THE PURIFICATION OF THE BODY IN TANTRIC RITUAL REPRESENTATION
The purification of the elements in the body, the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi or deha´suddhi, is an important part of the tantric practitioner’s sequence of daily rites. Indeed, if any practice is characteristic of tantric traditions it is the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi. It signifies the destruction of the impure, material body through the absorption of the elements within it, which is followed by the creation of a divine body through the imposition of mantras (nyasa ¯ ), mental or internal worship (antara-/manasay ¯ aga ¯ ), and external worship (bahyay ¯ aga ¯ ). One of the interesting issues in the study of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, and of tantric ritual in general, is the relation between its representation in the texts, actual ritual performance, and theology or doctrine. Assuming a distinction between ritual performance and its textual representation, the present paper will firstly examine with reference to the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, the claim that tantric traditions share a common ritual substrate. This claim of ritual invariance in the face of theological divergence has been made by a number of scholars, most notably by Alexis Sanderson,2 André Padoux3 and Hélène Brunner,4 and the present study supports this general claim through examining the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi in the Jayakhya-sa ¯ mhit ˙ a¯, but also with reference to the ¯I´sana´ ¯ sivagurudevapaddhati. Secondly, I shall examine the language of ritual description in these accounts of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, showing how a pragmatic analysis throws light on the relation of the Pañcar ¯ atra ‘reader’ to the ‘text’ and has implications for the nature of ¯ self-identity implicit within them. That is, the language of the texts allows for the identification of the ‘reader’ with the subject matter while at the same time maintaining an impersonal voice concordant with the presentation of these texts as revelation. This kind of mechanism ensures cultural replication through the generations
TEXTUAL SOURCES OF THE BHUTA ¯ SUDDHI ´
The origins of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi practice are unclear. One of its earliest and most elaborate representations is in the Jayakhya-sa ¯ mhit ˙ a¯ (JS), a Pañcar ¯ atra text quoted by the K ¯ a¯sm´ ¯ır¯ı author Utpalac¯ arya (c. 925–975 c.e.)
and so predating him.5 The purification of the elements is also found in Buddhist Vajrayana ritual, although the Anuttarayoga Tantras are them- ¯ selves derived from Saiva prototypes. ´ 6 The roots of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi may, however, be much older. There are arguably two sources here. Firstly there are offerings made into the sacrificial fire in vedic ritual, along with early cosmological speculation of Sa¯mkhyan and proto-S ˙ a¯mkhyan ˙ metaphysics. For example, the Br.hadaran ¯ . yaka-upanis. ad describes making offerings of ghee into the sacred fire to the earth, atmosphere and sky,7 although making offerings to the sequence of elements does not occur. The general idea of the identification of the body with the cosmos is, of course, ancient with textual antecedents in the Veda.8 Secondly its origins may arguably be found in early Buddhist meditation traditions with the kr.tsna- /kasin. ayatana ¯ exercises and the cultivation of the meditative sign (nimitta) that leads into meditative absorption (jhana ¯ ). Indeed, it is possibly here that we find the origins of the visualization methods that were to become so important in the tantric traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist. The kasin. ayatana ¯ are ten among forty objects of meditation (kammat.t .hana ¯ ) described in Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, 9 although they also occur in the Pali canon itself.10 The kasin. as comprise the five elements and five colours,11 focussing upon which leads into the levels of meditation (jhana ¯ ). For example, the earth kasin. a is a clay disc, an object of concentration that becomes internalised. In this way the kasin. a is akin to the internally arising sign (nimitta), like an afterimage, which leads into jhana ¯ . 12 Traces of these practices can perhaps be found in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, particularly in the visualization of the vajra, possibly a disc of light that occurs in the sequence of purifying the earth element. In a Hindu context, the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi’s earliest occurrences are in the JS and the Saiva ´ Kamik ¯ agama ¯ . 13 There is a passage in the Netratantra, a Saiva text, which mentions the five elements in connection ´ with the pots required for consecration (abhis. eka) of the ac¯ arya ¯ and sadhaka ¯ , although no ritual details are given.14 In Saiva Siddh ´ anta a ¯ standard source for the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is the Soma´sambhupaddhati (SSP), itself based on the Kamik ¯ agama ¯ and the Acintyavi´svasar¯ akhya ¯ which, Brunner-Lachaux observes, in places Somasambhu follows line by line. ´ 15 The ¯I´sana´ ¯ sivagurudevapaddhati (ISP) follows the Soma´sambhupaddhati (11th cent.) as does the Aghora´sivac¯ aryapaddhati ¯ (12th cent.). The term bhuta´ ¯ suddhi also occurs in other Saiddhantika treatises, including a text ¯ called the Bhuta´ ¯ suddhi. 16 Later the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is found in Ayurvedic practices within the regime of cleansing the body’s impurities.17 To demonstrate a common structure in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi rite, upon which are established divergent sectarian theologies, I shall take examples from the JS and ISP.
THE BHUTA ¯ SUDDHI ´ IN THE TANTRIC REVELATION
The Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta traditions maintained distinct revela- ¯ tions, each regarding the other as either heretical, in the former case, or as a lower level of revelation, in the latter case. In defending the revealed status of the Pañcar ¯ atra Sa ¯ mhit ˙ as, largely against its orthodox detractors, ¯ Yamuna argues that although they share the name of ¯ tantra, the Pañcar ¯ atra ¯ is revelation (sruti ´ ), whereas the Saiva Tantras are not and were promul- ´ gated by Siva to deceive the world. ´ 18 Similarly Saiva theologians, both ´ from the dualist Saiva Siddh ´ anta and the non-Saiddh ¯ antika traditions, ¯ regarded only certain Saiva Tantras as the highest revelation and rele- ´ gated the Pañcar ¯ atra texts to a lower level. The Saiddh ¯ antika R ¯ amakan ¯ .t .ha maintains that the Pañcar ¯ atra only reaches the level of ¯ prakr. ti and that the supreme Pañcar ¯ atra deity, N ¯ ar¯ ayan ¯ . a, is identified with this level,19 as does the monist Ks.emaraja. ¯ 20 Yet in spite of the professed divergence of the Saiva and P ´ añcar ¯ atra systems and the desire of their protagonists to ¯ distance their traditions from each other, there is a high degree of overlap, not only in terms of theology, but especially at the level of ritual representation. This similarity of ritual process in our texts points to a ritual substrate common to the theologically distinct Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva tradi- ´ tions. Although ritual contents in terms of mantras and deities vary, the sequence of daily and occasional rites cuts across sectarian distinctions and points to an almost independent life of ritual representation in these texts. Part of this textually represented ritual substrate are various hierarchical cosmologies such as the ‘six ways’ (s.ad. adhvan), which are parallel ritual courses through the cosmos inscribed on the body.21 These ways incorporate the cosmological categories (tattva) and their division into five realms (kala¯). In the Saiva system we have thirty-six ´ tattvas, which adds eleven Saiva ones to the twenty-five S ´ a¯mkhya ones, while the P ˙ añcar ¯ atra ¯ assumes only the Sa¯mkhya categories, although it has cosmological func- ˙ tions analogous to the higher Saiva ones. There is a common overall ´ structure here of a pure, mixed and impure creation, although for the monistic Trika Saivism, the broad distinction is between the pure and the ´ impure creations. While these cosmologies are theologically important – as can be seen in Bhojadeva’s linking of higher beings to different levels of the cosmos in the Tattvapraka´¯sa22 – their primary importance is as ritual rather than theological entities; cosmology has a primarily ritual function in these traditions.23 This can be illustrated particularly well in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequence where the cosmos is mapped onto the body and dissolved, as the lower levels of the cosmos are dissolved into the higher during the cosmic dissolution (pralaya). The terminology here is that of the tattvas of Sa¯mkhya in which the gross elements ( ˙ bhuta ¯ ) which comprise the physical world, are dissolved into the subtle elements (tanmatra ¯ ) which are their source. The purification of the body through dissolving its constituent elements into their cause, would seem to be a characteristically tantric practice as its absence from Vaikhanasa ritual manuals indicates. ¯ 24 Within all tantric or agamic ritual, visualization of ritual action and ¯ deities is of central importance in daily and occasional rites, and in both the Pañcar ¯ atra and the ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta to perform a visualization is to ¯ perform a mental action which has soteriological effects. Once initiated, the Saiva or Vais ´ .n. ava adept into these cults was expected to perform obligatory daily worship. For the Pañcar ¯ atrin, according to Gupta, this involved ¯ the five obligatory acts adopted from vedic orthopraxy, characterised by Gupta as the recitation of stotras (brahmayajña), daily liturgy (devayajña), making offerings to malevolent supernatural beings (bhutayajña ¯ ), making offerings to the ancestors (pitr. yajña) and the feeding of (Vais.n. ava) guests (nr. yajña).25 The Saiddhantika similarly follows the orthoprax injunctions ¯ of the Dharmas´astra, performing rites at the junctures ( ¯ samdhy ˙ a¯) of the day, particularly the puj¯ a¯ at dawn (as do the Pañcar ¯ atrins). ¯ 26 The purpose of this daily ritual, apart from its being a sign of his adherence to the cult of his initiation, was to enable the devotee to eventually destroy the limiting factors (mala) which constrain his soul (j¯ıva) within the cycle of reincarnation (sams˙ ara ¯ ), and so to be ready for liberation (moks. a) by receiving the grace of the Lord (Siva or Vis ´ .n.u) at his death. In this sense the Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta are very different from the monistic ¯ traditions of non-Saiddhantika ¯ Saivism, as Sanderson has demonstrated. ´ 27 The JS describes four classes of disciple, the samayajña, putraka, sadhaka ¯ , and ac¯ arya ¯ , 28 each having undergone a particular ablution (abhis. ekah. ) as part of his initiation (d¯ıks. a¯).29 Only the initiated Pañcar ¯ atrin ¯ is authorised to perform the daily liturgical rites, the broad parameters of which – common to all tantric traditions – are ablutions (snanam ¯ ), the purification of the body (deha´suddhi or bhuta´ ¯ suddhi), the divinization of the body through the imposition of mantras upon it (nyasa ¯ ), inner or mental worship (antara-/manasay ¯ aga ¯ ) performed purely in the imagination, and external worship (bahyay ¯ aga ¯ ) with offerings of flowers, incense and so on to the deity.30 Chapter 10 of the JS is devoted to bhuta´ ¯ suddhi and the spiritual ascent of the soul (j¯ıva) ready for the creation of the divinized body. Through symbolically destroying the physical or gross body, the adept can create a pure, divinized body (divyadeha) with which to offer worship to the deities of his system. He (the initiate in our texts is male) does this firstly only in imagination and secondly in the physical world, for – as in all tantric systems – only a god can worship a god. The textual representation of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is set within a sequence in which the physical or elemental body (bhautika ´sar¯ıra) is purified and the soul ascends from the heart through the body, and analogously through the cosmos, to the Lord Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a located at the crown of the head. The text presents us with a detailed account of this process, which can be summarized as follows. Going to a pure, unfrequented, but charming place, the adept offers obeisance to Hari, pays homage to the lineage of teachers (gurusantati), and having received the mental command (manas ¯ ¯ı ajñ ¯ a¯) from the Lord and lineage of teachers, he is ready to perform mental action (manas ¯ ¯ım. nirvahet ... kriyam¯ ).31 The practitioner purifies his hands with the weapon (astra) mantra, and the place through visualising Vis.n.u like a thousand suns, vomiting flames from his mouth, and the earth baked by the fire of mantra.32 In this process we see the construction of a ‘ritual body’ in opposition to the ‘genetic’ or ‘biological’ body which, in its nonritual state, is impure (malina), subject to decay (ks. ayin), not autonomous (asvatantra), and made from blood and semen (retoraktodbhava).33 The non-purified body is the opposite of the Lord’s body possessed of the six qualities.34 The purification of the body entails the construction of the ritual body; a process which had begun with bathing and which continues with the selection of the place and the placing of a blade of sacred grass, flower or leaf in the tuft of hair with mantra.35 The symbolic destruction of the body takes place through dissolving the elements of the cosmos within it. As in the final dissolution of the cosmos when each element or category retracts into its source, so in daily ritual this process is recapitulated within the adept’s body. The actual process occurs through linking together sequences of syllables to form mantras associated with the elements, such as the OM˙ SL´ A¯ M PR ˙ . THIVYAI HUM PHAT ˙ . corresponding to the earth element, which are modified for each element, replacing the b¯ıja’s SL´ A¯ M˙ with S. VAM¯ . , HYA¯ M and K ˙ SM˙ A¯ M as necessary. ˙ 36 Each of the elements is visualized in a certain way, associated with particular symbols, and as pervading a particular part of the body in a hierarchical sequence. Each element is in turn symbolically destroyed in the imagination through being absorbed into its mantra and into the energies (saktayah ´ . ) of the powers (vibhavah¯. ) or subtle elements (tanmatr ¯ ah¯. ) which gave rise to it. For example, the JS describes the purification of the earth element as follows: turya´sr¯a ˙m p¯ıt¯abh¯a ˙m bh¯umi ˙m cintayed vajral¯añcit¯am / ´sabd¯adyaih. pañcabhir yukt¯a ˙m n¯agadrumasam¯akul¯am // purapr¯ak¯arasusariddv¯ıp¯arn. avaparis. kr.t¯am / sa ˙mvi´sant smared b¯ahy¯at p¯uraken. a svavigrahe // procc¯araya ˙m´s ca tan mantra ˙m vi´sr¯antam atha cintayet / j¯anvoh. p¯adatala ˙m y¯avat tay¯a vy¯apta ˙m kramen. a tu // kumbhakena dvija´sres.t .ha mantram¯urtau svake tatoh. / ´sanaih. sanair layam y¯ ´ at¯a ˙m gandha´saktau ca mantrar¯at. // gandha´sakti ˙m ca t¯a ˙m pa´sc¯ad recakena bahih. ks.ipet / (The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder, connected with the five, sound etc. [i.e. sabda, spar´ ´ sa, r¯upa, rasa and gandha] and filled with trees and mountains, adorned with oceans, islands, good rivers and walled towns. He should visualize (that earth) entering his own body from the outside with an inhaled breath, and uttering the mantra he should imagine it as tranquilized, pervading in due order from the knees to the soles of the feet by means of the retained breath, O best of twice born ones. Then, (he should visualize the earth) gradually dissolved in its mantra-form, and this mantra-king dissolved in the energy of smell. After that he should emit the energy of smell with the exhaled breath.37 This process of inhaling the visualized element that pervades a particular area of the body, dissolving it into its mantra, then into its subtle cause, and exhaling it, is followed with the other elements. Having exhaled the energy of smell into the substratum of water, the water element is then imagined as having the form of a half moon, marked by a lotus, and containing all aquatic media – the oceans, rivers, the six flavors (rasas. ad. ka) – and aquatic beings. Inhaling the image, it pervades the adept’s body from the thighs to the knees and is dissolved into its mantra, then into the energy of taste (rasa´sakti) which he emits with the exhaled breath.38 The same process occurs with the remaining elements. The triangle of fire containing all fiery and bright things, including beings at higher levels of the cosmos with self-luminous bodies (svapraka´¯sa´sar¯ıra), is inhaled, pervades the body from the navel to where the water element had begun, is dissolved into its mantra, into the energy of form (rupa´ ¯ sakti), and exhaled as before.39 Similarly the air element is inhaled, pervades from throat to navel and is exhaled as the energy of touch (spar´sa´sakti).40 This merges into space (ak¯ a´¯sa) which, in the same way, is inhaled, pervades to the aperture of the absolute (brahmarandhra), dissolves into its mantra, then into the energy of sound (sabda´ ´ sakti), and is emitted through the aperture at the crown of the head (brahmarandhra).41 All this is accomplished by the power of the mantras of the elements. Having left the body through the brahmarandhra, individualized consciousness (caitanya j¯ıvabhuta ¯ ) has transcended the ‘cage of the elements’ (bhutapañjara ¯ ) by rising through the upanis.adic stages of space, the stars, lightening, the sun and moon.42 In this way the soul (j¯ıva) ascends in imagination up the central channel (sus. umn. a¯) from the heart, through the levels of the cosmos (pada), to the Lord at the crown of the head. He is envisaged in his supreme body (paravigraha) as a mass of radiance (tejopuñja) standing within a circle of light;43 a standard identification of Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a with the sun. The joy that arises is the supreme energy of Vis.n.u (para vais ¯ . n. av¯ı ´sakti) 44 and results in a state of higher consciousness (samadhi ¯ ) that is the ineffable freedom from ideation (sankalpanirmukta ˙ avacya ¯ ).45 Although enjoying this state of bliss, the process of purification is not yet complete. Having transcended the subtle elements along with the gross body, the sadhaka should burn it with the fire arising from his feet, ¯ generated by the power of his mantra. All that remains is a pile of ashes which are then washed away to the quarters in his imagination by the flood of milky water arising from his meditation.46 With the universe of his imagination now filled with the ocean of milk, a lotus emerges out of it containing Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a, whose essence is his mantra, the truth of the six paths.47 The sadhaka’s body, identified with N ¯ ar¯ ayan ¯ . a, is purified, freed from old age and death and has the appearance of pure crystal and the effulgence of a thousand suns and moons.48 Having created a puri- fied body in this way, his soul enters the inner lotus of this subtle body (puryas. t .akakajantara ¯ ) through the aperture of the absolute from which it had earlier vacated its residence. With a calm awareness (prasannadh¯ı) the adept is ready to perform worship of the deity (yajed devam),49 that is, ready to perform the mental sacrifice (manasay ¯ aga ¯ ) and external sacrifice (bahyay ¯ aga ¯ ) described in the following chapters. In the texts of the Saiva Siddh ´ anta we find a similar process occur- ¯ ring. The SSP and ISG (which quotes the former), are separated from the JS by at least a couple of centuries and their origins are in different parts of the sub-continent: the JS is probably from the Kashmir region,50 Somasambhu was the abbot of a ´ mat.ha in South India, himself in a lineage of compilers of ritual manuals,51 and the ISG is probably from Kerala.52 Considering the regional, temporal and cultic diversity of these texts, it is therefore very striking that such invariance occurs at the level of ritual representation. There is of course, a clear line of development from the SSP to the ISG, as ¯Is´ana ¯ siva quotes the SSP and closely follows the text ´ in ritual sequences such as the deha´suddhi, but there is no such clear line of historical development from the JS into the Saiva material. It would ´ therefore seem likely, from an examination of the purification of the body sequences in texts of diverse lineages, that we are looking at a common ritual substrate articulated within the spectrum of tantric traditions. The ISG sequence uses the term deha´suddhi and follows the account given in the SSP: the terms used are often identical and it seems probable that ¯Is´ana ¯ siva is following Soma ´ sambhu’s text. As in the JS, ´ self-purification (atma´ ¯ sodhanam) occurs through the purification of the elements (bhuta´ ¯ suddhi). After bathing, the adept (putraka) should go to the place of worship (yag¯ alaya ¯ ), meditate upon the syllable HUM breaking the ‘knots’ at the heart, throat, palate, between the eyes, and on the head, and visualize Siva at the crown of the head in the ´ dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ . 53 The adept should meditate upon the cutting of the ‘dark and filthy’ knots, which are pierced with the exhaling of the breath to allow energy to flow in the esoteric channels (nad¯. ¯ı).54 He should imagine his soul (j¯ıva), identified with the mantra HAMSA, in the pure lotus of the heart. By the force of ˙ the air (vayu ¯ ) in the central channel he should lead the soul up to Siva ´ located in the dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ at the crown of the head, seated in the centre of a lotus.55 The adept then meditates upon his own body as an inverted tree whose roots are in his head, pervaded by the thirty six tattvas, dissolved in imagination, each into its cause.56 Then begins the description of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi and we are back on territory familiar from the JS. Although new elements have been introduced in the Saiva Siddh ´ anta ¯ scheme, namely the idea of purifying the body through breaking its ‘knots’ (granthiprabheda), the terminology of the subtle channels (nad¯ı), and the use of thirty-six levels of the cosmos (tattva), there is nevertheless a signifi- cant degree of overlap with the JS. As regards the first stage in the process of purifying the earth element, the text reads:
bh¯uman. d. ala ˙m yac catura´srap¯ıta ˙m vajr¯a˙nkita ˙m gandhagun. a ˙m sasadyam / ghr¯an. endriya ˙m tat kalay¯a nivr.tty¯a yukta ˙m ca daivena caturmukhena // hl¯a ˙mb¯ıjatah. p¯urakakumbhak¯abhy¯a ˙m vy¯apta ˙m tad¯a p¯adatala ˙m ´sirastah. / ´sodhya ˙m taduddm¯atakapañcak¯at sy¯ad v¯ayau pravis.t .a ˙m paribh¯avayec ca //
The image of the earth (bh¯uman. d. ala) is a yellow square, marked with the sign of thunder bolt (vajra), whose quality is smell and associated with the Sadya mantra. It is connected to the sense organ of smell, the nivr.tti-kal¯a, and by the four-faced one (Brahma). With the filling and holding breaths, the seed syllable HL ¯ A¯ M pervades (the ˙ body) from the soles of the feet to the head. He should (repeat the seed) five times for the purpose of purification, and he should (then) meditate upon it as entered into the air [i.e he exhales the earth element into the air element].57
As in the JS the earth diagram (pr.thiv¯ıman. d. ala) is a golden square marked by a vajra and associated with the sense of smell, but unlike the JS it is associated with the tattvas, with nivr.tti, one of the five regions (kala¯), and pervades the entire body, rather than from feet to knees. But this pattern is not wholly consistent in the Saiva Siddh ´ anta and the ¯ Vamadevapaddhati ¯ follows the JS model with the earth pervading from feet to knees.58 The other elements follow the same general pattern, using the same symbols (the crescent moon for water, a red triangle for fire marked with svastikas, air as a hexagonal form marked by six drops (bindu), and space as symbolized by a round crystal). As with the JS, the adept burns the body in imagination and then floods it with the water arising from his meditation in order to create a pure, divine body for worship. The text follows the same pattern as the SSP on which it heavily relies. A general picture therefore emerges of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi as a shared ritual substrate that becomes identified with particular Saiva cosmolo- ´ gies. On the one hand the actual visualization represented in the texts has become minimalized, from the JS’s elaborate visions of each element to the ISG’s formal representation. On the other, more elaborate cosmological overlays have occurred. Indeed, the system of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi has become identified with an independent system of the five knots along the central channel of a subtle anatomy, and the five elements have become associated with the five faces of Sada¯siva. ´ 59 We can therefore see here strong continuity of ritual representation, although with later structural elaboration. But I wish now to examine this element of structural invariance through a closer analysis of the kind of language used in these texts. Particularly, I wish to argue that the use of language allows for imagination and the identification of the brahmanical reader of the text with the ritual processes prescribed. This identification is also the means whereby a text is reconstituted through the generations and the way in which its meaning is constructed through the interaction of the both the text’s structures and content, and the reader.
GRAMMAR, METAPHOR AND INDEXICALITY
The verbs used for ritual meditation or visualization are from the roots smr. , dhya¯, bhu¯ caus., and cint. The term smr., ‘to remember’, is particularly interesting, having a wider semantic field than simply recalling something past. Although this would need to be different study to sustain the claim, it would seem that, along with these other terms, it here refers to the construction of a mental image in the imagination.60 These verbs are generally used in the third person optative, apart from gerundives, which is all-pervasive in these texts and is nothing unusual. Let us take an example of each from the JS. They are as follows: (1) In the destruction of the earth element we read, ‘(The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder’ (turya´sra¯m p ˙ ¯ıtabh ¯ a¯m˙ bhumi ¯ m cintayed vajral ˙ añcit ¯ am¯ );61 (2) at the completion of the dissolution of the water element, ‘with the inhaled breath he should bring to mind, O twice-born one, the body as its own sacred diagram, completely filled with that (water element)’ (... sar ´ ¯ıram man ˙ . d. alam svakam / ten ˙ akhila ¯ m˙ tu samvy ˙ apta ¯ m kumbhakena smared dvija ˙ );62 (3) in the dissolution of the air element ‘he should meditate upon (the air element) pervading from the throat to the place of the navel’ (akan ¯ . t .han n ¯ abhide´ ¯ santa ¯ m tena vy ˙ apta ¯ m tu bhavayet ¯ );63 and (4) in the destruction of the space element ‘he should visualize it (the space element) transformed in its own mantra’ (dhyayet ¯ parin. atam ... svamantre).64 Again, an example of the verbs used in the ISG simply reinforce this usage: (5) ‘he should lead (the soul) to Siva ´ located in the dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ (tam dv ˙ ada´ ¯ santastha´ ¯ sivam nayet ˙ );65 and (6) ‘he should meditate by degrees the piercing of the knots’ (granthiprabhedam˙ krama´so vidadhyat¯ ).66 In these examples the main verb is in the third person singular optative, a mood which, according to Pan¯ .ini, is used in five senses to denote a command (vidhi), a summons (nimantran. a), an invitation (amantran ¯ . a), a respectful command (adh¯ıs. t .a), a deliberation (sampra´ ˙ sna), or a request (prarthana ¯ ).67 All of these senses have the implication of conditions; that the performance of certain actions will lead to certain future effects. Indeed, the optative implies action and its effects in future time, as it cannot refer to the past nor to the actualised present. As used here, the optative corresponds to Pan¯ .ini’s analysis in that the Pañcar ¯ atrin’s reli- ¯ gious discipline (vrata) is a command from the lord (vidhi, as in ‘you must go to the village’ – grama ¯ m bhav ˙ an gacchet ¯ ), and is also an invitation (amantran ¯ . a, as in ‘do sit here’ – iha bhavan¯ as¯ ¯ıta) or request from an authoritative source (prarthana ¯ , ‘I would like to study grammar’ – vyakaran ¯ . am adh¯ıy¯ıya). The analysis of the optative mood within different schools tended to focus upon the relationship between the person or text uttering the injunction, the receiver, and the action to be performed. According to one commentator on Pan¯ .ini, Nage ¯ sabhat ´ .t .a, the first four definitions (vidhi etc.) can be included within a fifth, namely pravartana or ‘instigation’, an activity on the part of one person which leads to another’s performing an action. There is a sequence of implication in the use of the optative. Namely, that the instigation is uttered by an authoritative person (apta ¯ ); that there is nothing inhibiting the instigation; and that the ‘instigatee’ infers that the action he is being asked to perform is something he desires and is achievable.68 Nage ¯ sa defines the qualified person as being one ´ who is free from confusion, anger and so on, and who does not perform actions that lead to undesired results. According to Nage ¯ sa a ´ vidhi is connected with certain properties of an action, the property of being a means to something desired (is.t .asadhyatva ¯ ), its feasibility (kr.tisadhyatva ¯ ), and the absence of inhibitory factors (pratibandhakabh ¯ ava ¯ ).69 The use of the optative in our texts is therefore consonant with this understanding. There is therefore an imperative to perform mental action as prescribed in these texts, in the sense that if a certain course of action is undertaken, then certain results will follow, a fact that can be inferred from the imperative coming from an authoritative source. Indeed, the terms smaret (e.g. at 10.34a), cintayet (e.g. at 10.28a), dhyayet ¯ (e.g. at 10.54a) and bhavayet ¯ (e.g. at 10.46a) are the same grammatical form as terms denoting physical actions, such as imposing or infusing the body with mantra (nyaset, e.g. at 10.66b). In this sense, it would seem that the use of the optative in the Tantras is akin to its use in the Vedas, as in the injunction ‘one desirous of heaven should perform the jyotis. t .oma sacrifice’ (jyotis. t .omena svargakamo ¯ yajet).70 There is no grammatical distinction within these texts between actions performed ‘in the mind’ and actions performed ‘with the body’. Indeed the grammar points in quite the opposite direction to a mind/body dualism, namely that mental action is directly akin to physical action, and that as physical action has effect in the ritual realm, so too does mental action. This is because the hierarchical cosmology assumed in these ritual operations is a ‘magical’ cosmology that enables actions (including mental action) to have effects at spatially and temporally distinct locations. One might speculate further that the use of the optative with its implication of possible future action, is related to the imagination or the metaphorical space in which events and abstractions are projected; a projection which is permitted by the very structure of languages with at least three tenses.71 While, as Lakoff and Johnson have shown, all of language is pervaded by metaphor,72 the use of the optative is particularly suggestive of the possibility of metaphor and of the kinds of mapping and overcoding onto the body that we find in our texts. The terms ks.ipet and nyaset imply that the adept should project the mantra or image into the metaphorical space of his creative imagination. This is indeed a mental action that has effect in that metaphorical space, and will have consequences for the practitioner in terms of liberation at death. Lastly, if we read these texts through a dialogical lens, the use of the optative tells us something of the relationship between the ‘reader’ and the ‘text,’ and tells us something about the nature of the self assumed. In structuralism, semiotics is conceived as an addresser transmitting a message to an addressee who receives it, almost in a passive fashion, and decodes it. This requires ‘contact’ between the two, a ‘code’ in which the message is formulated, and a ‘context’ that gives sense to the message.73 In the case of the JS the addresser, the redactor of the text, sends the message of the text (the ritual representation) to an addresser, the Pañcar ¯ atrin who receives it. ¯ If, however, we look at ritual representation through the lens of dialogism, we are presented with a different picture. The dialogists reject the emphasis on language as a purely abstract system, seeing it rather as constantly changing and adapting to concrete, historical situations and not, to use Voloshinov’s phrase, as ‘a stable and always self-equivalent signal.’74 On this view the meaning of words is governed by the contexts of their occurrence, so utterance can be accounted for only as a social phenomenon. Language is a process generated in the interaction of speakers within social contexts. Turning to our texts, whereas a structuralist reading of the JS and ISP presents the Brahmanical addressee in purely passive terms as the decoder of a message from the text (and from the past), a dialogical reading would see both addresser and addressee as constructing the text’s meaning. That is, there is a dialogical relationship between ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ and meaning is constructed between the two rather than passively received and an original meaning decoded. This general relationship between the ‘reader’ and the ‘addresser’ can be more closely analyzed and textually instantiated in terms of what might be called a relationship between extra-textual indexicality and intra-textual anaphora. The dialogical relationship is between the implicit (Brahman) reader, a notional ‘I’, and the ‘characters’ of the text who yet can function indexically as ‘I’s. Let me explain this. In Pragmatics, deixis or indexicals, such as first and second person pronouns and locative and temporal adverbs such as ‘here’ and ‘there,’ are contrasted with anaphoric terms which refer to a previous item in a discourse (such as ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it’ and ‘they’). Thus, indexicality always refers outside of itself to a context (as would be indicated by ‘you’ or ‘there’) whereas anaphora does not refer outside of the utterance; the term ‘he,’ for example would refer to a previously named person. The qualities of indexicality are both generalised and referential, inexorably linked to the context of utterance. When we shift to anaphoric terms, to the third person for example, discourse ceases to have the indexical qualities of deixic language. Anaphora is always discourse-internal in that terms such as ‘he’ or ‘her’ are substitutes for some previously named person or entity. As has been discussed by Urban in an important paper, a complication arises when apparently indexical terms are used anaphorically in direct discourse.75 ‘I’ becomes anaphoric, for example, when placed in a sentence such as ‘She said “I’m going to the river,” ’ where the ‘I’ does not refer to anything outside of the narrative itself. The ‘I’ is an empty sign in the sense that it is not referential with respect to a specific reality. This is important in the context of the ritual representations in tantric texts. For example, in the JS the following from early in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequence is typical of the style of ritual prescription: hasta´suddhi ˙m tatah. kury¯ad yath¯a tac chr. n. u n¯arada / Hear this, O Narada, how one should then perform the purification of the hands. ¯ 76 In this dialogue between the Lord (Bhagavan) and the sage N ¯ arada, ¯ Narada is addressed in the second person. The Lord uses the imperative,‘hear this’ (tac chr. n. u), which is anaphoric in that the implied tvam (‘you’) refers to the sage named in the vocative. On the other hand, the ritual prescription is in the third person singular optative, ‘he should perform’ (kuryad¯ ). The third person therefore takes the place of the second person directed to Narada and indirectly to the reader of the text, but its use serves ¯ to formalize and distance the discourse from any direct indexical reference. This ‘you of discourse’, an indexical used in an anaphoric way, is replaced in the text by the clearly anaphoric third person. The ritualist ‘reader’ of the text is being addressed by the Lord indirectly through Narada, who ¯ stands in for the practitioner. Indeed the M¯ımam¯ . sa school of philosophy ¯ corroborates this general point when in claiming that the use of the third person optative in vedic injunction actually refers to ‘me,’ the reader of the text, performing the ritual injunction.77 We might make a similar claim of the ritual injunction here. This linguistic form, the objectification of the ritual performer, has the effect of controlling the dialogic relations between the characters and the reader. In the passage from the JS the anaphoric third person is indirectly understood by the text’s receiver or reader to be referring to the indexical ‘I.’ The reader understands that the third person actually refers to the indexical ‘I,’ through Narada. The object ¯ of the second person discourse is also the grammatical subject of the third person optatives, and moreover indirectly refers outside of the text to the reader. In this way, the text’s meaning is constructed through the identification of the indexical I, that is the brahmanical reader of the text, with the third person understood as though indexical. Yet being articulated in the third person optative also maintains an impersonal voice concordant with the claimed universality of the revelation. Furthermore the use of the optative allows for the imaginative identification of the indexical I with the implied ‘I’ of the text itself. The grammar of the text allows for the imaginative identification of the reader with the representation of the ritual practitioner. Certainly one of the functions of these texts is the cultural replication of ritual representation. Through this kind of analysis we can see how the text achieves the replication of ritual processes, and so the perpetuation of tradition, through the identification of the indexical ‘I’ with the anaphoric third person in the optative mood. The third person optative functions as a substitute for an anaphoric ‘I’ in the text: the anaphoric ‘I’ is deferred through the third person. The social agent – the brahmanical reader in our case – wishes to close the gap between the indexical ‘I’ and the deferred anaphoric ‘I’ of the texts through imagination and projection into the metaphorical space allowed by the use of the optative. Imagination provides awareness of the possibility of transformation and the possibility of behaving in a way that allows the goals of the tradition, internalized through the identification of the two ‘I’s, to be realized. The replication of the text and the truth-value it contains for a community, suggests furthermore that the text, as Urban and Silverstein have argued, is a trope of culture which is constantly decontextualised, or liberated from a specific historical context, and recontextualised in a new context. These processes they have called ‘entextualisation’ and ‘co(n)textualisation.’78 Texts are the result of continuous cultural processes that create and recreate them over again as meaningful objects or tropes, which are constructed as having de-temporalised and de-spacialised meanings. By way of conclusion then, we can see this process occurring in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequences of the JS and ISG. These texts transcend the boundaries of their production and are reconstituted through the generations, especially through the identification of the reader of the text with the ritualist represented. To use a more technical terminology, this is the process of the identification of the indexical ‘I’ with the ‘I’ implied by the text. The bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is a ritual representation that functions as a trope, informing the individual practitioner through the process of the indexical identification with the anaphoric pronouns in the discourse. The textual representation of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is made meaningful by both the content of the texts and by the construction of its meaning in the imagination by the brahmanical reader. One of the primary tasks in the study of tantric traditions therefore becomes the inquiry into the ways in which these texts have been transmitted, their internalisation by the individual practitioner, and the function of these texts within the practices of the tradition. Through focussing on the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, it is hoped that the present paper has made some contribution to this understanding.
TEXTUAL SOURCES OF THE BHUTA ¯ SUDDHI ´
The origins of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi practice are unclear. One of its earliest and most elaborate representations is in the Jayakhya-sa ¯ mhit ˙ a¯ (JS), a Pañcar ¯ atra text quoted by the K ¯ a¯sm´ ¯ır¯ı author Utpalac¯ arya (c. 925–975 c.e.)
and so predating him.5 The purification of the elements is also found in Buddhist Vajrayana ritual, although the Anuttarayoga Tantras are them- ¯ selves derived from Saiva prototypes. ´ 6 The roots of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi may, however, be much older. There are arguably two sources here. Firstly there are offerings made into the sacrificial fire in vedic ritual, along with early cosmological speculation of Sa¯mkhyan and proto-S ˙ a¯mkhyan ˙ metaphysics. For example, the Br.hadaran ¯ . yaka-upanis. ad describes making offerings of ghee into the sacred fire to the earth, atmosphere and sky,7 although making offerings to the sequence of elements does not occur. The general idea of the identification of the body with the cosmos is, of course, ancient with textual antecedents in the Veda.8 Secondly its origins may arguably be found in early Buddhist meditation traditions with the kr.tsna- /kasin. ayatana ¯ exercises and the cultivation of the meditative sign (nimitta) that leads into meditative absorption (jhana ¯ ). Indeed, it is possibly here that we find the origins of the visualization methods that were to become so important in the tantric traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist. The kasin. ayatana ¯ are ten among forty objects of meditation (kammat.t .hana ¯ ) described in Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, 9 although they also occur in the Pali canon itself.10 The kasin. as comprise the five elements and five colours,11 focussing upon which leads into the levels of meditation (jhana ¯ ). For example, the earth kasin. a is a clay disc, an object of concentration that becomes internalised. In this way the kasin. a is akin to the internally arising sign (nimitta), like an afterimage, which leads into jhana ¯ . 12 Traces of these practices can perhaps be found in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, particularly in the visualization of the vajra, possibly a disc of light that occurs in the sequence of purifying the earth element. In a Hindu context, the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi’s earliest occurrences are in the JS and the Saiva ´ Kamik ¯ agama ¯ . 13 There is a passage in the Netratantra, a Saiva text, which mentions the five elements in connection ´ with the pots required for consecration (abhis. eka) of the ac¯ arya ¯ and sadhaka ¯ , although no ritual details are given.14 In Saiva Siddh ´ anta a ¯ standard source for the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is the Soma´sambhupaddhati (SSP), itself based on the Kamik ¯ agama ¯ and the Acintyavi´svasar¯ akhya ¯ which, Brunner-Lachaux observes, in places Somasambhu follows line by line. ´ 15 The ¯I´sana´ ¯ sivagurudevapaddhati (ISP) follows the Soma´sambhupaddhati (11th cent.) as does the Aghora´sivac¯ aryapaddhati ¯ (12th cent.). The term bhuta´ ¯ suddhi also occurs in other Saiddhantika treatises, including a text ¯ called the Bhuta´ ¯ suddhi. 16 Later the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is found in Ayurvedic practices within the regime of cleansing the body’s impurities.17 To demonstrate a common structure in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi rite, upon which are established divergent sectarian theologies, I shall take examples from the JS and ISP.
THE BHUTA ¯ SUDDHI ´ IN THE TANTRIC REVELATION
The Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta traditions maintained distinct revela- ¯ tions, each regarding the other as either heretical, in the former case, or as a lower level of revelation, in the latter case. In defending the revealed status of the Pañcar ¯ atra Sa ¯ mhit ˙ as, largely against its orthodox detractors, ¯ Yamuna argues that although they share the name of ¯ tantra, the Pañcar ¯ atra ¯ is revelation (sruti ´ ), whereas the Saiva Tantras are not and were promul- ´ gated by Siva to deceive the world. ´ 18 Similarly Saiva theologians, both ´ from the dualist Saiva Siddh ´ anta and the non-Saiddh ¯ antika traditions, ¯ regarded only certain Saiva Tantras as the highest revelation and rele- ´ gated the Pañcar ¯ atra texts to a lower level. The Saiddh ¯ antika R ¯ amakan ¯ .t .ha maintains that the Pañcar ¯ atra only reaches the level of ¯ prakr. ti and that the supreme Pañcar ¯ atra deity, N ¯ ar¯ ayan ¯ . a, is identified with this level,19 as does the monist Ks.emaraja. ¯ 20 Yet in spite of the professed divergence of the Saiva and P ´ añcar ¯ atra systems and the desire of their protagonists to ¯ distance their traditions from each other, there is a high degree of overlap, not only in terms of theology, but especially at the level of ritual representation. This similarity of ritual process in our texts points to a ritual substrate common to the theologically distinct Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva tradi- ´ tions. Although ritual contents in terms of mantras and deities vary, the sequence of daily and occasional rites cuts across sectarian distinctions and points to an almost independent life of ritual representation in these texts. Part of this textually represented ritual substrate are various hierarchical cosmologies such as the ‘six ways’ (s.ad. adhvan), which are parallel ritual courses through the cosmos inscribed on the body.21 These ways incorporate the cosmological categories (tattva) and their division into five realms (kala¯). In the Saiva system we have thirty-six ´ tattvas, which adds eleven Saiva ones to the twenty-five S ´ a¯mkhya ones, while the P ˙ añcar ¯ atra ¯ assumes only the Sa¯mkhya categories, although it has cosmological func- ˙ tions analogous to the higher Saiva ones. There is a common overall ´ structure here of a pure, mixed and impure creation, although for the monistic Trika Saivism, the broad distinction is between the pure and the ´ impure creations. While these cosmologies are theologically important – as can be seen in Bhojadeva’s linking of higher beings to different levels of the cosmos in the Tattvapraka´¯sa22 – their primary importance is as ritual rather than theological entities; cosmology has a primarily ritual function in these traditions.23 This can be illustrated particularly well in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequence where the cosmos is mapped onto the body and dissolved, as the lower levels of the cosmos are dissolved into the higher during the cosmic dissolution (pralaya). The terminology here is that of the tattvas of Sa¯mkhya in which the gross elements ( ˙ bhuta ¯ ) which comprise the physical world, are dissolved into the subtle elements (tanmatra ¯ ) which are their source. The purification of the body through dissolving its constituent elements into their cause, would seem to be a characteristically tantric practice as its absence from Vaikhanasa ritual manuals indicates. ¯ 24 Within all tantric or agamic ritual, visualization of ritual action and ¯ deities is of central importance in daily and occasional rites, and in both the Pañcar ¯ atra and the ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta to perform a visualization is to ¯ perform a mental action which has soteriological effects. Once initiated, the Saiva or Vais ´ .n. ava adept into these cults was expected to perform obligatory daily worship. For the Pañcar ¯ atrin, according to Gupta, this involved ¯ the five obligatory acts adopted from vedic orthopraxy, characterised by Gupta as the recitation of stotras (brahmayajña), daily liturgy (devayajña), making offerings to malevolent supernatural beings (bhutayajña ¯ ), making offerings to the ancestors (pitr. yajña) and the feeding of (Vais.n. ava) guests (nr. yajña).25 The Saiddhantika similarly follows the orthoprax injunctions ¯ of the Dharmas´astra, performing rites at the junctures ( ¯ samdhy ˙ a¯) of the day, particularly the puj¯ a¯ at dawn (as do the Pañcar ¯ atrins). ¯ 26 The purpose of this daily ritual, apart from its being a sign of his adherence to the cult of his initiation, was to enable the devotee to eventually destroy the limiting factors (mala) which constrain his soul (j¯ıva) within the cycle of reincarnation (sams˙ ara ¯ ), and so to be ready for liberation (moks. a) by receiving the grace of the Lord (Siva or Vis ´ .n.u) at his death. In this sense the Pañcar ¯ atra and ¯ Saiva Siddh ´ anta are very different from the monistic ¯ traditions of non-Saiddhantika ¯ Saivism, as Sanderson has demonstrated. ´ 27 The JS describes four classes of disciple, the samayajña, putraka, sadhaka ¯ , and ac¯ arya ¯ , 28 each having undergone a particular ablution (abhis. ekah. ) as part of his initiation (d¯ıks. a¯).29 Only the initiated Pañcar ¯ atrin ¯ is authorised to perform the daily liturgical rites, the broad parameters of which – common to all tantric traditions – are ablutions (snanam ¯ ), the purification of the body (deha´suddhi or bhuta´ ¯ suddhi), the divinization of the body through the imposition of mantras upon it (nyasa ¯ ), inner or mental worship (antara-/manasay ¯ aga ¯ ) performed purely in the imagination, and external worship (bahyay ¯ aga ¯ ) with offerings of flowers, incense and so on to the deity.30 Chapter 10 of the JS is devoted to bhuta´ ¯ suddhi and the spiritual ascent of the soul (j¯ıva) ready for the creation of the divinized body. Through symbolically destroying the physical or gross body, the adept can create a pure, divinized body (divyadeha) with which to offer worship to the deities of his system. He (the initiate in our texts is male) does this firstly only in imagination and secondly in the physical world, for – as in all tantric systems – only a god can worship a god. The textual representation of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is set within a sequence in which the physical or elemental body (bhautika ´sar¯ıra) is purified and the soul ascends from the heart through the body, and analogously through the cosmos, to the Lord Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a located at the crown of the head. The text presents us with a detailed account of this process, which can be summarized as follows. Going to a pure, unfrequented, but charming place, the adept offers obeisance to Hari, pays homage to the lineage of teachers (gurusantati), and having received the mental command (manas ¯ ¯ı ajñ ¯ a¯) from the Lord and lineage of teachers, he is ready to perform mental action (manas ¯ ¯ım. nirvahet ... kriyam¯ ).31 The practitioner purifies his hands with the weapon (astra) mantra, and the place through visualising Vis.n.u like a thousand suns, vomiting flames from his mouth, and the earth baked by the fire of mantra.32 In this process we see the construction of a ‘ritual body’ in opposition to the ‘genetic’ or ‘biological’ body which, in its nonritual state, is impure (malina), subject to decay (ks. ayin), not autonomous (asvatantra), and made from blood and semen (retoraktodbhava).33 The non-purified body is the opposite of the Lord’s body possessed of the six qualities.34 The purification of the body entails the construction of the ritual body; a process which had begun with bathing and which continues with the selection of the place and the placing of a blade of sacred grass, flower or leaf in the tuft of hair with mantra.35 The symbolic destruction of the body takes place through dissolving the elements of the cosmos within it. As in the final dissolution of the cosmos when each element or category retracts into its source, so in daily ritual this process is recapitulated within the adept’s body. The actual process occurs through linking together sequences of syllables to form mantras associated with the elements, such as the OM˙ SL´ A¯ M PR ˙ . THIVYAI HUM PHAT ˙ . corresponding to the earth element, which are modified for each element, replacing the b¯ıja’s SL´ A¯ M˙ with S. VAM¯ . , HYA¯ M and K ˙ SM˙ A¯ M as necessary. ˙ 36 Each of the elements is visualized in a certain way, associated with particular symbols, and as pervading a particular part of the body in a hierarchical sequence. Each element is in turn symbolically destroyed in the imagination through being absorbed into its mantra and into the energies (saktayah ´ . ) of the powers (vibhavah¯. ) or subtle elements (tanmatr ¯ ah¯. ) which gave rise to it. For example, the JS describes the purification of the earth element as follows: turya´sr¯a ˙m p¯ıt¯abh¯a ˙m bh¯umi ˙m cintayed vajral¯añcit¯am / ´sabd¯adyaih. pañcabhir yukt¯a ˙m n¯agadrumasam¯akul¯am // purapr¯ak¯arasusariddv¯ıp¯arn. avaparis. kr.t¯am / sa ˙mvi´sant smared b¯ahy¯at p¯uraken. a svavigrahe // procc¯araya ˙m´s ca tan mantra ˙m vi´sr¯antam atha cintayet / j¯anvoh. p¯adatala ˙m y¯avat tay¯a vy¯apta ˙m kramen. a tu // kumbhakena dvija´sres.t .ha mantram¯urtau svake tatoh. / ´sanaih. sanair layam y¯ ´ at¯a ˙m gandha´saktau ca mantrar¯at. // gandha´sakti ˙m ca t¯a ˙m pa´sc¯ad recakena bahih. ks.ipet / (The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder, connected with the five, sound etc. [i.e. sabda, spar´ ´ sa, r¯upa, rasa and gandha] and filled with trees and mountains, adorned with oceans, islands, good rivers and walled towns. He should visualize (that earth) entering his own body from the outside with an inhaled breath, and uttering the mantra he should imagine it as tranquilized, pervading in due order from the knees to the soles of the feet by means of the retained breath, O best of twice born ones. Then, (he should visualize the earth) gradually dissolved in its mantra-form, and this mantra-king dissolved in the energy of smell. After that he should emit the energy of smell with the exhaled breath.37 This process of inhaling the visualized element that pervades a particular area of the body, dissolving it into its mantra, then into its subtle cause, and exhaling it, is followed with the other elements. Having exhaled the energy of smell into the substratum of water, the water element is then imagined as having the form of a half moon, marked by a lotus, and containing all aquatic media – the oceans, rivers, the six flavors (rasas. ad. ka) – and aquatic beings. Inhaling the image, it pervades the adept’s body from the thighs to the knees and is dissolved into its mantra, then into the energy of taste (rasa´sakti) which he emits with the exhaled breath.38 The same process occurs with the remaining elements. The triangle of fire containing all fiery and bright things, including beings at higher levels of the cosmos with self-luminous bodies (svapraka´¯sa´sar¯ıra), is inhaled, pervades the body from the navel to where the water element had begun, is dissolved into its mantra, into the energy of form (rupa´ ¯ sakti), and exhaled as before.39 Similarly the air element is inhaled, pervades from throat to navel and is exhaled as the energy of touch (spar´sa´sakti).40 This merges into space (ak¯ a´¯sa) which, in the same way, is inhaled, pervades to the aperture of the absolute (brahmarandhra), dissolves into its mantra, then into the energy of sound (sabda´ ´ sakti), and is emitted through the aperture at the crown of the head (brahmarandhra).41 All this is accomplished by the power of the mantras of the elements. Having left the body through the brahmarandhra, individualized consciousness (caitanya j¯ıvabhuta ¯ ) has transcended the ‘cage of the elements’ (bhutapañjara ¯ ) by rising through the upanis.adic stages of space, the stars, lightening, the sun and moon.42 In this way the soul (j¯ıva) ascends in imagination up the central channel (sus. umn. a¯) from the heart, through the levels of the cosmos (pada), to the Lord at the crown of the head. He is envisaged in his supreme body (paravigraha) as a mass of radiance (tejopuñja) standing within a circle of light;43 a standard identification of Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a with the sun. The joy that arises is the supreme energy of Vis.n.u (para vais ¯ . n. av¯ı ´sakti) 44 and results in a state of higher consciousness (samadhi ¯ ) that is the ineffable freedom from ideation (sankalpanirmukta ˙ avacya ¯ ).45 Although enjoying this state of bliss, the process of purification is not yet complete. Having transcended the subtle elements along with the gross body, the sadhaka should burn it with the fire arising from his feet, ¯ generated by the power of his mantra. All that remains is a pile of ashes which are then washed away to the quarters in his imagination by the flood of milky water arising from his meditation.46 With the universe of his imagination now filled with the ocean of milk, a lotus emerges out of it containing Nar¯ ayan ¯ . a, whose essence is his mantra, the truth of the six paths.47 The sadhaka’s body, identified with N ¯ ar¯ ayan ¯ . a, is purified, freed from old age and death and has the appearance of pure crystal and the effulgence of a thousand suns and moons.48 Having created a puri- fied body in this way, his soul enters the inner lotus of this subtle body (puryas. t .akakajantara ¯ ) through the aperture of the absolute from which it had earlier vacated its residence. With a calm awareness (prasannadh¯ı) the adept is ready to perform worship of the deity (yajed devam),49 that is, ready to perform the mental sacrifice (manasay ¯ aga ¯ ) and external sacrifice (bahyay ¯ aga ¯ ) described in the following chapters. In the texts of the Saiva Siddh ´ anta we find a similar process occur- ¯ ring. The SSP and ISG (which quotes the former), are separated from the JS by at least a couple of centuries and their origins are in different parts of the sub-continent: the JS is probably from the Kashmir region,50 Somasambhu was the abbot of a ´ mat.ha in South India, himself in a lineage of compilers of ritual manuals,51 and the ISG is probably from Kerala.52 Considering the regional, temporal and cultic diversity of these texts, it is therefore very striking that such invariance occurs at the level of ritual representation. There is of course, a clear line of development from the SSP to the ISG, as ¯Is´ana ¯ siva quotes the SSP and closely follows the text ´ in ritual sequences such as the deha´suddhi, but there is no such clear line of historical development from the JS into the Saiva material. It would ´ therefore seem likely, from an examination of the purification of the body sequences in texts of diverse lineages, that we are looking at a common ritual substrate articulated within the spectrum of tantric traditions. The ISG sequence uses the term deha´suddhi and follows the account given in the SSP: the terms used are often identical and it seems probable that ¯Is´ana ¯ siva is following Soma ´ sambhu’s text. As in the JS, ´ self-purification (atma´ ¯ sodhanam) occurs through the purification of the elements (bhuta´ ¯ suddhi). After bathing, the adept (putraka) should go to the place of worship (yag¯ alaya ¯ ), meditate upon the syllable HUM breaking the ‘knots’ at the heart, throat, palate, between the eyes, and on the head, and visualize Siva at the crown of the head in the ´ dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ . 53 The adept should meditate upon the cutting of the ‘dark and filthy’ knots, which are pierced with the exhaling of the breath to allow energy to flow in the esoteric channels (nad¯. ¯ı).54 He should imagine his soul (j¯ıva), identified with the mantra HAMSA, in the pure lotus of the heart. By the force of ˙ the air (vayu ¯ ) in the central channel he should lead the soul up to Siva ´ located in the dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ at the crown of the head, seated in the centre of a lotus.55 The adept then meditates upon his own body as an inverted tree whose roots are in his head, pervaded by the thirty six tattvas, dissolved in imagination, each into its cause.56 Then begins the description of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi and we are back on territory familiar from the JS. Although new elements have been introduced in the Saiva Siddh ´ anta ¯ scheme, namely the idea of purifying the body through breaking its ‘knots’ (granthiprabheda), the terminology of the subtle channels (nad¯ı), and the use of thirty-six levels of the cosmos (tattva), there is nevertheless a signifi- cant degree of overlap with the JS. As regards the first stage in the process of purifying the earth element, the text reads:
bh¯uman. d. ala ˙m yac catura´srap¯ıta ˙m vajr¯a˙nkita ˙m gandhagun. a ˙m sasadyam / ghr¯an. endriya ˙m tat kalay¯a nivr.tty¯a yukta ˙m ca daivena caturmukhena // hl¯a ˙mb¯ıjatah. p¯urakakumbhak¯abhy¯a ˙m vy¯apta ˙m tad¯a p¯adatala ˙m ´sirastah. / ´sodhya ˙m taduddm¯atakapañcak¯at sy¯ad v¯ayau pravis.t .a ˙m paribh¯avayec ca //
The image of the earth (bh¯uman. d. ala) is a yellow square, marked with the sign of thunder bolt (vajra), whose quality is smell and associated with the Sadya mantra. It is connected to the sense organ of smell, the nivr.tti-kal¯a, and by the four-faced one (Brahma). With the filling and holding breaths, the seed syllable HL ¯ A¯ M pervades (the ˙ body) from the soles of the feet to the head. He should (repeat the seed) five times for the purpose of purification, and he should (then) meditate upon it as entered into the air [i.e he exhales the earth element into the air element].57
As in the JS the earth diagram (pr.thiv¯ıman. d. ala) is a golden square marked by a vajra and associated with the sense of smell, but unlike the JS it is associated with the tattvas, with nivr.tti, one of the five regions (kala¯), and pervades the entire body, rather than from feet to knees. But this pattern is not wholly consistent in the Saiva Siddh ´ anta and the ¯ Vamadevapaddhati ¯ follows the JS model with the earth pervading from feet to knees.58 The other elements follow the same general pattern, using the same symbols (the crescent moon for water, a red triangle for fire marked with svastikas, air as a hexagonal form marked by six drops (bindu), and space as symbolized by a round crystal). As with the JS, the adept burns the body in imagination and then floods it with the water arising from his meditation in order to create a pure, divine body for worship. The text follows the same pattern as the SSP on which it heavily relies. A general picture therefore emerges of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi as a shared ritual substrate that becomes identified with particular Saiva cosmolo- ´ gies. On the one hand the actual visualization represented in the texts has become minimalized, from the JS’s elaborate visions of each element to the ISG’s formal representation. On the other, more elaborate cosmological overlays have occurred. Indeed, the system of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi has become identified with an independent system of the five knots along the central channel of a subtle anatomy, and the five elements have become associated with the five faces of Sada¯siva. ´ 59 We can therefore see here strong continuity of ritual representation, although with later structural elaboration. But I wish now to examine this element of structural invariance through a closer analysis of the kind of language used in these texts. Particularly, I wish to argue that the use of language allows for imagination and the identification of the brahmanical reader of the text with the ritual processes prescribed. This identification is also the means whereby a text is reconstituted through the generations and the way in which its meaning is constructed through the interaction of the both the text’s structures and content, and the reader.
GRAMMAR, METAPHOR AND INDEXICALITY
The verbs used for ritual meditation or visualization are from the roots smr. , dhya¯, bhu¯ caus., and cint. The term smr., ‘to remember’, is particularly interesting, having a wider semantic field than simply recalling something past. Although this would need to be different study to sustain the claim, it would seem that, along with these other terms, it here refers to the construction of a mental image in the imagination.60 These verbs are generally used in the third person optative, apart from gerundives, which is all-pervasive in these texts and is nothing unusual. Let us take an example of each from the JS. They are as follows: (1) In the destruction of the earth element we read, ‘(The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder’ (turya´sra¯m p ˙ ¯ıtabh ¯ a¯m˙ bhumi ¯ m cintayed vajral ˙ añcit ¯ am¯ );61 (2) at the completion of the dissolution of the water element, ‘with the inhaled breath he should bring to mind, O twice-born one, the body as its own sacred diagram, completely filled with that (water element)’ (... sar ´ ¯ıram man ˙ . d. alam svakam / ten ˙ akhila ¯ m˙ tu samvy ˙ apta ¯ m kumbhakena smared dvija ˙ );62 (3) in the dissolution of the air element ‘he should meditate upon (the air element) pervading from the throat to the place of the navel’ (akan ¯ . t .han n ¯ abhide´ ¯ santa ¯ m tena vy ˙ apta ¯ m tu bhavayet ¯ );63 and (4) in the destruction of the space element ‘he should visualize it (the space element) transformed in its own mantra’ (dhyayet ¯ parin. atam ... svamantre).64 Again, an example of the verbs used in the ISG simply reinforce this usage: (5) ‘he should lead (the soul) to Siva ´ located in the dvada´ ¯ santa ¯ (tam dv ˙ ada´ ¯ santastha´ ¯ sivam nayet ˙ );65 and (6) ‘he should meditate by degrees the piercing of the knots’ (granthiprabhedam˙ krama´so vidadhyat¯ ).66 In these examples the main verb is in the third person singular optative, a mood which, according to Pan¯ .ini, is used in five senses to denote a command (vidhi), a summons (nimantran. a), an invitation (amantran ¯ . a), a respectful command (adh¯ıs. t .a), a deliberation (sampra´ ˙ sna), or a request (prarthana ¯ ).67 All of these senses have the implication of conditions; that the performance of certain actions will lead to certain future effects. Indeed, the optative implies action and its effects in future time, as it cannot refer to the past nor to the actualised present. As used here, the optative corresponds to Pan¯ .ini’s analysis in that the Pañcar ¯ atrin’s reli- ¯ gious discipline (vrata) is a command from the lord (vidhi, as in ‘you must go to the village’ – grama ¯ m bhav ˙ an gacchet ¯ ), and is also an invitation (amantran ¯ . a, as in ‘do sit here’ – iha bhavan¯ as¯ ¯ıta) or request from an authoritative source (prarthana ¯ , ‘I would like to study grammar’ – vyakaran ¯ . am adh¯ıy¯ıya). The analysis of the optative mood within different schools tended to focus upon the relationship between the person or text uttering the injunction, the receiver, and the action to be performed. According to one commentator on Pan¯ .ini, Nage ¯ sabhat ´ .t .a, the first four definitions (vidhi etc.) can be included within a fifth, namely pravartana or ‘instigation’, an activity on the part of one person which leads to another’s performing an action. There is a sequence of implication in the use of the optative. Namely, that the instigation is uttered by an authoritative person (apta ¯ ); that there is nothing inhibiting the instigation; and that the ‘instigatee’ infers that the action he is being asked to perform is something he desires and is achievable.68 Nage ¯ sa defines the qualified person as being one ´ who is free from confusion, anger and so on, and who does not perform actions that lead to undesired results. According to Nage ¯ sa a ´ vidhi is connected with certain properties of an action, the property of being a means to something desired (is.t .asadhyatva ¯ ), its feasibility (kr.tisadhyatva ¯ ), and the absence of inhibitory factors (pratibandhakabh ¯ ava ¯ ).69 The use of the optative in our texts is therefore consonant with this understanding. There is therefore an imperative to perform mental action as prescribed in these texts, in the sense that if a certain course of action is undertaken, then certain results will follow, a fact that can be inferred from the imperative coming from an authoritative source. Indeed, the terms smaret (e.g. at 10.34a), cintayet (e.g. at 10.28a), dhyayet ¯ (e.g. at 10.54a) and bhavayet ¯ (e.g. at 10.46a) are the same grammatical form as terms denoting physical actions, such as imposing or infusing the body with mantra (nyaset, e.g. at 10.66b). In this sense, it would seem that the use of the optative in the Tantras is akin to its use in the Vedas, as in the injunction ‘one desirous of heaven should perform the jyotis. t .oma sacrifice’ (jyotis. t .omena svargakamo ¯ yajet).70 There is no grammatical distinction within these texts between actions performed ‘in the mind’ and actions performed ‘with the body’. Indeed the grammar points in quite the opposite direction to a mind/body dualism, namely that mental action is directly akin to physical action, and that as physical action has effect in the ritual realm, so too does mental action. This is because the hierarchical cosmology assumed in these ritual operations is a ‘magical’ cosmology that enables actions (including mental action) to have effects at spatially and temporally distinct locations. One might speculate further that the use of the optative with its implication of possible future action, is related to the imagination or the metaphorical space in which events and abstractions are projected; a projection which is permitted by the very structure of languages with at least three tenses.71 While, as Lakoff and Johnson have shown, all of language is pervaded by metaphor,72 the use of the optative is particularly suggestive of the possibility of metaphor and of the kinds of mapping and overcoding onto the body that we find in our texts. The terms ks.ipet and nyaset imply that the adept should project the mantra or image into the metaphorical space of his creative imagination. This is indeed a mental action that has effect in that metaphorical space, and will have consequences for the practitioner in terms of liberation at death. Lastly, if we read these texts through a dialogical lens, the use of the optative tells us something of the relationship between the ‘reader’ and the ‘text,’ and tells us something about the nature of the self assumed. In structuralism, semiotics is conceived as an addresser transmitting a message to an addressee who receives it, almost in a passive fashion, and decodes it. This requires ‘contact’ between the two, a ‘code’ in which the message is formulated, and a ‘context’ that gives sense to the message.73 In the case of the JS the addresser, the redactor of the text, sends the message of the text (the ritual representation) to an addresser, the Pañcar ¯ atrin who receives it. ¯ If, however, we look at ritual representation through the lens of dialogism, we are presented with a different picture. The dialogists reject the emphasis on language as a purely abstract system, seeing it rather as constantly changing and adapting to concrete, historical situations and not, to use Voloshinov’s phrase, as ‘a stable and always self-equivalent signal.’74 On this view the meaning of words is governed by the contexts of their occurrence, so utterance can be accounted for only as a social phenomenon. Language is a process generated in the interaction of speakers within social contexts. Turning to our texts, whereas a structuralist reading of the JS and ISP presents the Brahmanical addressee in purely passive terms as the decoder of a message from the text (and from the past), a dialogical reading would see both addresser and addressee as constructing the text’s meaning. That is, there is a dialogical relationship between ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ and meaning is constructed between the two rather than passively received and an original meaning decoded. This general relationship between the ‘reader’ and the ‘addresser’ can be more closely analyzed and textually instantiated in terms of what might be called a relationship between extra-textual indexicality and intra-textual anaphora. The dialogical relationship is between the implicit (Brahman) reader, a notional ‘I’, and the ‘characters’ of the text who yet can function indexically as ‘I’s. Let me explain this. In Pragmatics, deixis or indexicals, such as first and second person pronouns and locative and temporal adverbs such as ‘here’ and ‘there,’ are contrasted with anaphoric terms which refer to a previous item in a discourse (such as ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it’ and ‘they’). Thus, indexicality always refers outside of itself to a context (as would be indicated by ‘you’ or ‘there’) whereas anaphora does not refer outside of the utterance; the term ‘he,’ for example would refer to a previously named person. The qualities of indexicality are both generalised and referential, inexorably linked to the context of utterance. When we shift to anaphoric terms, to the third person for example, discourse ceases to have the indexical qualities of deixic language. Anaphora is always discourse-internal in that terms such as ‘he’ or ‘her’ are substitutes for some previously named person or entity. As has been discussed by Urban in an important paper, a complication arises when apparently indexical terms are used anaphorically in direct discourse.75 ‘I’ becomes anaphoric, for example, when placed in a sentence such as ‘She said “I’m going to the river,” ’ where the ‘I’ does not refer to anything outside of the narrative itself. The ‘I’ is an empty sign in the sense that it is not referential with respect to a specific reality. This is important in the context of the ritual representations in tantric texts. For example, in the JS the following from early in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequence is typical of the style of ritual prescription: hasta´suddhi ˙m tatah. kury¯ad yath¯a tac chr. n. u n¯arada / Hear this, O Narada, how one should then perform the purification of the hands. ¯ 76 In this dialogue between the Lord (Bhagavan) and the sage N ¯ arada, ¯ Narada is addressed in the second person. The Lord uses the imperative,‘hear this’ (tac chr. n. u), which is anaphoric in that the implied tvam (‘you’) refers to the sage named in the vocative. On the other hand, the ritual prescription is in the third person singular optative, ‘he should perform’ (kuryad¯ ). The third person therefore takes the place of the second person directed to Narada and indirectly to the reader of the text, but its use serves ¯ to formalize and distance the discourse from any direct indexical reference. This ‘you of discourse’, an indexical used in an anaphoric way, is replaced in the text by the clearly anaphoric third person. The ritualist ‘reader’ of the text is being addressed by the Lord indirectly through Narada, who ¯ stands in for the practitioner. Indeed the M¯ımam¯ . sa school of philosophy ¯ corroborates this general point when in claiming that the use of the third person optative in vedic injunction actually refers to ‘me,’ the reader of the text, performing the ritual injunction.77 We might make a similar claim of the ritual injunction here. This linguistic form, the objectification of the ritual performer, has the effect of controlling the dialogic relations between the characters and the reader. In the passage from the JS the anaphoric third person is indirectly understood by the text’s receiver or reader to be referring to the indexical ‘I.’ The reader understands that the third person actually refers to the indexical ‘I,’ through Narada. The object ¯ of the second person discourse is also the grammatical subject of the third person optatives, and moreover indirectly refers outside of the text to the reader. In this way, the text’s meaning is constructed through the identification of the indexical I, that is the brahmanical reader of the text, with the third person understood as though indexical. Yet being articulated in the third person optative also maintains an impersonal voice concordant with the claimed universality of the revelation. Furthermore the use of the optative allows for the imaginative identification of the indexical I with the implied ‘I’ of the text itself. The grammar of the text allows for the imaginative identification of the reader with the representation of the ritual practitioner. Certainly one of the functions of these texts is the cultural replication of ritual representation. Through this kind of analysis we can see how the text achieves the replication of ritual processes, and so the perpetuation of tradition, through the identification of the indexical ‘I’ with the anaphoric third person in the optative mood. The third person optative functions as a substitute for an anaphoric ‘I’ in the text: the anaphoric ‘I’ is deferred through the third person. The social agent – the brahmanical reader in our case – wishes to close the gap between the indexical ‘I’ and the deferred anaphoric ‘I’ of the texts through imagination and projection into the metaphorical space allowed by the use of the optative. Imagination provides awareness of the possibility of transformation and the possibility of behaving in a way that allows the goals of the tradition, internalized through the identification of the two ‘I’s, to be realized. The replication of the text and the truth-value it contains for a community, suggests furthermore that the text, as Urban and Silverstein have argued, is a trope of culture which is constantly decontextualised, or liberated from a specific historical context, and recontextualised in a new context. These processes they have called ‘entextualisation’ and ‘co(n)textualisation.’78 Texts are the result of continuous cultural processes that create and recreate them over again as meaningful objects or tropes, which are constructed as having de-temporalised and de-spacialised meanings. By way of conclusion then, we can see this process occurring in the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi sequences of the JS and ISG. These texts transcend the boundaries of their production and are reconstituted through the generations, especially through the identification of the reader of the text with the ritualist represented. To use a more technical terminology, this is the process of the identification of the indexical ‘I’ with the ‘I’ implied by the text. The bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is a ritual representation that functions as a trope, informing the individual practitioner through the process of the indexical identification with the anaphoric pronouns in the discourse. The textual representation of the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi is made meaningful by both the content of the texts and by the construction of its meaning in the imagination by the brahmanical reader. One of the primary tasks in the study of tantric traditions therefore becomes the inquiry into the ways in which these texts have been transmitted, their internalisation by the individual practitioner, and the function of these texts within the practices of the tradition. Through focussing on the bhuta´ ¯ suddhi, it is hoped that the present paper has made some contribution to this understanding.
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