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CHAPTER XV PITHAYATRA The mythology of pithas; the homology of pithas and mystic limbs; pithas as lingas; pithas as power-centres or wheels. The relationship between pithas and consciousness. Hithas as points of intersection between the profane dyachrony and archetypal synchrony. Categories of Saiva pilgrimage: parikrama, pradaksina and jyotirlingas. Pilgrimage has in Jaiva tantra a canonical status, although the practice of circumambulating different pithas is known long before tantric literature came to a head. There are various attempts to give an explanation to the necessity of pilgrimage and its origin in Saiva tantra; the explanations also depend on the Saivite or another tradition. Among the vira Saivites schools that propagated one for instance, it is connected with the myth of their five acaryas: Remika, Daruka, Ekorama, Panditaradhya and Visvaradaya. These acaryas are supposed to have sprung from the Siva Lingas of Somesvara at Kollipaki, of vata at Vrksa Siddhesvara, of Ramanatha at Draksarama ksetra, of Mallikarjuna at brisaila and of visvanatha at Kasi. In connection the five teachers there are still monasteries (matha) and tantric shrines today%; they are places of constant pilgrimage: with the names of

- 301 - - 1, Balahonnur (Raubhapuri) in nadur Mysore; 2) Ujjain in Bellary madras; 3) Himavat nedara in Himalaya; 4, Srisaila in Kulnul Mauras and 5) Kasi in Uttar Prades. The tradition about the live teachers of vira Saivism was expounded at length in the suprabhedagama (Vira Saivendu Seknara, 102). A myth that intends to explain both the origin of pithas and their sacredness is in the center of Saiva thought and mychology. According to this myth, the previous wife of Siva one was sati, 01 Daksa Prajapati's daughters. Daksa was celebrating a great sacrilice to which neither sati nor siva was invited. sati, nowever, went to her lather's sacrifice uninvited. As a result of 111-treatment, sati immolated herself on the paksa's sacrificial pile. Siva became inconsolable at the death of his beloved Sati, and after the destruction of Daksa's sacrifice me wandered over the earth dancing manly with sati's dead body on his shoulders. The gods become anxious to free Siva from his infatuation and conspired to deprive him of his wife's dead body. Thereupon Brahma, Visnu and Sani entered the dead body by yoga and disposed of it gradually. The places where pieces of Sati's dead body fell are said to have become Pithas, i.e. holy seats or resorts of the mother-goddess, in all of which she is represented to be constantly living in some form together with Bhairava, viz. a form of her husband Siva. According to a modified version of this story, it was Visnu who, while following Siva, cut Sati's dead body on Siva's shoulders, piece by piece. The association of particular limbs with tirthas

- 502 has in Saiva tantra a peculiar value. We have already discussed the association of a certain deity's limbs with mantras. It also involves a very tantric procedure called nyasa which consists in the assignment of the various parts of the cody to different deities, which is accompanied with recitation of suitable mantras, gesticulation of certain mudras etc. mantras, This technique is also called anganyasa and aims at creating a mystic body for the sad naka, replacing the profane limos with the mantric and pure energetic components. Another procedure which is close to it, is sodhanyasa, i.e. six ways of touching the body with mystical from which the pichavinyasa or the rite of instalment of a certain deity seems to have later evolved. Originally, the limbs were mentioneu in connection with the above-named tantric ritual in which the names of the pithas were afterwards introduced. Therefore, in a lot of texts only five or six places of pilgrimage are mentioned, in accordance with the number of mystic limos. also But Saiva tantra will consider especially worthy of perambulation the places where important lingas are found and therefore the number of pithas will considerably increase. Sacred places are situated on the summits of mountains (which are tantamount thus to natural lingas), and on the banks of rivers, because any running water is a purificatory source (Tantraloka, XV, 80b). In fact, external places destined for pilgrimage which are projected either on the different parts of sadhaka's body or on his vital breathing, can be considered as of propitiation; they do not contribute properly to liberation (Tantraloka, XV, 81b-82a). "The choice of one or another place for the sacrifice has instruments.

-303nothing to do with freedom. This (i.e. liberation) has not actually as means of realization a spatial area, out a spiritual serenity" (Tantraloka, XV, Pithas are parts of the spatial projection; 104b-105a). they are supposed to possess certain occult qualities which are governed by the deity of the respective place. At the same time they are considered centers of power on the body of the earth, something like cakras on the human body. This is why the pilgrimage means a passage through all these "macro-cakras" with the purpose of absorbing their specific powers into the corresponding cakras on the tantrika's body. For instance, this procedure develops in the following manner when the adept has reached a tirtha equivalent to the heart-wheel: the fire-mudra will be placed on the Saivite's heart-region, while the fire-mantra "ram" is uttered; consequently, the adept's neart merges into the cosmic fire. Afterwards, the practitioner will worship the deity of the place, who must be visualized and hypostasized into his heart. Therefore, later on, meditating on his body's cakras, the Saivite tantrika will visualize for each of them the presiding deity of the corresponding pilgrim-centre; the locus of concentration in the yogi's body is charged with the spiritual efficacy of that very place. In this way, the ontological aspect of pilgrimage has a minor importance in comparison to the spiritual topography on the practitioner's body. There is no need to stress that even among tantrikas, there are few who understand the true value and meaning of circumambulation as exacerbation of inner spiritual potentialities and the general tendency is to transform it into a kind of penitence which purifies or expiates the sins. There is no room for listing here

304 the multiple ways in which some worshippers make the pilgrimage a torture for themselves. I think that such practices actually in nearly all religions - which are found have quite the opposite influence, creating the obsession of sin instead of aiding redemption; a single thought really pure and serene is worth all the bodily penances in so , according to Saivite outlook, thinking is the essence of the far as whole and the supreme reality. Here is an enumeration of twenty-four pithas that are to be worshipped and projected together with the triad which is made up of emission, maintenance and reabsorption when propitiation is envisaged; to this triad the "without name" is added in worship when liberation is aimed at and the pithas are regarded as cremation-graunds, i.e. the supreme annihilation of bodily cakras into the cosmic fire (in the last case, the sadhaka will not call at the temples, shrines etc. from pithas, but he will halt nearby the cremation-ground of those sacred places). "Attahasa on the hair-tuft, Caritra on prahma's foramen, haulagiri on the ears, Jayanti on the nostrils, Ujjayini on the eyebrows, Prayaga on the face, Varanasi on the neart, Sripitha on the shoulders, Viraja on the neck, Edabhi on the belly, Hala (i.e. Alipura Haracarita-cintamani) on the navel, Gokarna on the 'bulb', Marukosa on the genital organs, Nagara and Pundravardhana on the right and left buttock, Elapura and Purastira on the right and left thigh, Kudyakesi and Sopana on the right and left knee, Mayapura and Ksiraka on the right and left calf of legs, Amratakesvara and Rajagrha on the right and left ankle, Branmani (whose pitna is Srisaila - Haracarita-cintamani) upholding (the whole) up to Kalagni,

- 305 on the feet" (Tantraloka, AXIX, 59-03). Saiva tantra considers the basic centres on the subtle body of the practician as being the three "knots". Externally, they are three corresponding residences or "supports (adnara) where all the moving or motionless creatures are found" (Tantraloka, XV, 84). The basic center is the radix (sometimes the 'bulo.) which must be topographically identified as a namarupa. The other two centres evolve from it and they are the bindu in 323 211 _eart, identified as uddiyana, and the sound tn dvadasanta, whose topological pattern is called Purnagiri. Between these three foremost centres, there are three midale-residences (ardnapitna, which are called Aromas, i.e. hillocks, hence reminding us of lingas (Kaulajnananirnaya, Calcutta, 1934, p.24). they recur The three "areas" (samdohaka = samdona; the terms samdoha and upasamdoha are of an uncertain origin and meaning; even in Buddhist tantric literature under the form chandoha, Hevajra-tantra, I, 7, lo-18 and the respective notes; Jayaratna says: samdonaketi upapithaninsyandaprayatvat, deriving samdona from the stem etc. samaun to milk, to suck, to give rise to milk Haracarita-cintamani, XV, 82) are the tongue, the forehead and the "pervasion" ("the pervasion is the place of emanation of power" Haracarita-cintamani, AV, 88) which are localized in another three different topographical places. Thus, there are nine important wheels along the yogic body which are homologised with the geographical points. beside these wheels, there are eight "fields" corresponding to the eight petals of the heart-lotus. The places are:

- 306 Prayaga, Varana, Attahasa, Jayanti, aranasi, Kalinga, kuluta and Lahula. There are eight petal-points of "under-fields" of the neart-lotus identified with: Viraja, Erudika, mala, Elapuri, sirika, najapuri, Mayapuri and Marudesa (Tantraloka, XV, 89-91). The eight "under-areas" are the connections between the petals of the neart-lotus and they are localized in: Jalandhara, Nepala, Kashmir, Gargika, Hara, the "region of the barbarians (meleccna), Dvaravrtti, Auruksetra and Khetaka (Tantraloka, XV, 92-93a The geographical correspondence of these topo- ... nymics is often uncertain, even in the list given by D.Ch.Sincar in "The Sakta Hitha" (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, XIV, 1948, n.1, pp.1-108). Some of them are not at all represented in the available lists, such as: Varendra, varana and Kuluta. For the last term we find some indications in Hevajra-tantra, 1, 7,14 which appears as Aulata; the form nuluta is mentioned in connection with the mandala of Samvara by Giuseppe Tucci in "Indotibetica", vol.1II, 2, p.45. Erudika and nala (alias Alipuram according to Haracarita-cintamani, XXIX, 61) are also not listed. Najapuri is the actual Rajauri, still being named in Rajatarangini, VI, 286 (and the note). Marudesa appears as Marutesa, Marutesvara (?) and Marukosa in Tantraloka, XXIX, 61; the toponymic Maru is found in the mandala of Samvara in G.Tucci "Indotibetica", ibidem. Gargika, Hara, the place which is refered to with the epithet Mlecchadesa, Dvaravrtti( Dvaravati, Khetaka are ... = also difficult to be localized. But all this discussion has a secondary importance for our point of view, because the mystic significance of pithayatra is what we are interested in. "The summits of mountains, the banks of rivers, the spaces which are nallowed by lingas (are identified

- 307 within the body with) these cakras. but let's make a long matter short. All resides in the consciousness and by its agency, on the vital breathings and by the latter, on the body. Therefore pilgrims ought to go to the sacred places o 1 the body" (Tantraloka, AV, 96-978). The same spiritual reality that engenders the inner yogic phenomena materializes the external pithas. While in certain places on the earth implety adharma, and ill deeds are committed, in other places yoga and true Knowledge are cultivated; hence there is an unequal distribution of forces in space. me who lives in a maleficent place has minimal chances while living in a "receptacle" of knowledge and yoga, the chances increase. "But he who sees that all things primarily reside on the body, on the vital breaths and on the consciousness, why would he need all these external pilgrimages?" (Tantraloka, XV, loob-lola). Ior self-awareness, The circumambulation of sacred places concerns only those Saivite tantrikas desiring fruition from the corresponding bodily wheels. In this way, the peregrine spots are countless. The general structure of peregrination may however be reduced to seven centers according to the viravalihrdayam. These spots must be nomologized with the seven cardinal entities of the subtle body: the power, the two lotuses ( i.e. the heart and the forehead), the two cemeteries (i.e. the palate and the extreme foramen), the "solitary" (i.e. the tuft) and the "empty tree" (the trans-mind); all these elements form in fact the "supreme wheel of the self", viz. the awake consciousness (Tantraloka, XV, 102b- 104a).

- 308 He who aims at freedom and when propitiation plays no part in his initiation - must abandon the tenet of perambulation as "the snake sloughs its skin" (Tantraloka, XV, 106). Liberation has no direct connection with a certain place insomuch as it has no links with the earthly world. The success of the sacrifice (yagasri) consists in choising a particular place and in opening the subconscious power which resides in the heart-lotus, while liberation is obtained only through opening the consciousness as a whole and cutting the bond of ignorance. The last target can be attained only by means of a pure mind (vimala). Although some achievements could derive from favourable combinations of temporal or spatial elements, the transparency of subconscious (heart) remains for ever the most important factor. A subconscious which has acquired perfect limpidity can easily obtain all the things reflected on it. "Confirmation (the embodiment) of what is contemplated in the mind of the contemplator is nothing else than his identification with the thing desired by him" (SpK, II, 6). Therefore, the true sacred place derives from the "purity of the heart", or, in other words, a pitha is phenomenalized by a certain disposition of superconscious and not vice versa. Saiva tantra regards the cardinal points as different stages of phenomenalization of the supreme light; this light engenders directions which must correspond to a standing body: E is found in front, W- behind, S - on the right hand, N - on the left hand, Zenith above and Nadir - below. Esoteric meanings of directions have successive levels of decoding and they are closely connected with the localization of hallowed places. Their astrological significance has already been

309pointed out in the foregoing pages; frequently, they are corroborated with the five faces of Siva, or more exactly, with the five brahmans that - - make up the body of Sadasiva who is the third divine apparition in the pure world, after Siva and his power. The five oranmans are magicoritual formulae which are constituted by five lines; they end each of the five chapters into which the Pasupata-sutra is divided. The five formulae are found again, with new modifications, in a text of vedic inspiration, the Taittiriya Aranyaka (X, 43-47). The motif of these five lines is mudra-Siva's aspects or faces named differently and not easily translatable: Sadyojata or the "Just-Born, Vamadeva or the ! "Shining God", Aghora or the "Non-terrific", Tatpurusa or the "Servant", Isana or the "Sovereign". The first four faces correspond to the directions: Occident, North, South and Orient; the fifth, i.e. Isana, occupies the central place and dominates the previous deities. The five aspects of Sadasiva are objects of worship and a directing of progressive meditation. They are also distinct steps during the proficiency of the Pasupata discipline. All the sacred scriptures derive from the five faces of siva according to a tradition that Abhinavagupta accepts (J. Gonas Les Religions de l'Inde, vol.1I, Paris, 1965, pp.245-248). There is ' also a lower face (patalavaktram, pisuvaktram, which is not in contact with the light that is the Nadir and for this reason it is not represented in the iconography. it is interesting to note that the substratum of both the lightened directions and the darkness is the ether in so far as it engenders the Zenith as well as the Nadir (Haracarita-cintamani, AV, 207).

- 310Isana or the Lord of the zenith and light phenomenalizes himself into the other four directions that have in turn the essences of wina, fire, water and earth when starting from the East. The middle point of this cube has the essence of both light and dark Haracarita-cintamani & Tantraloka, XV, 208); it is the residence of ordinary man. account, when only the cardinal points are taken into the zenith and the Nadir are excluded from reckoning and the four directions are usually associated with Isvara, Rudra, Visnu and Brahma. In this last case, the directions are not produced by Sadasiva's faces, but they are identified with the four causal forces which are immediately inferior to sadasiva. "The various regions, being changable and relative, always provide well-determined fruits to the inhabitant. of different continents (i.e. they combine in a particular manner for each of us). Actualisation of fruits depends in fact (only) on (the quality of light (which lights for each individual)" (Tantraloka,XV, 217b-218a). NOW, there are two meanings of spatiality in at connection with the referential point. The macrocosmic view takes the sun (pure light) as referential point, while in the microcosm the individual that sacrifices is the universal centre. Both views are based upon the identification of Siva with the sun and the sadhaka the same time. Thus, a certain place can be hallowed by relating it to the macrocosmic potentialities as well as to the individual who introjects into it his own powers. in the latter case, the practitioner must be aware of his identity with Siva and on this account, of his demiurgic abilities to institute external centres or to become himself a centre.

311The assimilation of the qualities of a place is made through successive degrees. While it is necessary for liberation to outain a thorough identification with Live who is always thought to be in the middle of the picha (even though he is conceived in one of with the specific feature of the his multiple aspects which is consonant with Siva spot), propitiation is acquired as a consequence of the Salvite identi cation and projection onto his body of only a certain direction. This second technique is also a step towards the complete identification from whom all the eight directions (cardinal points and their intermediaries) radiate. Thus, the supreme God is imagined as a lightening nucleus from where eight pencils of rays corresponding to the directions are spread out. When the performer wants to be "irradiated" by the quality of a certain direction, he has to face it. For instance, in order to acquire supernatural powers leading to fruition, the aspirant must face the eastern pencil of rays; consequently he will turn his face toward the west, i.e. in fact towards the central place where ' Siva resides and scatters directions (Tantraloka, XV, 229b-252a). Every pitha has therefore the same occult significance of directions and the tantric pilgrim must prostrate himself always facing the same cardinal point connected with his purpose, in all the sacred places he circumambulates. Here are the directions with their lords and their esoteric significance in the Saivite tantric practice: Indra rules the East and bestows omnipotence upon the earthly world; Agni rules the South-East and concedes the faculty of bridling the tantric action; Yama governs the South and malefic actions; Nirrti rules

- 512the South-west and diminishes bad influences; varuna governs the west and means passivity or the cease of any tantric action; Vayu governs the North-West and eases the mobility of a purposeful action; Kubera rules the North and grants any material achievement; isana governs the North-East and exhausts any previous achievement; Brahma rule rules the Zenith and improves the action, while Ananta resides in the Nadir and has malefic and unexpected influence. All of them are partial manifestations of the light-power and are called the "world-protectors" (lokapala Tantraloka, XV, 222b-225a). It can never be repeated too often, as in all the great tantric texts, that the real peregrination is based upon the understanding of fundamental isomorphism with the performer's own body. "The body is made up of all the divinities, in all the beings. All these are well explained even by Nakulesa, etc., where it is said that the only sacred place is the body and it is useless to go to other holy places; the only place of pilgrimage is the mantra and all the other places of pilgrimage may be avoided" (Tantraloka, XV, 604). In this way, the complex procedure of projection on the Saivite's body of a hundred and eighteen worlds that constitutes the so-called "path of space", represents the thorough achievement of circumambulation, in so far as any designated place is a center of forces or a bridge between difierent worlds. The quality of the place is reflected on the Saivite especially at the point of mis death. Those who die in places of self-born (svayambhu) lingas, or of lingas which are made up by munis, or knowers, reach the corresponding world. They can further receive seers

initiation of the Lord of 313the respective world and finally they identify with Siva either after a new rebirth on the earth or directly, without being born again (Jaumamaranavicara of Bhatta Vamadeva KSTS, n.XIX). - .. It is believed that the Lords of the self-born lingas always live in the places where they are found. Thus Gauri is always immersed in ascetic practices in the caves of Kashmir from Dhyanoddara in the easten part of the Valley (Rajatarangini, VIII, 1431and M.A.Stein's note, 1508, 1510); Visnu is continuously fighting against the demons in Vitasta, while in Saligrama, a sacred place near the sources of Gandaki, ne appears in his peaceful aspect; Nara and Narayana always live in their hermitage in Badari on Gandhamadana which is also a Jaivite holy place (Tantraloka, XXVIII, 244-246) and so on. on this account the place of pilgrimage is not only a bridge of worlds, but also a place where the sacred space regains its whole specificity of being beyond the profane world and time which imply movement and change and hence the place of the mythologic arcne- - ' type nas turned into stone; in other words, it has put a sign of equality between the diachronic or earthly space and the synchronic or divine Space. Dying in such a place, the Saivite will firstly experience the archetypal pattern, becoming a spatial embodiment of the respective divine nature%3B he may afterwards be reborn in a human shape maintaining the acquired quality and, by further initiation, identifying with Siva. The pilgrimage bears different names in the Saivite tradition. The perambulation through holy places is a parikrama or pradaksina. The circumambulation done on a smaller scale within a Small ambit as round a murti installed in a shrine, round a linga etc.

is termed in 314common parlance pradaksina. A parikrama is also a pradaksina inasmuch as it is a circular journey, but by convention, it will mainly refer to a large circuit. Often the devotee will stop to take a bath in the sacred rivers or ponds he meets on his way. i will give a short account of such a parikrama which takes place in Varanasi and its environs on Manasivaratri at the beginning of March (the last new moon before the vernal equinox). This is named pancakosayatra, perhaps from the fact that it must be done in five days; but the most zealous devotees accomplish it during twenty-four hours. It covers about sixty kilometres and the worsnipper must always keep the temples that ne circumambulates ' every year, to nis right. He will make an ablution in the Ganges and then ne will take the sankalpa, i.e. the eucharist, from a brahman on the bank. he should go to the visvanatna temple where he prays; afterwards ne comes back to the bank of the Ganges and again takes the eucharist. During this interval he must keep a vow of silence. The pilgrimage itself will now start and all along the way, the worshipper will murmur the mantra "HAR HAR BHOLE". ne leaves from Assi ghat and will pass near the following temples where he will stop and pray: Kandava, Bhimacandi, Ramesvara, Sivapura, ' Sona talab for the ablution), Karpaldnara, Khonarkabanayak; he returns to manikarnika ghat where he will again take the 鈥� eucharist, and finally goes to Binay ak Mandir Ganes where the pilgrimage ends. In a relatively recent work, twelve jyotirlingas are listed which are spread all over India%; they must be remembered every morning and evening in order to absolve the sinner of his bad karma as a result of mis seven previous births (Swami Sivananda ihe ine ord siva and sorship, Divine Life Society, 261-2). The author also indicates "five famous Siva Lingas which represent the five elements" which are found in South-India.