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Rudrayāmala Uttara Tantra
A Yāmala of the Vidyāpīṭha, a Śākta compendium of the eastern schools, and a title cited far more often than it can be found — the text the Vijñāna Bhairava names as its source.
Few titles are quoted more often in tantric Sanskrit than the Rudrayāmala, and few are harder to hold. Abhinavagupta cites it; Jayaratha cites it; the Bengali Śākta digests cite it constantly; the Vijñāna Bhairava names it as its own parent. The book that now circulates under the name will not account for most of what is credited to it — and that discrepancy is itself one of the more instructive facts about how this literature travelled.
What a yāmala isयामल
Yāmala means a pair, a couple, a union; the ordinary Sanskrit word for twins stands beside it. A Yāmala tantra is revelation arising from the union of Rudra and his Śakti rather than from Śiva alone, and the consequence is formal as well as doctrinal. Texts of this class are dialogues throughout — Bhairava and the Goddess in alternating question and answer, neither of them merely the audience. The teaching that Śakti and the possessor of Śakti are never separate is, in a Yāmala, a statement about the shape of the book as much as about the nature of things.
Within the Bhairava stream the Yāmalas belong to the Vidyāpīṭha, the goddess-centred half of the revelation, and the canonical lists count eight of them — a yāmalāṣṭaka. Which eight varies from source to source. Brahmayāmala, Viṣṇuyāmala, Rudrayāmala, Skandayāmala, Ruruyāmala, Vetālayāmala, Svacchandayāmala, Ātharvaṇayāmala are among the names that recur, in shifting combinations and sometimes with others in their place. As with the twenty-eight Āgamas and the sixty-four Bhairava tantras, the number describes how the tradition conceived its canon rather than what can be counted on a shelf.
One Yāmala survives in something close to its early form, and it shows what the class was. The Brahmayāmala, also called the Picumata, is preserved in a Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript copied in the eleventh century, and it is uncompromising: its deity is Kapālīśabhairava with the goddess Caṇḍā Kāpālinī, its practitioner carries the skull-staff and the skull-bowl, and its rites belong squarely to the cremation ground and the cult of the yoginīs. That is the world the Yāmalas came out of — older, fiercer and far more concretely ritual than the philosophical Trika that grew from the same soil.
Two Rudrayāmalas
The Rudrayāmala that the Kashmirian authors knew is not extant. Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha quote a text of that name; later digests quote it at length; and no manuscript answering to those quotations has been identified. What does survive, printed repeatedly in Calcutta and Varanasi since the later nineteenth century, is the Rudrayāmala Uttara Tantra — the "latter" Rudrayāmala, a long Śākta work whose language, cast of goddesses and ritual assumptions place it in eastern India and centuries after the Kashmirian citations. Estimates of its date differ and none is secure; few would put its present shape earlier than the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and portions of it are probably later still.
What the Uttara Tantra contains
None of that makes the surviving text uninteresting. It is a substantial and wide-ranging Śākta compendium, and it is one of the places where a reader can watch several currents run together.
- Mantroddhāraमन्त्रोद्धार · extraction
- The drawing-out of mantras from a lettered diagram. The syllables are not simply given; they are extracted from a grid by a stated procedure, so that a mantra arrives as an operation rather than as a word. A great deal of the text is taken up with this, and it is the most technical thing in it.
- The Goddess
- Tārā above all, but also Kālī, Bhairavī and material belonging to the Śrīvidyā, together with the hymns, protective kavacas and thousand-name litanies that attend them. The theology is that of the Mahāvidyās, the eastern Śākta cult of the ten great goddesses — one of the clearest indications that the text as we have it is not an early Kashmirian Vidyāpīṭha work.
- Cīnācāraचीनाचार · the way of Mahācīna
- The text carries the well-known story of Vasiṣṭha, who fails to propitiate Tārā by orthodox austerity, is directed to Mahācīna, and finds there a teaching conducted in wine and flesh and the company of women, which he is made to accept before he can succeed. It is one of the tradition's own accounts of why a transgressive rite exists at all, and it is largely through this text that the story is known.
- The subtle body
- The channels, the centres, the ascent of kuṇḍalinī, the retention and movement of breath. This is the material that made the book useful far outside its own school, and it is the physiology that the breath teachings assume throughout.
- Yoga and observance
- Long stretches on posture, prāṇāyāma and mudrā, on the discipline and the grades of the practitioner, and on initiation, the qualifications of the guru, and the calendrical and domestic ritual of a Śākta household.
A conduit
The Uttara Tantra's real historical importance is as a channel. Material passed through it into compilations that had a far wider circulation than any Vidyāpīṭha scripture ever enjoyed — the Bengali Śākta digests, the ritual handbooks that depend on them, and from there into the printed devotional literature of the nineteenth century and after. A very large number of hymns, armours and mantra-prescriptions in ordinary use carry a colophon assigning them to the Rudrayāmala. Some of them are in the printed Uttara Tantra. Many are not, and were attached to the name for the authority it conferred.
That is worth stating plainly rather than treating as a scandal. Attribution in this literature is a claim about lineage and legitimacy, not a bibliographical statement, and a tradition which holds that its scriptures are fragments of an unbounded revelation has no difficulty at all with the idea that a teaching may be from the Rudrayāmala without being in any particular copy of it. The historian's problem and the tradition's self-understanding are simply not the same problem, and the honest course is to keep them apart.
The Vijñāna Bhairava's claim
The most consequential of these attributions is the Vijñāna Bhairava's. Its colophons place it within the Rudrayāmala and the tradition has always cited it so: one hundred and twelve dhāraṇās, a dialogue between Bhairava and the Goddess, presented as an extract drawn from the greater Yāmala.
What the claim is worth needs care in both directions. It cannot be verified, because the Rudrayāmala it refers to is lost; and it cannot be refuted from the surviving Uttara Tantra, which does not contain the Vijñāna Bhairava and is in any case too late to be the text meant. But the Vijñāna Bhairava's own antiquity does not rest on the attribution. It was known and quoted in Kashmir in the tenth and eleventh centuries; Kṣemarāja began a commentary on it, the Uddyota, which breaks off after the opening verses; and Śivopādhyāya completed the exegesis long afterwards with his Vivṛti. The text stands on that evidence whatever its parentage.
What the attribution does tell us is what its transmitters took its pedigree to be, and the choice is exact. A Yāmala is revelation issuing from the union of the two; and the Vijñāna Bhairava's opening argument, before it reaches a single practice, is that Śakti and the holder of Śakti are never in fact two, so that to enter Śakti is to enter Bhairava. A text that begins there names as its source the one class of scripture defined by precisely that union. Whether or not the descent is historical, the claim is doctrinally well judged — and that, in a tradition where lineage is a statement of what a teaching is, is not a trivial thing to have got right.
7,694 verses · page 121 of 129
परजन्मनिरस्ता च परसञ्चारकारिणी | परजाता पारिजाता पवित्रा पुण्यवधीनी
parajanmanirastā ca parasañcārakāriṇī | parajātā pārijātā pavitrā puṇyavadhīnī
पापहर्त्री पापकोटिनाशिनी परमोक्षदा | परमाणुरता सूक्ष्मा परमाणुविभञ्जिनी
pāpahartrī pāpakoṭināśinī paramokṣadā | paramāṇuratā sūkṣmā paramāṇuvibhañjinī
परमाणुस्थूलकरी परात्परतरा पथा | पूषणः प्रियकर्त्री च पूषणा पोषणत्रया
paramāṇusthūlakarī parātparatarā pathā | pūṣaṇaḥ priyakartrī ca pūṣaṇā poṣaṇatrayā
भूपपाला पाशहस्ता प्रचण्डा प्राणरक्षिणी | पयःशिलाऽपूपभक्षा पीयूषपानतत्परा
bhūpapālā pāśahastā pracaṇḍā prāṇarakṣiṇī | payaḥśilā'pūpabhakṣā pīyūṣapānatatparā
पीयूषतृप्तदेहा च पीयूषमथनक्रिया | पीयूषसागरोद्भूता पीयूषस्निग्धदोहिनी
pīyūṣatṛptadehā ca pīyūṣamathanakriyā | pīyūṣasāgarodbhūtā pīyūṣasnigdhadohinī
पीयूषनिर्मलाकारा पीयूषघनविग्रहा | प्राणापानसमानादिपवनस्तम्भनप्रिया
pīyūṣanirmalākārā pīyūṣaghanavigrahā | prāṇāpānasamānādipavanastambhanapriyā
पवनांशप्रभाकारा प्रेमोद्गतस्वभक्तिदा | पाषाणतनुसंस्था च पाषाणचित्तविग्रहा
pavanāṃśaprabhākārā premodgatasvabhaktidā | pāṣāṇatanusaṃsthā ca pāṣāṇacittavigrahā
पश्चिमानन्दनिरता पश्चिमा पश्चिमप्रिया | प्रभाकारतनूग्रा च प्रभाकरमुखी प्रभा
paścimānandaniratā paścimā paścimapriyā | prabhākāratanūgrā ca prabhākaramukhī prabhā
सुप्रभा प्रान्तरस्था च प्रेयत्वसाधनप्रिया | अस्थिता पामसी पूर्वनाथपूजितपादुका
suprabhā prāntarasthā ca preyatvasādhanapriyā | asthitā pāmasī pūrvanāthapūjitapādukā
पादुकामन्त्रसिद्धा च पादुकामन्त्रजापिनी | पादुकामङ्गलस्था च पादुकाम्भोजराजिनी
pādukāmantrasiddhā ca pādukāmantrajāpinī | pādukāmaṅgalasthā ca pādukāmbhojarājinī
प्रभाभारुणकोटिस्था प्रचण्डसूर्यकोटिगा | पालयन्ती त्रिलोकानां परमा परहाकिनी
prabhābhāruṇakoṭisthā pracaṇḍasūryakoṭigā | pālayantī trilokānāṃ paramā parahākinī
परावरानना प्रज्ञा प्रान्तरान्तःप्रसिद्धिदा | पारिजातवनोन्मादा परमोन्मादरागिणी
parāvarānanā prajñā prāntarāntaḥprasiddhidā | pārijātavanonmādā paramonmādarāgiṇī
परमाह्लादमोदा च परमाकाशवाहिनी | परमाकाशदेवी च प्रथात्रिपुरसुन्दरी
paramāhlādamodā ca paramākāśavāhinī | paramākāśadevī ca prathātripurasundarī
प्रतिकूलकरी प्राणानुकूलपरिकारिणी | प्राणरुद्रेश्वरप्रीता प्रचण्डगणनायिका
pratikūlakarī prāṇānukūlaparikāriṇī | prāṇarudreśvaraprītā pracaṇḍagaṇanāyikā
पोष्ट्री पौत्रादिरक्षत्री पुण्ड्र्का पञ्चचामरा | परयोषा परप्राया परसन्तानरक्षका
poṣṭrī pautrādirakṣatrī puṇḍrkā pañcacāmarā | parayoṣā paraprāyā parasantānarakṣakā
परयोगिरता पाशपशुपाशविमोहिनी | पशुपाशप्रदा पूज्या प्रसादगुणदायिनी
parayogiratā pāśapaśupāśavimohinī | paśupāśapradā pūjyā prasādaguṇadāyinī
प्रह्लादस्था प्रफुल्लाब्जमुखी परमसुन्दरी | पररामा परारामा पार्वणी पार्वणप्रिया
prahlādasthā praphullābjamukhī paramasundarī | pararāmā parārāmā pārvaṇī pārvaṇapriyā
प्रियङ्करी पूर्वमाता पालनाख्या परासरा | पराशरसुभाग्यस्था परकान्तिनितम्बिनी
priyaṅkarī pūrvamātā pālanākhyā parāsarā | parāśarasubhāgyasthā parakāntinitambinī
परश्मशानगम्या च प्रियचन्द्रमुखीपला | पलसानकरी प्लक्षा प्लवङ्गगणपूजिता
paraśmaśānagamyā ca priyacandramukhīpalā | palasānakarī plakṣā plavaṅgagaṇapūjitā
प्लक्षस्था पल्लवस्था च पङ्केरुहमुखी पटा | पटाकारस्थिता पाठ्या पवित्रलोकदायिनी
plakṣasthā pallavasthā ca paṅkeruhamukhī paṭā | paṭākārasthitā pāṭhyā pavitralokadāyinī
पवित्रमन्त्रजाप्यस्था पवित्रस्थानवासिनी | पवित्रालङ्कृताङ्गी च पवित्रदेहधारिणी
pavitramantrajāpyasthā pavitrasthānavāsinī | pavitrālaṅkṛtāṅgī ca pavitradehadhāriṇī
त्रिपुरा परमैश्वर्यपूजिता सर्वपूजिता | पललप्रियहृद्या च पलालचर्वणप्रिया
tripurā paramaiśvaryapūjitā sarvapūjitā | palalapriyahṛdyā ca palālacarvaṇapriyā
परगोगणगोप्या च प्रभुस्त्रीरौद्रतैजसी | प्रफुल्लाम्भोजवदना प्रफुल्लपद्ममालिनी
paragogaṇagopyā ca prabhustrīraudrataijasī | praphullāmbhojavadanā praphullapadmamālinī
पुष्पप्रिया पुष्पकुला कुलपुष्पप्रियाकुला | पुष्पस्था पुष्पसङ्काशा पुष्पकोमलविग्रहा
puṣpapriyā puṣpakulā kulapuṣpapriyākulā | puṣpasthā puṣpasaṅkāśā puṣpakomalavigrahā
पौष्पी पानरता पुष्पमधुपानरता प्रचा | प्रतीची प्रचयाह्लादो प्राचनाख्या च प्राञ्चिका
pauṣpī pānaratā puṣpamadhupānaratā pracā | pratīcī pracayāhlādo prācanākhyā ca prāñcikā
परोदरे गुणानन्दा परौदार्यगुणप्रिया | पारा कोटिध्वनिरता पद्मसूत्रप्रबोधिनी
parodare guṇānandā paraudāryaguṇapriyā | pārā koṭidhvaniratā padmasūtraprabodhinī
प्रियप्रबोधनिरता प्रचण्डनादमोहिनी | पीवरा पीवरग्रन्थिप्रभेदा प्रलयापहा
priyaprabodhaniratā pracaṇḍanādamohinī | pīvarā pīvaragranthiprabhedā pralayāpahā
प्रलया प्रलयानन्दा प्रलयस्था प्रयोगिनी | प्रयोगकुशला पक्षा पक्षभेदप्रकाशिनी
pralayā pralayānandā pralayasthā prayoginī | prayogakuśalā pakṣā pakṣabhedaprakāśinī
एकपक्षा द्विपक्षा च पञ्चपक्षप्रसिद्धिदा | पलाशकुसुमानन्दा पलाशपुष्पमालिनी
ekapakṣā dvipakṣā ca pañcapakṣaprasiddhidā | palāśakusumānandā palāśapuṣpamālinī
पलाशपुष्पहोमस्था पलाशच्छदसंस्थिता | पात्रपक्षा पीतवस्त्रा पीतवर्णप्रकाशिनी
palāśapuṣpahomasthā palāśacchadasaṃsthitā | pātrapakṣā pītavastrā pītavarṇaprakāśinī
निपीतकालकूटी च पीतसंसारसागरा | पद्मपत्रजलस्था च पद्मपत्रनिवासिनी
nipītakālakūṭī ca pītasaṃsārasāgarā | padmapatrajalasthā ca padmapatranivāsinī
पद्ममाला पापहरा पट्टाम्बरधरा परा | परनिर्वाणदात्री च पराशा परशासना
padmamālā pāpaharā paṭṭāmbaradharā parā | paranirvāṇadātrī ca parāśā paraśāsanā
अप्रियविनिहन्त्री च परसंस्कारपालिनी | प्रतिष्ठा पूजिता सिद्धा प्रसिद्धप्रभुवादिनी
apriyavinihantrī ca parasaṃskārapālinī | pratiṣṭhā pūjitā siddhā prasiddhaprabhuvādinī
प्रयाससिद्धिदा क्षुब्धा प्रपञ्चगुणनाशिनी | प्रणिपत्या प्राणिशिष्या प्रतिष्ठिततनूप्रिया
prayāsasiddhidā kṣubdhā prapañcaguṇanāśinī | praṇipatyā prāṇiśiṣyā pratiṣṭhitatanūpriyā
अप्रतिष्ठा निहन्त्री च पादपद्मद्वयान्विता | पादाम्बुजप्रेमभक्तिपूज्यप्राणप्रदायिनी
apratiṣṭhā nihantrī ca pādapadmadvayānvitā | pādāmbujapremabhaktipūjyaprāṇapradāyinī
पैशाची च प्रक्षपिता पितृश्रद्धा पितामही | प्रपितामहपूज्या च पितृलोकस्वधापरा
paiśācī ca prakṣapitā pitṛśraddhā pitāmahī | prapitāmahapūjyā ca pitṛlokasvadhāparā
पुनर्भवा पुनर्जीवा पौनःपुन्यगतिस्थिता | प्रधानबलिभक्षादिसुप्रिया प्रियसाक्षिणी
punarbhavā punarjīvā paunaḥpunyagatisthitā | pradhānabalibhakṣādisupriyā priyasākṣiṇī
पतङ्गकोटिजीवाख्या पावकस्था च पावनी | परज्ञानार्थदात्री च परतन्त्रार्थसाधिनी
pataṅgakoṭijīvākhyā pāvakasthā ca pāvanī | parajñānārthadātrī ca paratantrārthasādhinī
प्रत्यग्ज्योतिः स्वरूपा च प्रथमाप्रथमारुणा | प्रातःसन्ध्या पार्थसन्ध्या परसन्ध्यास्वरूपिणी
pratyagjyotiḥ svarūpā ca prathamāprathamāruṇā | prātaḥsandhyā pārthasandhyā parasandhyāsvarūpiṇī
प्रधानवरदा प्राणज्ञाननिर्णयकारिणी | प्रभञ्जना प्राञ्जनेशी प्रयोगोद्रेककारिणी
pradhānavaradā prāṇajñānanirṇayakāriṇī | prabhañjanā prāñjaneśī prayogodrekakāriṇī
प्रफुल्लपददात्री च प्रसमाया पुरोदया | पर्वतप्राणरक्षत्री पर्वताधारसाक्षिणी
praphullapadadātrī ca prasamāyā purodayā | parvataprāṇarakṣatrī parvatādhārasākṣiṇī
पर्वतप्राणशोभा च पर्वतच्छत्रकारिणी | पर्वता ज्ञानहर्त्री च प्रलयोदयसाक्षिणी
parvataprāṇaśobhā ca parvatacchatrakāriṇī | parvatā jñānahartrī ca pralayodayasākṣiṇī
प्रारब्धजननी काली प्रद्युम्नजननी सुरा | प्राक्सुरेश्वरपत्नी च परवीरकुलापहा
prārabdhajananī kālī pradyumnajananī surā | prāksureśvarapatnī ca paravīrakulāpahā
परवीरनियन्त्री च परप्रणवमालिनी | प्रणवेशी प्रणवगा प्रणवाद्याक्षरप्रिया
paravīraniyantrī ca parapraṇavamālinī | praṇaveśī praṇavagā praṇavādyākṣarapriyā
प्रणवार्णजपप्रीता प्राणमृत्युञ्जयप्रदा | प्रणवालङ्कृता व्यूढा पशुभक्षणतर्पणा
praṇavārṇajapaprītā prāṇamṛtyuñjayapradā | praṇavālaṅkṛtā vyūḍhā paśubhakṣaṇatarpaṇā
पशुदोषहरा पाशुपतास्त्रकोटिधारिणी | प्रवेशिनी प्रवेशाख्या पद्मपत्रत्रिलोचना
paśudoṣaharā pāśupatāstrakoṭidhāriṇī | praveśinī praveśākhyā padmapatratrilocanā
पशुमांसासवानन्दा पशुकोटिबलिप्रिया | पशुधर्मक्षया प्रार्या पशुतर्पणकारिणी
paśumāṃsāsavānandā paśukoṭibalipriyā | paśudharmakṣayā prāryā paśutarpaṇakāriṇī
पशुश्रद्धाकरी पूज्या पशुमुण्डसुमालिनी | परवीरयोगशिक्षा परसिद्धान्तयोगिनी
paśuśraddhākarī pūjyā paśumuṇḍasumālinī | paravīrayogaśikṣā parasiddhāntayoginī
परशुक्रोधमुख्यास्त्रा परशुप्रलयप्रदा | पद्मरागमालधरा पद्मरागासनस्थिता
paraśukrodhamukhyāstrā paraśupralayapradā | padmarāgamāladharā padmarāgāsanasthitā
पद्मरागमणिश्रेणीहारालङ्कारशोभिता | परमधूलिसौन्दर्यमञ्जीरपादुकाम्बुजा
padmarāgamaṇiśreṇīhārālaṅkāraśobhitā | paramadhūlisaundaryamañjīrapādukāmbujā
हर्त्री समस्तदुःखानां हिरण्यहारशोभिता | हरिणाक्षी हरिस्था च हरा हारावती हिरा
hartrī samastaduḥkhānāṃ hiraṇyahāraśobhitā | hariṇākṣī haristhā ca harā hārāvatī hirā
हारकुण्डलशोभाढ्या हारकेयूरमण्डिता | हरणस्था हाकिनी च होमकर्मप्रकाशिनी
hārakuṇḍalaśobhāḍhyā hārakeyūramaṇḍitā | haraṇasthā hākinī ca homakarmaprakāśinī
हरिद्रा हरिपूज्या च हरमाला हरेश्वरी | हरातीता हरसिद्धा ह्रींकारी हंसमालिनी
haridrā haripūjyā ca haramālā hareśvarī | harātītā harasiddhā hrīṃkārī haṃsamālinī
हंसमन्त्रस्वरूपा च हंसमण्डलभेदिनी | हंसः सोऽहं मणिकरा हंसराजोपरिस्थिता
haṃsamantrasvarūpā ca haṃsamaṇḍalabhedinī | haṃsaḥ so'haṃ maṇikarā haṃsarājoparisthitā
हीरकाभा हीरकसूकधारिणी हरमेखला | हरकुण्डमेखला च होमदण्डसुमेखला
hīrakābhā hīrakasūkadhāriṇī haramekhalā | harakuṇḍamekhalā ca homadaṇḍasumekhalā
हरधरप्रियानन्दा हलीशानी हरोदया | हरपत्नी हररता संहारविग्रहोज्ज्वला
haradharapriyānandā halīśānī harodayā | harapatnī hararatā saṃhāravigrahojjvalā
संहारनिलया हाला ह्लींबीजप्रणवप्रिया | हलक्षा हक्षवर्णस्था हाकिनी हरमोहिनी
saṃhāranilayā hālā hlīṃbījapraṇavapriyā | halakṣā hakṣavarṇasthā hākinī haramohinī
हाहा हूहू प्रियानन्दगायनप्रेमसुप्रिया | हरभूतिप्रदा हारप्रिया हीरकमालिनी
hāhā hūhū priyānandagāyanapremasupriyā | harabhūtipradā hārapriyā hīrakamālinī
हीरकाभा हीरकस्था हराधारा हरस्थिता | हालानिषेविता हिन्ता हिन्तालवनसिद्धिदा
hīrakābhā hīrakasthā harādhārā harasthitā | hālāniṣevitā hintā hintālavanasiddhidā
महामाया महारौद्री महादेवनिषेविता | महानया महादेवी महासिद्धा महोदया
mahāmāyā mahāraudrī mahādevaniṣevitā | mahānayā mahādevī mahāsiddhā mahodayā