Essay name: Svacchandatantra (history and structure)
Author: William James Arraj
The essay represents a study and partial English translation of the Svacchandatantra and its commentary, “Uddyota�, by Kshemaraja. The text, attributed to the deity Svacchanda-bhairava, has various names and demonstrates a complex history of transmission through diverse manuscript traditions in North India, Nepal, and beyond.
Page 356 of: Svacchandatantra (history and structure)
356 (of 511)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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349
Though beyond the range of normal experience, the celestial eye
acquired by the previous meditation, the text concludes, enables
exercitants to perceive the person brilliant like a star or a drop of
golden water in a lotus.
With these verses the text appears to describe the climax of
a liberating realization of the person freed from the bondage of
matter and transmigration in the manner of Samkhyam and of
Upanisads such as the SvetÄÅ›vatara.1 In his commentary,
Ká¹£emarÄjaá¸�, therefore, attempts to counter any implications of
dualism, and to create a context for these statements consistent
with the continuation of these meditations beyond this point. He
reinterprets the statement, for example, that the person consists
of consciousness (citsvarūpa�), and resides in the body, as actually
asserting that all bodies are nothing but transformations of
consciousness. 2 Ultimately, the entire content of this section
conflicts with the basic tenet of the PratyabhijÃ±Ä school. As
Ká¹£emarÄjaá¸� observes in concluding his commentary on this section:
the meditating subject can not cognize his self, which is the pure
supreme consciousness, like another object, but rather re-cognizes
that he is that consciousness, and removes the error of the
subject-object dichotomy. 3
3 The text continues (pp. 56-61) by discussing the planes of the
jacket, introduced as what causes the preceding pure consciousness
1 Cf. for example, Svetasvatara-upanisad 3, 20, in Eighteen
Principal Upanisads.1, ed. V.P. Limaye and R.D. Vadekar, p.291:
"anoraṇiyÄn mahato mahiyÄn ÄtmÄ guhÄyÄm nihito 'sya jantoá¸�/
tam akratum paÅ›yati vitÄÅ›oko dhÄtuá¸� prasÄdÄnmahimÄnamisam.
Z V. pp. 50-51, vs. 105, and commentary: "ata� param tu
purusa� padmamadhye vyavasthita�/citsvarūpaśca sarveṣu
dehamÄpÅ«rya samsthitaá¸�' parameÅ›varamÄyÄÅ›aktivaÅ›Äd-
avabhÄsitabhedeá¹£u sarvaprÄṇisu samsthitaá¸� ataÅ›ca
tadupÄdhibhedadayam bhinna iva na vastuta
"
3 V. his commentary, pp.55-56: * vÄstavena tu
citimÄtrÄtmanÄ rÅ«peṇa dhyÄtaiva ayam natu dhyeyaá¸�.
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