabhanu, Kakaradevi, Somaraja, Hrasvanatha and the real purport of the Kramastotra. One cannot extract a piece in isolation: a text must be accepted or rejected as a whole. And on either version of the text, his conclusion stands. Philosophically, a thirteenth Kali would turn the twelve into "non-modes of consciousness"; a thirteenth may be justified for the empirical subject but not metaphysically. This sharp difference produced two schools within Krama and two historical lines of growth.
- The regions in the earth principle. In the path of space, the Nandisikha and Trisirobhairava did not agree with the Siddhatantra, and there was dispute over whether the region of Ananta lay within or above the waters. Jayaratha concludes that "inside" must be read as "outside", and that the real point is sequence, not location. Read this way, the conflict disappears, and it agrees with the Tantraraja Bhattaraka too. He does not deny the different positions; he shows their structural compatibility. (The discussion runs to about eight pages of the Viveka.)
- The thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth principles. In the path of kala, Abhinava does not stop at Siva as the thirty-sixth principle but speaks of a thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth, ruling out infinite regress. Critics attacked this for lack of reason, lack of scriptural evidence, doubtful support and deviation from the accepted position. Jayaratha is harsh on critics who avoided "sitting at the feet of a teacher". The problem is real: if the ultimate is transcendent, how is it immanent; if it is the knower, how can it be known? Jayaratha says the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth stages resolve both anomalies, and that Abhinava's approach is to expound the Agamic view even over the generally accepted one.
(iv) Furnishing chronological continuity. Jayaratha considered his chronological accounts of teaching lineages his main contribution. In his Vamakesvarimatavivarana he says that those who interpreted the Tantraloka without a teacher and an unbroken tradition made themselves ridiculous. For many figures our knowledge depends on him, sometimes entirely: Niskriyanandanatha, Vidyananda, Saktyananda, Sivananda and his three women disciples, Govindaraja, Bhanuka, Eraka, Ujjata, Udbhata, the Stotrakara Siddhanatha, Bhaskara, Bhutiraja I, Kuladhara, Bhojaraja, Somaraja, Sivananda II, his own family and teaching lines, the line of Traiyambaka, and Sumatinatha, Somadeva and Sambhunatha.
4. Handling of the Source Material
Four progressive phases. Rastogi sees a progression in Jayaratha's work:
| Phase | Material | What Jayaratha does |
|---|---|---|
| I | Material used by Abhinava | Identification, structural information, citation, restoration where possible, critical determination, interpretation |
| II | Material produced after Abhinava | Allusion, scrutiny, restoration, settling the text, finding inter-relationships |
| III | Gaps that cause deviations or controversies | Enumeration and reconciliation |
| IV | Additional information | Substantiation, textual determination, rationalisation, drawing out implications, restoration, cultural information |
(i) Material used by Abhinava.
- Identification. When Abhinava's reference is vague, Jayaratha names the source. The word adi in 1.46 means a dualist Agama called the Cillacakresvarimata, from which he quotes. The Ratnamala is the Kularatnamala, and the reference is to its content, not its wording. Pracaksate ("they say") refers to the Paratrimsika, at a precise spot. Agame in 4.148 is the Pancasatika. Abhinava's reference to the Matangasastra is to its commentary, not the Agama itself.
- Hidden sources. Abhinava sets out the order of the five sheaths according to the Sarvajnanottara, Svayambhuva, Kirana and Matangaparamesvara, but never names the Svayambhuva; Jayaratha detects it by analysing the content. He completes incomplete quotations. For the Malini nyasa, where Abhinava gives no source, Jayaratha supplies quotations from the Siddhatantra and Trisirobhairava and notes their similarity to the Matabhattaraka.
- Structural information. The Kiranagama was a dialogue between Garuda (asking) and the Lord (answering), from which Abhinava summarised a passage on the relation of means and goal between power and powerful. The Trisirobhairava was a dialogue between the Goddess (asking) and Siva (answering), divided into patalas. The Urmimahasastra-siddhasantanarupaka was the Kula text Urmikaula-siddhasantanarupaka, a dialogue of Devi and Siva, with a chapter called Padovalli on the teaching lineage.
- Preservation. Jayaratha preserves pre-Abhinavan sources almost whole. The classic case is the Kramastotra of Siddhanatha, quoted in near-complete form in his commentary on Ahnika 4. The Pancasatika is another.
- Critical editing of sources. His greatest task was to settle readings, both of the sources and of the Tantraloka. With the sources, he corrects scribal errors and misinformation, chooses between equal readings, reconciles differing scriptures, criticises his own schoolmen, and arranges texts in natural order. Examples: in the Svayambhuva he prefers a reading of kala found in older manuscripts, without which Abhinava's text would contradict the Kirana; in the Siddhayogisvarimata on seat-worship (asanarcana) he keeps dvitiyam against "trtiyam caturthim" adopted by misguided scholars, and shows that sardhaksaram qualifies dvayim; he notes that Abhinava reads purnam and krsam where the Vijnanabhairava has pinam and durbalam; he corrects una to unam in a quotation (probably from the Siddhatantra) and defends the change; and in the Mrtyunjaya Tantra on independent nyasa he adopts ekaikam dvayangulam and ridicules the reading ekaikadyangulam, which mixes up the preceding and following words, nullifies the original, introduces imagination, lacks the word "again" and violates the teachers' explanations.
- Interpretation. He gives the most relevant interpretation and does not parade others. He traces Abhinava's sources, for example the dependence on the Svacchanda Tantra in the division of day and night after the movement of breath. Abhinava quotes two verses of the Paratrisika (the Trikasasana) on the true teacher, skipping those between; Jayaratha says the omission is purposeful. He interprets antah as "just above" in a passage based on the Devyayamala, after comparing many Agamas, and explains that Abhinava's general survey sometimes produces such expressions.
(ii) Pre-Abhinavan material Abhinava did not use. Jayaratha often draws on sections Abhinava left untouched, and on unknown sources, of great value for Tantric history.
- The Srikanthi is especially significant for the ten Siva Tantras, eighteen Rudra Tantras and sixty-four Bhairava Tantras (in eight groups of eight), belonging to dualist, dualist-monist and monist schools; Jayaratha gives long quotations listing them all. Its first known mention is in Ksemaraja's Uddyota on the Svacchanda. (Dwivedi gives a comparative chart of the sixty-four Tantras from several sources; Rastogi's Appendix 13(B) lists them.)
- First mentions in Jayaratha include the Kramasadbhava (an Agama of the Nigama class, with dispute over whether it taught worship of sixteen or seventeen deities), the Sardhasatika (quoted four times; it follows the Pancasatika closely and differs from the Kramasadbhava on order), the Anandesvara Tantra (twelve thousand verses, possibly of the Left Path per Dwivedi, prescribing libations offered with thumb and middle finger), the Bhutaksobha and Pancamrta, the Anantavijaya (a Siddhanta Tantra Jayaratha considers very different, used because sister Tantras are silent), the Kulakramodaya (on nyasa in the body as a sacred seat) and the Kulakridavatara (essential for esoteric matters such as ovalli, mudra, chumma, palli, pitha and ghara of the six "teacher-princes", which vary by lineage).
(iii) Works of known authors. Abhinava has the place of honour: the Isvarapratyabhijnavimarsini, Tantrasara, Tantraloka, Anuttarastika and Paramarthasara. Above all, Jayaratha cites the Kramakeli, Abhinava's lost commentary on the Kramastotra, including a long quotation of twenty-four sentences without which the early history of Krama could not be written. He also mentions the obscure Anupratyabhijna.
(iv) Post-Abhinavan material. Jayaratha's references to Somaraja, Bhojaraja and his suspected Kramakamala are vital for Krama history. Prasastibhutipada and Tapasviraja appear for the first time in the Viveka. His unnamed citations traceable to the Mahanayaprakasa (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series), which Rastogi assigns to Sivananda II, give "unimpeachable evidence of direct North-South dialogue" after Madhuraja Yogin, Abhinava's junior contemporary and author of the Gurunathaparamarsa.
5. Jayaratha Against Ksemaraja
This is "by far the most remarkable event" of the post-Abhinavan phase. Apart from neutral references to the Pratyabhijnahrdaya, Jayaratha mounts what is virtually an attack on Ksemaraja's handling of Agamic sources.
The Svacchanda Tantra is the second most important source of the Tantraloka after the Malinivijayottara. Jayaratha quotes it more than 300 times, and repeatedly finds the readings and arrangement in Ksemaraja's commentary, the Uddyota (printed in KSTS, 1921 to 1935), misleading. This shows that the Agamic text was still fluid and that both Ksemaraja and Jayaratha were attempting critical editions of it. Examples:
- The sizes and numbers of the regions (Ahnika 8). Tantraloka 8.132 to 138 covers Svacchanda 10.431 to 464. Jayaratha reproduces the verses and warns the student "not to be duped" by Ksemaraja's readings, preferring visavarte and pancasat to samvarta and satad. He upholds Abhinava's mention of Rupavrata, absent from Ksemaraja's text, suggesting Ksemaraja missed the second half of a verse.
- Omitted verses. On 8.73, Jayaratha quotes two verses corresponding to Svacchanda 10.227 and 10.229, apparently omitting 10.228, which Ksemaraja has.
- Thirteen regions in water. Ksemaraja's reading has a different implication that Jayaratha rejects.
- The nine powers of impure knowledge. In Abhinava's arrangement of principles, everything other than Siva is binding, so the nine powers from Varna to Manonmani in the region of asuddha-vidya are binding. Jayaratha attacks Ksemaraja for preferring male deities to female ones, calling clumsy those who talk of nine female powers instead of nine male deities simply because of a reading.
- The Sakti principle, obscured by pramana and inhabited by the Rudras Tejasvin and Dhruvesa: Jayaratha disagrees with Ksemaraja's reading, which puts the obscuring above Sakti rather than at its level.
- The Sadakhya region. Abhinava makes it the abode of Sadasiva, covered by Siva alone; Ksemaraja puts it above Isvara and below Sadasiva. Jayaratha accuses him of tampering with the Svacchanda by an "imaginary interpolation" of a half-verse. Even if the half-verse were genuine, it would support Abhinava, since an abode and its resident share the same level.
- Purifying karma. For the apprentice called Sivadharmi, Jayaratha holds, on the Svacchanda's authority, that once a deed has begun to bear fruit it cannot be reversed. Ksemaraja speaks of purifying even such deeds and is taken to task for tampering with the text, contradicting earlier statements and breaking scriptural rules.
- Sivahasta. Ksemaraja interprets isvare (where the Samayin attains union) as Kalagnirudra below the earth principle; Jayaratha says this lacks scriptural basis.
Rastogi asks whether Ksemaraja and Jayaratha belonged to different lineages, or whether Jayaratha nursed a grievance in order to take the place of honour among post-Abhinavan scholars. He thinks it premature to decide, but notes what "surprises the modern reader most": Jayaratha goes to the extreme of charging Ksemaraja with deliberate distortion.
6. Restoring Tradition: the Relations Among Agamas
Jayaratha also examines how the Agamas relate to one another, substantiates arguments, explores background, draws out implications and makes suggestions:
- On dissolution (Ahnika 6), he supports Abhinava's view that samana is the pralaya stage, identical with Sadasiva, where the universe remains in residual form, against a subgroup who equated pralaya with the Siva stage. Even if samana is eternal, monism is not diluted.
- On 8.290 he explains that the five gross elements follow the threefold ego in the Svacchanda but appear in Abhinava among the sixteen modifications that lead to bondage.
- On caste: "Any tantric system worth the name must discard the caste system", so references to caste must be read as applying to the uninitiated or to lower grades of believers.
- Cultural information: dinars were in use as currency in his time. He distinguishes kinds of wine: madya from grapes, sidhu from sugar cane, sura from vibhitaka (Terminalia bellirica), and others such as varuni, madira, kadambari, ghanasura and jagala.
7. A Guide to the Tantraloka: Sevenfold Assistance
Jayaratha's help to the reader takes seven forms:
- Chapter titles. He gives descriptive titles to all the Ahnikas, usually drawing on clues in Abhinava's text.
- Demarcation of the passages dealing with principal and ancillary topics (purvaja and anuja uddesa).
- Background views. Although Abhinava is silent, Jayaratha says that Ahnika 9 aims to criticise the theory of principles in the Bhogakarika and other dualist works, and follows this with criticism of Sankaranandana, Sadyojyoti, Devabala and the Vaisesikas; and that Ahnika 10 aims to expose flaws in Nyaya and Bhatta Mimamsa.
- Filling omissions. Abhinava lists twenty-three occasional rites in Ahnika 28; Jayaratha says Sivaratri is included in the group beginning with vipatpratikara (28.7) and omitted only because all scriptures treat it. In the duti-yaga, Abhinava gives six kinds of duti (born, begetting and co-born, each physical or cognitive) on the authority of the Sarvacara Tantra; Jayaratha adds sub-varieties such as Vegavati, Samhari, Trailokyaksobhini, but avoids listing them all.
- Abhinava's preferences. Rudrakali, the seventh stage of the cycle of consciousness in the Anakhya-cakra, is called Bhadrakali in the Pancasatika and elsewhere; Abhinava prefers "Rudrakali", as we learn only from Jayaratha.
- Esoteric meanings. The passage on mantravirya (4.186 to 191) seems to have no esoteric content, but Jayaratha finds that the first three verses concern the parabija (supreme seed) and the next three the five Pindanathas. The sixfold movement of breath must be understood through mantra-vyapti. The karanas, which Abhinava says are spread from Ahnika 11 to 32, are located only by Jayaratha: the karana of intellect at 11.21, of pervasion at 15.339, of knower-known union at 16.253, of imposition and rejection at 29.147 and 29.182, and of absorption from 32.10 in the discussion of postures. He knows his limits: on filling the arghapatra (offering vessel) he tells the reader to learn it from a teacher's mouth, lest he break his school's code. Where a word like diptaih (of the mantra) has two meanings, he gives both; on esoteric issues like the ekavira-vidhana where the Sripurvasastra is not at hand, he states the view he accepts.
- Bringing out the argument, in substance and form, sometimes reconstructing the syllogism latent in Abhinava's discussion.
8. Two Editorial Tasks on the Tantraloka Itself
His "greatest contribution" is as editor of the Tantraloka. This has two phases:
Establishing the text.
- He prefers vyomadisabda to the equally good vyomadisatka.
- He keeps a reading supported by all manuscripts but suggests a better one.
- In 3.220 his copy probably read matra-(kundalinibijam), which he corrects to satra-, since the former is non-Agamic, incoherent and badly worded.
- He cites the relevant scripture (here the Sivatanusastra) to support his suggestions.
- The reading he adopts at 13.355 is not a whim: he saw it in old manuscripts "not once or twice, but a hundred times over".
- At 15.28, corresponding to Svacchanda 4.142, he ignores Ksemaraja's version and keeps the original reading, supported by a statement of Abhinava's in a work on the Mrgendra.
- At 15.80 he finds yad vague and proposes iha.
Arranging the text.
- The verse beginning jnanahino (now 23.25) had been wrongly placed by scribes after annadidana (23.23), and he restores it.
- Verses that appear twice (37.4 to 5 and 37.11 to 13) are kept twice, but he advises their correct placement and reverses the order.
- He suggests that the first half of 31.42 should come before 31.39.
He is rarely guilty of forced interpretation, but Rastogi finds one case: on anta in a compound at 22.12, where the words "adi" and "anta" limit the options, Jayaratha looks for an implied meaning convenient to him. Such cases are "few and far between".
Insight: The Viveka as a Library
Rastogi's analysis shows that the Viveka is not just a commentary but a library of the lost Saiva and Sakta literature. Through Jayaratha we have the Kramastotra almost whole, extracts from the Kramakeli, the lists of the Srikanthi, and fragments of dozens of Agamas otherwise lost. He tells us how these texts were arranged (as dialogues, in patalas, with chapters on lineage), which readings were found in older manuscripts, and where Abhinava silently departed from them. Anyone working on the history of Tantra in Kashmir depends on him. The quarrel with Ksemaraja, which could look like a scholastic feud, is also evidence of something important: the Agamas themselves, including the Svacchanda, were still being edited in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the two great post-Abhinavan scholars had different versions in front of them.
A note for readers: judging the Ksemaraja dispute
Rastogi reports Jayaratha's charges faithfully but does not try to adjudicate them, since tracing every reading in the printed Svacchanda was "beyond our scope". Readers should keep three points in mind:
- The printed Svacchanda with the Uddyota is Ksemaraja's recension. Comparing Jayaratha's quotations against it shows difference, not necessarily distortion; both men may have worked from different manuscript families.
- Jayaratha's language ("deliberate distortion", "imaginary interpolation") is polemical. Later scholars have often been more sympathetic to Ksemaraja as an editor.
- On several issues (male or female powers, the location of Sadakhya, whether karma already bearing fruit can be purified) the disagreement is as much doctrinal as textual.
Key Terms
- Viveka / Prakasa / Vivarana: alternative names of Jayaratha's commentary.
- Samvit-krama / Puja-krama: the sequence of consciousness versus the sequence of worship.
- Anakhya-cakra: the "nameless wheel", the cycle of twelve Kalis in Krama.
- Uddyota: Ksemaraja's commentary on the Svacchanda and Netra Tantras.
- Srikanthi: a lost text classifying the Saiva Tantras.
- Patala: chapter of an Agama.
- Ovalli, chumma, palli, pitha, ghara: esoteric items of Kaula lineages (lines of teaching, code words, settlements, seats, houses).
- Pindanatha: a "lord of the cluster", a compound seed-mantra.
- Karana: an "intelligent practice" of bodily or mental discipline.
Reflection
- Jayaratha wanted to enlighten "just one" reader. How might that aim shape a commentary differently from Abhinava's universal aim?
- Why does Jayaratha insist that a text must be accepted or rejected as a whole?
- When two great interpreters disagree on the reading of a scripture, what tools can a modern reader use to decide?
Jayaratha's Methodology (pp. 146 to 153)
Jayaratha's method rests on three-fold conformity (to Abhinava, to his teacher, to scripture), on thoroughness and authenticity, and on a refusal to write a word-by-word commentary, which he justifies by eight norms. He is faithful but not blind. On rare occasions he questions Abhinava's readings, and in one important case he departs from the original line: on the place of yoga in the Krama system.
1. Guiding Principles
(i) Conformity. An item must agree first with Abhinava, second with the teacher's position, and third with scripture. All three together, not separately, define fidelity to tradition. On karana (5.130) he holds back from giving everything at once, following Abhinava's example. In choosing among options, the teacher's injunction prevails. He never proposes anything from imagination unless the Agamas enjoin it, and rejects the Uddyota's interpretation partly for lack of scriptural support.
(ii) Thoroughness and authenticity, and (iii) no word-by-word commentary. These twin criteria do not prevent a concise, systematic style. He sets eight norms that lead him to avoid word-by-word explanation:
- obvious clarity;
- later treatment;
- over-detailed discussion;
- fear of repetition (of esoteric matter, which could cause "leakage", or of general matter, which would waste effort);
- relevance or utility;
- propriety;
- disdain for far-fetched imagination;
- avoidance of any breach of tradition.
What frightens him most is undue extension and irrelevance. So he does not gather every interpretation, does not list all aspects of each movement of breath (cara) or all the days associated with the residents of the five sheaths, and picks only relevant parts of a source rather than reproducing it whole.
(iv) Fear of extension and deviation. Relevance is bound to propriety: relevance without propriety is unconvincing. He does not answer every anomaly he sees in a tradition. It is not a defect if he does not explain every word. But he explains thoroughly where needed, even supplying a missing word for consistency. His usual order is to explain the words and then give the gist of the verse in his own words; where there is doubt he offers alternatives and reconciles differing views. Whatever he leaves out, scholars should treat as unnecessary.
2. Differences From Abhinava, and One Deviation
Jayaratha is faithful, "but he is not a blind follower at all". He questions Abhinava's use of padmagam, questions another reading and suggests a better one, and in the treatment of the sacred seats (pithas, 15.83 to 97, based on the Nisisancara Agama) finds that the first half of 15.86 contradicts the conclusion in the second half of 15.88 and lacks Agamic support, so he tells the reader to ignore it. The new material he introduces is always collateral or complementary.
There is one case where he departs from the original line. Among the nine main topics of the Krama system Abhinava lists the irrelevance of the limbs of yoga (yoganganupayogitva) (Tantraloka 4.86). Abhinava means the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali, and never alludes to the six-limbed yoga. Jayaratha, however, takes the six-limbed (sadanga) yoga as belonging to the Krama system itself ("described in our own system") and the eight-limbed yoga as what Abhinava rejects. (The surviving text of this book breaks off here, in mid-argument, before Chapter 4; Rastogi himself calls his interpretation "tentative". Tantraloka 14.87 to 94 is cited for the eight-limbed yoga.)
Insight: The Ethics of Restraint
Jayaratha's eight norms show that a good commentator's silences are as deliberate as his words. He does not explain the obvious, does not anticipate later discussions, does not leak esoteric matter by repetition, and does not invent. This restraint is what makes his commentary trustworthy. Modern readers often wish he had explained more; Rastogi's point is that we should read his omissions as judgements, not gaps.
A note for readers: the yoga question
The dispute over yoganganupayogitva matters for understanding Krama. Abhinava's view (that the limbs of yoga are not means to realisation in Krama, which works through the refinement of awareness) fits his general preference for knowledge over technique. Jayaratha's reading makes room for the six-limbed yoga known from other Tantric and Buddhist traditions. Rastogi's account is cut short in the available text, and he marks his own interpretation as tentative. Readers should consult the Tantraloka (4.86 and 14.87 to 94) and the treatment of the same topic in "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir".
Key Terms
- Yoganganupayogitva: "the non-utility of the limbs of yoga", one of the nine Krama topics.
- Astanga / Sadanga yoga: eight-limbed (Patanjala) and six-limbed (Tantric) yoga.
- Cara: movement or flow of breath.
- Pitha: sacred seat.
Reflection
- Which of Jayaratha's eight norms would most improve a modern commentary or study guide?
- Is it possible to be faithful to a teacher and still correct him? Where is the line?
About the Text, the KSTS Edition (pp. 155 to 167)
This chapter moves from the authors to the book itself. Rastogi begins with an unglamorous but necessary audit of the only complete printed text, the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies (KSTS) edition, reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass (MLBD). His conclusion is direct: the edition is "largely readable and complete", the result of sustained labour by its editor and his team of pandits, but it "requires a thorough critical editing". Its greatest single handicap is "the absence of critical textual editing and uniform editorial practice". Anyone who cites the Tantraloka by verse number needs to know the problems described here.
1. The Size of the Text
- The Tantraloka with Jayaratha's commentary fills twelve volumes of the KSTS, spread over 3,718 pages. (The printed page numbers reach 3,721, but three pages are blank: p. 308 of volume 3, p. 92 of volume 7, and p. 128 of volume 10. The new MLBD edition has 3,725 pages over six volumes, with seven blank pages, so the true total again comes to 3,718.)
- The text has roughly 6,000 verses, 5,844 and a half to be exact.
- The printed verse numbers add up to only 5,842, because of printing mistakes and editorial lapses: numbers repeated or skipped, and half-verses counted as full ones.
- Verses 37.4 to 5 reappear as 37.10½ to 12½. This repetition does not reduce the count, since it goes back to Jayaratha's own manuscript (see Chapter 3).
Rastogi sets out a large chart, Ahnika by Ahnika and volume by volume, listing misprints, missing numbers, unnumbered half-verses, repeated verses, the printed number of verses, the actual number, and the pages each Ahnika occupies. It is the basis for every count in this chapter.
2. Two Kinds of Textual Disorder
Rastogi separates two types of "textual anarchism":
- Problems that Jayaratha himself faced, which raise serious questions of textual reconstruction. These were covered in the study of the commentator (Chapter 3).
- Editing and printing errors in the modern edition. These are less serious but often misleading, and they are the subject here.
3. The Manuscripts Behind the Edition
The KSTS edition has no editorial preface, so we hardly know what manuscripts it rests on. From occasional footnotes, the editor Mukund Ram Shastri seems to have consulted four manuscripts: three marked with the Nagari letters Ka, Kha and Ga, and one unmarked base manuscript. (It is equally possible that there were only three, from which a model copy was prepared.) The Ga manuscript seems the most complete, since several missing portions were filled from it alone.
Rastogi gives the editor his due:
- He determined acceptable readings, recorded variants and corrected patently corrupt readings, though not often.
- Footnotes are thickest in Ahnikas 1 to 13, which suggests those parts were most corrupt. Ahnika 1 was the worst, and errors decline after it. From Ahnika 14 on, footnotes almost vanish.
- He occasionally adds interpretive notes, for example on Jagadananda.
- He tried, though not consistently, to trace citations to printed editions, for example matching Jayaratha's Svacchanda quotations to the printed Svacchanda and noting variants.
- Six volumes (3 to 8) have verse indexes; volumes 3 and 6 have citation indexes.
Some gaps remain unfilled: at TA 15.378, in the Srikanthi quotation on TA 1.18, and in the commentary on 4.100, 10.83 to 85 and 29.52 to 54.
4. Printing Mistakes
Rastogi lists two sets of misprints.
- The first set are serious enough to give a wrong idea of the subject matter (in TA 1.9, 1.291, 1.298, 1.301, 1.302, 1.312, 1.316, 1.324, 37.75 and the commentary). Many of them fall in Abhinava's list of topics at the end of Ahnika 1, where a wrong letter changes the name of a later chapter's theme. Some even create historical anomalies.
- The second set are obvious and do no harm to the sense.
A harder case is where all the manuscripts agree on a bad reading and both text and commentary keep it. TA 1.264 reads laksyam ("the defined"), and Jayaratha keeps it, but a coherent meaning needs laksanam ("definition"). Sometimes the editor prints one reading of a verse in the Tantraloka (10.287) and a different one when the commentary cites the same verse (Vol. I, p. 236). The two parts of the edition "were never coordinated".
5. Numbering Errors
This is the most confusing area.
- Simple misprints. The commentary on TA 8.285 is labelled 8.281. The commentary on 1.58 is printed, but no verse is numbered 1.58.
- Unnumbered verses. Many half-verses have no number, such as the half-verse between 37.32 and 37.33.
- The linking device (samcaya-nyaya). As Chapter 2 explained, Abhinava ends each Ahnika with the first half of a verse and begins the next with its second half. An editor could number such verses consistently either as endings or as beginnings, but the KSTS does neither:
- In Ahnika 17 the last verse is numbered as the conclusion and the other half is left unnumbered.
- In Ahnika 16 the concluding half is unnumbered and the next opening verse gets the number.
- In Ahnikas 7 to 8, 12 to 13, 19 to 20, 21 to 22, 25 to 26 and 30 to 31, both halves are numbered as two full verses.
- In Ahnikas 28 to 29, 29 to 30, 32 to 33 and 33 to 34, neither half has a number.
- At 16 to 17, the concluding verse is 16.311, while the opening half of Ahnika 17 is merged with the first half of the next verse and numbered 17.1. The same happens at 13 to 14.
- Elsewhere the last half is fused with the verse before it. TA 8.452 should have been a half-verse, numbered 8.453 or 9.1, but was merged into 8.452.
- At 34 to 35, neither the concluding nor the opening verse is numbered.
- Internal references. The Viveka's own references are often wrong. A verse cited as 9.244 is in fact 9.246, and the commentary gives 8.255 for 8.260, 8.248 to 258 for 8.253 to 260, and 13.252 for 13.256. Some references in Vol. III, p. 443 cannot be found at all. A quotation the editor shows as TA 25.172 is identified by Jayaratha as 29.182.
- Misleading titles. The colophon of Ahnika 17 reads Viksipta-diksa ("scattered initiation"), and the chapter has been called Viksiptadiksaprakasana ever since. Its contents and Jayaratha's comment show that the reading should almost certainly be Vistrta-diksa ("extended initiation"), the counterpart of the "condensed initiation" (Samksipta-diksa) of Ahnika 18. Rastogi calls the inherited title "funny".
- Pagination. Most volumes have continuous pagination, but volumes 5 and 11 restart page numbers with each Ahnika, and volume 12 continues from volume 11. (The new edition removes this problem with running pagination.)
Insight: Why Numbers Matter
For a text this large, verse numbers are the address system that lets scholars find a passage, check a citation, or compare translations. When the same verse can be numbered three different ways, or a half-verse can disappear, every reference becomes a small puzzle. Rastogi's audit is a practical tool. It explains why references in secondary literature sometimes seem to point to the wrong verse, and it makes the case for a critical edition. Rastogi does not claim to provide that edition himself; he maps the problems so that future editors know where to begin.
A note for readers: using printed editions today
- The KSTS edition (1918 to 1938) remains the standard reference. Most scholarly citations use its volume and page numbers for the Viveka, and its verse numbers for the Tantraloka.
- The MLBD reprint described here, edited with an introduction by Rastogi and R. C. Dwivedi in 1987, keeps the KSTS text but repaginates it into eight volumes.
- Since this book appeared, scholars have published critical editions and translations of individual chapters. Where a modern critical edition of a chapter exists, it should be preferred, but its numbering may differ from the KSTS. Always note which edition a verse number refers to.
Key Terms
- KSTS: Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, the Srinagar series that first printed the Tantraloka.
- Ka, Kha, Ga: sigla (identifying letters) of the manuscripts used by the editor.
- Samcaya-nyaya: the device of splitting a verse across the end of one chapter and the start of the next.
- Colophon: the closing line of a chapter, naming the work and section.
Reflection
- If the oldest printed text contains thousands of small errors, how far can a modern reader trust a translation based on it?
- What would a "uniform editorial policy" for the Tantraloka's linking verses look like?
Metres, Chapters and the Architecture of Topics (pp. 167 to 196)
The Tantraloka is a work of philosophy in verse, and its structure is deliberate. Abhinava names every chapter, lists all the general and ancillary topics in advance, and follows the classical form of a treatise (statement of topic, definition, examination). Jayaratha adds a second level of mapping: he marks where each ancillary topic begins, groups chapters into larger units, and finds hidden themes linking them. Rastogi brings these together in a chart of every primary and secondary topic and then studies where Abhinava departed from his own plan. He ends by asking why the book is not arranged by the classic Tantric quartet of knowledge, yoga, ritual and conduct.
1. Metres
Abhinava is a scholar first and a poet second, but he handles many metres with ease. Rastogi lists his favourites, with sample verses:
- Anustubh: the standard metre of most of the book (1.2, 1.3, 1.17, 1.32 and so on).
- Arya (1.20, 1.21, 26.63) and Vasantatilaka (1.8, 1.16, and several verses at the end of Ahnika 37): his clear favourites after the Anustubh.
- Others:
- Nardataka (the opening verse 1.1)
- Upendravajra (1.5)
- Rathoddhata (1.201)
- Sragdhara (1.330, 21.25)
- Mandakranta (1.331, 2.39)
- Sardulavikridita (1.332, 26.65)
- Indravajra (6.1)
- Sikharini (2.49, 3.23)
- Drutavilambita (2.50)
- Vamsastha (3.39)
- Prthvi (12.26)
- Malini (28.367)
The longer metres tend to come at the opening and close of chapters and at moments of praise or summary, especially in Ahnika 1.
2. The Thirty-Seven Ahnikas
The Tantraloka has 37 Ahnikas. The word literally means "daily lesson", and Abhinava once seems to use it that way. Normally, though, it just means "chapter", as the huge variation in size shows:
- The largest is Ahnika 15, with 612 verses.
- The smallest is Ahnika 34, with 4 verses.
Rastogi groups the chapters by size:
| Verses | Ahnikas |
|---|---|
| 451 and above | 8, 9, 15 |
| 301 to 450 | 1, 10, 13, 16, 28 |
| 101 to 300 | 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 17, 23, 29, 30, 31 |
| 51 to 100 | 7, 19, 21, 26, 27, 32, 37 |
| 1 to 50 | 2, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 33, 34, 35, 36 |
No clear rule explains the range; the nature of the subject seems to decide. There is a loose pattern, though. The first half of the book has most of the long chapters and is mainly theoretical. The second half has most of the short chapters and is mainly procedural (ritual).
3. Three Devices for Naming Chapters
Abhinava names every Ahnika in three ways:
- In the index at the end of Ahnika 1, where he lists the general topics (1.278 to 286) and the specific ancillary topics (1.287 to 328).
- In the opening and closing verses of each chapter, which name the chapter's theme and usually match each other. The one exception is Ahnika 6, which opens with sthana-prakalpana ("assigning of places", an outer means under the Anava path) and closes with the principle of time (kala-tattva). Since sthana-prakalpana is the broader theme and includes time, Rastogi does not count this as a serious lapse.
- In cross-references to other chapters by name. Ahnika 13 mentions the Lingoddhara-diksa of Ahnika 22 and the diksa-prastava of Ahnika 14. Ahnika 9 looks ahead to the Sadyonirvana-diksa of Ahnika 19. Ahnika 1 refers to Ahnika 13 by name.
Jayaratha gives every chapter a title in his colophons, except Ahnikas 34 and 37. His titles always end in "-prakasana" ("illumination of"), which suggests he preferred "Prakasa" as the name of his commentary. His titles normally echo Abhinava's, with a few exceptions:
- Ahnika 16. Abhinava's subject is the Putraka-diksa (initiation of the "son"); Jayaratha calls it Prameya-prakasana ("illumination of the subject matter"), which in a sense makes no difference.
- Ahnika 17. Abhinava's subject is initiation with birth and the rest (janana-adi-samanvita-diksa); Jayaratha calls it Vistrta-diksa-prakasana ("extended initiation", misprinted as "Viksipta"), in contrast to the condensed initiation of Ahnika 18.
- Ahnikas 19 to 25. Jayaratha's titles are sometimes less informative. Abhinava describes Ahnika 19 as the initiation giving instant departure (sadyah-samutkranti-prada diksa); Jayaratha calls it simply Sadya-utkranti-prakasana ("illumination of sudden death"). From here to Ahnika 25 he drops "diksa" or "vidhi", perhaps for brevity.
4. Two Groupings by Abhinava
By content type. Abhinava divides the 37 chapters into two sets:
- Ahnikas 2 to 32 discuss both general and ancillary topics.
- Ahnikas 33 to 37 have no ancillary topics, which is one reason they are short.
By the parts of a treatise. A true sastra must have three parts:
- Uddesa: naming the topic, usually as a question and answer between teacher and pupil, which gives a Tantric text its familiar dialogue form;
- Laksana: definition, showing what is distinctive about the thing;
- Pariksa: examination, the overall view that emerges after scrutiny of all opposing positions.
On this basis Ahnika 1 is the uddesa of the whole book, and Ahnikas 2 to 37 give laksana and pariksa. Within the uddesa, Abhinava separates general topics (1.278 to 284) from ancillary ones (1.286 to 326), and coins special names for them: purvaja ("elder-born") for the general and anuja ("younger-born") for the special.
5. The Chart of Primary and Secondary Topics
Jayaratha takes on the job of showing where each ancillary topic begins and ends. Where he gives no direct indication, Rastogi proposes the starting point himself, marking it in his chart. The resulting multi-page table runs through all 37 Ahnikas, listing for each:
- Abhinava's title;
- Jayaratha's title;
- the general topic;
- each numbered ancillary topic with the verse where it begins.
The footnotes to the chart are a commentary in their own right. Rastogi corrects misprints in Abhinava's index, notes where the order in the index is reversed in the body of the text, flags topics "left undiscussed", and disagrees with earlier translators. For example, he argues that a phrase in 1.298 to 299 means "superiority to Sankhya", not "superiority of Sankhya" as Ira Bajpai took it. He notes that the order of 1.280 to 281 seems confused when compared with 1.310 and the content of Ahnika 17. From Ahnika 33 onward the distinction between primary and secondary topics disappears.
6. Where Abhinava Departed From His Plan
Comparing Abhinava's index with what he actually wrote, Rastogi finds a series of adjustments, most of them clarified by Jayaratha:
- Ahnika 5 (Anava-upaya). Abhinava lists seven ancillary topics. Jayaratha groups them under four prameyas: uccara (breath-utterance), dhyana (meditation), karana (bodily or mental practice) and varna (phonemes). The fifth, sthana-prakalpana, is taken up in Ahnika 6.
- Ahnika 7. "Mantra-vidya-bheda" is treated as one topic, but must be understood as two: the division of mantra-circles and of vidya-circles.
- Ahnika 8. The order of the second and third ancillary topics is reversed in the treatment. Tattva-yojana (connecting the principles) begins at 8.204 and pura-samgraha (summary of the worlds) at 8.406, probably because Abhinava wanted to treat the first and third in detail and the second briefly.
- Ahnika 10. The declared subject is the subdivisions of the principles (tattva-bheda-vidhi), but from 10.151 Abhinava also discusses the subdivisions of the worlds (bhuvana-bheda-vidhi) without announcing it. The fourth ancillary topic, the variety of knowing subjects (pramatr-bheda), is listed but never treated separately; Jayaratha defends this as deliberate, since the variety of subjects is already present in every preceding sub-topic.
- The two paths. The six paths fall into two groups. The first is the path of the object: worlds, principles and kalas. The second is the path of the word: phonemes, words and mantras. Abhinava gives five full chapters and part of a sixth to the first, but only part of Ahnika 11 to the second (plus scattered remarks in Ahnikas 6 and 7). All three paths of the word are treated under one ancillary topic, varna-bheda-krama, from 11.43. (The scanned text of the book confuses the Sanskrit labels at this point, but the sense is clear: worlds, principles and kalas are treated at length, phonemes, words and mantras briefly.)
- Ahnika 15. Jayaratha introduces the 28th ancillary topic as samaya-karma (rules of the initiate), while Abhinava has samaya-karma "relating to sleep". More important, Ahnikas 15 to 27 form a cluster on daily rites (nitya-karma) and Ahnika 28 deals with occasional rites (naimittika-karma). Yet Jayaratha's colophon to Ahnika 15 mentions naimittika too, and Rastogi calls this a fit case for future investigation.
- Ahnika 16. The tenth ancillary topic, mantra-satta-prayojana, looks like one item ("the purpose of the mantra's existence"), but in practice it covers two ("the existence and the purpose of mantra"). Two simple topics would have been better.
- Ahnika 20. The index lists antah-samskara (inner purification) second and tula-diksa (initiation by the balance) third. The treatment reverses them, and the chapter is named after the balance.
- Ahnika 21. Abhinava lists four ancillary topics, but Jayaratha drops the third (samskriya-gana) and goes straight from the second to the fourth, balabala-vicara (weighing strength and weakness).
- Ahnika 28. Jayaratha adds two topics not in Abhinava's list: the pavitraka rite (the sacred thread offering) after the worship of the circle, and the discussion of pilgrimage places (tirthayatana) after the examination of death. Pilgrimage should logically follow the pavitraka rite, but since its use is linked with death, he places it after mrti. On this view they would begin at 28.112 and 28.247.
- Ahnika 30. It is devoted to mantras, with two ancillary topics (the nature and the power of mantra). Abhinava says at the end that he has also dealt with vidya (the Brahmavidya), but gives it no separate heading. If it is a topic, it begins at 30.62.
7. Jayaratha's Three Broad Divisions
From a remark on TA 6.1, Rastogi infers that Jayaratha saw the Tantraloka in three broad divisions:
- General issues: Ahnikas 1, 13 and 14 (varieties of knowledge, descent of grace, start of initiation).
- The means (upayas): Ahnikas 2 to 5.
- Sthana-prakalpana (assigning places), a sub-concept of the Anava means: Ahnikas 6 to 12 and 15 to 37, by far the largest group. Ahnikas 6 to 12 address it directly. The whole doctrine of the six paths is an offshoot of sthana-prakalpana, which is in turn a corollary of the Anava means.
What is a "place"? Sthana has three kinds:
- prana, the breath, in five forms: prana, apana, samana, udana, vyana;
- deha, the body, internal and external;
- bahya, the exterior, with eleven main forms:
- mandala (diagram)
- sthandila (ground)
- patra (vessel)
- aksasutra (rosary)
- pustaka (book)
- linga (emblem)
- tura
- pata (painted cloth)
- pusta (modelled image)
- pratima (statue)
- murti (image)
The six paths relate mainly to breath, but cover the other places too. Two further facts confirm Jayaratha's view:
- his comment on TA 5.157;
- Abhinava's own choice of sthana-prakalpana as the second ancillary topic of Ahnika 15 (from 15.80), covering the sacred seats (pitha, upapitha, sandohaka, the eight fields and the rest), which return in Ahnika 29 (verses 29 to 95).
Within this overall scheme:
- Ahnikas 6 to 12 cover the six paths and the Anava means;
- Ahnikas 15 to 27 cover daily rites;
- Ahnikas 28 to 29 cover occasional rites.
Looser groupings. Jayaratha also finds thematic links:
- The five divine acts. Ahnika 6, in its discussion of the varieties of dissolution, treats creation, maintenance and withdrawal; Ahnika 13, on the descent of grace, treats grace (anugraha); Ahnika 14, on the start of initiation, treats concealment (tirobhava).
- The four seats of Kula scripture. According to Jayaratha, a Kula scripture has four "seats": vidya, mantra, mudra and mandala. Ahnika 29 covers all four in summary; Ahnika 30 deals with vidya (Brahmavidya) and mantra; Ahnika 31 with mandala; Ahnika 32 with mudra. Together they make up worship in the Kula manner.
8. Why No Division Into Knowledge, Yoga, Ritual and Conduct?
Many Saiva Agamas are divided into four sections (pada): jnana (knowledge), yoga, kriya (ritual) and carya (conduct). The Tantraloka does not follow this pattern. Rastogi reports B. N. Dwivedi's view, from conversation, that the fourfold division was an early phenomenon that lost ground later; later Tantras broadly have two divisions, jnana and kriya, with yoga and conduct folded into ritual.
Abhinava clearly knew the fourfold scheme:
- In Ahnika 16 he discusses how knowledge relates to yoga and initiation.
- Ahnika 25, on the sraddha (rites for the dead) as leading to both enjoyment and liberation, deals with a matter of conduct whose power comes from devotion.
Rastogi offers a reason for the omission: Abhinava's synthetic approach. All four form one whole that culminates in knowledge, which is why Ahnika 1 is devoted to knowledge and its varieties. And yoga, ritual and conduct arise for different kinds of practitioner from weaker or feebler descents of grace.
Insight: A Map With Two Cartographers
The Tantraloka is one of the few Indian treatises whose author supplies a complete table of contents in advance, and whose main commentator then audits it. Abhinava's index tells us what he intended; Jayaratha's markers tell us where each intention was carried out; Rastogi's chart puts both side by side. The departures from the plan are small and mostly logical (topics merged, split or reordered as the writing developed). What emerges is a picture of a book planned with great care but written with freedom. Seeing the whole structure at once also shows the hidden proportions: two thirds of the work, from Ahnika 6 on, is about "places" (breath, body, external supports) in which the divine is located and worshipped. The philosophy of the opening chapters is the doorway; the bulk of the house is practice.
A note for readers: limits of the topical chart
- Rastogi admits that where Jayaratha does not indicate the start of a topic, the location is his own suggestion.
- The large chart (pp. 174 to 186) was printed with Sanskrit labels in Devanagari. Readers using an electronic copy of the book may find these labels missing or garbled. A printed copy is recommended for this part.
- The three-division scheme is an inference from a single comment on TA 6.1 and from Jayaratha's practice. It is Rastogi's reconstruction, carefully argued but not stated in full by Jayaratha.
- The B. N. Dwivedi view on the fourfold pada division is reported from conversation and should be treated as a hypothesis.
Key Terms
- Ahnika: "daily lesson", a chapter of the Tantraloka.
- Uddesa / Laksana / Pariksa: statement of topic, definition, examination; the three parts of a sastra.
- Purvaja / Anuja: Abhinava's terms for general and ancillary topics.
- Prameya: a topic or object of knowledge.
- Sthana-prakalpana: the assigning or devising of places (breath, body, exterior) for practice.
- Sadadhvan: the six paths (worlds, principles, kalas; phonemes, words, mantras).
- Nitya / Naimittika karma: daily and occasional rites.
- Catuspitha: the four seats of Kula scripture (vidya, mantra, mudra, mandala).
- Jnana, Yoga, Kriya, Carya: the fourfold division of many Agamas.
Reflection
- Why might a work become more procedural and its chapters shorter in its second half?
- If two thirds of the Tantraloka are about "places" of worship, what does that say about the relation between philosophy and practice in Abhinava's thought?
- Abhinava wrote an index and then sometimes departed from it. Is this a flaw, or a sign of a living text?
Cross-References, Chapter by Chapter (pp. 196 to 243)
The final part of Chapter 4 uses a little-studied source of information: the cross-references that Abhinava and Jayaratha make from one chapter to another. Collected and sorted, they confirm the contents Abhinava announced and reveal the web of ideas that ties distant chapters together. Rastogi gives for each Ahnika its "major" items (directly alluded to) and "minor" items (indirectly alluded to) with the other chapters that pick them up. He warns that "major" and "minor" refer to the type of allusion, not to the importance of the topic. His own intervention is "minimal"; he steps in only where the reference is vague and he is reasonably sure of its target.
1. The Philosophical Chapters (Ahnikas 1 to 5)
Ahnika 1 is the hub. Its cross-referenced themes include:
- Free will makes the one principle appear as many while it remains one.
- The means (upayas). The four means (Anava, Sakta, Sambhava, and the "no-means", Anupaya) form a hierarchy in which each culminates in the next. This is echoed in Ahnikas 4 and 13.
- Bondage and liberation. The theory of both is summarised.
- Immersion. The fifty kinds of immersion (samavesa) are listed, with a bearing on Ahnikas 3 and 9.
- Mala. Impurity is a phase of the Self's own dynamism (developed in Ahnikas 9 and 13).
- Light and knowing. The ultimate is self-luminous, and so is plurality. The means of knowledge depend on the knower.
- Initiation. Plurality of initiation follows from the gradual unfolding of self-consciousness, so even the inert is divine (developed in Ahnika 16).
- Gramadharma-vrtti. Against the view that attainment depends on time, place and vows, realisation comes from feeling oneness with outer objects and reflecting on them as one with I-consciousness. Ahnika 29 uses this to identify sacred seats and their powers with I-consciousness.
- Wheels. All the varieties of wheels (cakras) display aspects of cosmic dynamism, the theme of Ahnika 33.
Ahnika 2 (Anupaya):
- In the "no-means" there is no relation of means and goal, so bondage and release have no place.
- The self-perfected teacher (samsiddhika) acts from compassion alone.
- Initiation has practically no role here, because grace descends at full speed.
- In the state beyond the fourth (turyatita), identical with Anupaya, there is no yoga.
Ahnika 3 (Sambhava):
- Liberation in life is meaningful only for the means from Sambhava down to Anava.
- Sambhava is the summit of the means, where consciousness vibrates from the object to the breath.
- Purity of consciousness is twofold, primary and secondary.
- The vowels. The three short vowels a, i, u are the three powers of Bhairava (para, parapara, apara), the original triad (Trika). Visarga and bindu together are the male and female heads of Kula (kulesa, kulesvari).
- Worship. Mantra, mudra, ritual and worship are superfluous in the Sambhava means.
- Sound (rava) is tenfold.
- Visarga (emission) has an esoteric sense in sexual practice (carya-krama), taken up in Ahnika 5.
- The verbal flow of consciousness has 81 letters, developed in Ahnikas 6 and 33.
Ahnika 4 (Sakta):
- The twelve Kalis. The ultimate rises in twelve forms, the twelve Kalis (also in Ahnikas 1, 3 and 5).
- Teachers. Among teachers, the akalpita-kalpaka (the self-made one who is not made) is supreme. Its chief form is the samsiddhika, identical with the svayambhu ("self-born"), who is Bhairava in person (echoed in Ahnika 13).
- Wheels. Wheels range from the three-spoked trident to the countless-spoked.
- The seeds. The seeds of creation and withdrawal, though discussed under phonemes in the Anava means, belong to the sequence of consciousness of Krama.
- Rule and prohibition. Negation and injunction are equal.
- Worship. Oblation (homa) and repose (laya) culminate in the supreme subject (taken up in the Kula worship of Ahnika 29).
- The samayin. A samayin who is steady in knowledge suited to his capacity attains the Godhead (relevant to Ahnika 15).
- Agama and Veda. Where Agama and the Vedic revelation conflict, Agama may override the Vedic injunction.
- Minor items include intuitive knowledge from pure knowledge (Ahnika 13), and the palli, ghara and chumma of Kula lineages (Ahnika 29).
Ahnika 5 (Anava):
- The Anava means has infinite modes.
- Initiation and similar practices belong to it (Ahnika 15).
- Expansion and contraction are the essence of the great seat (mahapitha), manifest as creation and withdrawal.
- Minor items include:
- the karanas, located in Ahnikas 11, 15, 16, 29 and 32;
- the ecstatic murmur as the first stage of trance;
- the power of mantra resting in consciousness.
2. The Cosmological Chapters (Ahnikas 6 to 12)
Ahnika 6:
- The letters. The supreme power, one with Siva, has 81 letters when counted by half-moras. Contemplating them leads to Siva.
- The paths. The six paths are a vibration of divine dynamism, and all of them rest finally in consciousness or breath.
- Time. Tuti (the smallest unit of time) has four parts.
- The divine acts. Creation, maintenance and withdrawal are treated here, in contrast with Ahnikas 13 and 14.
- The great creation. The great creation of the Sakta order is set against the three "eggs".
- Breath. Time based on breath is the general theme (shared with Ahnikas 7 and 28). Breath arises (taken up under death in Ahnika 28) and moves (pranacara). Once a mantra is identified with breath or the Self, mantra and meditator are no longer different (Ahnika 29).
Ahnika 7:
- The power of pure awareness takes the form of a nadi (channel).
- It shares with Ahnika 6 the theme of time dependent on breath.
- Kindling the wheels means kindling the uttered mantras, a special theme of Ahnika 32.
Ahnika 8:
- The worlds of the spatial path are numberless; lacking essence, they are like a dream-abode.
- Mantra. The power of mantra rests on consciousness.
- The octads. All the octads (eight parts of the day, eight deities, eight powers) are treated (also Ahnika 9).
- The gunas. Effects such as mahat come from the imbalance of the gunas.
- Object and subject. The paths of space, principles and kalas are objective in character; those of words, mantras and phonemes are subjective (Ahnikas 9 to 11).
- The lotus. The lotus of pure knowledge lies below the brahmarandhra.
- Piercing. Among the nine kinds of vedha ("piercing"), one relates to worlds (Ahnika 29).
Ahnika 9 (the principles):
- All principles within Maya are known by inference from their effects.
- The two pralayakala subjects. Some rise to the mantra level beyond Maya; others remain in transmigration. The difference comes from karma-mala.
- The vijnanakala subject. It has no karma-mala and is a ladder to Sivahood. It arises when Purusa and Prakrti are distinguished after all deeds are exhausted.
- Principles and selves. Within Maya, the principles from kala down to earth differ for each self. The Sakti principle is the instrument of the Siva principle (Ahnika 10).
- Mala and karma. Mala, and the karma-mala the Self uses to bind itself by its own freedom, both figure in Ahnika 13.
- Agency belongs to Purusa, not to inert Prakrti.
- Initiation of the dying works through the inherent power of mantra (Ahnikas 13 and 19).
- The grades of the bound. Vaisnavas, mantra-subjects, mantresas and others are graded stages of awakening, though all are still under ignorance (Ahnikas 10 and 35).
- Worship. Only a form of the deity dense with awareness and bliss is worthy of worship (Ahnikas 13 and 26).
Ahnika 10:
- The principles from earth up are macrocosmic, with internal subdivisions (such as fifteen).
- The five states from waking (pindastha) are objects for yogins and knowers (extended to Kula worship in Ahnika 29).
- The subject knows all objects through identification with the Self.
Ahnika 11:
- The karana of pure awareness, a sixth practice under the Anava means.
- The path of kalas is treated in full (introduced in Ahnika 8), with the subjective paths of words, mantras and phonemes.
- Initiation. The assignment of the paths of words and mantras serves the Putraka initiation (Ahnika 16).
- The paths. The six paths are a vibration of power (Ahnikas 6 and 7). Their gradual purification follows the Svacchanda; the non-gradual version is in Ahnika 18.
Ahnika 12 aims to show the use of the paths, but no major cross-referenced item is noted.
3. Grace and Initiation (Ahnikas 13 to 23)
Ahnika 13 (descent of grace):
- Two kinds of grace. Primary grace means devotion to God without desire for fruit; secondary grace is marked by desire for fruit and so involves deeds.
- Purity from past lives. By God's unrestricted will, purity of consciousness may be inherited from a past birth.
- Intuitive wisdom arises from pure knowledge alone, needing neither teacher nor scripture (also Ahnikas 1, 2 and 4).
- Against the dualists. Abhinava refutes the dualist view of impurity as a substance and initiation as a mere act, and explains the role of the three impurities (anava, karma and mayiya). Individuation comes from divine freedom.
- Initiation. A teacher is to be initiated when grace descends (method in Ahnika 16). The chapter introduces the Lingoddhara-diksa (Ahnika 22) and the anuttara-diksa of various systems.
- Returning to the fold. An aspirant who returns after straying can attain liberation even without a teacher (the concern of Ahnika 23).
- Japa. All japa is surrendered to the Godhead.
Ahnika 14:
- Initiation is addressed mainly to those without knowledge (echoed in Ahnikas 15 and 16).
- It treats the fourth divine act, concealment (tirobhava).
Ahnika 15 (the samaya initiation):
- Initiation belongs to the Anava means, and it liberates even those proficient in neither knowledge nor yoga.
- Vyapti (pervasion) is one of the seven karanas.
- Mantra. Its power comes from a teacher, not a book, so it must be guarded and transmitted discreetly.
- Burning the fetters. The process of unification (yojanika) behind the burning of fetters (pasa-daha) belongs, in Abhinava's index, to Ahnika 17, but it is detailed in Ahnikas 15 and 16. Ahnika 17 is in a sense a continuation of both.
- Daily rites. The daily worship of the sacred ground is part of the residual duties (Ahnika 26). There is a method for taking and discarding the tooth-twig (reused in Ahnika 29).
- Assignments. Special assignments are treated, including the sixfold one (sodha-nyasa), as are the consecrations that fix a candidate's eligibility.
- External means form the gradual process for those whose consciousness is not fully awake.
Ahnikas 16 to 18:
- Ahnika 16 gives the karana of knower and known, the worship of the teaching lineage, and an alternative way of assigning the dagger where oblation is allowed. In the instant-departure initiation, by contrast, oblation has no place.
- Ahnika 17 covers the assignment of letters on a rosary of 115 letters, followed by matrka and malini, and the refinement of the principles to be purified.
- Ahnika 18 gives single articulation (ekoccara) as part of the condensed initiation, and the non-gradual purification of the six paths. Gradual purification follows the Svacchanda; non-gradual follows Ahnika 18.
Ahnika 19 (initiation for instant release):
- Karma that has begun to bear fruit cannot be reversed, even by initiation of the dying.
- In the initiation for immediate liberation, kala (limited agency) stays with the isolated self but produces no fruit.
Ahnika 20: Only a minor item is noted: udbhava, the second stage of power, meaning "lightness", to be discussed in Ahnika 30.
Ahnika 21:
- The indirect initiation of the dead (mrtoddhara-diksa) is treated.
- Indirect initiation is of two kinds:
- for the dead, an extension of Ahnika 19;
- for the living but dying, linked with the ground-rite of Ahnika 26.
- It bears on the funeral rites of Ahnika 24.
Ahnika 22: An extra rite, Lingoddhara ("removal of the sign"), is needed for followers of other systems who turn to monistic Saivism (also Ahnikas 13 and 35).
Ahnika 23: It concerns the "reborn" (punarbhu): those not eligible for Lingoddhara who want to rejoin the Saiva fold.
4. Daily, Occasional and Kula Rites (Ahnikas 24 to 37)
No references. Ahnikas 24, 25, 27, 34, 36 and 37 have no cross-references noted.
Ahnika 26:
- The subordinate rite (anuyaga), part of the Kula system and treated under mandala.
- Visualising circularity (mandalatmatva) in breath as in the body.
- The deities presiding over wheels, for those given to ritual action.
Ahnika 28:
- Occasional rites are the dominant theme. The samayin is entitled to them.
- Kulaparva is one of the festivals of the Bhairava Kula (linked with the breath doctrine of Ahnikas 6 and 7).
- Minor items:
- expiation for breach of rules (Ahnika 29);
- the gathering of yoginis (yogini-melaka), the ninth ancillary topic here and one of the 23 occasional rites (Ahnika 30).
Ahnika 29 (Kula worship):
- The supreme use of semen and blood (briefly in Ahnika 3).
- The distinguishing marks of lineages, such as ghara, palli, mudra and chumma (also at the end of Ahnika 4).
- The two karanas of giving up and projecting (tyaga and aksepa).
- The rite of entering deep waters as part of the ground-rite.
- The Siva's hand rite (sivahasta-vidhi), with expiation for breaking rules.
- In Kula worship one realises the Absolute in oneself by uniting seat and power in one's own body.
- As the first of the four Kula seats, it represents vidya.
Ahnika 30:
- The assignment of the dagger (oblation forbidden in Ahnika 19, enjoined in Ahnika 16).
- Brahmavidya, a special mantra spread by Bhutiraja and used to secure instant release (Ahnika 19).
- Udbhava as lightness after the disappearance of the body (Ahnika 20).
- Redeeming mantras, including two kinds of union with yoginis, forced and willing.
- It represents the mantra seat.
Ahnika 31:
- A circle formed by a trident is required according to the Trikasadbhava.
- The trident-lotus is approved following the Trisirobhairava.
- In a collective rite, the trident-lotus itself forms the circle.
- It represents mandala.
Ahnika 32:
- The seventh karana, sannivesa (arrangement, deep entry), through the meaning of mudra.
- It represents mudra.
Ahnika 33:
- Wheels. The number of deities in a wheel varies by divine freedom; the six-spoked wheel of six deities is discussed.
- The Rudras. The fifty Rudras, syllabic embodiments of power on which the matrka-nyasa of outer worship is performed, are treated. So are the twelve Rudras from Daksa to Pitamaha.
- Minor items. All wheels are basically one and culminate in Trika (Ahnika 1); the infinite variety of wheels is represented by the 81 letters (Ahnikas 3 and 6).
Ahnika 35:
- All Agamas share one character: their authority comes from convention or consensus (prasiddhi), which is why they compel acceptance.
- It alludes to Lingoddhara (Ahnika 22).
5. The Result
The cross-references show that Ahnikas 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 29 "caught the fancy" of both Abhinava and Jayaratha, presumably because their subjects matter most. Ahnikas 27, 34, 36 and 37 attracted no cross-references at all.
Insight: The Hidden Web
Read as a list, this section can feel like an index. Read as a map, it shows how the Tantraloka holds together. A few threads recur:
- The 81 letters link Ahnikas 3, 6, 7 and 33.
- The karanas run through Ahnikas 5, 11, 15, 16, 29 and 32.
- The fetter-burning process connects 15, 16 and 17.
- Arabdha karma links 9 and 19.
- Lingoddhara links 13, 22 and 35.
- Breath and time bind 6, 7 and 28.
The most connected chapters are those where philosophy and practice meet: the Sakta means (Ahnika 4), the worlds and principles (8 to 11), grace (13), the samaya initiation (15) and Kula worship (29). The book is not a sequence of separate treatises but one system, written by a mind that kept the whole in view and constantly pointed forward and back.
A note for readers: how to use the cross-reference lists
- The lists are most useful when read alongside the Tantraloka itself. For any Ahnika, they tell you which other chapters to consult.
- The "major" and "minor" labels describe direct and indirect allusions, not importance.
- Some identifications (marked in Rastogi's footnotes) are his own judgement where Abhinava or Jayaratha is vague.
- The account of Ahnika 12, and the opening of Ahnika 13, appear only partly in some copies of the book; a few items listed above for Ahnika 13 come from the part that survives.
Key Terms
- Samavesa: immersion or absorption in the divine; fifty varieties.
- Akalpita-kalpaka / Samsiddhika: the self-made teacher, the self-perfected teacher.
- Gramadharma-vrtti: attaining realisation through ordinary activity reflected on as one with I-consciousness.
- Pralayakala / Vijnanakala: classes of subjects (see Chapter 1).
- Tuti: the smallest unit of time.
- Vedha: "piercing", a yogic transmission; nine kinds.
- Yojanika: the unification of the initiate's self with Siva.
- Lingoddhara: the rite removing the marks of a former sect.
- Punarbhu: a "reborn" initiate who returns to the fold.
- Prasiddhi: established convention, the basis of scriptural authority.
Reflection
- Which thread through the chapters (letters, karanas, grace, breath) seems most central to Abhinava's thought, and why?
- Abhinava says the authority of every Agama rests on prasiddhi, shared convention. What follows for how we should read scripture?
Agenda for Future Research (pp. 245 to 252)
Rastogi ends with modesty and a programme. His Introduction is "at the most an elementary attempt" to understand the technique of the Tantraloka by piecing together scattered but obvious clues about its contents, their organisation, and the norms of its two great minds. In Indian terms it is a bahiranga ("outer limb") treatment. It covers two rungs of the ladder, where to study and how to study, and leaves the third, what to study, for the future. It is "not intended to be a substitute for a research work". He had planned to add pages on the Agamic and Tantric sources of the Tantraloka and to divide its contents on that basis, but the task proved too large. Instead he sets out ten lines of future work.
The Ten Lines of Research
1. A critical edition of the Tantraloka and the Viveka. This is "our most urgent task". Already by Jayaratha's time the text was "eclipsed by corruptions", and he edited and restored it (for example at 23.23, 23.25, 29.265 to 266 and 37.4 to 5). The KSTS edition needs the same treatment: locate and collate as many manuscripts as possible. This would settle problems such as:
- the differences between K. C. Pandey's manuscript and the KSTS text;
- variants given by Jayaratha that match none of the KSTS manuscripts.
Rastogi proposes three steps:
- an internal comparison of passages that are cited or cross-cited within the work;
- a comparison of the citations in the Tantraloka and the Viveka with their original sources, in print or manuscript, with an eye to history. Some apparently correct readings produce historical absurdities, such as bhrata 'pi for bharta 'pi at 37.75, which turns a husband into a brother in Abhinava's family account;
- tracking the rare places where Jayaratha differs from his master, as at 8.406.
2. A comparative study of cognate texts. Abhinava conceived the Tantraloka as an extension of the Malinivijayottara Tantra and the Paratrisika-vivarana, and summarised it in the Tantrasara and the Tantravatadhanika.
- Reconstructing the text. Comparing the Malinivijayottara, the Paratrisika-vivarana and the Tantraloka, keeping in view their progressive character, could recover a fairly compact text. Adding the Svacchanda Tantra with Ksemaraja's Uddyota would give "practically an unassailable text", and would also expose any scholastic bias or over-enthusiasm in either Jayaratha or Ksemaraja.
- Weighing the issues. Comparison with the Tantrasara (22 chapters) and the Tantravatadhanika (3) would then show the relative importance of the issues. One example is the treatment of the rule of exposition (vyakhya-vidhi) under the rule of hearing scripture (sruta-vidhi) in both the Tantraloka and the Tantrasara.
- Loosening the knots. A third, internal study of contents would explain enigmatic pointers such as adi ("etc."), prak and purastat ("earlier"), vaksyamah ("we shall explain") and agre ("later"), where the authors do not say what they mean. Jayaratha, for instance, glosses anyatra ("elsewhere") at 15.521 as "in the occasional rites and so on". Yet the verse he quotes is found in neither Ahnika 28 nor Ahnika 15. This matters all the more because Abhinava admits his treatment is staggered: he does not give everything in one place.
3. A philosophical study. The Tantraloka is a "complete digest of Saivism", together with the Viveka a storehouse of Tantric and other systems, and a record of how Saiva concepts and schools evolved. Rastogi lists the themes that call for study:
- freedom (moksa) and impurity (mala);
- the cosmology of reflection (bimba-pratibimba-vada);
- initiation and the four means;
- the six paths and the 36 principles;
- causation (kartr-karma-bhava) and the theory of manifestation (abhasa-vada), which transcends causation;
- niyati (determinism) and its bearing on freedom of action and the fruits of action;
- monism through the dynamism of the Absolute;
- the descent of grace;
- the ripening of determinate thought into pure indeterminate thought;
- recognition (pratyabhijna) and its means of knowledge;
- the parallel and synthesis of knowledge and yoga;
- reality as the pure Word and as awareness.
Other works such as the Isvarapratyabhijna-karika and Vimarsini discuss similar issues, but the Tantraloka is distinctive for its Tantric orientation: it treats philosophical problems as complements to ritual and esoteric issues, not in isolation. Its esoteric teaching (carya-krama, rahasya-prakriya, adiyaga) is said to come from a sixth face of Siva, the Yogini-vaktra ("mouth of the Yogini"), in contrast with the other Saiva systems, which come from the five faces (TA 6.193 is cited). A complete philosophical understanding must therefore combine the metaphysical, ritual, symbolic and esoteric aspects. Abhinava's aesthetics is also "applied metaphysics" here; Ahnikas 3, 4 and 28, and Ahnika 3 above all on the aesthetics of music, need attention.
4. A historical study. Abhinava and Jayaratha have "a tremendous historical sense":
- They tell us about themselves and their lineages.
- As Goudriaan noted, the Tantraloka is one of three concrete sources for dating the Tantras, and so is Jayaratha.
- They restore missing links in the tradition.
- They handle Tantric material from many periods, all of which needs historical scrutiny using every available source: literary, architectural, epigraphic, and internal.
Texts from other regions also help. The gaps in the Srikanthi's list of 64 Bhairava Tantras can be filled only from the Pratisthalaksanasara-samuccaya, a text from Nepal.
5. A source book of new information. Abhinava gives insights into Indian thought and Kashmiri culture:
- Rival schools:
- certain Naiyayikas (2.12 to 44);
- the Vairinca Brahmavadins;
- Nastikas who deny the soul but not the authority of the Veda (6.19 to 20);
- a long, masterly refutation of Kumarila's view of knowability (10.21 to 57);
- his presentation of Siddhanta Saivism in Ahnika 4, which sheds light on dualist Saivism in Kashmir.
- Buddhism. He is an invaluable source on Buddhism and refers to practically all its sects. Jean Naudou noted that Abhinava, a contemporary of Naropa, devoted a chapter to imagination in sleep, and that his criticism of the Kalacakra doctrine in Ahnika 16 is a main source for that Tantric cycle, beside the Buddhist texts themselves, above all the Sekoddesatika of Naropa.
- Jayaratha's additions. His references to the Mausula, Karuka and Pasupata Saivas add to the history of Saivism. His references to six-limbed yoga (Ahnika 4) show the continuity of a Buddhist theme and its absorption into Saivism.
- Geography and culture. Ahnika 8 is rich in geographical data, and cultural details run throughout.
6. The synthesis of all scriptures. Ahnika 35, the Samasta-sastra-melana ("harmony of all scriptures"), recalls the Vedantic effort to harmonise all Vedanta sentences (vedanta-vakya-samanvaya). Abhinava sees the systems in a hierarchical order, each culminating in the next, ending in Trika:
- Tarkika (logicians)
- Srauta (Vedic)
- Bauddha
- Arhata (Jaina)
- Vaisnava
- Siddhanta
- Vamaka
- Daksa
- Mata
- Kula
- Kaula
- Trika
How he argues this progression deserves study.
7. What does "Tantra" mean for Abhinava? He quotes even the Vedic revelation (3.226) as Tantra, and Jayaratha even refers to a Puranic procedure (on 8.58). Abhinava invokes teachers, scriptures and even secular texts as authority, and he distinguishes Tantra from Agama. Rastogi argues that Abhinava must use "Tantra" in two senses:
- the Tantra method (tantra-prakriya) is distinguished from the Kula method (kula-prakriya) on three counts: mantra, support (adhara) and procedure (itikartavyata) (29.5 to 8);
- yet both are included in the Tantra-loka.
If the word meant the same in both places, the Kula method would fall outside the book.
There is a related puzzle about Spanda. There was a sharp controversy over whether Spanda was an independent system or part of Trika. Abhinava praises Kallata, author of the Spanda-karika, but gives Spanda no separate status. Under the Kula method only the Kula system appears; under the Tantra method come Krama, Trika and Pratyabhijna. Where, then, does Spanda stand?
Whatever "Tantra" means, Abhinava draws constantly on all three sources of authority: experience, scripture and reason.
- The treatment of time rests on all three.
- The rise of the cakra rests on experience and scripture (7.71).
- The pure universality of the divine rests on experience and reason (3.44).
- Consecration (abhiseka) is purely Agamic (23.1, 23.103).
He also names particular sources: the harmony of scriptures is ascribed to Sambhunatha (35.44), and the brief procedure to the Diksottara and Kirana (18.11). A full chart of sources, topic by topic, would show the Abhinavan mind and the unity behind diverse sources.
8. Jayaratha's benedictory verses. Each Ahnika of the Viveka opens with a verse of blessing containing esoteric hints. Understanding them would help us understand Jayaratha.
9. Abhinava's illustrations. He uses about 76 illustrations (drstanta) across the Tantraloka. A complete study would make his thinking clearer.
10. Critical studies of the root Agamas. Abhinava and Jayaratha supply material for critical studies of the Sripurvasastra (Malinivijayottara Tantra) (see 13.212 to 253, 15.4 to 7, 21.2 to 5), the Svacchanda Tantra and the Paratrimsika. Such studies would deepen our understanding of the Tantraloka, and the Tantraloka would deepen our understanding of them.
These ten do not exhaust the field; they "simply underline the beginning of our quest".
Insight: Three Rungs of a Ladder
Rastogi's image of the ladder (where to study, how to study, what to study) is the best summary of his book. Chapters 1 to 4 answer the first two questions: they locate the Tantraloka in its tradition, introduce its makers, and show how it is built and how it should be read. The third question, what the Tantraloka actually teaches, is left open on purpose. The agenda turns that openness into a programme. Many of its items have since been taken up. Work on the Agamas Rastogi names (the Malinivijayottara, the Svacchanda, the Brahmayamala, the Nihsvasa) and on the history of the Saiva canon has transformed the field. Read today, the chapter is both a historical document of what scholars knew in 1987 and a still-useful checklist.
A note for readers: how the agenda has fared
- Critical edition. No complete critical edition of the Tantraloka with the Viveka existed when this book was written, and the KSTS text remained the standard. Since then, critical editions and translations of individual chapters and of related Agamas have appeared. Readers should check current scholarship before relying on any single printed text.
- Rastogi's own work. He co-edited the eight-volume MLBD reprint (with R. C. Dwivedi) and later published further studies on Krama and Abhinava, including "Kalikrama and Abhinavagupta".
- Spanda and Tantra. The questions about the place of Spanda and the meaning of "Tantra" are framed, not answered, here.
Key Terms
- Bahiranga: "outer limb"; an external or preliminary approach.
- Vyakhya-vidhi / Sruta-vidhi: the rule for expounding scripture and for hearing it.
- Bimba-pratibimba-vada: the doctrine of the world as reflection in consciousness.
- Abhasa-vada: the doctrine of manifestation.
- Yogini-vaktra: the "mouth of the Yogini", the sixth source of esoteric teaching.
- Samasta-sastra-melana: the harmony of all scriptures (Ahnika 35).
- Tantra-prakriya / Kula-prakriya: the Tantric and Kula methods of worship.
- Drstanta: illustrative example.
Reflection
- Which of the ten research lines would most change how ordinary readers understand Kashmir Saivism?
- Why might a philosophical reading of the Tantraloka that ignores its ritual and esoteric sides be incomplete?
A Reader's Guide (pp. 253 to 589)
More than half the book is appendices. Rastogi turns the Tantraloka and its commentary into inventories: of every text, person and system named, quoted or implied, first by Abhinava and then by Jayaratha. Each entry gives the Ahnika and verse, or the volume and page of the commentary, usually in both the KSTS and the MLBD edition. Appendix 1 also has rich footnotes on where manuscripts and printed editions of each text could be found in 1987. Prof. Ashok Kumar Kalia suggested this, and Mark Dyczkowski helped by sharing extracts from manuscript catalogues. For the working scholar these appendices are the most-used part of the book.
What Each Appendix Contains
| No. | Title | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texts referred to by name in the Tantraloka | Alphabetical list of named texts with Ahnika and verse, with footnotes on manuscripts and editions |
| 2 | Persons referred to by name in the Tantraloka | Teachers, authors and mythical figures named by Abhinava, with verse references |
| 3 | Systems and major doctrines referred to by name | Schools from Advaita and Bauddha to Siddhanta, Samkhya and Trika, with all their alternative names |
| 4 | Implied or incomplete textual references | References Abhinava leaves vague ("the Agama", "there") that Jayaratha identifies or completes |
| 5 | Texts named and also quoted by Abhinava | In four groups: (a) directly quoted, (b) indirectly cited, (c) partly direct and partly indirect, (d) quoted and explained |
| 6 | Persons named and also quoted by Abhinava | The authorities whose words Abhinava reproduces |
| 7 | Systems implied and identified by Jayaratha | Schools Abhinava argues with but does not name |
| 8 | Implied personal references identified by Jayaratha | Unnamed persons ("some", "our teacher") identified in the Viveka |
| 9 | Textual references: citations traced by Jayaratha | Where Jayaratha locates the source of Abhinava's quotations |
| 10 | Personal references: citations traced by Jayaratha | The same for persons |
| 11 | First personal references | Persons who first appear in the Tantraloka |
| 12 | Agamas forming one group on specific issues | Agamas Abhinava cites together on an issue, such as the Matanga and Kirana (13.284) or the Nandisikha and Ananda-sasana (15.282) |
| 13(A) | Texts named or quoted by Jayaratha | The largest list: the library of the Viveka, marking texts newly cited by Jayaratha |
| 13(B) | The sixty-four Bhairava Tantras | The Srikanthi's eightfold classification as quoted by Jayaratha |
| 14 | Persons named or quoted by Jayaratha | Including mythical figures, with "(A)" for persons Jayaratha is the first to mention |
| 15 | Systems and doctrines named by Jayaratha | Including all the names for "our own system" (svadarsana, asmin darsana, atmiya-sastra) |
| 16 | Unspecified citations in Jayaratha | About sixty pages of quotations whose sources Jayaratha does not name |
| 17 | Detailed table of contents (in Sanskrit) | The Visayanukramanika, a verse-group by verse-group summary of all 37 Ahnikas |
| 18 | Word index to the Introduction | Subject and name index |
| 19 | Corrections | Errata |
| 20 | Conversion table | Converts every KSTS reference in the Introduction to the MLBD volume and page |
Highlights Worth Knowing
The sixty-four Bhairava Tantras (Appendix 13B). Jayaratha quotes the Srikanthi, which divides the sixty-four Bhairava Tantras into eight groups of eight:
- the Bhairava octad;
- the Yamala octad;
- the Mata octad (Rakta, Lampata, Mata, Laksmi, Calika, Pingala, Utphullaka, Visvadya);
- the Mangala octad (Picubhairavi, Tantrabhairavi, Tatabhairavi, Brahmikala, Vijaya, Candrakhya, Mangala, Sarvamangala);
- the Cakra octad (Mantracakra, Varnacakra, Sakticakra, Kalacakra, Bindu-cakra, Nadacakra, Guhyacakra, Khacakra);
- the Bahurupa octad (Andhaka, Rurubheda, Aja, Mula, Varnabhantha, Vidanga, Jvalina, Matrrodana);
- the Vagisa octad (Bhairavi, Citrika, Hamsa, Kadambika, Hrllekha, Candralekha, Vidyullekha, Vidumat);
- the Sikha octad (Bhairavisikha, Vina, Vinamani, Sammoha, Damara, Atharvaka, Kabandha, Sirascheda).
Rastogi notes a problem in the count:
- Jayaratha says there are 64, but the extracts actually name only 63: the Yamala group has only seven.
- B. V. Dwivedi drops one (the Bhairava) and adds four (Uddisa, Kukkutakhya, Kubjika, Rurubhairava), reaching 66.
- Rastogi could find no support for these changes in the Srikanthi extracts as Jayaratha cites them.
Manuscript notes (Appendix 1). The footnotes record, as of 1987, the locations of manuscripts in Varanasi, Madras, Trivandrum, Calcutta, Poona, Baroda, Jodhpur, Lahore, Tanjore, the India Office and above all the Darbar Library and National Archives of Nepal. They also note scholars then at work on critical editions:
- Mark Dyczkowski on the Brahmayamala;
- Alexis Sanderson on another Agama;
- R. Torella on the Matangaparamesvara;
- T. Goudriaan on the Nihsvasa.
Some identifications follow:
- the Anantakarika is the Adharakarika, printed as the Paramarthasara;
- the Kalottara may be the Matangaparamesvara;
- the Anuttara-prakriya is the Paratrisika-vivarana;
- the Aghoresa Tantra may be the Svacchanda.
The Sanskrit table of contents (Appendix 17). This is the longest appendix (pp. 415 to 556), and Rastogi wanted it to do two things:
- give a precise idea of each verse group;
- show the thematic progression of ideas "independently of the text".
He followed the KSTS numbering even where an idea runs over into the next half-verse, because of the samcaya-nyaya linking device, and admits that Ahnika 31 "proved most enigmatic". It was divided by volume in the MLBD reprint.
Overlaps. Rastogi warns that the same word may appear in lists of texts, persons and systems, for three reasons:
- the data are incomplete;
- a name may denote both a text and a school, such as "Trika";
- a name may stand for both a person and a school.
Insight: The Tantraloka as Database
Long before digital tools, Rastogi built what we would now call a database of the Tantraloka. His appendices allow a reader to ask questions such as:
- Which Agamas does Abhinava quote directly, and which only by allusion?
- Which teachers appear first in Jayaratha?
- Which sources are cited together on the same issue?
They also show how far Jayaratha expands the documented world of Saiva literature: his list of texts (13A) runs to nearly twenty pages against Abhinava's twelve. And the conversion table (Appendix 20) shows a practical courtesy that is rare in Indological publishing.
A note for readers: using the appendices now
- Manuscript locations and "work in progress" notes are dated 1987. Many of the editions mentioned have since appeared, and catalogues such as those of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project have greatly enlarged what is known.
- References are given to both the KSTS and the MLBD editions. Note which one your copy of the Tantraloka follows.
- In electronic copies of the book the Sanskrit Appendix 17, and many Sanskrit words elsewhere, may be unreadable. A printed copy is best for these sections.
Master Glossary
Persons
- Abhinavagupta: author of the Tantraloka (c. 950 to 1025), the great synthesiser of Kashmir Saivism.
- Jayaratha: author of the Viveka commentary, flourished 1150 to 1200, son of the minister Srngararatha.
- Ksemaraja: Abhinava's foremost disciple, commentator on the Svacchanda and Netra Tantras (Uddyota), author of the Pratyabhijnahrdaya.
- Sambhunatha: Abhinava's teacher in Kula and Trika, whose teaching of the harmony of scriptures shapes Ahnika 35.
- Laksmanagupta: Abhinava's teacher in Pratyabhijna, in the line of Somananda and Utpala.
- Siddhanatha: author of the Kramastotra, which Jayaratha preserves almost whole.
- Subhata Datta, Kalyana, Sankhadhara: Jayaratha's initiator, his Saiva teacher, and his teacher in the secular sciences.
- Mukund Ram Shastri / M. S. Kaul: editors of the KSTS Tantraloka.
- R. C. Dwivedi: co-editor with Rastogi of the MLBD reprint. B. V. Dwivedi: author of the Upodghata to the Luptagamasamgraha.
Texts
- Tantraloka (TA): "Light on the Tantras", 37 Ahnikas, about 5,844½ verses.
- Tantralokaviveka (TAV): Jayaratha's commentary, also called Prakasa and Vivarana.
- Tantrasara / Tantravatadhanika: Abhinava's prose and short verse summaries of the Tantraloka.
- Malinivijayottara Tantra (Sripurvasastra): the root Agama of the Tantraloka.
- Svacchanda Tantra: second major source, quoted over 300 times by Jayaratha.
- Paratrisika-vivarana: Abhinava's commentary on the Paratrisika; with the Malinivijayottara, the base the Tantraloka extends.
- Srikanthi: lost classifier of the Saiva Tantras (10 Siva, 18 Rudra, 64 Bhairava).
- Kramastotra / Kramakeli: Siddhanatha's Krama hymn and Abhinava's lost commentary on it.
Structural terms
- Ahnika: "daily lesson", a chapter.
- Uddesa, Laksana, Pariksa: naming, defining, examining; the three parts of a sastra.
- Purvaja / Anuja: general and ancillary topics.
- Samcaya-nyaya: the device linking chapters by a split verse.
- Vartika: explanatory work; Abhinava's own label for the Tantraloka.
- Samgraha, Prakriya/Paddhati, Sastra, Stuti: compendium, manual, scripture, hymn; the four genres Rastogi finds in it.
Doctrinal and ritual terms
- Upaya: means. Anupaya, Sambhava, Sakta, Anava: the no-means and the divine, the power-based and the individual means.
- Saktipata: descent of grace.
- Diksa: initiation (samaya, putraka, sadyonirvana, tula, mrtoddhara, lingoddhara and others).
- Sadadhvan: the six paths (worlds, principles, kalas; phonemes, words, mantras).
- Tattva: principle; 36 in the Saiva scheme, with a 37th and 38th in Abhinava.
- Mala (anava, karma, mayiya): the three impurities.
- Sthana-prakalpana: the assigning of places (breath, body, exterior).
- Karana: an "intelligent practice"; seven under the Anava means.
- Nitya / Naimittika karma: daily and occasional rites.
- Kula, Krama, Trika, Pratyabhijna, Spanda: the schools synthesised in the Tantraloka.
- Kali (twelve Kalis): the phases of the Krama cycle of consciousness.
- Catuspitha: the four Kula seats: vidya, mantra, mudra, mandala.
- Prasiddhi: established convention, the ground of scriptural authority.
What the Book Teaches and How to Use It
The Whole Argument in Brief
- The Tantraloka is four books in one: a compendium of the Agamas, a manual of ritual procedure, a scripture in its own right, and a hymn. Its five aims (Bhairavahood, the fourfold saving knowledge, ultimate textual authority, accessibility, and the rescue of tradition) explain its shape (Chapter 1).
- Its author was a scholar-yogin formed by many teachers and a devoted circle. Abhinava wrote it in Pravarapura at the request of his family and disciples. Its method rests on fidelity to teacher, scripture and experience; on fusion of his sources into his own verse; and on a deliberate, staggered presentation (Chapter 2).
- Its commentator was a second founder. Jayaratha, heir of ministers and of a separate Krama line, rescued the text from confusion, preserved a library of lost sources, edited both the Tantraloka and its Agamas, quarrelled with Ksemaraja, and wrote with deliberate restraint (Chapter 3).
- The printed text needs work, and the book's plan is visible. The KSTS edition is readable but uncritical. The 37 chapters follow an announced plan of general and ancillary topics, about two thirds of the book concern the "places" of practice, and cross-references bind it into a single system (Chapter 4).
- The real study remains to be done: a critical edition, comparisons with sister texts, philosophical, historical and cultural studies, and work on the root Agamas (Chapter 5).
Five Ways to Use This Book
- Before reading any Ahnika, check its place in the topical chart and the cross-references of Chapter 4 to see what it announces and what it links to.
- When a verse number seems wrong, remember the numbering problems of the KSTS edition and use Appendix 20 for the MLBD.
- When Abhinava quotes or alludes to a source, consult Appendices 1, 4, 5 and 9 to identify it.
- When Jayaratha's comment seems to go beyond the verse, recall his four phases of handling sources and his sevenfold assistance. He may be supplying background, filling an omission, or decoding esoteric content.
- When you want a quick map of a chapter, use the Sanskrit table of contents (Appendix 17).
Key Lines to Remember
- "But for the Viveka we would never understand the Tantraloka."
- The Introduction "has turned out to be an introduction to the study of the Tantraloka, instead of being an introduction to the text itself".
- It covers "where to study and how to study, leaving the third, what to study, for future".
- "Our most urgent task is to have a critically edited text of the Tantraloka and the Viveka."
- Jayaratha "is not a blind follower at all".
- "Any tantric system worth the name must discard the caste system." (Jayaratha's principle, as Rastogi reports it.)
- The Tantraloka is "a complete digest of Saivism, specially Kashmir Saivism in all its variety and splendour".
Critical-lens Notes on the Book as a Whole
- Strength: precision. Rastogi works from the text outwards and documents nearly every claim with verse or page references. His reconstructions (the three divisions, the start of untagged topics, the Datta line of Krama) are always marked as his own.
- Limit: deliberate scope. The book does not explain doctrine. Readers who want Abhinava's philosophy should turn to K. C. Pandey, to translations of the Tantraloka and Tantrasara, and to later studies.
- Limit: 1987 knowledge. The manuscript notes, the state of editions and some historical datings (for example, the identification of Rajaraja with Jayasimha) reflect what was known in 1987.
- Limit: the physical book. The Sanskrit in the large charts and in Appendix 17 is essential, and electronic copies often lose it.
- Fairness to Ksemaraja. Rastogi reports Jayaratha's charges of distortion but does not settle them. Later scholarship tends to see the differences as evidence of separate manuscript traditions rather than tampering.
Questions Readers Often Ask
Is this book an introduction to Kashmir Saivism? No. It is an introduction to the study of one text, the Tantraloka. It assumes some familiarity with the basic ideas and focuses on the book's purpose, authors, sources and structure.
Do I need to read Sanskrit? The prose chapters can be read in English, with many Sanskrit terms explained. The charts and Appendix 17 need Sanskrit (and Devanagari).
When was Jayaratha? Rastogi places him in the second half of the twelfth century (1150 to 1200), under King Rajaraja, generally identified with Jayasimha (1127 to 1155).
Why are verse numbers in different books sometimes off by one or two? Because the KSTS edition numbers the split verses at chapter boundaries inconsistently, sometimes leaves half-verses unnumbered, and has other numbering errors (Chapter 4, Part I). Always check which edition is being cited.
Why is the Tantraloka not divided into knowledge, yoga, ritual and conduct like many Agamas? Rastogi suggests that Abhinava's synthetic approach makes all four culminate in knowledge, so the opening chapter on knowledge governs the rest. Yoga, ritual and conduct arise for practitioners touched by weaker degrees of grace.
What is the relationship between this book and the eight-volume MLBD Tantraloka? It was written as Volume One of that reprint and published simultaneously as a separate book.
Did Jayaratha really accuse Ksemaraja of distorting the Svacchanda Tantra? Yes, in several places, as Chapter 3 shows. Whether the charge is fair is still an open question.
What should I read next? For doctrine, K. C. Pandey's "Abhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study". For the Krama background, Rastogi's own "The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir". For the text, the Tantraloka with the Viveka (KSTS or MLBD), and modern translations of the Tantrasara and of individual Ahnikas.
Sources
This guide is based on a close reading of the source text:
- Navjivan Rastogi, Introduction to the Tantraloka: A Study in Structure (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987; ISBN 81-208-0180-6; xxx + 589 pages). Publisher's page: Motilal Banarsidass, Introduction to the Tantraloka.
Bibliographic records and reviews:
- Open Library record of the 1987 edition (589 pages), with subjects Kashmir Saivism and Abhinavagupta.
- Open Library record, "A Study in Structure", ISBN 9788120801806.
- Christopher Key Chapple's review in Religious Studies Review, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1988).
Related works by the author:
- Motilal Banarsidass: The Krama Tantricism of Kashmir, Volume 1, which describes Rastogi as co-editor (with R. C. Dwivedi) of the eight-volume Tantraloka.
- Motilal Banarsidass: Kalikrama and Abhinavagupta, which notes Rastogi's role as former head of Sanskrit and Prakrit at Lucknow University and Honorary Director of the Abhinavagupta Institute of Aesthetics and Shaiva Philosophy.