Recognition
Vijñāna Bhairava
The Devī asks what Bhairava is, is told that nothing nameable is — and then asks how, and is answered a hundred and twelve times. A Vidyāpīṭha text with no ritual in it, claiming descent from a tantra nobody can now read.
The most-read practical scripture of the Trika, and the least doctrinal. Its structure is one argument: every form of Bhairava is refused, and then, with nothing left to point at, the text begins handing over methods.
Where the text belongsविद्यापीठ
The Vijñāna Bhairava does not present itself as an independent scripture. Its colophons place it inside the Rudrayāmala, and the Devī's opening words name that tantra as the teaching she has already received in full. The Rudrayāmala belongs to the Yāmala group — one of the eight aṣṭakas into which the sixty-four Bhairava tantras are ordered — and the Yāmalas sit in the Vidyāpīṭha, the goddess-centred half of the Bhairava stream, which on its own account is the higher of the two seats. See Śaiva Āgama for that architecture.
The placement matters chiefly for what it leads a reader to expect, and then fails to deliver. The Vidyāpīṭha is where the kāpālika observance and the cult of the yoginīs belong: cremation grounds and skull-bowls, elaborate maṇḍalas, the extraction of mantras from a coded matrix, the long graded apparatus of initiation. The Vijñāna Bhairava has none of it. No maṇḍala is drawn, no mantra extracted, no deity installed, no initiation described — and the pantheon that crowds its neighbours is precisely what verses 8 to 13 dismantle. A text of the fiercest scriptural family turns out to contain almost nothing a person could not do sitting still and alone.
What kind of portion? The text calls itself an essence — sārāt sāra-vibhāgaśaḥ, essence sifted from essence — and in this literature that is a recognised genre, not a modesty formula. Enormous tantras were routinely reduced to working texts: a sāra keeps the operative core and lets the ritual scaffolding go, on the understanding that the scaffolding is available elsewhere. Read that way the Vijñāna Bhairava is not a fragment of something lost but its distillate — the part meant to be carried away.
How the text is built
| Verses | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–6 | The Devī establishes her competence, then lists the tradition's own accounts of Bhairava's nature and shows that none can hold |
| 7 | Bhairava ratifies the question rather than answering it — the essence of the Tantra |
| 8–13 | Every named form is struck out, and the reason they were ever taught is given |
| 14–21 | What is left: an unsayable state, identified with Parā Devī, with Śakti declared the doorway |
| 22–23 | The Devī asks the only question remaining — not what, but by what means |
| 24–135 | The hundred and twelve dhāraṇās |
| 136–163 | The fruit of the practice, and the closing dialogue |
That table is tidier than the manuscripts. The text is famous for a number, and the number does not sit comfortably on the verses. One hundred and twelve dhāraṇās are counted, and the tradition has always counted them so; but the practical section does not divide into a hundred and twelve tidy verses. Some methods run over two; some single verses hold two distinct methods; and a few passages can be read either way, depending on whether a change of object begins a new dhāraṇā or elaborates the last one.
So printed texts give the whole work as one hundred and sixty-two or one hundred and sixty-three verses, and disagree about where the dhāraṇās close. The commentators reach a hundred and twelve by grouping, and they do not group identically; a reader comparing translations should expect the numbers to drift by a digit or two. The figure is a claim about completeness — that the doorways have been exhausted — not an inventory that could be audited.
The opening is not preamble
It is the reason the methods can be trusted. The Devī begins by declaring that she has already received the whole Rudrayāmala and the whole Trika — sārāt sāra-vibhāgaśaḥ, sifted essence from essence — which rules out any elementary reply. Then she lists: is it the mass of sound? the nine-fold form? the three-headed deity? the three śaktis? nāda and bindu? the cakras? These are not straw men; each is a serious position held within her own tradition.
And then she finds the flaw common to all of them:
न हि वर्णविभेदेन देहभेदेन वा भवेत्। परत्वं निष्कलत्वेन सकलत्वे न तद्भवेत्॥
For supremacy cannot arise through distinctions of letters or of bodies; it belongs to the partless. In what has parts, that supremacy cannot be.
Varṇa and deha — the phonic body and the physical body, the two things a tantric practitioner spends a lifetime working with. Both have parts. And paratva, supremacy, cannot be one item in a series without ceasing to be supreme. She has closed every door her tradition offers before Bhairava has said a word.
The hinge
Sādhu sādhu tvayā pṛṣṭaṃ tantra-sāram idaṃ priye — "well asked, well asked; this is the essence of the Tantra." He does not correct her. He ratifies her. The deadlock she reached by taking the tradition entirely seriously is not a failure of understanding; it is the essence. Everything after this verse is possible only because the questioner has been told her impasse was right.
Why the forms were taught
अप्रबुद्धमतीनां हि एता बालविभीषिकाः। मातृमोदकवत्सर्वं प्रवृत्त्यर्थमुदाहृतम्॥
These are but bugbears for children, for the unawakened of mind — all set forth, like a mother's sweet to a child, only to draw them onto the path.
A threat and a bribe: the two levers by which a small child is moved when reasons will not work. Neither is a lie — a mother offering a sweet is not deceiving the child, she is using what the child can currently respond to. The forms are thereby given a status that is neither true nor false but developmental. And note the tone: mātṛ-modakavat is affectionate. Bhairava is not sneering at what he has just dissolved.
Then verse 9 supplies three images for what a sakala form actually is — śakrajāla, a conjuror's trick; svapna, a dream; gandharva-nagara, the mirage-city on the horizon. They are not synonyms. A trick is manufactured to be taken for real; a dream is real while it lasts and gone on waking; a mirage recedes exactly as fast as you approach. Between them they cover the three ways a form fails.
Fullness, and the doorway
The negations end at verse 14 with four removals — free of the reckoning of space and time, not particularised by place, impossible to point at, in the highest sense unsayable. Verse 15 begins the recovery immediately, and changes register completely: the state is bharitākārā, full to overflowing, and it is named — Bhairavī, the Śakti of Bhairava himself. The unsayable is not a blank. It is fullness, and it has a name.
Then the line the whole later tradition carries:
शक्त्यवस्थाप्रविष्टस्य निर्विभागेन भावना। तदासौ शिवरूपी स्याच्छैवी मुखमिहोच्यते॥
For one who has entered the state of Śakti, contemplation is undivided; then he becomes of the nature of Śiva. Here Śakti is called the doorway.
Mukha is face, mouth, opening and entrance at once, and the word is chosen because it is all of them. Śakti is the face of Śiva turned towards you and she is the opening through which you go — the doorway is made of what is on the other side of it. This half-line is what licenses method at all. If Śakti is the doorway, then breath, sound, sensation and even fright are doorways, because every one of them is Śakti.
The second question
At verse 22 the Devī speaks again, and addresses him as triśūlāṅka kapāla-kṛta-bhūṣaṇa — marked with the trident, adorned with skulls. She is addressing precisely the iconography that verses 9–13 dissolved. This is not inconsistency; it shows what the refusal meant. The forms were never abolished, only denied ultimacy. One may still speak to the skull-adorned Bhairava while knowing that skulls are not what he is.
Her question has changed. At verse 2 she asked kiṃ rūpam — what is your nature. Now she asks kair upāyaiḥ — by what means. The first was answered by refusing every answer. The second is answered a hundred and twelve times. The methods themselves are treated separately, under the 112 dhāraṇās.
The commentaries
Kṣemarāja began a commentary on this text and did not finish it. What survives under his name — the Uddyota — runs to verse 23 and stops, exactly at the end of the doctrinal opening, on the threshold of the first dhāraṇā. Whether he wrote no further or the remainder was lost is not known. It is a tantalising place to lose a commentator: verse 23 is the precise point at which the text turns from what Bhairava is to how he is approached.
The gap was filled some seven centuries later. Śivopādhyāya, an eighteenth-century Kashmiri, wrote the Vivṛti, which takes up the text where the earlier commentary breaks off and carries it to the end; the standard Kashmiri edition prints the two together, so a reader moves from one hand to the other without a seam. Śivopādhyāya has the whole Pratyabhijñā behind him and reads the dhāraṇās through it, which is both his value and his limit. A third commentary, the Kaumudī of Ānandabhaṭṭa, is also known and is much less studied.
Why Abhinavagupta says comparatively little of it
The proportions surprise anyone who comes to the tradition through this text first. The Vijñāna Bhairava is now the most translated and most practised scripture of the Kashmirian schools; the tradition's greatest exponent makes comparatively modest use of it. Abhinavagupta knows it, cites it, treats it as authoritative — and it is nowhere near the centre of his work.
The reason is structural rather than evaluative. The Tantrāloka declares itself an unfolding of the Mālinīvijayottara and of nothing else, and its architecture is built from ritual, initiation, mantra-systems, maṇḍala, the ranking of scriptures, the duties of the initiate. A text containing none of these gives such a work almost nothing to build with. The Vijñāna Bhairava supplies methods, not systems. It fits nowhere in a scheme, because it has no scheme — and it is complete on any page you open.
It is the practical wing of the tradition that treasures it, and the pattern of citation shows this. Where a commentator's question is what a practitioner should actually do — how the centre is made to unfold, what one attends to in the breath, how a thought is dissolved rather than replaced — the Vijñāna Bhairava is quoted freely, and Kṣemarāja draws on it in exactly those passages of his own works. The text is not neglected; it is used for what it is good for.
In the twentieth century it travelled further than any other work of the school. Swami Lakshman Joo (1907–1991), the last holder of the living Kashmiri lineage, taught it throughout his life; and a rendering of the hundred and twelve methods made with his help reached English readers as "Centering" in Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (1957), stripped of every doctrinal frame and offered as bare instructions — a genuinely odd fate for a Vidyāpīṭha scripture, and the way most of the world first met it. Scholarly translations followed, notably those of Jaideva Singh and Bettina Bäumer.
The closing: what is promisedजीवन्मुक्ति
The dhāraṇās end and the dialogue resumes. The last stretch of the text, running to verse 163, is Bhairava's account of the fruit, and it is more extravagant than anything in the practical section — which is characteristic. The methods are described with restraint; the outcome is not.
The claim is jīvanmukti, liberation while living. The one established in this state is not going to become Bhairava at death; he is Bhairava now, and the text says so without qualification — such a person is the deity, and what is offered to him is offered to Bhairava. Nothing intervenes: not a stage of purification still outstanding, not a body still to be shed. For such a person the external apparatus — vow, pilgrimage, oblation, the counted rosary — has nothing further to accomplish. It is not forbidden and not condemned; it is simply finished, in the way a ladder is finished.
The teaching itself is called paramāmṛta, the supreme nectar, and is declared secret — to be given to a disciple who is fit and withheld from one who is not. That injunction is not an afterthought: a text which has just said that terror and a sneeze are doorways has practical reasons for wanting a teacher in the room. And the fruit recovers the opening argument exactly. Bhairava could not be described because he has no parts; the practitioner who has entered by any one of the hundred and twelve doorways is, by the same reasoning, no longer a describable item either. That is why they can be offered unranked. A hundred and twelve doors; one room.
The frame then closes where it opened, on the Devī. She began by proving that no answer her tradition had given her would hold. She ends satisfied, her question exhausted — and the text's last image is not a doctrine but a gesture: the Goddess, delighted, with her arms about Śiva's neck. A scripture that spent its opening dismantling every form of Bhairava closes by putting its arms round one.
161 verses · page 3 of 3
सर्वत्र भैरवो भावः सामान्येष्वपि गोचरः । न च तद्व्यतिरेकेण परोऽस्तीत्यद्वया गतिः ॥ १२१ ॥
The state of Bhairava is everywhere, accessible even in ordinary things; and there is nothing else apart from it — such is the non-dual realization.
भैरव का भाव सर्वत्र है, सामान्य वस्तुओं में भी गोचर (उपलब्ध) है; और उससे भिन्न कोई अन्य है ही नहीं — यही अद्वय गति (बोध) है।
समः शत्रौ च मित्रे च समो मानावमानयोः । ब्रह्मणः परिपूर्णत्वादिति ज्ञात्वा सुखी भवेत् ॥ १२२ ॥
Equal toward enemy and toward friend, the same in honour and in dishonour — knowing this through the perfect fullness of Brahman, one becomes happy.
शत्रु और मित्र में समान, मान और अपमान में समान — ब्रह्म की परिपूर्णता के कारण ऐसा जानकर साधक सुखी हो जाता है।
न द्वेषं भावयेत्क्वापि न रागं भावयेत्क्वचित् । रागद्वेषविनिर्मुक्तौ मध्ये ब्रह्म प्रसर्पति ॥ १२३ ॥
One should cultivate aversion nowhere, nor attachment anywhere; in the freedom from both attraction and aversion, in the middle, Brahman streams forth.
न कहीं द्वेष की भावना करे, न कहीं राग की; राग और द्वेष से विनिर्मुक्त होने पर, मध्य में ब्रह्म प्रसर्पित (प्रवाहित) होता है।
यदवेद्यं यदग्राह्यं यच्छून्यं यदभावगम् । तत्सर्वं भैरवं भाव्यं तदन्ते बोधसम्भवः ॥ १२४ ॥
Whatever is unknowable, whatever ungraspable, whatever void, whatever reduces to non-being — all that should be contemplated as Bhairava; at the end of it, the rise of awakening (bodha).
जो अवेद्य (न जाना जा सकने वाला), अग्राह्य, शून्य और अभावरूप है — वह सब भैरव रूप में भावित करने योग्य है; उसके अन्त में बोध का उदय होता है।
नित्ये निराश्रये शून्ये व्यापके कलनोज्झिते । बाह्याकाशे मनः कृत्वा निराकाशं समाविशेत् ॥ १२५ ॥
Fixing the mind on the outer space — eternal, supportless, void, all-pervading, free of all limitation (kalanā) — one enters the space-less (the Absolute).
नित्य, निराश्रय, शून्य, व्यापक और कलना (सीमा) से रहित बाह्य आकाश में मन को लगाकर, साधक निराकाश (परम) में समाविष्ट हो जाता है।
यत्र यत्र मनो याति तत्तत्तेनैव तत्क्षणम् । परित्यज्यानवस्थित्या निस्तरङ्गस्ततो भवेत् ॥ १२६ ॥
Wherever the mind goes, abandoning that very object by that very (movement) in that very instant, through non-settling (non-fixity) one then becomes waveless (free of thought-waves).
मन जहाँ-जहाँ जाता है, उस-उस वस्तु को उसी क्षण उसी (गति) से त्यागकर, अनवस्थिति (कहीं न ठहरने) से साधक निस्तरंग (तरंग-रहित, निर्विकल्प) हो जाता है।
भया सर्वं रवयति सर्वदो व्यापकोऽखिले । इति भैरवशब्दस्य सन्ततोच्चारणाच्छिवः ॥ १२७ ॥
'By light (bhā) He makes all resound (ravayati), the all-bestower, all-pervading in everything' — by the constant utterance (and contemplation) of the word 'Bhairava', one becomes Śiva.
'भा (प्रकाश) से वह सबको रवित (अभिव्यक्त) करता है, सर्वदाता, सबमें व्यापक है' — इस प्रकार 'भैरव' शब्द के सतत उच्चारण (और चिन्तन) से साधक शिव हो जाता है।
अहं ममेदमित्यादिप्रतिपत्तिप्रसङ्गतः । निराधारे मनो याति तद्ध्यानप्रेरणाच्छमी ॥ १२८ ॥
On the occasion of cognitions such as 'I', 'mine', 'this', the mind passes into the supportless; by the impulse of meditating on that (supportless ground), one becomes peaceful.
'मैं', 'मेरा', 'यह' इत्यादि प्रतीतियों के प्रसंग से मन निराधार में चला जाता है; उस (निराधार) के ध्यान की प्रेरणा से साधक शान्त (शमी) हो जाता है।
नित्यो विभुर्निराधारो व्यापकश्चाखिलाधिपः । शब्दान्प्रतिक्षणं ध्यायन्कृतार्थोऽर्थानुरूपतः ॥ १२९ ॥
'Eternal, the all-pervading Lord, supportless, pervasive, master of all' — meditating moment by moment on these words in accordance with their meaning, one is fulfilled.
'नित्य, विभु (व्यापक प्रभु), निराधार, व्यापक और अखिल का अधिपति' — इन शब्दों का उनके अर्थ के अनुरूप प्रतिक्षण ध्यान करता हुआ साधक कृतार्थ हो जाता है।
अतत्त्वमिन्द्रजालाभमिदं सर्वमवस्थितम् । किं तत्त्वमिन्द्रजालस्य इति दार्ढ्याच्छमं व्रजेत् ॥ १३० ॥
'All this stands unreal, like a magic show; what reality is there in a magic show?' — by firmness in this conviction one attains peace.
'यह सब अतत्त्व (असत्), इन्द्रजाल के समान स्थित है; इन्द्रजाल का क्या तत्त्व (वास्तविकता)?' — इस दृढ़ता से साधक शान्ति को प्राप्त होता है।
आत्मनो निर्विकारस्य क्व ज्ञानं क्व च वा क्रिया । ज्ञानायत्ता बहिर्भावा अतः शून्यमिदं जगत् ॥ १३१ ॥
For the changeless Self, where is knowledge, and where is action? External existents depend upon knowledge; therefore this world is void.
निर्विकार आत्मा के लिए कहाँ ज्ञान, कहाँ क्रिया? बाह्य पदार्थ ज्ञान के अधीन हैं; अतः यह जगत् शून्य है।
न मे बन्धो न मोक्षो मे भीतस्यैता विभीषिकाः । प्रतिबिम्बमिदं बुद्धेर्जलेष्विव विवस्वतः ॥ १३२ ॥
'There is no bondage for me, nor any liberation; these are mere bugbears for one who is frightened. All this is a reflection in the intellect, as the sun is reflected in waters.'
'न मेरा बन्ध है, न मोक्ष; ये तो भयभीत के लिए डरावनी कल्पनाएँ हैं; यह सब बुद्धि में प्रतिबिम्ब मात्र है, जैसे जलों में सूर्य का (प्रतिबिम्ब)।'
इन्द्रियद्वारकं सर्वं सुखदुःखादिसङ्गमम् । इतीन्द्रियाणि संत्यज्य स्वस्थः स्वात्मनि वर्तते ॥ १३३ ॥
All contact with pleasure, pain and the like comes through the gateway of the senses; abandoning the senses thus, one abides self-poised in one's own Self.
सुख-दुःख आदि का सारा सम्पर्क इन्द्रियों के द्वार से आता है; ऐसा (जानकर) इन्द्रियों को त्यागकर साधक स्वस्थ होकर अपने आत्मा में स्थित रहता है।
ज्ञानप्रकाशकं सर्वं सर्वेणात्मा प्रकाशकः । एकमेकस्वभावत्वाज्ज्ञानं ज्ञेयं विभाव्यते ॥ १३४ ॥
All things reveal knowledge; through all, the Self is the revealer; since the two are of one and the same nature, knowledge and the knowable are contemplated as one.
सब कुछ ज्ञान का प्रकाशक है; सबके द्वारा आत्मा ही प्रकाशक है; दोनों के एक ही स्वभाव होने से ज्ञान और ज्ञेय एक रूप में भावित किए जाते हैं।
मानसं चेतना शक्तिरात्मा चेति चतुष्टयम् । यदा प्रिये परिक्षीणं तदा तद्भैरवं वपुः ॥ १३५ ॥
Mind, awareness, energy, and individual self — this group of four; when, O dear, it is wholly dissolved, then that is the body of Bhairava.
मन, चेतना, शक्ति और आत्मा — यह चतुष्टय; हे प्रिये, जब यह पूर्णतः परिक्षीण (लीन) हो जाता है, तब वही भैरव का स्वरूप (वपु) है।
निस्तरङ्गोपदेशानां शतमुक्तं समासतः । द्वादशाभ्यधिकं देवि यज्ज्ञात्वा ज्ञानविज्जनः ॥ १३६ ॥
O Goddess, I have briefly told you more than a hundred (one hundred and twelve) teachings of the waveless (thought-free) state; knowing which, a person becomes a knower of the truth.
हे देवि, मैंने संक्षेप में निस्तरंग (निर्विकल्प) अवस्था के सौ से अधिक — एक सौ बारह — उपदेश कहे हैं; जिन्हें जानकर मनुष्य ज्ञानवेत्ता हो जाता है।
अत्र चैकतमे युक्तो जायते भैरवः स्वयम् । वाचा करोति कर्माणि शापानुग्रहकारकः ॥ १३७ ॥
Being established in even one of these, one becomes Bhairava himself; by his very word he performs deeds, becoming a bestower of curse and of grace.
इनमें से किसी एक में भी स्थित होकर साधक स्वयं भैरव बन जाता है; वह अपनी वाणी से ही कर्म करता है, और शाप तथा अनुग्रह देने में समर्थ हो जाता है।
अजरामरतामेति सोऽणिमादिगुणैर्युतः । योगिनीनां प्रियो देवि सर्वमेलापकाधिपः ॥ १३८ ॥
He attains freedom from old age and death, endowed with the powers such as aṇimā; O Goddess, he becomes the beloved of the yoginīs and the lord of all assemblies (melāpa).
वह अजर-अमरता को प्राप्त करता है, अणिमा आदि गुणों से युक्त हो जाता है; हे देवि, वह योगिनियों का प्रिय और समस्त मेलापों का अधिपति बन जाता है।
जीवन्नपि विमुक्तोऽसौ कुर्वन्नपि न लिप्यते । श्री देव्युवाच । इदं यदि वपुर्देव परायाश्च महेश्वर ॥ १३९ ॥
He is liberated even while living, and though acting he is not tainted. Śrī Devī said: O Deva, O great Lord, if this is the body (nature) of the Supreme (Parā) —
वह जीवित रहते हुए भी मुक्त है, और कर्म करते हुए भी लिप्त नहीं होता। श्री देवी ने कहा — हे देव, हे महेश्वर, यदि परा का यही स्वरूप (वपु) है —
एवमुक्तव्यवस्थायां जप्यते को जपश्च कः । ध्यायते को महादेव पूज्यते कश्च तृप्यति ॥ १४० ॥
— then, in the order thus stated, who is invoked and what is the invocation (japa)? Who, O Mahādeva, is meditated upon, who is worshipped, and who is gratified?
— तो इस प्रकार कही गई व्यवस्था में कौन जप्य है और जप क्या है? हे महादेव, कौन ध्यान किया जाता है, कौन पूजा जाता है, और कौन तृप्त होता है?
हूयते कस्य वा होमो यागः क्षेत्रादि किं कथम् । श्री भैरव उवाच । एषात्र प्रक्रिया बाह्या स्थूलेष्वेव मृगेक्षणे ॥ १४१ ॥
To whom is oblation offered, and what is the sacrifice, the sacred field and so on, and how? Śrī Bhairava said: This, O doe-eyed one, is but the outer procedure, fit only for the gross.
होम किसके लिए किया जाता है, यज्ञ, क्षेत्र आदि क्या और कैसे? श्री भैरव ने कहा — हे मृगनयनी, यह तो बाह्य प्रक्रिया है, केवल स्थूल (अधिकारियों) के लिए ही है।
भूयोभूयः परे भावे भावना भाव्यते हि या । जपः सोऽत्र स्वयं नादो मन्त्रात्मा जप्य ईदृशः ॥ १४२ ॥
That contemplation which is cultivated again and again upon the supreme Reality — that is japa here; the self-arisen sound (nāda) is the soul of mantra, and such is what is to be recited.
परम भाव में जो भावना बार-बार की जाती है, वही यहाँ जप है; स्वयं उठने वाला नाद ही मन्त्र का आत्मा है, और ऐसा ही जप्य (जप करने योग्य) है।
ध्यानं हि निश्चला बुद्धिर्निराकारा निराश्रया । न तु ध्यानं शरीराक्षिमुखहस्तादिकल्पना ॥ १४३ ॥
Meditation (dhyāna) is indeed the steady intellect, formless and supportless; meditation is not the imagining of (a deity with) body, eyes, mouth, hands and the like.
ध्यान तो निश्चल, निराकार और निराश्रय बुद्धि है; शरीर, नेत्र, मुख, हाथ आदि की कल्पना ध्यान नहीं है।
पूजा नाम न पुष्पाद्यैर्या मतिः क्रियते दृढा । निर्विकल्पे महाव्योम्नि सा पूजा ह्यादराल्लयः ॥ १४४ ॥
Worship (pūjā) does not consist in flowers and the like; rather, the firm fixing of the mind in the thought-free great void — that is worship; out of reverence (ādara) comes dissolution.
पूजा फूल आदि से नहीं होती; जो दृढ़ मति निर्विकल्प महाव्योम (महान् शून्य) में स्थिर की जाती है, वही पूजा है; आदर (श्रद्धा) से लय (विश्रान्ति) होती है।
अत्रैकतमयुक्तस्थो यदुत्पद्येत दिनाद्दिनम् । भरिताकारता सात्र तृप्तिरत्यन्तपूर्णता ॥ १४५ ॥
Being established in any one of these (practices), whatever (experience) arises day by day — that state of fullness, here, is the satisfaction (tṛpti), the utter completeness.
इनमें से किसी एक में स्थित होकर जो (अनुभव) दिन-प्रतिदिन उत्पन्न होता है, वह परिपूर्ण अवस्था ही यहाँ तृप्ति है — अत्यन्त परिपूर्णता।
महाशून्यालये वह्नौ भूताक्षविषयादिकम् । हूयते मनसा साकं स होमश्चेतनासुचा ॥ १४६ ॥
When the elements, the senses and their objects, together with the mind, are offered into the fire that abides in the great void, using consciousness as the ladle — that is the (true) oblation (homa).
महाशून्य रूपी आलय की अग्नि में, भूत, इन्द्रिय और विषय आदि को मन के साथ, चेतना रूपी स्रुचा (कलछी) से हवन किया जाता है — वही (वास्तविक) होम है।
यागोऽत्र परमेशानि तुष्टिरानन्दलक्षणा । क्षपणात्सर्वपापानां त्राणात्सर्वस्य पार्वति ॥ १४७ ॥
The sacrifice (yāga) here, O Supreme Mistress, is the satisfaction marked by bliss; O Pārvatī, it is so called from the destruction (kṣapaṇa) of all sins and the protection (trāṇa) of all.
हे परमेशानि, यहाँ यज्ञ (याग) आनन्द-लक्षण तुष्टि ही है; हे पार्वति, समस्त पापों के क्षपण (नाश) और सबके त्राण (रक्षण) से वह (याग कहलाता है)।
रुद्रशक्तिसमावेशस्तत्क्षेत्रं भावना परा । अन्यथा तस्य तत्त्वस्य का पूजा कश्च तृप्यति ॥ १४८ ॥
Absorption into the Śakti of Rudra is the sacred field (kṣetra); the supreme contemplation is (the worship). Otherwise, for that Reality, what worship can there be, and who is gratified?
रुद्र की शक्ति में समावेश ही वह क्षेत्र (तीर्थ) है, और परा भावना ही (पूजा) है; अन्यथा उस तत्त्व की कौन-सी पूजा, और कौन तृप्त होता है?
स्वतन्त्रानन्दचिन्मात्रसारः स्वात्मा हि सर्वतः । आवेशनं तत्स्वरूपे स्वात्मनः स्नानमीरितम् ॥ १४९ ॥
One's own Self, whose essence is sovereign bliss and pure consciousness alone, is everywhere; absorption into that very nature of one's own Self is declared to be (the true) bathing (snāna).
स्वतन्त्र आनन्द और चिन्मात्र जिसका सार है, वह आत्मा ही सर्वत्र है; उस अपने आत्मा के स्वरूप में आवेश (प्रवेश) ही (वास्तविक) स्नान कहा गया है।
यैरेव पूज्यते द्रव्यैस्तर्प्यते वा परापरः । यश्चैव पूजकः सर्वः स एवैकः क्व पूजनम् ॥ १५० ॥
The substances by which the Supreme-and-non-supreme is worshipped or gratified, and the worshipper too — all that is the one (Self) alone; where, then, is (separate) worship?
जिन द्रव्यों से परापर की पूजा या तर्पण किया जाता है, और जो पूजक है — वह सब एक ही (आत्मा) है; फिर (पृथक्) पूजन कहाँ?
व्रजेत्प्राणो विशेज्जीव इच्छया कुटिलाकृतिः । दीर्घात्मा सा महादेवी परक्षेत्रं परापरा ॥ १५१ ॥
The prāṇa goes out and the jīva enters, of its own will, in a winding (serpentine) form; that long-bodied one is the great Goddess (Kuṇḍalinī), the supreme field (parakṣetra), the Parā-and-aparā.
प्राण बाहर जाता और जीव भीतर प्रवेश करता है, इच्छा से, कुटिल (टेढ़ी) आकृति वाली; वह दीर्घ-स्वरूपा महादेवी (कुण्डलिनी) ही परक्षेत्र, परापरा है।
अस्यामनुचरंस्तिष्ठन्महानन्दमयेऽध्वरे । तया देव्या समाविष्टः परं भैरवमाप्नुयात् ॥ १५२ ॥
Abiding and following along in that great-bliss-filled sacrifice (the rising of Kuṇḍalinī), absorbed by that Goddess, one attains the supreme Bhairava.
इस महानन्दमय अध्वर (यज्ञ) में अनुसरण करते हुए स्थित रहकर, उस देवी के द्वारा समाविष्ट होकर, साधक परम भैरव को प्राप्त करता है।
सकारेण बहिर्याति हकारेण विशेत्पुनः । हंसहंसेत्यमुं मन्त्रं जीवो जपति नित्यशः ॥ १५३ ॥
With the sound 'sa' (the breath) goes out, with 'ha' it enters again; the living being constantly recites this mantra 'haṃsa, haṃsa'.
'स' कार से (श्वास) बाहर जाता है, 'ह' कार से पुनः भीतर प्रवेश करता है; जीव 'हंस-हंस' इस मन्त्र का निरन्तर जप करता रहता है।
षट्शतानि दिवारात्रौ सहस्राण्येकविंशतिः । जपो देव्याः समुद्दिष्टः प्राणस्यान्ते सुदुर्लभः ॥ १५४ ॥
Day and night, twenty-one thousand six hundred (times) — such is declared the recitation (japa) of the Goddess; (resting) at the end of the breath, it is most hard to attain.
दिन-रात में इक्कीस हजार छह सौ (बार) — यह देवी का जप कहा गया है; प्राण के अन्त में (विश्रान्ति) अत्यन्त दुर्लभ है।
इत्येतत्कथितं देवि परमामृतमुत्तमम् । एतच्च नैव कस्यापि प्रकाश्यं तु कदाचन ॥ १५५ ॥
Thus, O Goddess, this supreme and most excellent nectar has been told; and it should never, at any time, be revealed to just anyone.
हे देवि, इस प्रकार यह परम उत्तम अमृत कहा गया; और यह किसी को भी कभी प्रकट नहीं करना चाहिए।
परशिष्ये खले क्रूरे चाभक्ते गुरुपादयोः । निर्विकल्पमतीनां तु वीराणामुन्नतात्मनाम् ॥ १५६ ॥
(It is not to be disclosed) to another's disciple, to the wicked, the cruel, or one without devotion to the guru's feet; but (it is for) those of thought-free mind, the heroes, the high-souled.
दूसरे के शिष्य को, दुष्ट, क्रूर और गुरु के चरणों में अभक्त को (यह न दी जाए); किन्तु निर्विकल्प बुद्धि वाले, वीर, उन्नत-आत्मा वालों को (ही दी जाए)।
ग्रामं राज्यं पुरं देशं पुत्रदारकुटुम्बकम् । सर्वमेतत्परित्यज्य ग्राह्यमेतन्मृगेक्षणे ॥ १५७ ॥
Village, kingdom, city, country, son, wife and family — abandoning all this, this (teaching) is to be grasped, O doe-eyed one.
ग्राम, राज्य, नगर, देश, पुत्र, स्त्री और कुटुम्ब — यह सब त्यागकर, हे मृगनयनी, इस (उपदेश) को ग्रहण करना चाहिए।
किमेभिरस्थिरैर्देवि स्थिरं परमिदं धनम् । प्राणा अपि प्रदातव्या न देयं परमामृतम् ॥ १५८ ॥
What is the use of these impermanent things, O Goddess? This (knowledge) is the supreme, abiding wealth. Even one's life-breaths may be given up, but this supreme nectar must not be given (to the unworthy).
हे देवि, इन अस्थिर वस्तुओं से क्या? यह परम स्थिर धन है। प्राण भी दे देने चाहिए, पर यह परम अमृत (अपात्र को) नहीं देना चाहिए।
श्री देव्युवाच । देवदेव महादेव परितृप्तास्मि शङ्कर । रुद्रयामलतन्त्रस्य सारमद्यावधारितम् ॥ १५९ ॥
Śrī Devī said: O God of gods, Mahādeva, Śaṅkara, I am fully satisfied; today I have grasped the essence of the Rudrayāmala Tantra.
श्री देवी ने कहा — हे देवदेव, महादेव, शंकर, मैं परितृप्त हो गई हूँ; आज मैंने रुद्रयामल तन्त्र का सार धारण कर लिया।
सर्वशक्तिप्रभेदानां हृदयं ज्ञातमद्य च ॥ १६० ॥
And today the heart (the secret essence) of all the differentiations of Śakti has been understood.
और आज समस्त शक्ति-प्रभेदों का हृदय (रहस्य) भी जान लिया गया।
इत्युक्त्वानन्दिता देवी कण्ठे लग्ना शिवस्य तु ॥ १६१ ॥
Having said this, the Goddess, filled with delight, clung to the neck of Śiva.
ऐसा कहकर आनन्दित हुई देवी शिव के कण्ठ से लग गई।
In this section
- The 112 DhāraṇāsOne method per verse, unranked and unsequenced — the first of them is the breath, and the operative verb throughout is *bhāvanā*, which is not imagination.