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[Full title: The commentary 鈥�Uddyota鈥� of Kshemaraja; (2) Interpretation and Reinterpretation of Ritual]

Both Kshemaraja and the previous Siddhantin commentators, therefore, had systematic prejudgments and prejudices that colored their commentary on Svacchandatantram. Moreover, a cultural and temporal hiatus separated them from the compilers and redactors of Svacchandatantram. Depending upon the section under consideration, therefore, the quality of their commentary, consequently, may have ranged from biased falsification to literal recording of a living tradition. Alongside his polemical and expository intent, Kshemaraja probably desired to offer a clear and coherent guide to the ritual and practices surrounding the scriptural cult of bhairava. The paradigm of this undertaking is the digest (paddhatih) or handbook of later medieval authors 鈥� 1 V. bk.1, p.24, vs. 28: to the verse's injunction: "sitaraktapitakrsnam bhumin "Kshemaraja comments: "varnanam brahmanadinam sveta ...iti bhedadarsanavannatra vibhaga uktah samkirnavarna tu bhurvyacchinna. 鈽�

91 intent on collecting, reorganizing, and harmonizing rituals described in many scriptures. 1 Besides their sectarian motivation, to some extent, the compiling of these collections, as of Tantraloka, must have occurred in response to the weakening if not dying out of the circles responsible for the transmission of the traditions represented in individual scriptures. In later periods, these handbooks completely supplanted use of the actual scriptures. And contemporary Saiva-siddhantin practice documents this historical progression; there the handbooks and later Tamil Siddhantin literature has almost entirely displaced the ritual and dogmatic use of the agamah. The temple ritual survives and even flourishes, but in a form modified and taught according to the actual usage of the temple priests who point out the obstacles to performance that the impractical and even impossible prescriptions of the scriptures would entail. While nominally praised and acknowledge as authoratative revelation, the scriptures are used only due to revivalist efforts. 2 Presumably, in his commentary, Kshemaraja would have therefore attempted to revive some practices of Svacchandatantram, to preserve others, and finally to transmit his knowledge of the living tradition of the remainder. Many times in his commentary, accordingly, he explicates the text from seeming firsthand knowledge, when he supplies a ritual procedure (prayogah) not elaborated by the text. 3 At other times, however, 1 V. Brunner-Lachaux, Somasambhupaddhati, premier partie, pp.ii-iv. 2 On the contemporary Saiva-siddhantin practice in South India, v. Fuiler, Servants of the Goddess, pp. 142 ff. 3 These supplied prayogah usually specify the formula to be used with another action in a rite such as an oblation. V., for example, bk.2, p.99.

92 he supplements and contextualizes the statements of Svacchandatantram by cross-references in a way suggesting that the passage of the text and its ancillary tradition had not been preserved. 1 This reclamation of the text, especially of its Bhairava sections, which had induced apologetic exegesis from the other commentators, apparently had its limits, however, even for Kshemaraja. His perfunctory and abbreviated remarks on some of these sections reflect the distance that also separated him from the circles where these elements of Svacchandatantram.had originated and thrived. These circles evidently cultivated, transmitted, and promulgated direct, self-contained practices that promised liberation (muktih) and enjoyment (bhuktih) or specific powers (siddhih). As noted, Svacchandatantram has retained these rites, often now embedded in larger structures, but still echoing these self-laudatory assertions of efficacy. For the later Siddhantins the entire concept of enjoyments and powers had fallen into disrepute and disuse along with the initiatory category of the adept sadhakah. And even for Kshemaraja, though these allegedly abrupt magical rites formed an integral part of his antecedent tradition, those promising malevolent powers required moral and mystical reinterpretation. 2 1 For an example of a passage requiring extensive supplementary explanation v. bk.5, pp. 21-23. Here, in the course of describing the master's construction of a ritual diagram, Svacchandatantram provides only the briefest instructions about its doors, which Kshemaraja then must elaborate by citing two other texts, the Laksmikaularnavah and Para and a pair of general verses received through tradition ("guruparamparyenayatam"). As if offering an apologetic for his procedure, he notes that in these cases, the procedure stated in other texts and in other parts of Svacchandatantram should be followed in order to carry out the necessary operation. 2 V. bk.6, pp. 164. After commenting upon a series of such rites, Kshemaraja concludes with the summary qualification that

93 Moreover, the range of commentatorial reinterpretation encompassed the formal rituals of initiation found in Svacchandatantram and shared with the other Saiva agamah. Along with the rest of Indian religious groups, the Saiva scriptures accepted the fundamental doctrine of an eternal cycle of rebirth (samsarah) propelled by the moral consequences of action (karma).1 In addition to action, they viewed the bondage (pasah) of the soul (pasuh) as having two other fundamental and interrelated forms, that due to Maya and that due to the ensuing delusion which caused the soul to conceive of itself as a delimited entity (anuh) 2 Only the grace of the lord (patih), they believed, could disrupt this cycle by eradicating this fundamental triple impurity (malam) which caused the entrapment of the soul in this cycle and obstructed liberation. This grace mediated through initiation would confer true knowledge on the soul of its real state. 3 At the heart of the complex initation liturgy prescribed by the agamah, the master empowered as Shiva literally enacts this the morally restrained adept who would be initiated to such powers, would not unleash them unless responding to a malevolent attack initiated by another: "sumedhaso yamaniyamadivasikrtadhisanasya ata eva yathakathancitksudrakarmanyanarabhamanasya apitu mukhyasiddhyangataya svikarayogyasya vasikaranadisiddhisadhanaparipanthanascoccatanadi avasare kurvatah. 1 On karma as a basic organizing principle and as a central focus of debate for many Indian schools v. E. Gerow, "What is Karma (Kim Karmeti)? An Exercise in Philosophical Semantics," Indologica Taurinensia 10 (1982): 87-116. 2 V. bk.3, p.233, vs. 175: "pasastu trividha bhavya mayiyanavakarmajah caitanyarodhakastvete .... 3 V. bk. 10, pp.295-297, vss.103-105: "vina prasadadisasya jnanametanna labhyate/ nacapi bhavo bhavati diksamaprapya dehinam// yada tu karanacchaktirbhavennirvanakarika sivecchaya prapadyeta diksam jnanamayim subham// mantrayogatmikam divyam tato moksam vrajetpasuh/ nanyatha moksmayati api jnanasatairapi//"

94 liberation by visualizing this triple bondage as localized on cords, which he severs and destroys. The later sectarian Saiva schools, however, arguing from mature theological and philosophical positions, retrospectively qualified the exclusive claims made for this ritual and selectively emphasized aspects of its symbolism to support their own viewpoint. Since both the dualistic Saivasiddhantins and the non-dualists such as Kshemaraja acknowledged the Saiva scriptures as revelation, they could not directly reject the inherited ritual of initation. Instead they sought to temper the exclusive views of the Saiva ritualists by reinterpreting the ritual and including it as one means in a hierarchy of means (upayah) with knowledge (jnanam), which, as in most schools, was accorded the top position. 1 While emphasizing knowledge and devotion (bhaktih) as the highest means, the later Saiva-siddhantins through their dualistic philosophy could better tolerate the causal mediation of grace 1 On the different means and preeminence of knowledge in later Saiva-siddhanta, v. Schomerus, Arunantis Sivajnanasiddhiyar 1: 312 ff. Here in the fundamental systematic work of Tamil Saivasiddhantins composed c.1250 A.D., the traditional four topics of the agamah, are ranked in the ascending order of importance, carya, kriya, yogah, jnanam. Only the last conveys true liberation: "Die endgultige, in der unzertrennlichen Gemeinschaft mit Siva in seiner Transzendenz bestehende und unubertreffliche Seligkeit is die durch jnana- oder sanmarga erlangte Seligkeit." On the hierarchy of means in monistic Saivism, v. Bettina Baumer, "Die Unvermittelheit der hochsten Erfahrung bei Abhinavagupta," in Transzendenzerfahrung, Vollzugshorizont des Heils, hrsg. Gerhard Oberhammer, Publications of the de Nobili Research Library 5 (Wien: Institut fur Indologie der Universitat Wien, 1978), pp. 61-79. Here the means, all undertood as ways of knowing, in ascending order are anava-, sakta-, sambhava-, and anupayah. As Abhinavagupta explains (M.K. Shastri, ed., Tantraloka, 1, vs.245) this schema consitutes the organizing theme of his entire presentation of the Saiva scriptures.

95 implied by the ritual in its external and institutionalized forms.1 For grace, they believed, always came mediated through the master for ordinary human devotees. 2 In their circles then, ritual and lower means persisted revalued and tolerated as propedeutics for the higher means, or heuristically sanctioned for those otherwise incapable of access to liberation. ³ Similarly, transhuman powers, now devalued as ends in themselves, were totally repudiated by a mileiu that came to see them as fundamentally incompatible with the seeking of liberation.4 3 For Kshemaraja, and the monistic Saivas, liberation could not be produced by an action, but could only become manifest in an unmediated knowledge, or recognition of the true nature of the self. 5 This view entailed a rejection of any mechanical and causal 1 On the relation of bhaktih and knowledge in the Sivajnanasiddhiyar, v. Mariasusa Dhavamony, Love of God according to Saiva Siddhanta (Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 235 ff. 2 V. Schomerus, Arunantis Sivajnanasiddhiyar 1: 290 ff, on vs.2, and 319 ff, on vs. 28, which asserts the mediating role of the master not only in the various forms of initiation, (294 ff, vs. 3) but also for knowledge: "Wie das Brennglas Feuer hervorbringt, wenn die hell strahlende Sonne darauf scheint, so wird, wenn der edle Guru erscheint, in den Atman das wahre Wissen entstehen." V. the conclusion of bk.10, (p.557, vs.1278-1279 b) where the same role of the master may be implied: "gurvaktraprayogena tasminyojyeta sasvate parame tattve." .. 鈥� 3 V. Schomerus, Arunantis Siva jnanasiddhiyar 1: 295 ff, 317 ff. 4 On the later Saiva-siddhantins complete rejection of siddhih, v. Schomerus, Arunantis Sivajnanasiddhiyar 1: 337 ff. 5 For the programmatic rejection of all action, including reasoning, as a means to liberation, and the reinterpretation of all means as unmediated knowledge of the self, v. M.K. Shastri, ed., Tantraloka, 2, esp., vss.7-11: ("tatra ye nirmalatmano bhairaviyam svasamvidam/ nirupayam upasinastadvidhih pranigadyate// tatra tavatkriyayogo nabhyupayatvamarhati/ sa hi tasmatsamudbhutah pratyuta pravibhavyate// jnaptavunaya eva

96 conception of the operation of grace, and a reinterpretation of all ritual as a noetic act. For the school of Kshemaraja, the reinterpretation of liberation as insight into one's identity with the supreme consciousness led to a radical reinterpretation of the entire inherited panoply of rituals as meditative acts of knowledge. Here the monistic Saivas replicated the argumentation of the Vedantins who rejected any claims of the Mimamsakas that an action, even a special ritual action, could confer liberation.1 Since every action produces an effect that generates further action, the cycle, they argued, could be broken only by an insight, radically discontinuous with any activity.