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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.
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कामराभार्सुरवाद्यस्था कियधंकारनादिनी | कणादयज्ञसूत्रस्था कीलालयज्ञसञ्ज्ञका
kāmarābhārsuravādyasthā kiyadhaṃkāranādinī | kaṇādayajñasūtrasthā kīlālayajñasañjñakā
कटुहासा कपाटस्था कटधूमनिवासिनी | कटिनादघोरतरा कुट्टला पाटलिप्रिया
kaṭuhāsā kapāṭasthā kaṭadhūmanivāsinī | kaṭinādaghoratarā kuṭṭalā pāṭalipriyā
कामचाराब्जनेत्रा च कामचोद्गारसंक्रमा | काष्ठपर्वतसंदाहा कुष्ठाकुष्ठ निवारिणी
kāmacārābjanetrā ca kāmacodgārasaṃkramā | kāṣṭhaparvatasaṃdāhā kuṣṭhākuṣṭha nivāriṇī
कहोडमन्त्रसिद्धस्था काहला डिण्डिमप्रिया | कुलडिण्डिमवाद्यस्था कामडामरसिद्धिदा
kahoḍamantrasiddhasthā kāhalā ḍiṇḍimapriyā | kulaḍiṇḍimavādyasthā kāmaḍāmarasiddhidā
कुलामरवध्यस्था कुलकेकानिनादिनी | कोजागरढोलनादा कास्यवीररणस्थिता
kulāmaravadhyasthā kulakekāninādinī | kojāgaraḍholanādā kāsyavīraraṇasthitā
कालादिकरणच्छिद्रा करुणानिधिवत्सला | क्रतुश्रीदा कृतार्थश्रीः कालतारा कुलोत्तरा
kālādikaraṇacchidrā karuṇānidhivatsalā | kratuśrīdā kṛtārthaśrīḥ kālatārā kulottarā
कथापूज्या कथानन्दा कथना कथनप्रिया | कार्थचिन्ता कार्थविद्या काममिथ्यापवादिनी
kathāpūjyā kathānandā kathanā kathanapriyā | kārthacintā kārthavidyā kāmamithyāpavādinī
कदम्बपुष्पसङ्काशा कदम्बपुष्पमालिनी | कादम्बरी पानतुष्टा कायदम्भा कदोद्यमा
kadambapuṣpasaṅkāśā kadambapuṣpamālinī | kādambarī pānatuṣṭā kāyadambhā kadodyamā
कुङ्कुलेपत्रमध्यस्था कुलाधारा धरप्रिया | कुलदेवशरीरार्धा कुलधामा कलाधरा
kuṅkulepatramadhyasthā kulādhārā dharapriyā | kuladevaśarīrārdhā kuladhāmā kalādharā
कामरागा भूषणाढ्या कामिनीरगुणप्रिया | कुलीना नागहस्ता च कुलीननागवाहिनी
kāmarāgā bhūṣaṇāḍhyā kāminīraguṇapriyā | kulīnā nāgahastā ca kulīnanāgavāhinī
कामपूरस्थिता कोपा कपाली बकुलोद्भवा | कारागारजनापाल्या कारागारप्रपालिनी
kāmapūrasthitā kopā kapālī bakulodbhavā | kārāgārajanāpālyā kārāgāraprapālinī
क्रियाशक्तिः कालपङ्क्तिः कार्णपङ्क्तिः कफोदया | कामफुल्लारविन्दस्था कामरूपफलाफला
kriyāśaktiḥ kālapaṅktiḥ kārṇapaṅktiḥ kaphodayā | kāmaphullāravindasthā kāmarūpaphalāphalā
कायफला कायफेणा कान्ता नाडीफलीश्वरा | कमफेरुगता गौरी कायवाणी कुवीरगा
kāyaphalā kāyapheṇā kāntā nāḍīphalīśvarā | kamapherugatā gaurī kāyavāṇī kuvīragā
कबरीमणिबन्धस्था कावेरीतीर्थसङ्गमा | कामभीतिहरा कान्ता कामवाकुभ्रमातुरा
kabarīmaṇibandhasthā kāverītīrthasaṅgamā | kāmabhītiharā kāntā kāmavākubhramāturā
कविभावहरा भामा कमनीयभयापहा | कामगर्भदेवमाता कामकल्पलतामरा
kavibhāvaharā bhāmā kamanīyabhayāpahā | kāmagarbhadevamātā kāmakalpalatāmarā
कमठप्रियमांसादा कमठा मर्कटप्रिया | किमाकारा किमाधारा कुम्भकारमनस्थिता
kamaṭhapriyamāṃsādā kamaṭhā markaṭapriyā | kimākārā kimādhārā kumbhakāramanasthitā
काम्ययज्ञस्थिता चण्डा काम्ययज्ञोपवीतिका | कामयागसिद्धिकरी काममैथुनयामिनी
kāmyayajñasthitā caṇḍā kāmyayajñopavītikā | kāmayāgasiddhikarī kāmamaithunayāminī
कामाख्या यमलाशस्था कालयामा कुयोगिनी | कुरुयागहतायोग्या कुरुमांसविभक्शिणी
kāmākhyā yamalāśasthā kālayāmā kuyoginī | kuruyāgahatāyogyā kurumāṃsavibhakśiṇī
कुरुरक्तप्रियाकारी किङ्करप्रियकारिणी | कर्त्रीश्वरी कारणात्मा कविभक्शा कविप्रिया
kururaktapriyākārī kiṅkarapriyakāriṇī | kartrīśvarī kāraṇātmā kavibhakśā kavipriyā
कविशत्रुप्रष्ठलग्ना कैलासोपवनस्थिता | कलित्रिधा त्रिसिद्धिस्था कलित्रिदिनसिद्धिदा
kaviśatrupraṣṭhalagnā kailāsopavanasthitā | kalitridhā trisiddhisthā kalitridinasiddhidā
कलङ्करहिता काली कलिकल्मषकामदा | कुलपुष्परङ्ग सूत्रमणिग्रन्थिसुशोभना
kalaṅkarahitā kālī kalikalmaṣakāmadā | kulapuṣparaṅga sūtramaṇigranthisuśobhanā
कम्बोजवङ्गदेशस्था कुलवासुकिरक्शिका | कुलशास्त्रक्रिया शान्तिः कुलशान्तिः कुलेश्वरी
kambojavaṅgadeśasthā kulavāsukirakśikā | kulaśāstrakriyā śāntiḥ kulaśāntiḥ kuleśvarī
कुशलप्रतिभा काशी कुलषट्चक्रभेदिनी | कुलषट्पद्ममध्यस्था कुलषट्पद्मदीपिनी
kuśalapratibhā kāśī kulaṣaṭcakrabhedinī | kulaṣaṭpadmamadhyasthā kulaṣaṭpadmadīpinī
कृष्णमार्जारकोलस्था कृष्णमार्जारषष्ठिका | कुलमार्जारकुपिता कुलमार्जारषोडशी
kṛṣṇamārjārakolasthā kṛṣṇamārjāraṣaṣṭhikā | kulamārjārakupitā kulamārjāraṣoḍaśī
कालान्तकवलोत्पन्ना कपिलान्तकघातिनी | कलहासा कालहश्री कलहार्था कलामला
kālāntakavalotpannā kapilāntakaghātinī | kalahāsā kālahaśrī kalahārthā kalāmalā
कक्शपपक्शरक्शा च कुक्षेत्रपक्शसंक्शया | काक्शरक्शासाक्शिणी च महामोक्शप्रतिष्ठिता
kakśapapakśarakśā ca kukṣetrapakśasaṃkśayā | kākśarakśāsākśiṇī ca mahāmokśapratiṣṭhitā
अर्ककोटिशतच्छाया आन्वीक्शिकिकराचीता | कावेरीतीरभूमिस्था आग्नेयार्कास्त्रधारिणी
arkakoṭiśatacchāyā ānvīkśikikarācītā | kāverītīrabhūmisthā āgneyārkāstradhāriṇī
इं किं श्रीं कामकमला पातु कैलासरक्षिणी | मम श्रीं ईं बीजरूपा पातु काली शिरस्थलम्
iṃ kiṃ śrīṃ kāmakamalā pātu kailāsarakṣiṇī | mama śrīṃ īṃ bījarūpā pātu kālī śirasthalam
उरुस्थलाब्जं सकलं तमोल्का पातु कालिका | ऊडुम्बन्यर्करमणी उष्ट्रेग्रा कुलमातृका
urusthalābjaṃ sakalaṃ tamolkā pātu kālikā | ūḍumbanyarkaramaṇī uṣṭregrā kulamātṛkā
कृतापेक्षा कृतिमती कुङ्कारी किंलिपिस्थिता | कुंदीर्घस्वरा क्ळ्प्ता च कें कैलासकराचीका
kṛtāpekṣā kṛtimatī kuṅkārī kiṃlipisthitā | kuṃdīrghasvarā kḷptā ca keṃ kailāsakarācīkā
कैशोरी कैं करी कैं कें बीजाख्या नेत्रयुग्मकम् | कोमा मतङ्गयजिता कौशल्यादि कुमारिका
kaiśorī kaiṃ karī kaiṃ keṃ bījākhyā netrayugmakam | komā mataṅgayajitā kauśalyādi kumārikā
पातु मे कर्णयुग्मन्तु क्रौं क्रौं जीवकरालिनी | गण्डयुग्मं सदा पातु कुण्डली अङ्कवासिनी
pātu me karṇayugmantu krauṃ krauṃ jīvakarālinī | gaṇḍayugmaṃ sadā pātu kuṇḍalī aṅkavāsinī
अर्ककोटिशताभासा अक्षराक्षरमालिनी | आशुतोषकरी हस्ता कुलदेवी निरञ्जना
arkakoṭiśatābhāsā akṣarākṣaramālinī | āśutoṣakarī hastā kuladevī nirañjanā
पातु मे कुलपुष्पाढ्या पृष्ठदेशं सुकृत्तमा | कुमारी कामनापूर्णा पार्श्वदेशं सदावतु
pātu me kulapuṣpāḍhyā pṛṣṭhadeśaṃ sukṛttamā | kumārī kāmanāpūrṇā pārśvadeśaṃ sadāvatu
देवी कामाख्यका देवी पातु प्रत्यङ्गिरा कटिम् | कटिस्थदेवता पातु लिङ्गमूलं सदा मम
devī kāmākhyakā devī pātu pratyaṅgirā kaṭim | kaṭisthadevatā pātu liṅgamūlaṃ sadā mama
गुह्यदेशं काकिनी मे लिङ्गाधः कुलसिंहिका | कुलनागेश्वरी पातु नितम्बदेशमुत्तमम्
guhyadeśaṃ kākinī me liṅgādhaḥ kulasiṃhikā | kulanāgeśvarī pātu nitambadeśamuttamam
कङ्कालमालिनी देवी मे पातु चारुमूलकम् | जंघायुग्मं सदा पातु कीतीः चक्रापहारिणी
kaṅkālamālinī devī me pātu cārumūlakam | jaṃghāyugmaṃ sadā pātu kītīḥ cakrāpahāriṇī
पादयुग्मं पाकसंस्था पाकशासनरक्षिका | कुलालचक्रभ्रमरा पातु पादाङ्गुलीर्मम
pādayugmaṃ pākasaṃsthā pākaśāsanarakṣikā | kulālacakrabhramarā pātu pādāṅgulīrmama
नखाग्राणि दशविधा तथा हस्तद्वयस्य च | विंशरूपा कालनाक्षा सर्वदा परिरक्षतु
nakhāgrāṇi daśavidhā tathā hastadvayasya ca | viṃśarūpā kālanākṣā sarvadā parirakṣatu
कुलच्छत्राधाररूपा कुलमण्डलगोपिता | कुलकुण्डलिनी माता कुलपण्डितमण्डिता
kulacchatrādhārarūpā kulamaṇḍalagopitā | kulakuṇḍalinī mātā kulapaṇḍitamaṇḍitā
काकाननी काकतुण्डी काकायुः प्रखरार्कजा | काकज्वरा काकजिह्वा काकाजिज्ञा सनस्थिता
kākānanī kākatuṇḍī kākāyuḥ prakharārkajā | kākajvarā kākajihvā kākājijñā sanasthitā
कपिध्वजा कपिक्रोशा कपिबाला हिकस्वरा | कालकाञ्ची विंशतिस्था सदा विंशनखाग्रहम्
kapidhvajā kapikrośā kapibālā hikasvarā | kālakāñcī viṃśatisthā sadā viṃśanakhāgraham
पातु देवी कालरूपा कलिकालफलालया | वाते वा पर्वते वापि शून्यागारे चतुष्पथे
pātu devī kālarūpā kalikālaphalālayā | vāte vā parvate vāpi śūnyāgāre catuṣpathe
कुलेन्द्रसमयाचारा कुलाचारजनप्रिया | कुलपर्वतसंस्था च कुलकैलासवासिनी
kulendrasamayācārā kulācārajanapriyā | kulaparvatasaṃsthā ca kulakailāsavāsinī
महादावानले पातु कुमार्गे कुत्सितग्रहे | राज्ञोऽप्रिये राजवश्ये महाशत्रुविनाशने
mahādāvānale pātu kumārge kutsitagrahe | rājño'priye rājavaśye mahāśatruvināśane
कलिकालमहालक्ष्मीः क्रियालक्ष्मीः कुलाम्बरा | कलीन्द्रकीलिता कीला कीलालस्वर्गवासिनी
kalikālamahālakṣmīḥ kriyālakṣmīḥ kulāmbarā | kalīndrakīlitā kīlā kīlālasvargavāsinī
दशदिक्षु सदा पातु इन्द्रादिदशलोकपा | नवच्छिन्ने सदा पातु सूर्यादिकनवग्रहा
daśadikṣu sadā pātu indrādidaśalokapā | navacchinne sadā pātu sūryādikanavagrahā
पातु मां कुलमांसाढ्या कुलपद्मनिवासिनी | कुलद्रव्यप्रिया मध्या षोडशी भुवनेश्वरी
pātu māṃ kulamāṃsāḍhyā kulapadmanivāsinī | kuladravyapriyā madhyā ṣoḍaśī bhuvaneśvarī
विद्यावादे विवादे च मत्तकाले महाभये | दुभीक्षादिभये चैव व्याधिसङ्करपीडिते
vidyāvāde vivāde ca mattakāle mahābhaye | dubhīkṣādibhaye caiva vyādhisaṅkarapīḍite
कालीकुल्ला कपाली च कामाख्या कामचारिणी | सदा मां कुलसंसर्गे पातु कौले सुसङ्गता
kālīkullā kapālī ca kāmākhyā kāmacāriṇī | sadā māṃ kulasaṃsarge pātu kaule susaṅgatā
सर्वत्र सर्वदेशे च कुलरूपा सदावतु | इत्येतत् कथितं नाथ मातुः प्रसादहेतुना
sarvatra sarvadeśe ca kularūpā sadāvatu | ityetat kathitaṃ nātha mātuḥ prasādahetunā
अष्टोत्तरशतं नाम सहस्रं कुण्डलीप्रियम् | कुलकुण्डलिनीदेव्याः सर्वमन्त्रसुसिद्धये
aṣṭottaraśataṃ nāma sahasraṃ kuṇḍalīpriyam | kulakuṇḍalinīdevyāḥ sarvamantrasusiddhaye
सर्वदेवमनूनाञ्च चैतन्याय सुसिद्धये | अणिमाद्यष्टसिद्ध्यर्थं साधकानां हिताय च
sarvadevamanūnāñca caitanyāya susiddhaye | aṇimādyaṣṭasiddhyarthaṃ sādhakānāṃ hitāya ca
ब्राह्मणाय प्रदातव्यं कुलद्रव्यपराय च | अकुलीनेऽब्राह्मणे च न देयः कुण्डलीस्तवः | प्रवृत्ते कुण्डलीचक्रे सर्वे वर्णा द्विजातयः
brāhmaṇāya pradātavyaṃ kuladravyaparāya ca | akulīne'brāhmaṇe ca na deyaḥ kuṇḍalīstavaḥ | pravṛtte kuṇḍalīcakre sarve varṇā dvijātayaḥ
निवृत्ते भैरवीचक्रे सर्वे वर्णाः पृथक् पृथक् | कुलीनाय प्रदातव्यं साधकाय विशेषतः
nivṛtte bhairavīcakre sarve varṇāḥ pṛthak pṛthak | kulīnāya pradātavyaṃ sādhakāya viśeṣataḥ
दानादेव हि सिद्धिः स्यान्ममाज्ञाबलहेतुना | मम क्रियायां यस्तिष्ठेत्स मे पुत्रो न संशयः
dānādeva hi siddhiḥ syānmamājñābalahetunā | mama kriyāyāṃ yastiṣṭhetsa me putro na saṃśayaḥ
स आयाति मम पदं जीवन्मुक्तः स वासवः | आसवेन समांसेन कुलवह्नौ महानिशि
sa āyāti mama padaṃ jīvanmuktaḥ sa vāsavaḥ | āsavena samāṃsena kulavahnau mahāniśi
नाम प्रत्येकमुच्चार्य जुहुयात् कायसिद्धये | पञ्चाचाररतो भूत्त्वा ऊद्र्ध्वरेता भवेद्यतिः
nāma pratyekamuccārya juhuyāt kāyasiddhaye | pañcācārarato bhūttvā ūdrdhvaretā bhavedyatiḥ
संवत्सरान्मम स्थाने आयाति नात्र संशयः | एहिके कायसिद्धिः स्यात् दैहिके सर्वसिद्धिदः
saṃvatsarānmama sthāne āyāti nātra saṃśayaḥ | ehike kāyasiddhiḥ syāt daihike sarvasiddhidaḥ
वशी भूत्त्वा त्रिमार्गस्थाः स्वर्गभूतलवासिनः | अस्य भृत्याः प्रभवन्ति इन्द्रादिलोकपालकाः
vaśī bhūttvā trimārgasthāḥ svargabhūtalavāsinaḥ | asya bhṛtyāḥ prabhavanti indrādilokapālakāḥ