Ornament of Reality: Language Ideology in a Tantric Śākta Text

Abstract

The Mahānayaprakāśa of Śitikaṇṭha is an understudied text within Kashmir Śaivism, notable for its rich description of the inner structure of consciousness vis-à-vis the body and the natural world, and esotericization of Left-Handed Tantric Practice. Furthermore, it is also significant in its form; like the Buddhist dohākoṣas it consists of Apabhraṃśa verses with accompanying Sanskrit commentary. However, in the sporadic scholarship on this text it is consistently portrayed as an early attestation of “Old Kashmiri,” and siloed off into obscurity. This article demonstrates that these verses are definitively composed in Apabhraṃśa, and argues that they should be examined alongside their Buddhist counterparts, which also articulate a mystical cosmology of the sacred realm Uḍḍiyāna located within the body. Afterwards the fourth chapter of this text is translated and presented, in which the human body takes center stage as the pīṭha, the pilgrimage destination and practice space of Tantric ritual. Ultimately this article argues that within medieval Tantric traditions the Apabhraṃśa verse form served as a privileged vehicle of esoteric teachings, and that it commands a unique linguistic value by indexing mystical states of consciousness.

1. The Tantric Body

Within Kashmir Shaivism the body and the senses take on important roles. Here the body and the senses are not disparaged and disciplined as one might see in Yogic traditions. Instead the body and the senses are cultivated and utilized in advanced meditation and ritual.1 This is exemplified by Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri polymath whose extensive works synthesized the whole of the Śaiva Tantric canon into a cohesive whole. As Kerry Skora has shown, for Abhinavagupta “ultimate awareness is a recollection of Being that takes place in the body,” and indeed he so embodied the Trika tradition that his every gesture and mudrā expressed the nondual consciousness of Śiva.2 Abhinavagupta’s attitude towards the body is perhaps best epitomized in his Dehasthadevatācakrastotra (“Hymn to the Wheel of Deities dwelling in the Body”) where he worships the senses as deities in liturgical visualizations which identify the body with the cosmos itself (See Flood 2006, pp. 155–57).

However, there is another tradition of “Kashmir Shaivism” that was far more prolific and well-established than the Trika,3 and had an even more profound divinization of the body. This is the Krama tradition (also called the Mahānaya, Mahārtha), itself the most radical and “Left-Handed” of the Tantric traditions in its thoroughgoing antinomianism, radical metaphysical and ritual nondualism, and devotion to a pantheon of goddesses led by the ferocious Kālī. Within the Krama the body itself becomes the pīṭha, the sacred destination of pilgrimage. Within this privileged dwelling of the goddess—consciousness Herself—the practitioner embarks on a visionary journey; visiting a cremation ground, worshiping its protector deity, encountering nonduality through sensory seizure, and finally beholding the inferno of the final sacrifice as the universe dissolves into its true nature. In the Krama tradition this visionary practice is called the Pīṭhacakra, and in the Mahānayaprakāśa of Śitikaṇṭha (ca. late eleventh century CE (Sanderson 2007, p. 305)) it is described in extraordinary detail in the medium of Apabhraṃśa verse. This article examines these verses within the context of pilgrimage and Śākta Tantrism, and demonstrates that Apabhraṃśa verses fulfill a unique function within Tantra by indexing a mystical subjectivity beyond the mundane and simply discursive.

2. Tantric Pilgrimage

Within South Asia pilgrimage holds an important place, with millions of people every year undertaking often long and arduous treks to sacred cities, temples, rivers, lakes, and mountains. Indeed, for a majority of Hindus religious practice revolves around interacting with sacred space, whether in local temple worship or pilgrimage. In this sacred geography, particular locations are imbued with a “salvific space,” which can purify sins, secure rebirth in heaven, and grant liberation from cyclic existence (Jacobsen 2013, pp. 5, 31–40). Buddhists also revere sacred places, and Tantric practitioners as well. Indeed, Tantric texts often include lists of “power places” where practitioners would congregate.4 Foremost among these places are pīṭhas, sacred “seats” which served as epicenters and hotspots for Tantric teachings and practice.

One particularly important pīṭḥa for Tantric traditions was Uḍḍiyāna (also spelled Oḍḍiyāna, Oḍiyāna, etc.). Uḍḍiyāna is located in the Swat valley of northwest Pakistan, and during the medieval period was famed as a center for esoteric Tantric teachings, and seen as the progenitor for much of the Tantric Buddhist canon in particular. Davidson notes three stages in the development of the “aura” of Uḍḍiyāna vis-à-vis the Tantric Buddhist canon: the first being the origin place for collections of magic spells (the precursors to Tantric texts), the second being the myths associated with the king Indrabhūti, and lastly its extensive mythologization within the Yoginī Tantras (Davidson 2002, pp. 160–63). Furthermore, these places are said to be inhabited by yoginīs and ḍākinīs,5 powerful female beings who were either viewed positively as priestesses or negatively as diabolical witches.6 Uḍḍiyāna was particularly notable in this regard,7 and was associated with many female Tantric adepts and teachers, whose writings survive in canons to this day. Indeed, one of the surviving sahaja Tantric Buddhist teachings is attributed to princess Śrī-Mahā-Līlādevī, who after meeting with a ṛṣi in a forest monastery attained awakening into the nature of sahaja along with five hundred of her ladies in waiting (Davidson 2002, p. 162). Six other female authors from Uḍḍiyāna have been identified by Kragh: Sahajavajrā, Vajravatī Brāhmaṇī, Lakṣmī, Mekhalā, Kanakhalā, Ḍākinī Siddharājṇī. As Kragh shows, these female authors’ works underscore their provenance from Uḍḍiyāna, as well as showing a concern with worshipping the deity within the body via energy channels and seed syllables (Kragh 2018, pp. 8–20). Most importantly, Kragh shows that within these women’s teachings Uḍḍiyāna is not a merely delimited space in space and time, but also a state of mind, a visionary location worshipped within one’s own body.8 These Buddhist examples distinctly resonate with descriptions of Uḍḍiyāna within the Mahānayaprakāśa, and points to the text’s proper literary background.

3. The Krama and the Śaiva Canon

The Krama (also called Mahārtha, Mahānaya) represents the culmination of the Leftward trajectory within Śaiva Tantra. As Sanderson charts, the Śaiva Tantric traditions developed by transcending the more exoteric and orthodox traditions that preceded them, which they accomplished by offering successively more esoteric rituals and initiations. This produced a hierarchical structure in which each successive Tantric system is increasingly antinomian, gnostic, and focused on female deities and pantheons (Sanderson 1988, p. 669). This leftward trajectory culminated in the Krama tradition, which featured an entirely female pantheon along with thoroughly nondual practice and metaphysics, and represented a mature flowering of Tantric mysticism.

The Krama tradition itself traces its origins to Uḍḍiyāna, where it was revealed to the initiate Jñānanetra in the ninth century (Sanderson 1988, p. 696). In this legend Jñānanetra encountered the yoginī Maṅgalā in the cremation ground Kāravīra, and he received the earliest Krama scriptures. These scriptures teach a gnostic practice that transcends the ritualism of previous Tantric systems; in the Kramasadbhāva Bhairava asks the Goddess for this secret teaching residing within the hearts of the yoginīs, which is free from the restrictive and cumbersome observances of outer practices (Sanderson 2007, pp. 263–69). It is unclear whether Jñānanetra’s visionary encounter took place in the physical Swat Valley or in the inner pīṭha (i.e., his body as the “seat” of consciousness), but the story still contains many of the elements of Tantric pilgrimage: going to the cremation ground, encountering a yoginī, and receiving esoteric teachings. The Kashmiri Krama teachings with which this article is concerned appeared far later in time; in Dyzckowski’s model the Krama culminates in the elaborate śāstras by the name of Mahānayaprakāśa (“Illumination of the Great Way”).9

4. The Mahānayaprakāśa of Śitikaṇṭha

The Mahānayaprakāśa (“Illumination of the Great Way”) of Śitikaṇṭha is one of three Kashmiri Krama texts under that name, one composed by a disciple named Arṇasiṃha and the other anonymous.10 The Mahānayaprakāśa is understudied;11 no complete survey of the text has been published, much less a translation.

The text itself consists of ninety-four verses in Apabhraṃśa (usually labeled “Old Kashmiri”) with accompanying Sanskrit commentary. The version we have begins with some initial benedictory verses, and starts in earnest (Skt: atha granthārambhaḥ) with two root verses in Sanskrit and accompanying commentary. However, all subsequent root verses are composed in another language altogether, consistently identified in secondary scholarship as “Old Kashmiri” (Grierson 1929; Chatterji 1963, pp. 258–59; Rastogi 1979, pp. 99, 220–21). This identification dates back to Grierson’s early study, and is accepted in most subsequent literature. However, this identification is ambiguous, for these verses are in fact quite archaic and distant from both middle and modern Kashmiri. Grierson posits that this language represents the stage when Apabhraṃśa had “just merged into a modern vernacular,” and notes that the lexicon is almost entirely Sanskritic. This indicates composition by a Sanskrit scholar, and as such the language is very different from contemporaneous Kashmiri.12 This is a significant admission, and bears repeating: the language is actually quite distant from both modern Kashmiri and the form of Kashmiri that would have been spoken when the text was composed. However this is consistently ignored and overlooked in subsequent literature. Verbeke exemplifies the cognitive dissonance quite plainly when he asserts that the text is “written completely in Old Kashmiri” while also noting that it shows a “mix of Sanskrit, Apabhraṃśa and Kashmiri forms.” (Verbeke 2018, p. 355). Verbeke observes that it is often unclear how much this language differs from Apabhraṃśa;13 however this begs the question whether the designation of “Old Kashmiri” is itself appropriate.

This confusion probably arose in part from the Sanskrit commentary, which describes the language as “local language accessible to all” (Skt: sarvagocarā deśabhāṣā).14 Nowhere does the text delimit what is included in deśa; it could refer to the local language of Kashmir, or more probably a variety of Prakrit or Apabhraṃśa. This equivocation occurs elsewhere in Sanskrit literature; as Ollett argues, Vātsyāyana in his Kāmasūtra uses the terms Sanskrit and deśabhāṣā in opposition, and Prakrit is probably included in the latter (Ollett 2017, p. 119). Indeed, as Ollett notes, premodern South Asian grammarians often referred to Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa as deśabhāṣā (Ollett 2017, pp. 140, 152, 156–57).

Regarding the “Old Kashmiri” thesis Kogan offers a sharp rebuttal. Surveying the text’s Sanskritic lexicon and wildly nonstandardized phonology, Kogan concludes that its language is a thoroughly literary and artificial Apabhraṃśa, and therefore cannot be the ancestor of any natural language, including Kashmiri (Kogan 2010, pp. 15–20). Kogan is correct. Admittedly, the Sanskrit lexicon could merely be sectarian vocabulary, and the oscillating phonology could be a literary flourish. However, apart from a few counterexamples the grammar itself is firmly within the domain of Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa. Therefore, given the text’s lexicon and grammar there is little reason to classify this language as “Old Kashmiri,” and it should instead be regarded another example of literary Apabhraṃśa. This begs the question: why would the author compose a sacred text in an artificial Apabhraṃśa far from the local dialect?

I propose that we can find the reason for this choice by looking at Apabhraṃśa verses in other Tantric texts across the sectarian divide. This literary form is ubiquitous in Tantric Buddhist texts, and reserved for particularly intimate and esoteric contexts, such as appeals from yoginīs and the pithy teachings of enlightened masters. For instance, within Creation-stage visualization rituals yoginīs rouse the practitioner from their apophatic stupor with erotically charged verses. In these verses the yoginīs beg the practitioner to embrace them and honor their commitments to all sentient beings (Stephenson 2020). Verses are also recited at other junctures in Tantric Buddhist ritual, as well as cited at the end of a chapter to summarize or challenge the chapter’s teachings (Stephenson 2021). In these contexts, Apabhraṃśa verses stand out from their Sanskrit frame in both form and content, signalling another level of discourse in the same manner as a shift in language register (Agha 2004, pp. 25–26).

Parallels to these examples can be found in Krama texts. In the first case, we can find similar verses in the Chummāsaṃketaprakāśa, a collection of secret yoginī teachings delivered to an initiate named Niṣkriyānanda. This text consists of pithy sūtras in “Old Kashmiri”/Apabhraṃśa with Sanskrit commentary. Intriguingly, the commentary sections sometimes conclude with verses (carcās) in Apabhraṃśa, direct from the lips of the Pīṭheśvarīs (yoginīs).15 Like the Mahānayaprakāśa these verses are also designated as “Old Kashmiri” and justified with problematic linguistic arguments.16 Consider the following verse:

pīṭhāgatu peṭhīśarivadanā, gītikathākamukta esa jhalakku |

anubhaveti nirupamacissadanā, saṅkamādiku rāu avikampu ||17

“This brilliant flame rising from the pīṭha is freed by the songs spoken from the mouths of the Pīṭheśvarīs, who kindle the experience of the still sound18 of transmission, etc, from the abode of unsurpassed consciousness.”

One finds nothing particularly “Kashmiri” about this verse, apart from specialized vocabulary associated with a branch of “Kashmir Shaivism.”19 It contains some relatively archaic forms of Middle Indic (e.g., the -eti ending), but otherwise the grammar and phonology is thoroughly Apabhraṃśa. Also, as Sanderson notes, this is probably the text that Śiva[swāmin] Upādhyāya refers to as the Prākṛtatriṃśikā (“Thirty verses in Prakrit”) (Sanderson 2007, pp. 343–44). Like their equivalents in Buddhist texts, these Apabhraṃśa verses stand out in both form and content, in an intentional manner.

Additionally, within the commentary of Mahānayaprakāśa verses 2.6 and 5.1 we have an Apabhraṃśa fragment attributed to an anonymous Siddhasūtra text. Elsewhere in the Mahānayaprakāśa it is said that the teachings of this Siddhasūtra text grant magical powers.20 This may be suggestive of the Buddhist Siddhas, but not conclusive, for the term Siddha could point to a shared Tantric culture of venerating Siddhas. However, the shared use of this verse form in a variety of texts points to a common Tantric literary practice current between the 9th and 13th centuries. Specifically, within these texts esoteric teachings and direct appeals were expressed in an artificial Apabhraṃśa, as exemplified within the Buddhist dohākoṣas. Composed neither in Sanskrit nor a true vernacular, these pithy verses are composed in a literary koine, much like Pāli. They also stand out within their context, their form and content indexing other levels of speech, discourse, and furthermore also states of consciousness.21 As such, the Mahānayaprakāśa (and the verses of the Chummāsaṃketaprakāśa) deserves to be studied alongside other examples of literary Tantric Apabhraṃśa, like the Buddhist dohākoṣas, and not siloed off into the specious category of “Old Kashmiri”.

5. The Pīṭhacakra

Below is a presentation of the fourth chapter of the Mahānayaprakāśa, including its root verses and Sanskrit commentary. All translations from this text and others are my own, unless otherwise noted. In the notes I have also provided a Sanskrit gloss for each verse.

5.1. Verse 4.1: The Nature of Uḍḍiyāna

The Mahānayaprakāśa’s fourth chapter introduces the five-fold concept of the pīṭhacakra (“Wheel of the Seat”), consisting of the pīṭha, śmaśāna, kṣetra[-īśa], melāpa, and yāga:

so oḍḍiyānu śaccī ullasane pīṭhu maśāna kṣetra melāpu |

yāgu uḍḍa anubhava parikalane tatha āvaṭha pañcana ku apalāpu || 4.1 ||22

When Śakti shines forth,23 that is Oḍḍiyāna, consisting of the pīṭha, śmaśāna, kṣetra, melāpa, and yāga. When [these] are directly felt through [one’s] soaring experience, how is their fivefold possession denied?

This verse declares that Oḍḍiyāna (also spelled Uḍḍiyāna), and the entire pilgrimage and practice it entails, is not the geographically delimited physical location but rather located in the pentad of pīṭha, śmaśāna, kṣetra[-īśa], melāpa, and yāga. The Sanskrit commentary to this verse asserts that Oḍḍiyāna is overflowing with Śakti, and that when the power place is possessed (Ap: āvaṭha),24 Śakti flies ceaselessly, and the true form of the possessed power center manifests itself as the five-fold pīṭhacakra, observed within the practitioner’s own personal experience.25 Each of the following verses (4.2–4.6) defines these key terms in turn, in an itinerary of inner worship beginning with a pilgrimage to the pīṭha, then arriving at the cremation ground within, offering worship to the protector deity, meeting with assembled yoginīs, and culminating in offering one’s own body to the goddess Kālī. As we can see Uḍḍiyāna functions here as a metonym, encompassing not just the physical location but the pilgrimage and Tantric rites it entails. Thus the pilgrimage to Uḍḍiyāna and itinerary within have become internalized into a cycle of worship and meditation that occurs within one’s own consciousness, based in the pīṭha.

5.2. Verse 4.2: The Pīṭha

so pīṭhu e sakalavastu laṅkarano asvara pavanarūpa svaparāna |

jaṅgamāna jānau pīṭhapano cinmaya yona dyuliṅgu26 śirāna || 4.2 ||27

The pīṭha itself is the ornament [consisting] of [all] material substance, its form the soundless OM within self and other. Recognize the nature of the pīṭha within living beings, whose consciousness is their devotee’s mark on the forehead.

This verse introduces the pīṭha, conceived as residing within living beings and all material reality. Here, the pilgrimage place is identified within the human body, making outer acts of pilgrimage completely unnecessary. This is a fundamental teaching of the Krama, and expounded in other two texts titled Mahānayaprakāśa as well.28 The text’s commentary declares the pīṭha to be the basis (Skt: āsraya) for the entire tradition of the Krama (here called Mahānaya), and that it should be visualized within all living beings as the deity with the form of the liṅga. The pīṭha is composed of the five elements, is the very abode of the gods, and reverence for it should be cultivated at all times.29 In this world physical reality itself is sacralized, and is the privileged space where divine revelation takes place.30 The resonances with Buddhist conceptions of Uḍḍiyāna are clear, this Śaiva/Śākta text understands it as a cosmic realm where secret teachings are both concealed and revealed.31

5.3. Verse 4.3: The Cremation Ground

bhāva piśo tina samu cijjalane gāsaka kāliśarīru piśandu |

vitticakku todaśami galane e pīṭhi tina miśāna yasandu || 4.3 ||32

Touched by the fire of consciousness, existence is like a piece of straw. The devourer touches the body of Kālī when the wheel of activity melts into the thirteenth [Kālī],33 whose cremation ground is the third within the pīṭha.

This verse introduces the cremation ground (Ap: maśāna, miśāna), another commonplace of outer Tantric pilgrimage interiorized into a mystical state. These frightening and dangerous places were sought out by tāntrikas and yogīs for the brutal confrontation with death and disintegration that they offer. In this impure and liminal place, all of the attachments upholding the mundane world are annihilated like a piece of straw34 and the true nature of reality is revealed. Furthermore, within the Krama there are three interiorized cremation grounds, and the commentary discusses each of them in turn. The first cremation ground is the withdrawal of existence of those things born from one’s own sense objects from the functions of the sense organs, as well as glossing the devourer as those sentient beings who touch (Skt: spṛśanti) the body of Kālī, which then brings repose (Skt: viśrāmyanti). The second cremation ground is the Swallowing of Time (Skt: kālagrāsaḥ), in which the entire wheel of activity (Skt: samasta-vṛtti-cakram) dissolves into the Thirteenth Kālī, the ultimate form of the goddess.35 Finally, the third cremation ground is the Great Withdrawal (Skt: mahāsaṃhāraḥ), which is the singularity that dissolves the sense organs themselves, and this repose is the calm that consists of the body of Kālī herself. The body of Kālī is like a black hole; when touched it dissolves the sense faculties and limited awareness of sentient beings, recalling her mythological exploits as the fearsome goddess of destruction who is simultaneously the bestower of grace.36 After this the commentary declares that the outer form of this third cremation ground is the true form of the Karavīra cremation ground, where the Krama was revealed in Oḍḍiyāna.37

5.4. Verse 4.4: The Guardian

kṣetra śarīru eśu tasa pālaku āpā tie vācyu upalakṣu |

nāhatanādanadi jaga cālaku so cuhaṣṭana vannāna vivakṣu || 4.4 ||38

This body is the kṣetra, and its guardian is the Self, marked by the three levels of speech. When the Unstruck39 sounds, the world is set in motion, wishing to speak the sixty-four syllables

This verse focuses on the guardian of the kṣetra (Skt: kṣetrapāla), understood as one’s own Self (Skt: ātman). As the entire itinerary of Tantric practice is interiorized within the body, here the guardian is the Self within the body, here called the kṣetra. To this effect the commentary cites verse 13.1 from the Bhagavadgītā, which declares one’s body to be the “field” (Skt: kṣetra) and the animating consciousness within it as the “field-knower” (Skt: kṣetrajña). After one’s journey to the purifying fire of the third cremation ground from the previous verse, one can then proceed to worshipping one’s true Self. This verse and commentary explicitly invoke the philosophy of the Grammarian Bhartṛhari. Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya privileges the science of Sanskrit grammar as the foremost of all spiritual disciplines, and uniquely capable of grasping ultimate reality.40 Its most influential idea is the three levels of speech: potential speech (paśyantī), ideational speech (madhyamā), and the finished articulation (vaikharī).41 The Mahānayaprakāśa’s verse and commentary correlate these levels of speech to the different levels of the ātman within one’s body, with another presiding over them all in the form of Supreme Speech (Skt. parāvāk).42 By contemplating these three levels of speech one worships the protector of the pīṭha, one’s very own Self, after which one can then progress to the next stage.

5.5. Verse 4.5: Encounter

aka aka vāhadeva akaleśe pāveya nijaviṣaye melāpu |

kṣanakṣana ādideva ādeśe bahupīṭhagato melāpakalāpu || 4.5 ||43

One by one, the Goddesses of the Five Flows44 naturally induce union (melāpa) in one’s own sense objects. Within moments these unions bundle together inside the many pīṭhas, by the will of the Chief Goddess.

This next phase of the Krama worship introduces a key term within Tantric yoginī cults, melāpa, meaning “encounter” or “union”. As Hatley has argued: “In tantras of the vidyāpīṭha, the entire edifice of tantric ritual appears oriented towards the aim of power-bestowing ‘union’ or encounter (Skt: melaka, melāpa) with yoginīs, a communion through which the sādhaka assumes the powers of Bhairava himself.” (Hatley 2016, p. 43). Indeed Jñānanetra himself was initiated into the Krama by the yoginī Maṅgalā in the Karavīra cremation ground of Uḍḍiyāna. Not only does this visionary encounter with the yoginī correspond to attaining teachings and magical powers, it also overlaps with possession.45 Encounters with yoginīs in earlier Tantric traditions invoked altered states of consciousness brought about through transgressive rites in liminal locations (Saraogi 2006, pp. 195–99), whereas here in the Kashmiri Krama it is interiorized into the “union” of the sense organs. As the commentary explains, when the pīṭha is possessed (Ap: āvaṭha) the sense organs merge together with their sense objects and become divinized. One by one these they merge into a twelvefold “bundle” (Skt: kalāpa).46

This encounter is explicated in other Krama texts,47 particularly the Kramasadbhāva. The Kramasadbhāva lists the twelve melāpas (2.84–95), which fuse together the faculties of the human being with their functions, including hearing and sound, seeing and form, mobility and movement, and all of the others.48 Here, when the pīṭha is possessed (Ap: āvaṭha) by the abundance of Śakti (as seen in verse 4.1), the sense organs attain nonduality with their objects. This divinization in a pattern seen throughout Kaula Tantras,49 and here it naturally occurs by the actions of the Goddesses of the Five Flows (Skt: vāhadevyaḥ, pañcavāha), referring to the pentad of goddesses whose natural flow creates one’s own body and the universe itself.50 Thus the visionary encounter with a yoginī becomes a synaesthetic nondual state where the sense deities shine in union with their objects.

5.6. Verse 4.6: The Great Sacrifice

devi kālasakarṣana pekṣeta51 yāgimaha bhairava upacāru |

mana mata mamata carū ākarṣata pāna vaḍeta āpa e upahāru || 4.6 ||52

The Goddess Kālasaṃkarṣinī, seeing the veneration of Bhairava at the Great Sacrifice, attracted by the offerings of mind, thought, and individuality, enveloping living beings, the Self alone [becomes] the offering.

This verse describes the peak of the Tantric ritual. After the worship of the Self within the kṣetra and one’s own senses being seized by the goddesses of the Five Flows, now one offers one’s own self at the sacrifice to Kālī. As the commentary explains, Kālī is attracted by these offerings and then bestows the mind, thoughts, and identity of Bhairava, as all lesser aspects of oneself are dissolved in the all-consuming void of the goddess.53 This is the apex of Tantric ritual, where the practitioner achieves liberation as the living embodiment of Bhairava.

5.7. Verse 4.7: The Pīṭha Is Everything

pīṭhu mahāthu i mahāvīro pañcavāhu kamu vā mahitāthu |

bhavanivvānadaśyu54 vibhajīro pranusavvagato bhāvi na paramāthu || 4.7 ||55

The pīṭha is the Mahārtha itself, the Great Hero, the Five Flows, the Krama, and the Great Reality.56 Experiencing existence and liberation, the Supreme Truth is not realized by all Living Beings.

The final verse in this chapter emphatically declares the pīṭha to be the very essence of the Krama, and equal to other central components within it, such as the Five Flows, the Great Hero, and other terminology for the Krama (Mahārtha, etc). The commentary underscores this, and lists many methods for attaining the Great Way, while emphasizing that the practice of the pīṭha[-cakra] described in this chapter itself leads to the goal, and that this practice is not attainable by just any human being with limited faculties.57 The import is clear: within the Krama the pīṭha is the very seat of practice (quite literally), the privileged abode of the gods and deified senses. This pīṭha is located within physical reality, and the path to liberation lies to knowing it experientially within the body.58

6. Apabhraṃśa and Linguistic Exchange

As we have seen, the Mahānayaprakāśa’s fourth chapter proclaims the pīṭha as the locus of divinity and the very foundation of the entire tradition. The supreme goddess resides within this sacred seat as consciousness herself, and by contemplating its flows and rhythms within the body one attains liberation and realization. There are clear resonances with cognate Buddhist traditions: both conceive of Uḍḍiyāna as a sacred realm mapped onto the body, a visionary space where esoteric teachings are found and practiced. This shared religious content should also guide how the form of the Mahānayaprakāśa should be read. Like the dohās of the Buddhist siddhas, these verses are composed neither in Sanskrit nor a true vernacular.

The Buddhist connection is significant. As Sanderson has noted, the Krama shares much in common with Buddhist Dzogchen, particularly in their methods and self-perception. Both traditions understand themselves as the culmination of a hierarchy of revelation, in which the highest practice consists of sudden enlightenment through the direct perception of self-arisen purity (See Sanderson 2007, pp. 290–91). The fact that both Tantric Buddhism and the Krama use Apabhraṃśa verses points toward deeper congruencies between the two traditions, however intensive textual work is necessary to tease them out.

It is instructive to return to the term that the commentary of the Mahānayaprakāśa uses to describe the language: deśabhāṣā. As Ollett shows, this term refers to languages deviating from Sanskrit in a hierarchical frame.59 Furthermore, it is unique in this form; the other two high śāstras of the Kashmiri Krama are also titled Mahānayaprakāśa, and yet those texts are composed entirely in Sanskrit. These texts read differently as a result, being far more discursive in nature, and lacking the directness (and allusiveness) of the Apabhraṃśa verses discussed here. As such there are clear resonances with the use of Mahārāṣṭrī Prakrit in the 14th century Mahārthamañjarī. As Cox argues, while on one level Mahārāṣṭrī is the gendered language of the goddess who inspired the text, it is also suitable for its allusiveness and indeterminacy, which invokes a sense of wonder and suggestion (dhvani) that has transformational effects on the reader (Cox 2006: 185–87, 189–91, 194–95, 216, 238–39. Cox 2017: 125–35). Cox links this to the language used in the Mahānayaprakāśa and Chummāsaṃketaprakāśa,60 however it is unclear whether the author Maheśvarānanda was aware of the Mahānayaprakāśa of Śitikaṇṭha, although he does cite liberally from the other texts under that name.61

In Tantric texts there is a clear intentionality behind the use of Apabhraṃśa. It is clear that this language choice reflects the Language Ideology of Tantra, in which Apabhraṃśa serves as a privileged vehicle for direct esoteric teachings. This is not an inherent and primordial property possessed by this language across all times and contexts; as Bourdieu shows, the aura, power, and authority of a specific speech form is not inherent in its form, but relies on the active collaboration of the listener or reader (Bourdieu 1991, pp. 109–15). Within the frame of the Kula (the clan), initiates are primed for this collaboration through teachings, practice, and exposure. In this space, the rhythms, meter, and grammatical features of Apabhraṃśa index62 a subjectivity in which the horizons of the everyday world are suspended, and another way of being can be touched. Beyond their mere semantics, these “pleasing and appropriate” (Skt: ucita-rucitā) verses index a cluster of related motifs: inner realms, direct instructions from yoginīs and gurus, and ecstatic mystical states. In this Language Ideology, Sanskrit is still used, but relegated to more discursive and digressive contexts. In this linguistic market,63 Apabhraṃśa commands the realm of the direct and potent language of realization.