Advaita Vedanta

 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 31 

A SERIES OF MONOMARKS FROM VERSE 31 ONWARDS

A NEW SECTION

TRANSCENDENCE BY IMMOBILITY

64 KNOW-HOW FACTORS OR TANTRAS

THE CROSS-SECTION OF A CONE
RIVAL COSMOLOGIES 

 

catuh sastya tantraih sakalam atisandhaya bhuvanam
sthitas tat tat siddhi prasavaparatantraih pasupatih
punas tvan nirbandhad akhila purusarthaika ghatana
svatantram te tentram ksititalam avatitarad idam 

 

By sixty-four know-how factors, each capable of generating its own overt psychic power
Transcending the whole world while remaining immobile
The Lord of Beasts, again by your insistence, by that free expertness of yours
Caused this firm earth to be brought down for the unified fulfilment of all life purposes. 

 

This verse has given room for much speculation among authorities on Tantra. The edition of Sir John Woodroffe; that by Professor Norman W. Brown of Harvard, and the one by Theosophical scholars S.Subrahmanya Sastri and T.R.Srinivasa Ayyengar, have all been consulted by the present author in order to fix the meaning of the reference here to the "sixty-four Tantras". None of these English editions are able to give an adequate explanation of this notion. Neither do the Malayalam editions of orthodox pundits of Kerala - where Tantrism has traditionally prevailed - like that of G.S.Srinivasa Iyer of Palghat or that of K.Mahadeva Sastri of South Travancore, shed any light on the obscurity of this reference. Srinivasa Iyer even says that this reference must allude to degenerate schools which are not influenced by the Vedas, but this cannot be taken into consideration by us at all. Various doubtful enumerations of these sixty-four items suggested in other books reveal at first glance that they refer to disreputable benefits which could be considered as subdivisions of the eight main hedonistic items of benefit called the siddhis, with their counterparts, which we learned to recognize in the previous verse. Eight plus eight would normally yield sixteen, but it is permitted to think of further ramified subdivisions of the same, such as 8 x 8 = 64, which could be divided into 32 upward and 32 downward-radiating rays. 

 

This division into 32 + 32 fades away into unimportance if we treat Shiva and Shakti as making up one unit including both the plus and minus aspects. Whatever the content of these 64 items, it is enough for us to know that they are either of a positive or of a negative order. The Kaulins, the Samayins and the other schools that think in terms of psychic benefits could fill the content of these 64 items as they like, according to the value systems that each of them is committed to. What is more important for us is to see their structural features and dynamism only in the broadest of outlines, so that, interested as we are in Sankara's revalued version of all Tantric schools, we can get an idea of what Sankara himself is interested in, rather than what an endless number of anterior Tantric experts might have left behind in the form of a veritable forest of literature. 

 

Viewed from this revised perspective, we can recognize certain features of the modus operandi of the powers of the mind that could be cultivated by anyone, not as ends in themselves, but as coming within the scope of an overall Advaitic understanding of esoteric Tantrism, restated in terms as exoteric as possible in order to present to our view the structuralism and dynamism implied therein, revealing to us a closer vision of the Absolute with the help of such details. 

 

One of the siddhis refers to making a man go to sleep in spite of himself. Ramakrishna Paramahansa once remarked to a man who claimed to be able to walk across the river Ganges that this power only saved him a quarter anna (less than a penny) at the ferry. All the trouble he took in gaining the siddhi was therefore of negligible worth. The question of siddhis, therefore, is to be bypassed by us. We have merely called them "know-how factors".

 

The third line of this verse reveals the delicacy of the regulating mechanism which, like a cybernetic retroactive principle, operates at the very core of the set-up in the functioning of these know-how factors or Tantras. Shiva here remains the agent for both the svatantra and paratantra functions of the 64 factors which we are concerned with in this verse. Svatantra and paratantra are technical terms meaning impulses of an ascending or descending order, referred to as "overt psychic powers" when applying to Shiva, and as "free expertness" when applied to the Devi. Although the functions are ambivalent, it is the linking parameter represented by the Shiva-principle that is the agent for the world to descend again after its dissolution. 

 

Thus there is an alternating process of creation and dissolution that takes place throughout eternity. The regulating principle is of a very subtle cybernetic order within the total mechanism. It keeps on establishing a cybernetic equilibrium between opposing tendencies so that human life activities could have a chance to continue unhindered. This offers human beings a terra firma on which to stand and fight their various battles for the fulfilment of their life purposes, called purusharthas, which are four in number. 

 

They are:

• dharma (correct life expression),
• artha (wealth),
• kama (desirable items of fulfilment) and
• moksha (salvation).  

Cybernetics is also familiar with this double-sided regulative principle, from which the very word "cybernetics" is derived. This principle is a mechanistic parameter which passes through the details of the complex, horizontal, mechanistic aspects of the machine itself. 

 

This parameter itself does not act but, like a catalytic agent, it can cause the subtle conditions favourable to both action and retroaction. Such is the two-sided regulating mechanism to be recognized as belonging to Shiva. Parvati has an equally subtle function which is referred to here as "insistence" only, and not as interfering with, or countering what her husband has sanctioned in principle. The thermostat, so to speak, automatically changes its phase by the simple insistence of the Goddess, exerted equally subtly on the functioning of the cybernetic parameter, to create retroaction rather than action. If Shiva's action points upward to the dissolution of the universe; the Devi's retroactive force makes the world descend into existence once again, as if by her magic touch. A split-second activity is to be imagined here, and the resulting universe instantly created and recreated affords humanity a sufficiently firm ground, standing on which, men could fight their battles or fulfil life purposes according to each person's deserts or necessity. 

 

The "unified fulfilment", in the last line, cancels the multiplicity of the 64 items of intelligence (tantras) in the first line. A priori synthesis and a posteriori analysis belong together within the scope of the Absolute. Shiva's function is analytic, while the Devi's function is synthetic and a priori. The analytic function leads through thinner and thinner nominalism to nothingness on the positive side, but, as the Lord of Beasts, Shiva does not lose his ontological foothold. It is at this point that the negative principle intervenes and retroaction succeeds in bringing the nominalistically evaporated world back into reality again for the fulfilment of pragmatic life purposes. When life purposes are treated together they form one bundle at the source of life, like a sheaf of corn tied together. The terms svatantra and paratantra, which we have translated as "free expertness" and "overt psychic power", respectively, make up the two limits of the amplitude within which cybernetic information circulates, establishing equilibrium, positively or negatively as required, for the overall benefit of mankind. As parents of the Universe, both Shiva and Parvati are interested in keeping the game going. 

 

The Sanskrit expression tat tat siddhi prasava paratantraih, which we have translated as "each capable of generating its own psychic power", not only clearly states that the siddhis or psychic powers are the subject here, but also suggests, with the word prasava, a positive process of becoming.

 

Paratantra also points to a transcendental rather than an immanent value. As against this paratantra, we have its counterpart in the svatantra, which refers to a freedom in itself and for itself and not outside itself, because of the word "sva" which has a subjective immanent import. Each psychic power has its own source or origin on the plus side, where Shiva's Tantra is concerned. Individual expertness of this pluralistic kind does not apply to the domain of the Devi, where it has the status of being bound together into one (eka ghatana). All these indications have been carefully taken into account in choosing the corresponding words in English while avoiding being too technical. We prefer a common-sense approach in the name of easy readability, without deflecting from the meaning of the Sanskrit as intended by the author. The expression avatitarat (caused to descend) still refers to the function of Shiva. It is to her husband, Shiva, that Devi is affiliated, without any dualism in their respective functions. Parvati caused the world to come down by insistence, but she will not take the initiative. Pluralism tends to refer to the Numerator, unity to the Denominator. 

 

Shiva and Parvati are participating in the vertical axis only. As the wife, Parvati can function in a zone that is neither his nor hers - nor of the two together as a compromise, but the same. The Shiva-Parvati samvada or dialogue makes a pointed reference to the difference between svatantra (independent) and paratantra (dependent). She wants for herself the corresponding power which is negative in its essence. Devi says: "tell me something of a relativistic and non-relativistic character, representing a Tantra (know-how factor) to counteract all the numerator Tantras attributed to Shiva". The "Vamakesvara Tantra" contains a reference to just this counteracting factor of the parameter of Shiva in terms of the Devi's svatantra, which is absolutist in character.

 

 

 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES..

 

 

The above structures show the two sets of Tantras: svatantras on the negative side and paratantras on the positive side of the structures.