Gavin Flood, Hindu Practice, "Practice in The Tantric Religion of Śiva"

The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice
Gavin Flood (ed.)
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.001.0001
Published: 2020 Online ISBN: 9780191797958 Print ISBN: 9780198733508
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CHAPTER
9 Practice in the Tantric Religion of Śiva 

Gavin Flood
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0010 Pages 243–271

Published: August 2020
Abstract
By the early medieval period the religion focused on Śiva was on the rise politically, socially, and
culturally, coming to dominate the South Asian context and beyond to South East Asia. The origins of
Śaivism, the religion of Śiva, are ancient and certainly those of devotion to Śiva, whose early form is
Rudra, stretch back to the Vedic period. With the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad he becomes elevated to the
supreme deity. But it is with the tantric revelation that Śiva comes into his own and it is this tradition
that will be the focus of the chapter. The practices of the tantric revelation vary from fairly standard
temple worship for those in mainstream society to fringe groups that performed unconventional and
polluting practices (such as ritualized sex outside of caste restrictions) to go against orthodoxy in
pursuit of power. The chapter examines these developments.
Keywords: Śiva, śaiva, Tantra, ritual, yoga

Subject: Hinduism
Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
By the early medieval period the religion focused on Śiva was on the rise politically, socially, and culturally,
coming to dominate the South Asian context and beyond to South East Asia. The origins of Śaivism, the
religion of Śiva, cannot be dated before the middle of the second century BC (Sanderson 2020: 5) although
hymns to Rudra, an early form of Śiva, are found in the Ṛg-veda (Jamieson and Brereton 2014: I.114, II.33,
VII. 46). With the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad he becomes elevated to the supreme deity in a way that parallels
Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā. Śiva’s presence is well attested in the epics and we have entire Purāṇas dedicated
to his worship and mythology. But it is with the tantric revelation that Śiva comes into his own, a tradition
mapped out by the ground-breaking work of Alexis Sanderson (e.g. Sanderson 2009), and it is this tradition
that will be the focus of the current chapter.
The development of the householder tradition of adherence to Vedic values is of great importance in the
medieval period, not least because of the stability it brings to polities that themselves can sometimes
change quite rapidly. The general picture during this period is that we have orthodox worship of Śiva
practised by the ‘twice-born’ (dvija, namely Brahmins, Kṣatriyas, and Vaiśyas) who followed the secondary
revelation (smṛti) as encoded in Dharma literature (the Śivadharma texts) and the Purāṇas. The Brahmins
who followed Smṛti, called Smārtas, adhered to orthodox values of duty concerning one’s caste and
appropriate stage of life (vārṇāśramadharma). They would pursue a regime of domestic ritual and Vedic
sacri ce and follow prescriptions for temple worship (Bühnemann 1988), making vegetarian o erings to
the aniconic representation of Śiva as the lin͘ga. Alongside these orthodox, high-caste householders were
renouncers who had formally taken renunciation (saṃnyāsa) to practise asceticism and yoga to achieve nal
liberation, usually within a formal ascetic order. Although it regarded itself as following a superior
1
revelation, the tantric tradition nevertheless closely parallels the tradition it claims to transcend.

The practices of the tantric revelation vary from fairly standard temple worship for those in mainstream
p. 244 society to fringe groups that performed unconventional and polluting practices (such as ritualized sex
outside of caste restrictions) to go against orthodoxy in pursuit of power. Indeed, for the more extreme
tantric traditions, those who adhered to the orthodox, Vedic revelation were ‘enslaved’ (pāśava) (Sanderson
1985: 212, note 81, citing Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka 4.252–3). The history of practice is often linked to the
history of power and the social and political relations between communities, although I think it fair to say
that the earliest tantric practices are not concerned with temple ritual and public rites, but more with
esoteric matters and the gaining of supernatural power (siddhi) and salvation (mokṣa) from the cycle of
reincarnation (saṃsāra). The earliest Tantra that we now have, the Niśvāsatattva-saṃhitā, the earliest layers
of which go back to the fth century AD , bears witness to this in the absence of any concern for temple ritual
and displays of public religion in festivals. Indeed, the primary concerns of this text are magical practices
and the quest for liberation in a hierarchical universe populated by myriads of supernatural beings
inhabiting (to us) invisible worlds. The principal editor and translator of the text, Dominic Goodall, sums up
the situation well:
In short, the Niśvāsa seems to re ect a religion of spell-masters questing for empowerment
(bhukti) and liberation (mukti). That religion is still far distant from the religious world of priests
and public temples, such as is re ected in, for instance, the Kāmika, Kāraṇa, Ajitāgama and other
such twelfth- and post-twelfth century South Indian Temple Āgamas, and it is probably not yet a
socially organized religion housed in monasteries or ordered around rich householder gurus.
(Goodall 2015: 59)
The origins of tantric practice are thus a combination of a yogic or meditative inner quest for liberation,
along with a quest for magical power and experiencing other worlds in the cosmos to which the adept would
be transported, if not physically then in his religious imagination. On the one hand, we have meditative
practices of ascetic renouncers while on the other we have ritual practices of Brahmin householders, both
within the remit of Śaivism.
During the early medieval period, an ascetic tradition developed known to later classi cation as the Ati
Mārga, the Higher or Outer Path beyond the Vedic. This path, and in particular the Pāśupata order, became
in uential and powerful, owning land and temples. Indeed, the great Śiva temple at Somnath that was
sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni and its reputed gold lin͘ga taken away belonged to the Pāśupatas (Thapar 2004:
92, 96–7). The Pāśupata observance entailed a three-stage process of living in the temple, leaving the
temple, and adopting anti-social behaviour such as pretending to be mad (Pāśupata-sūtras 3.12–17; see
Oberhammer 1992: 204–23) so as to attract abuse, and nally living in a cremation ground. A later
development of this sect were the Kāpālikas, skull-bearing ascetics living in cremation grounds and
covering themselves in the ashes of the dead, a type of practice that still persists in India in the form of the
p. 245 Aghori sect (Parry 1994). These were a precursor to the tantric ascetic, the Sādhaka, and a tradition that
in uences mainstream householder religion.
In contrast to the Ati Mārga, there was the Mantra Mārga, the path of Mantras that refers to what has
become known as ‘Tantric Śaivism’. This path comprised the central tradition of the Śaiva Siddhānta along
with other groups that claimed to go beyond even this revelation, such as the Trika in Kashmir. Even though
it claimed an alternative revelation, the Śaiva Siddhānta was nevertheless orientated towards orthodox
Vedic values and was dualistic in its metaphysics, claiming an eternal distinction between God, souls, and
matter in contrast to the non-Saiddhātika tantric traditions that were metaphysically non-dualist and
disparaged conventional adherence to Vedic values (Sanderson 1995: 23). Non-Saiddhāntika groups, such as
the Trika, adopted antinomian practices that were anathema to the orthodox Brahmins, thereby displaying
resistance to Brahmanical authority through the adoption of polluting rites. We see this consistently in the

ritual record. What they share is that Śaiva initiation grants complete salvation in contrast to Vedic
scriptures that do not. I will therefore initially examine the practices of mainstream, conventional tantric
traditions of the Śaiva Siddhānta, which became the normative Śaiva ritual system, before examining the
practices of the more fringe groups. Indeed, the Śaiva Siddhānta classi ed ritual into daily rites (nitya-
karma), occasional rites (naimittika-karma), and magical rites for a desired end (kāmya-karma) that I shall
use here as a typology. This threefold classi cation has its origins in the orthodox Vedic tradition and is
used by Jaimini in the Mīmāṃsā-sūtras (11.1.26; Thadani 2007) but it is not present in the earliest Tantras
2
although it is in place by the eleventh century, being present in the Mṛgendrāgama (3.49, 6.43).
Eschatological hope was generally restricted to those householders and ascetics who performed regular,
daily worship in the belief that at death they would gain liberation. Whereas the Smārta Brahmin performed
pūjā in the hope that at death he would be reborn into the world of his God, vaikuṇṭha for Viṣṇu or śivaloka
for Śiva, the Śaiva performed his practice in the hope of liberation beyond the cosmic egg of the Smārtas
along with pleasure in higher worlds of experience for those who desired that. Let us examine each of these.
1. Daily Ritual (Nitya-Karma)
Tantric Śaiva religion is a religion of ritual par excellence. After initiation the Śaiva Siddhāntin was required
to undergo a daily regime of ritual, worshipping Śiva at the junctures of the day in the belief that this ritual
p. 246 would help to erase the e ects of past action and that, at death, with Śiva’s grace, the adept would attain
liberation. As in Jainism, rather than knowledge it is action that creates the conditions for liberation. This
was a religion of the householder who maintained general adherence to Vedic Brahmanical values
(varṇāśrama-dharma) but believed his tantric revelation went far beyond the Veda. The ritual system of the
Śaiva Siddhānta became normative and spread throughout the sub-continent from Kashmir to the South
3
where it absorbed Tamil devotionalism. Technically there are twenty-eight Śaiva Siddhānta Tantras along
with other texts, although there are actually more, particularly ritual manuals or paddhatis that were used
as the practical basis for ritual procedure. These paddhatis were distillations of ritual from the Tantras,
containing details of actions to be performed along with the mantras to be uttered and the hand gestures
(mudrā) to be used. The most famous is the paddhati of Somaśambhu, carefully edited and translated by
Hélène Brunner, and also the paddhati of Īśānaśivagurudeva composed in Kerala. Both of these texts are
probably eleventh century, although the latter quotes the former and so is later. The Īśānaśivagurudeva-
paddhati is still used by some Nambudri Brahman families of the Taranallur clan in the Alwaye region of
Kerala (Unni 1988) and is distinctive in the Śaiva Siddhānta corpus for containing chapters on possession
and exorcism.
The daily ritual life of the Śaiva Siddhāntin involved making vegetarian o erings to the Śiva lin͘ga, the icon
of Śiva, in a standard way, rst having identi ed himself with his God, for one of the distinctive features of
tantric worship is that only a god can worship a god. The divinization of the person is therefore an
important part of the ritual process. In the Somaśambhupaddhati this process takes the form of puri catory
bathing (snāna), the puri cation of the elements within the body (the bhūtaśuddhi), the divinization of the
body through imposing mantras upon it (nyāsa), and the internal worship of the deity within the
imagination (antara-/mānasa-yāga), followed by external worship (bahya-yāga) to an icon of the god
(Sanderson 1995: 27–9). Following external worship, a Vedic homa rite was added on to the tantric worship.
In this process the vertical structure of the cosmos is mapped onto the vertical structure of the body. The
Śaiva Siddhānta codi ed this cosmology in the ‘six ways’ (ṣaḍadhvan) that divided the hierarchy into three
4
paths of sound and three of space, each of which in itself is a complete hierarchical structure. This is
p. 247 pervasive in tantric ritual and might even be considered to be a distinctive feature of it, although there
are Vedic precedents before the emergence of Tantra (Einoo 2005: 7–49).
A particularly interesting text from the Śaiva Mantra Mārga is the Netra-tantra, the ‘eye’ tantra, also called

the ‘Lord of Immortality’ (Amṛteśvara-tantra). This was popular in the Kashmir valley and Sanderson has
shown its importance as a text that appealed to royalty in the protection of the king’s family from demonic
attack and the way the Śaiva priest functions as the royal, Brahmanical chaplain or Purohita (Sanderson
2004). What is interesting here is that the Netra incorporates into it many di erent systems not only within
Śaivism but from Vaiṣṇavism and Śāktism too. It presents visualizations of the ferocious Bhairava (Netra-
5
tantra chapter 10) and even of Viṣṇu as an ithyphallic young man seated on a ram (Netra-tantra 13.10). There
are notable chapters on possession and rites of protection from demons, not dissimilar to the manual of
Īśānaśivagurudeva. The text is an index of a world populated by supernatural forces and in which everyday
life was permeated by positive and negative invisible in uences. The Netra o ers a mantra technology, to
control these forces. The control of demonic forces it regards as the lowest level of practice. In three
chapters on three kinds of practice that it calls meditations or visualizations (dhyāna), we have the gross
meditation that involves practices of protection from demonic forces, the subtle meditation that is an
esoteric meditation on powers within the subtle body, and the supreme meditation that is a reinterpretation
of the classical eight limbs of yoga as found in Patañjali and that bestows liberation (mokṣada), and in which
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the practitioner becomes a ‘conqueror of death’ (mṛtjuñjit). The gross meditation is for the protection and
healing of a sick person, the cause of which is considered to be demonic possession. This involves the
construction of a re pit, as with the Vedic sacri ce, into which o erings are made of sesamum, rice, honey,
p. 248 clari ed butter, and milk. The name of the sick person is encased in a mantra, which the priest repeats.
Indeed, any mantra framed by the Lord of Immortality mantra (the netra mantra OṂ JUṂ SAḤ) along with
7
the person’s name will achieve success (Netra-tantra 6.18–27). This is accompanied by visualizing the sick
person on a lotus in an ocean of milk with the name of the person enwrapped by mantras written in the
centre of the lotus. This ritual diagram is also drawn externally to which the priest o ers ingredients that
are entirely white, and he does this for the protection of the king (Netra-tantra 6.34–5). Another method of
protection is to make o erings into a pot lled with jewels and other ingredients. The priest then performs
an ablution over the head of the sick person. The water owing from the pot over the sickly man is the
nectar of immortality owing to the earth from the world of Śiva, lled with the nectar that contains all the
cosmological categories (namely the six paths) (Netra-tantra 6.41–5). With this procedure, disease is cured,
the king wins a kingdom, the sick become healthy, a barren woman gives birth to a son, and a daughter nds
8
a husband (Netra-tantra 6.18–27).
This is a world of practical religion. The function of practice is protection and the ourishing of the king and
his family where the priest functions as a magical physician. This is quite distinct from the subtle
meditation that follows. Here the body is imagined as a structure that maps onto the vertical axis of the
cosmos. There is a central channel running through it with various ‘wheels’ (cakra), ‘bases’ (ādhāra), and
‘knots’ (granthi) located along its axis. Two models are presented, the rst in which power, forced into the
central channel, rises up, piercing the di erent centres or blockages to the crown of the head where the
practitioner enters the supreme state and becomes one with Śiva (Netra-tantra 7.34–5). From here the body
is lled or ooded (plavana) with nectar (Netra-tantra 6.40–5). In the second model, the yogi rises up to
p. 249 unite with Śiva at the crown of the head (i.e. no plavana). The rst model, the ooding of the body, is
distinctive of Śākta traditions and is called the kulaprakrīyā by the commentator on the text, Kṣemarāja (c.
1000–50), in contrast to the normative system of the tantraprakrīyā (Netra-tantra 7.16cd–35) which shows
how Śākta traditions were being incorporated into mainstream Śaiva practice (Wernicke-Olesen and
Einarsen 2015).
Finally, the supreme meditation is a reinterpretation of the classical eight-limbed yoga through which the
yogi becomes free from old age and death. In this reinterpretation, discipline (yama) is said to be cessation
of the cycle of reincarnation, restraint (niyama) is constant meditation (bhāvanā) on the supreme reality
(paraṃ tattva), posture (āsana) is becoming established between exhalation and inhalation, breath control
(prāṇayāma) is stilling the mind, and the three stages of concentration beyond this are re nements of this
meditative state, culminating in realizing the sameness of consciousness in all beings. This is the awareness

9
that ‘I am God’ (śivo’ham) (Netra-tantra 8.10–18). Attaining this realization, the yogi becomes free from
reincarnation, free from disease, and he lls the entire universe, which is the realization of the essence of
the supreme self (parmātmasvarūpa) (Netra-tantra 8.28). The text then goes on to reveal that this essence of
the self is in fact Power or Śakti, the Goddess, and this power pervades the yogi’s willing, thinking, and
acting (Netra-tantra 8.33). This supreme realization is beyond the categories of self and other, a condition of
constant meditation, which is dissolution in a state of joy, the supreme state of the highest God, and the
10
cheating of time in which the yogi becomes the conqueror of death (Netra-tantra 8.39–52).
p. 250 With the Netra-tantra we have the whole gamut of practice in the medieval period. On the one hand, we have
a popular version of non-dual metaphysics in which the yogi realizes his identity with absolute
consciousness through meditation, which is the realization that the self is God, while on the other we have
magical protection from demonic invasion that incorporates Vedic practices of o erings into the re. We
have here a kind of ‘inclusivism’, the incorporation of di erent traditions in a synthesis and kind of
universalism, although distinct from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hinduism in being hierarchically
11
arranged. In contrast to the later tradition, the text is esoteric in the sense that initiation (dīkṣā) is a
requirement, a process that is itself e ective in protection and ensuring the realization of eschatological
hope.
2. Occasional Ritual (Naimittika-Karma)
Occasional rites are principally initiation and funerals, but they also include marriage and occasional
observances or vows. Initiation is the main prescribed rite outside of daily ritual in the tantric tradition. In
line with Vedic practice, initiation marks an entry into a new condition for the initiate, conceptualized both
as a new social condition with a new status and as an ontological condition in which the deeper state of
being of the initiate is changed such that he is guaranteed liberation through the grace of God mediated
through the master. who symbolically cuts the bonds (pāśaccheda) that bind the soul to the universe. In this
process the master blindfolds the disciple who throws a ower into the ritual diagram (man․d․ala) to
determine his initiation name. In this process the disciple’s soul is symbolically lifted through the levels of
the universe, its di erent worlds, to the abode of Śiva. The master joins the soul with a particular world,
causing him to be born into it to enjoy it, and cuts the bond with that world and moves up higher to the next.
p. 251 For example, the lowest world governed by the Rudra who is the re of time (Kālāgnirudra) is the rst
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that the disciple is symbolically born into before rising to higher worlds.
Initiation presupposes the master called the Ācārya, Guru, or Deśika, the one who transfers power to the
disciple by giving him the mantra and being the conduit for the descent of power (śaktipāta). He mediates
between the transcendent Lord and disciple (Gegnagel 2001). Being a master is not so much about inner
awareness as it is a socially de ned role; a master is one who has himself undergone a consecration that
recognizes his status and knowledge, and his achievement in terms of realizing the tradition’s goals, called
the ablution of the teacher (ācāryābhiṣeka). It is his ability to perform the correct rites at the correct time
that is more important than the inner state for the Śaiva Siddhānta, although for more extreme tantric
initiation, into the Kaula and Krama cults, for example, signs of possession such as trembling were
expected: the initiation had to be perceived to have succeeded through these signs (Sanderson 1986).
Somaśambhu, as described in detail by Brunner, prescribes three initiations, the general (samaya-dikṣā)
that provides formal entry into the tradition, the particular (viśeṣa-dīkṣā), which is part of the general, and
the liberating (nirvāṇa-dīkṣā), which guarantees liberation. The main distinction is between the general and
liberating initiation that indicates two types of disciple, the Samayin who has undergone the rst and the
Putraka (‘son of Śiva’) who has undergone the second (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: xxxi). After the liberating
initiation there are two further consecrations that can be taken: for one who wishes to become a teacher in
the traditions, the ācāryābhiṣeka, and for one who wishes to experience power and enjoyment in higher

worlds of the cosmos, the sādhakābhiṣika. This distinction between the teacher and the seeker of power
re ects the distinction between one who seeks liberation (mumukṣu) and one who seeks power and pleasure
in higher worlds (bubhukṣu) (Brunner 1975: 411–16) that perhaps re ects the incorporation into the
normative Śaiva system of an earlier tradition of the Sādhaka as a yogi who sought power.
The Mṛgendrāgama, a text of the Śaiva canon that is mostly about private, daily ritual but contains
information about initiation, divides Śaivas into four groups, the master (Deśika/Ācārya), the mantra
specialist (Mantravṛṭti/Sādhaka), the son of Śiva (Putraka), and the regular initiate (Samayin). All of these
may undertake a special observance or vow (vrata) (Mṛgendrāgama Caryāpāda 1.2). Such Śaivas may wear a
chignon or have a shaved head, and they bear the emblems of the Śaiva being covered with pale ash, wearing
13
p. 252 the Śaiva marks on their forehead, and so on. But even here there is social di erentiation because the
lowest caste, the Śūdras, may not wear matted locks, and neither may the foolish, the ignorant, the mad,
14
women, the old, those with missing limbs, and so on. Those with matted locks should treat their chignon
in a certain way, imbuing them symbolically with the structures of the universe (the six paths) and treating
them with special powders and the ‘three fruits’ of the Indian gooseberry tree (myrobolans) (Mṛgendrāgama
Caryāpāda 1.7). Those who undertake an observance are themselves of two types, the celibate Brahman that
lasts his entire life, called the naiṣṭhika-vratin, one whose observance is to the end, and those whose
observance is for a shorter duration, the ‘elemental’ or bhautika-vratin. The former is an initiate, or a
teacher, and the latter is the Sādhaka. The former is a celibate ascetic, whereas the latter can be married, as
he desires power, riches (bhūti), and obtaining a good woman (satpatnīparigraha) (Mṛgendrāgama Caryāpāda
1.9ab–10). The rules of the Śaiva following an observance are quite strict and include the giving up of meat,
women, and honey (possibly mead, an alcoholic beverage), sleeping on the ground, and being accompanied
only by his gourd for water. He must also avoid singing, dancing, interactions with women, and so on
(Mṛgendrāgama Caryāpāda 1.18–19).
Another Saiddhāntika text, the Matan͘gapārameśvarāgama, presents details of the social behaviour of
15
disciples and masters. The Samayin must be a virtual slave to the master and this way gains liberation, the
Putraka must practise perfectly the general principles (sāmānācāra) of Śaivism, honouring the master, the
deity, and the re, remaining calm in all circumstances (Caryāpāda 4.14), and the Sādhaka focuses on his
personal mantra (japa); being an ascetic, he concentrates his e orts on particular duties (Caryāpāda 4.15).
The teacher has the duty to brie y attend to his own worship and meditation, for his main obligations are to
his disciples, to initiate and teach them in order to facilitate the descent of grace (śaktipāta) upon them
(Caryāpāda 4.16–17).
p. 253 These textual details are interesting because they give us a picture of Śaiva life in the medieval period. There
are clear distinctions between di erent types of religious mendicant depending upon stages or grades of
initiation. There is also an attempt to incorporate and systematize practices. The Sādhaka may well have
been an independent yogi that the Śaiva system arrogates to itself and creates a niche for in its initiatory
system. This is a common pattern in Brahmanism and Śaivism was successful in absorbing other traditions
into it, and was then itself imitated by other religions, particularly Jainism and Buddhism. The chapters on
comportment present a picture of the normative, householder life in which the ordinary Śaiva initiate would
practise his ritual obligations at the three junctures of the day (dawn, noon, and sunset), perform ritual to
install deities in shrines, and occasionally undertake a vow. He would treat his master with great respect,
greeting him in a prescribed way and o ering him the usual guest drink of honey and milk (madhuparka)
16
should he visit the house. The Śaiva virtuosi would undertake even stricter observance and would be quite
distinctive in their appearance, bearing the external signs of the Śaiva such as being covered in ash, bearing
matted locks, and carrying the water gourd of the ascetic. This religion was not so far from the Vedic
Brahmans in social observance, because the ascetic who undergoes an observance must be of higher caste,
one of the twice-born, which excludes Śūdras. He must also be as faultless as possible, without disability,
without being too old, and only being male. Clearly there was discrimination at this time against women,

the low castes, and the disabled. Although some forms of tantric Śaivism—the traditions of the left
revelatory current—rejected this social exclusion, the rigid social hierarchy remained in place. If we can call
the tantric religion a religious revolution of some kind, then it was not a revolution that espoused social
equality and rights for minorities, although there were groups within it that clearly rejected the values of
varṇāśrama-dharma and promoted equality insofar as all are equal in an ultimate reality of consciousness
only or anyone may be liberated through initiation.
3. Ritual for a Desired Purpose (Kāmya-Karma)
Rites for a desired purpose are magical rites; ritual as a magical technology to achieve a particular outcome
that bypasses natural causal laws. These rites were for gaining some personal advantage such as success in
one’s love life by winning over a particular woman, riches, or, especially, the destruction of enemies and the
p. 254 consequent increase in power. These black magic rituals (abhicāra) were particularly attractive to kings
who wished to defeat their enemies. The actual rites used the same kind of ingredients and processes as
daily and occasional rituals, often substituting ingredients with di erent colours for di erent purposes. For
example, the Mṛgendrāgama says that God in the form of Sadāśiva, the central deity of the Śaiva Siddhānta,
should be visualized in di erent colours according to the desired outcome—white, red, copper, black, blue,
17
and grey—as o erings are made into the re. These outcomes are the paralysis of an enemy, causing pain,
18
frightening, destroying, pacifying, and ruining.
There are also rites to attain what one desires. These rituals seem to be prevalent in texts more distanced
from the mainstream. Thus, although respectable Śaiva texts such as the Mṛgendrāgama contain some
magical material for the destruction of enemies, some texts focused on the Goddess are exclusively devoted
to the pursuit of magical powers and obtaining desired wishes. One of the earliest texts from the tantric
Goddess tradition, the Nityākaula, is focused on such magical pursuit. Later the Śākta tradition of the
Śrīvidyā was focused on the beautiful Goddess Tripurasundarī, a tradition that became adopted by the
mainstream Śan͘karācāryas in the South. The Nityākaula, however, represents an earlier phase of this
tradition focused on the Goddess Kāmeśvarī, like Tripurasundarī, a sweet Goddess concerned with love
magic iconographically depicted holding an elephant goad, a noose, and bows and arrows in her four arms
and seated in a bower of Kadamba blossoms. She holds the weapons of attraction: the goad for pulling the
love focus into oneself, a noose for holding him or her, and a bow to shoot arrows of love in a cupid-like
fashion. This tradition underwent Brahmanization and was stripped of its transgressive elements although
the mantras and mudrās of the ritual system remained. The Śrīvidyā tradition continued to ourish into the
nineteenth century, although the last commentator on the tradition is Bhāskararāya in the eighteenth
century who still maintains some hardcore, transgressive ritual while reading the texts of the tradition
through the lens of Mīmāṃsā categories (Brooks 1990). But the Nityākaula is a text long before this and of
19
interest here because it is exclusively concerned with magical rites for a desired result. This earliest Kaula
p. 255 text that has come down to us, probably dated to the tenth century, is concerned with love magic, by
which it means winning a desired person. The text described how the practitioner should visualize the target
(sādhya) as having a red colour, immersed in nectar, to whom one should make o erings (nivedayet). The
love object is then ‘hooked’ by the visualizations and drawn into the practitioner. The text also contains the
standard black magic practices of paralyzing the enemy and so on that we saw in the Mṛgendra, although
this time through the agency of Kāmeśvarī.
In examining the history of Hindu practices, we are restricted to textual representations and some
inscriptions that tell us about patronage. We also have contemporary practices that we can cautiously use as
a guide to the past. With the Nityākaula and other magical books, we have a representation of more popular
practices. We are a long way here from Vedic sacri ce or the meditation on the identity of self with Brahman
in the Upaniṣads, but such magical practices are well within the Śaiva tantric universe, as we see with the

Netra-tantra where possession sits alongside the supreme meditation. There is a coherence in which
practices from di erent levels of society are integrated into a total worldview. The subtle visualization of
the divine body is not incompatible with winning the heart of a woman through magic, destroying one’s
enemy, curing an illness due to possession through mantras, or even practising devotion to a deity.
4. Bhakti and Temple Worship
Devotion or bhakti is not a strong dimension in tantric traditions, having ‘no soteriological value’ (Goodall
2015, also 1998, 2004). The Śaiva Siddhānta in the Tamil country did become infused with devotionalism to
some extent with the absorption of the Tamil devotional poetry of the Nāyanmārs into the textual corpus,
but the tradition remains primarily ritual in orientation. For Śaiva Siddhānta theologians such as
Rāmakaṇṭha, bhakti was appropriate for women and bhakti as an attitude was expected towards one’s
teacher (Sanderson 1995: 26), and as an emotional attitude plays some role in temple worship. The
orthodox Brahmanical worship of Śiva as represented in a corpus of Śivadharma texts does contain some
bhakti, but as an emotional attitude expressed in the worship of icons it is generally under-represented,
indicating its absence in wider Śaiva practice, at least in the sources of the Siddhānta. The Tamil Tēvāram, a
collection of Śaiva devotional poetry of Appar, Campantar, and Cuntarar (sixth to eighth centuries AD )
compiled by Nampi Antar Nampi in the tenth century, is wholly devotional, but this was not incorporated
into the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition until several centuries after its composition (Goodall 2015: 1).
The term ‘devotee’ (bhakta), for example, is used in temple ritual to denote a low-standing o cial in the
hierarchy of o ciants; one to mutter Śaiva mantras (Dīptāgama 2.50). Both the Dīptāgama and the
p. 256 Sūkṣmāgama, Śaiva Siddhānta texts of temple worship and construction refer to an annual festival of
devotees (bhaktotsava) at which images of the Tamil saints, the Nāyanmārs, are processed or when ordinary
20
devotees accompany an image of Śiva (Sūkṣmāgama chap. 19). But this is simply one of ve festivals apart
from the main grand festival (mahotsava). While bhakti as an emotional attitude and relationship between
21
devotee and deity is important in the Tamil poetic corpus, the Tamil Śaiva canon called the Tirumurai,
bhakti does not play much of a part in the central Śaiva Siddhānta ritual tradition. But the texts on temple
construction and worship, that contain details of popular festivals, re ect a widespread, general religious
22
and devout orientation of the majority of people.
A large part of Śaiva Siddhānta practice is focused on the temple and there are texts in the Śaiva canon
devoted to temple construction, the installation of images, and temple practices such as the Dīptāgama and
Sūkṣmāgama (for a study of Śaiva temple worship see Michaels 2008). The priest in his solitary practice
performs visualizations that are echoes of earlier tradition. Thus, we have the ooding of the body and
meditation on the subtle body incorporated into a sequence of daily routine. The practices of the Sādhaka
have been brought into the mainstream and thereby controlled and contained. This is a religion whose
practices have widespread appeal and can incorporate various social levels, from low-caste devotion to the
protection of kings and their families. One of the concerns of popular religion that seeps into the
mainstream Śaiva tradition is possession, a topic not frequently addressed in the Śaiva textual corpus, but
signi cant in non-Saiddhāntika texts such as the Netra-tantra.
5. Possession
In the Netra-tantra exorcism and possession are the realm of the Mantrin or Sādhaka rather than of the
temple priest, two roles that are distinct, although they can be combined in one person. Even today these
p. 257 two religious specialists, the Mantrin and the Tantri, exist in Kerala, the latter performing temple ritual,

the former issuing mantras for curing the sick (Freeman 2003). The Netra-tantra o ers an interesting
typology of supernatural beings that one must be wary of, classi ed into three broad categories: those that
desire meat o erings, the bali-kāmāḥ, those that wish you harm and intend to kill you if they can, the
hantu-kāmāḥ, and those who wish to have sexual relations with you, the bhoktu-kāmāḥ (Netra-tantra 19.68
and commentary; White 2012). All of them are bad news because they cause illness or ll a person with
insatiable longing such that ordinary functioning becomes impossible. But the good news in the Netra is that
these conditions can be cured with the strict application of mantra, especially the death-conquering netra
mantra OṂ JUṂ SAḤ. These possessing entities are within a family or clan (kula) in a hierarchy, and by
appeasing the higher deity, the lower are thereby calmed as well. For example, possession by the class of
beings called Vināyakas is removed by o ering sweets, meat, and alcohol to their Lord Vighneśa (or
23
Gaṇeśa). Similarly, for someone being oppressed by the ‘Mothers’, the priest needs to make o erings to
the seven ‘Great Mothers’ (mahāmātṛ) from whose wombs they are born, of meat from domestic, wild,
aquatic, and ying animals along with rice and owers (Netra-tantra 19.55–6).
This material is very close to the Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati where possessing entities are divided into those
wanting to harm (hantukāmāḥ) and those wanting sex (ratikāmāḥ) who are erce (agneya) and gentle
(saumya). They live in remote places such as mountains, gardens, rivers, deserted Buddhist stūpas,
cremation grounds, and so on (Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati Mantrapāda 2.43.54–5). The text gives details for
their exorcism and descriptions of the possessed person. Someone whose face is on the ground, grimacing,
with clenched sts, rude, with crossed eyes, and babbling needs to be exorcised by the Mantrin initially with
medicine (cikitsā), but if this does not work then mantras are repeated, and if this does not work then he
performs harsher rites. Imagining himself as Rudra, the Mantrin should hold down the possessed person
and beat them until the demons ee. If this does not work, then he should repeat more mantras, bring the
demon into the topknot of the possessed man, nail it to a tree, and then cut the hair, leaving the man free
and the demon nailed to the tree. If this does not work, the Mantrin needs to bind the man to a tree, make an
p. 258 image with a ower, bring the demon into it, and destroy it with a knife, then o er the pieces into the re
24
pit. He should then cut the centres of the man’s body with a trident, making the blood ow.
These texts provide interesting sociological information in describing the people who are vulnerable to
possession, including children, men who are in despair, who have lost everything, and women who have just
bathed after menstruation, who are naked, passionate, pregnant, or who are prostitutes
(Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati 2.42.3b–8). Also vulnerable to possession are those of lower castes who pretend
to be Brahmans, but Brahmans are not exempt and can be possessed if they let down their guard and do not
maintain their ritual purity; demons enter through the hole (chidra) of their shadow created through this
ritual neglect. In contrast to other kinds of texts, we have here a glimpse into popular religion and the
Brahmanical pressures of conformity and control. It is those in liminal conditions that become possessed
and through possession, as I.O. Lewis long ago pointed out, people are given voice who would otherwise
have no means of cultural expression (Lewis 1975). Indeed, the texts make no distinction between the
possessing being and the person possessed during exorcistic procedures.
Possession and exorcism have been important practices in the history of Indic religions, and texts where
they occur o er us a glimpse into an ‘enchanted world’ in which the boundaries of the self are porous, to use
Charles Taylor’s apposite phrase (Taylor 2007: 25–6). Indeed, the history of Indic religions has been read in
terms of possession as a central paradigm in the sense of a person being entered by deity and such that his
or her agency is overwhelmed by the other presence (Smith 2006). This then becomes reinterpreted at
higher cultural levels as we see in the Śaiva tradition where saṃāveśa, whose primary designation is
possession, comes to mean immersion in the non-dualistic awareness of God. According to Rich Freeman,
institutionalized possession is a central paradigm of worship that goes back to Tamil literature of the early
centuries of the common era (Freeman 2003: 308): as the deity is brought down into the icon to enliven it,

so the deity comes into the human person. We see this in varying degrees in the occasional rites of initiation
in Śaivism where the guru becomes Śiva for the purposes of initiation and in which, in the case of Śākta or
Kaula initiation, the initiate was supposed to show signs of possession such as trembling. Possession by
female, often theriomorphic deities, the Yoginīs, was an important dimension of early tantric practice as
seen in the Krama, Kaula, and also the Trika cults (Törzsök 2013, 1999), ideas and practices which in time
p. 259 become absorbed into Śaiva Brahmanism. These, then, are examples of ‘good’ possession in that the
divinization of the person is a desired outcome. We see this in contemporary dance possession rites in
Kerala that Freeman has studied (Freeman 2003).
As in contemporary India, possession and exorcism are generally practised among lower-caste
communities, although not exclusively. The Tantras we have seen that contain material on this topic
probably re ect the absorption of local, low-caste practices of possession and healing that become
standardized in line with the deities and categories of tantric pantheons. This is also true of sexual practices
that challenged orthodox norms, coming originally from the social fringe.
6. The Sādhaka and Transgression
Tantrism has become infamous for its sexual ritual. Those Tantras at the end of the scale of texts that
strongly rejected Vedic Brahmanism were generally focused on the Goddess or her forms and advocated
worship that involved sexual practices to make o erings of mixed sexual uids to the deity (White 2003).
The texts at this extreme end of the Mantra Mārga belonging to the Kaula and Krama sects were composed
in non-standardized Sanskrit that became known as a divine language, or Aiśa. The texts at this far end of
the spectrum, namely the Brahmayāmala-tantra or Picumata, are focused on goddesses, theriomorphic
deities worshipped with blood, alcohol, and sexual substances from ritualized sex outside of caste
boundaries. They are consciously outing Brahmanical purity and challenging Brahmanical authority. The
skull-carrying ascetics, the Kāpālikas, were involved in these rites from the cremation grounds where these
ascetics lived.
The Brahmayāmala or Picumata is a very long Śaiva text of over 12,000 verses depicting the life of a Sādhaka
and his consort, and their daily and occasional rituals, to gain pleasure and magical power and in due course
25
liberation. It is a very old text dated to the seventh century that Abhinavagupta often cites and that had an
impact on Buddhism too (Kiss 2015: 13). The text represents a time before the systematization of Śaiva
practitioners and is focused on the practitioner that it calls the Sādhaka. In his introduction Kiss presents a
lucid description of the Sādhaka’s practice, and how initiation involves the construction of a ritual diagram
or maṇḍala upon which are installed the deities of the pantheon. After initiation, the Sādhaka’s daily routine
involves self-puri cation through asceticism, the paci cation of Yoginīs, and the gradual adoption of non-
conventional practice (nirācāraḥ) in order to facilitate the meeting (melakaḥ) with them. After six months’
practice, the Yoginīs will meet the Sādhaka and instruct him further. The Sādhaka’s practice involves
p. 260 performing four daily rituals, eating only at night, and the observances (vratam), including behaving as if
mad (as with the Pāśupata ascetic), nakedness or semi-nakedness (nagnavratam), and imitating being a
child and also a esh-eating demon (Piśāca) which are intended, as Kiss observes, ‘to loosen the bonds of
conventional behavior’ (Kiss 2015: 33). The Sādhaka gradually comes to imitate the ferocious form of Śiva
his God, Kāpālīśa Bhairava, adopting bone ornaments from the cremation ground, and wearing the same
jewellery and hairstyle. In due course he has a vision of the God who then enters him and possesses him
along with the entire pantheon of female deities.
There are di erent kinds or stages in the Sādhaka’s development, principally pure, mixed, and impure,
which refer to the degrees to which he is engaged with transgressive rites. There are two equally valid paths
for him to follow: the transgressive or the non-transgressive. Some of the text’s ‘important rituals are

totally and intentionally devoid of any transgression, or rather most rituals seem to have two versions: one
transgressive and one non-transgressive’ (Kiss 2015: 37). Which path the Sādhaka follows is determined by
the Yoginī and by the guru. Interestingly the highest type of Sādhaka is the one who does not need to engage
with transgressive rites, who goes to liberation in this life with initiation and the performance of mantra
repetition (japa) and re ritual (homa), in contrast to those who in a previous life did not abide by their
post-initiation rule (samaya) and so had to be reborn as expiation and to nalize their liberation. The
transgressive sexual rite that the text describes involves the Sādhaka who, having attracted a beautiful
26
consort or Dūtī—whose numerous qualities the text lists, including high spiritual attainment —should
bathe, install mantras on himself (nyāsa), enter the ritual arena, worship the pantheon of deities, and
perform re worship (homa). He is naked and covered in ash and his female partner is naked too. He installs
the pantheon of deities in her genitals, stimulates her through kisses and embrace, collects sexual uids
which they joyfully consume, has sex with her, and then o ers transgressive substances into the re such as
cow’s meat mixed with wine (Brahmayāmala 45.198–213). In one version of the rite the Sādhaka should
retain semen within himself, which foreshadows the yogic practice of semen retention (the vajrolīmudrā)
(Brahmayāmala 47–9) (See Malinson in this volume).
This tradition takes what the wider Brahmanical culture regards as impure and uses this as a force to attain
power (siddhi) and liberation. The Sādhaka is a conspicuous gure, looking ferocious like the deity he tries
p. 261 to emulate, wearing human bones, and so on. The Sādhaka here is clearly a descendant of the Kāpālika of
the Ati Mārga. Sanderson cites a reference that says that should an orthodox Brahman see such a gure, he
would need to purify his eyes by glancing into the sun, so polluting were they regarded (Sanderson 1985:
211, note 61). But what happens is the gradual absorption of this tradition into the mainstream. By the time
of Abhinavagupta’s ritual manual the Tantrāloka, we have a householder tradition along with a metaphysical
non-dualism that adopts some transgressive practices. Thus Abhinavagupta absorbs the Kaula rites in
chapter 29 of the Tantrāloka but here the sexual rite of the household practitioner with a consort becomes an
esoteric, almost aesthetic ritual (Masson and Pathwardhan 1985; Dupuche 2003). Rather than the Sādhaka
bearing all the external signs of his cult, the Śaiva householder becomes internally a Kaula while retaining
adherence to obligations of dharma in his external life and rejecting the earlier transgressive practices by
those who are merely ‘holders of bones’ (Sanderson 1985: 214, note 110).
It is important to understand this transgression in the wider context of Brahmanical religious practice. The
Sādhaka has undergone quite severe ascetic discipline and should not be understood, as the wider tradition
sometimes did (Dezsö 2005), as simply an excuse for licentiousness. There were amble opportunities for
this in the wider culture in the pursuit of sexual pleasure as one of the valid goals of life (kāmārtha). The
Brahmayāmala presents a complete ascetic path with sexual ritual as one important component for the
Sādhaka who follows that route. But it is accompanied by long preparation and every aspect of the Sādhaka’s
life is controlled by the text and tradition. There are long lists of what he can and cannot eat along with
detailed descriptions of the re pit and the procedures for making o erings into the re, just as we have
with a non-tantric Brahmanical rite (Brahmayāmala 45.58–124). Indeed, the text speci es that he must
consume meat every day which thereby marks him out from the orthodox Brahmanical ascetic who is
vegetarian. Furthermore, the range of meat is transgressive in itself in the sense that a wide group of wild
animals is drawn on for consumption, including the mahāmaṃsa, which may be a human sacri cial victim
or may refer to corpse esh. But there is also an acknowledgement that the Sādhaka may be reluctant to do
27
this and so even just a small amount is su cient for him to ful l his ritual obligation (samaya).
On the one hand, we have strict Brahmanical observance of the Śaiva householder, while at the other
p. 262 extreme we have the transgressive Sādhaka seeking power and pleasure in higher worlds. These are not
the only options for the Śaiva and there was also a tradition of meditation or pure gnosis that disparaged
ritual, both orthodox and transgressive.

7. Śaiva Meditation
There is a spectrum of practices in Śaivism from ritual acts, both orthoprax and transgressive, to meditation
that includes visual contemplation and awareness without mental support. Such practices to some extent
map on to metaphysical systems insofar as the goal of the Śaiva Siddhānta was liberation at death
(videhamukti) for the initiated who had to follow the regime of prescribed daily and occasional ritual. At
death, with Śiva’s grace, he would realize himself to be equal to Śiva (śivatulya) but numerically distinct and
also distinguished by not performing the functions of creation, maintenance, and the destruction of the
cosmos (Parākhya Tantra, 2.123–4, Goodall 2004; see Watson et al. 2013). On the other hand, for non-
Saiddhāntika traditions such as Abhinavagupta’s Trika, the highest goal or supreme human good was
liberation in this life (jīvanmukti), understood as a pure gnosis in which the self recognizes its identity with
the absolute consciousness of Śiva, the absolute, re exive subjectivity of ‘I-ness’ (ahantā) (Bansat-Boudon
and Tripathi 2011: 26, 51, 195). Each Śaiva tradition saw itself as transcending the goal of the earlier and
maps a hierarchy of liberation onto the hierarchy of the universe. Although non-dualism in a ritual context
refers to whether there is a distinction between pure and impure ritual substances (Sanderson 1995: 48–
53), there is some relation between meditation understood as gnosis and the realization of a metaphysical
non-dualism. If there is one reality in the universe and the goal of life is the recognition (pratyabhijñā) of
one’s identity with it, and this is a kind of gnosis or cognition, then why go to the trouble of ritual action?
Thus, within Śaivism there was a tradition of gnosis that emphasized meditation alone without the support
of other ritual acts. This purely gnostic tradition lasted into the twentieth century with the last guru in
Kashmir being Lakshman Joo (Sanderson 2007).
In the ritual traditions so far examined, meditation has been part of the ritual spectrum understood as
visual contemplation or visualization (dhyāna). In this ritual context the common verbal forms of terms are
used, the third-person singular optative, namely that the practitioner ‘should visualize’ (dhyāyet) or
‘imagine’ (vikapayet), or ‘cause to think about’ (cintayet) (Flood 2002), that have the implication of a mental
construction of a reality, as we have seen. This is usually in the context of visualizing the deity to be
worshipped but also refers to the visualization of the subtle body and awakening the power of the Goddess
at the base of the central channel, the power that came to be called Kuṇḍalinī, the coiled one like a snake
p. 263 who penetrates through the centres located along the central axis to the crown of the head, as we saw in
the Netra-tantra above and that was to become particularly popular and pan-Hindu through the Yoga
tradition (Silburn 1988).
Although imagination is creative here, generally imagination (vikalpaḥ) is a negative mental force that
distracts the mind and keeps it away from focused meditation on the truth or the reality of pure
consciousness. The most common term for meditation in Śaivism is bhāvanā, which Vasudeva translates as
‘contemplative insight’ (Vasudeva 2004: 221). This practice leads to absorption of the mind into its object in
the state called samādhi, a condition of one-pointed concentration (ekāgratā) that is standard and the last of
the eight ancillaries of classical yoga in Patañjali’s system. Patañjali’s classic de nition in the Yoga Sūtras
(1.2) is that ‘yoga is the cessation of mental uctuation’ (yogaścittavṛttinirodhaḥ) (Aranya 1983: 6). Through
focusing on a single point (ekāgratā), the wandering mind or mental uctuation can be calmed and one-
pointed concentration achieved. This one-pointed focus leads into a condition of absorbed consciousness
(samādhi) in which the practitioner or yogi is no longer aware of his ambient surroundings but is absorbed
in the object of meditation. This state of absorption or trance is attested in tantric texts. Indeed,
concentration is the power of the mind that we see not only in Patañjali’s system but also in the tantric six-
fold ancillaries of yoga (Vasudeva 2004: 387–436). The yogi becomes absorbed in the object of meditation,
thereby achieving identity with it and losing consciousness of his surroundings, becoming like a log or clod
of earth, says the Mālinīvijayottara-tantra (Vasudeva 2004: 435–46). In this condition of samādhi, the body
goes into a state of quiescence ‘without breathing or not breathing, sleeping or waking’, says a later yoga

text called the Amanaska (see Birch in this volume).
One of the best examples of a state of absorption is described by Abhinavagupta. In his Goddess-orientated
form of Śiva worship, one tradition speaks of gradations of emanations of the Goddess Kālī identi ed with
di erent states of consciousness and degrees of absorption. Here Abhinavagupta describes the tradition
known as the Krama. Consciousness is constantly going out into the world and becoming absorbed in its
objects, but through withdrawal it becomes purely introverted and focused on its inner objects and in
particular itself as its own object. In this meditation process, the mind becomes absorbed in itself through a
series of stages or gradations (krama) in which gradually consciousness loses any sense of individuality. The
Krama identi es these stages with di erent emanations and absorptions of the Goddess (Sanderson 1985:
1999–2000, 1995: 73–5). Here consciousness nally implodes upon itself in complete identi cation of the
self with the source of cosmic emanation, here identi ed with the Goddess at the heart of the Śaiva
28
tradition.
p. 264 But meditation can also mean pure awareness rather than absorption, and bhāvanā can mean a stream of
thought (cintā), as we nd in the Mālinīvijayottara that describes the mind ‘engaged in contemplative
realisation of its ultimate state’ (Vasudeva 2004: 430). Here we have meditation as a ow of awareness of
the liberated condition, perhaps not so di erent to the Buddhist idea of insight meditation (vipaśyāna) in
the here and now. One metaphor used is that the mind takes the consistency of owing oil in all the states of
29
waking, dreaming, and sleeping. The Vijñānabhairava-tantra is a text o ering a number of meditation
practices, called dhāraṇā, that are meditations without visualization, again emphasizing awareness rather
than absorption in an object of contemplation. Indeed, the text even says that true meditation is not
visualization but rather the mind abiding within itself without any support (Vijñānabhairava-tantra 2.22;
2.39ab). The text describes how the yogi should be seated comfortably on a bed or cushion, sitting with eyes
30
closed and focusing on the inside of the skull whence he realizes supreme consciousness, or he should
meditate on the space within a pot with his eyes half open, or gaze upon an empty landscape, or within a
well, or a space where the rays of the sun are shining, or even meditate on the body as the universe but
p. 265 without imagination (nirvikalpa) (Vijñānabhairava-tantra 1.45–6, 1.73, 2.9). The text also describes
meditation upon inner sound, the ‘unstruck’ sound of the absolute: the yogi who is focused on that
uninterrupted (abhagna-) sound goes to the absolute state (Vijñānabhairava-tantra 1.38). These meditation
practices are consonant with a non-dualist metaphysics in which there is only one reality in the universe of
pure consciousness. The text rhetorically asks, if all is identical with that reality, where can the mind go that
is not Śiva? (Vijñānabhairava-tantra 2.10).
Meditation plays a role for the most important Śaiva philosopher, Abhinavagupta, whose non-dualist
rhetoric continues the tradition. Taking a scheme from the root revelation of the Trika, the
Mālinīvijayottara-tantra, which mentions three immersions (samāveśa), namely the divine (śāmbhava-), the
powerful (śākta-), and the individual (āṇava-), Abhinavagupta transforms these into a basic heuristic
device through which to view the practices of Śaivism. Summarized in his Essence of the Tantras (Tantrasāra),
he calls them means or methods (upāya) to attain realization. The śāṃbhāvopāya is realization of
enlightenment though the upsurge of emotion or instinct that shatters thought construction (vikalpa),
thereby revealing the non-dual consciousness of Śiva. The śāktopāya is the pursuance of a pure thought such
as ‘I am Śiva’ until its existential realization is attained, while the āṇavopāya contains all practices focused
on the body, namely ritual and meditation, including mantra repetition. All of these goals reach the same
end in Śiva for the Mālinīvijayottara, although there is an implicit hierarchy of practice here for
Abhinavagupta. Meditation is central to these methods that are also understood as using the faculties of
will, (icchā), cognition (jñāna), and action (krīyā), faculties or powers (śakti) of both the human person and
Śiva. Finally, Abhinavagupta introduces a fourth, the ‘non-method’ (anupāya), the pathless path in which
the goal is the path, and the realization itself is the method, because if all is a unity of consciousness only,
there cannot be a distinction between the goal and the path that leads to it. The path and the destination

must be non-distinct in an absolutely monistic metaphysics a truth revealed by the word of the master: I am
31
that absolute condition.
8. Models of the Person
Within the spectrum of Śaiva practice di erent models of the person and the mind are entailed. On the one
hand, we have the theism of Śaiva Siddhānta in which self and God are wholly distinct, and in which
p. 266 liberation occurs at death as a result of grace, certainly, but also through a regime of post-initiatory ritual
obligations. Through this process the soul is freed from the bonds of matter. On the other hand, we have
the non-theism of Abhinavagupta’s monistic Śaivism in which the self is identical with absolute
consciousness and all social identity in the end is a limitation and constriction that prevents us from
realizing our true identity. The constricting cognition of distinct personal and social identity is dissolved in
the spontaneous expansion of pure consciousness and its re exive implosion into itself. These are quite
distinct metaphysical systems, yet both are within the tantric revelation of Śiva. The Śaiva Siddhānta
provides the normative ritual system and temple cult while more esoteric traditions, such as the Trika and
the Krama, build on this and reinterpret it in the light of their non-dualist metaphysics. But it does seem to
be the case that the earliest Śaivism of the Nihśvāsa-tantra is less concerned with external rites, with no
temple rituals, and we seem to witness a process of the tradition becoming more exoteric as time moves on.
By the tenth and eleventh centuries the Śaiva Siddhānta is the dominant ritual system with royal patronage,
large temple complexes such as Cidambaram in the South, Śaiva Brahmanical control of land, a textual
canon, and a body of normative rites performed and controlled by Śaiva Brahmans. Alongside this o cial
religion we have unorthodox practices linked to a more individual quest for power and liberation, associated
with a non-dualist metaphysics, both for renouncers and householders.
In terms of practice, the Śaiva Brahman performed supererogatory rites on top of orthodox Brahmanical
obligations and the non-dualist householder did not di er signi cantly from the Śaiva dualist. For
Abhinavagupta’s Trika there was the addition of erotic worship necessitated once a year, and while the
mental attitude or belief system would have been distinct for the householder, his behaviour was not
noticeably distinguished from the orthodox, Brahman householder: the Śaiva should follow orthodox
Brahmanical practice in external behaviour, and follow Śaiva ritual obligations, but in his internal life he
should follow the practice of the Goddess. Thus, we have a model of a person that is externally conformist to
social norms and expectations but secretly subverts those norms and expectations. As such, the non-dualist
Śaiva householder contrasts with the acetic renouncer who followed an extreme tantric path, regarding
himself as superior in transcending the merely external show of non-duality in the ascetic’s appearance, as
we have seen. Recognizing the absolute identity of cosmos, self, and absolute consciousness for the
householder did not translate into particularly noticeable change in overt behaviour, apart from occasional
outing of ritual and social convention, although the tantric Śaiva renouncer would have worn the apparel
of his sect, indicating his transgressive behaviour and transcendence of social norms.
Alongside these soteriological concerns, we have the popular religion of magic and exorcism represented in
the Śaiva textual corpus. Here the boundaries between self and world are clearly ‘porous’, to use Taylor’s
p. 267 phrase, with supernatural beings threatening to take possession of the person should he not undergo
protective measures, as we saw with the Netra-tantra, and even illness being interpreted as possession. At
one level of high sophistication we have the educated Brahmanical householder maintaining a metaphysical
identity of self and God, alongside popular practices of a practical religion that enabled people to negotiate
the trials and tribulations of life through a magical technology of protection and manipulation of
supernature. Within this mix of attitudes re ected in the texts there is model of the ‘divine body’ (divya-
deha), where the physical body is pervaded by a subtle body as the carrier of the soul to the next life and

where the yogi can use this body through meditation to transcend the physical body or rather to purify the
physical body. So through the subtle visualization in the Goddess or Kaula tradition, the practitioner is
ooded with the nectar of immortality that should be retained within the body that Wernicke-Olesen has
called a Śākta anthropology. There are suggestions here of gaining physical immortality.
The Śaiva corpus of ritual prescription is not gender blind and initiation in the Śaiva Siddhānta was
restricted to men, but not so in the non-Saiddhāntika groups, the Śākta traditions that were more
orientated towards worship of the Goddess and seeing the Goddess and her forms as the essence of self and
cosmos. Indeed, within these traditions there were some women teachers, such as the Tryambaka lineage
that Abhinavagupta is initiated into. But perhaps not surprisingly for this period, women’s participation
was generally restricted to popular devotion and vicarious salvation through the initiation of their
husbands, ascending at death through the levels of the cosmos in consonance with his attainment
(Sanderson 1995: 34–6).
The range of Śaiva practice in the medieval period re ects attitudes to self and society that are distinct from
the kind of dualism between mind and body characteristic of European modernity. What the European
tradition might think of as mind is still contained within nature or matter (prakṛti) within Śaivism and
Brahmanical tradition more broadly. There is the transcendence of prakṛti in the Śaiva hierarchy of the
tattvas, which for the Śaiva Siddhānta is within the category of the ‘bond’ (paśa), the unconscious (jaḍa)
substance of the universe that binds the soul (paśu) and that Śiva acts upon as Lord (pati). For the non-
dualist these three realities are ultimately non-distinct, all being within absolute consciousness. This unity
of being has some e ect upon social mores in that women and low castes could be liberated, because
initiation had the power to break social convention and transcend caste as an inalienable property of the
body one was born with. But generally, a non-dualistic metaphysics had little impact on the wider social
body and the individual quest for salvation did not entail a collective eschatology. Certainly, in the South the
infusion of devotion or bhakti and the introduction of Tamil sources into the Śaiva Siddhānta canon may
have broadened the range of participation in tradition, but it remained fundamentally a ritual technology
functioning within a prescribed social hierarchy.
p. 268
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Notes
1 On the parallelism between the tantric and Smārta traditions see Alexis Sanderson 1995: 27.
2 Mṛgendrāgama Kriyāpāda III. 48–49: dı̄ kṣāyāṃ naityake caiva sarvavyatikareṣu ca //48// dhyāyet sādhāraṇaṃ rūpaṃ
kāmye kāmānugaṃ mune / śvetababhrupiśan˙gābhakṛṣṇādi. ʻIn initiations, in daily rites, and in all misfortunes, one
should meditate the supporting form, O Sage, [which] in rites for a desired purpose will correspond to oneʼs desire. [The
colours of such desired purposes are] white, brown, red, black, and so on.ʼ
3 I refer the reader to the work of Dominic Goodall and his colleagues at the French Institute in Pondicherry where a
comprehensive project to preserve, edit, and translate the texts mostly, but not exclusively, of the Śaiva Siddhānta is
underway. See, for example, Goodall, The Parākhyatantra: A Scripture of the Śaiva Siddhānta (Pondichéry: Institut Français
de Pondichéry, 2004).
4 They are varṇa (syllable), mantra, and pada (word) for the path of sound and kalā (power), tattva, and bhuvana (world) for
the path of space. Some of these terms are not easy to directly translate for their meaning is relational within the system.
For details of this system see André Padoux, Vāc: The Concept of the Word in Selected Hindu Tantras, trans. J. Gontier
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990), pp. 330–71.
5 For example, NT 10.2-7 pañcavaktraṃ Śavārūḍhaṃ daŚabāhuṃ bhayānakam kṣapāmukhaṃ ghorataraṃ garjantaṃ
bhı̄ ṣaṇasvanam // 2 // daṃṣṭrakarālavadanaṃ bhrukuṭı̄ kuṭilekṣaṇam siṃhāsanapadārūḍhaṃ vyālahārair vibhūṣitam // 3

// kapālamālābharaṇaṃ dāritāsyaṃ mahātanum / gajatvakprāvṛtapaṭaṃ ŚaŚān˙kakṛtaŚekharam // 4 //
kapālakhaṭvān˙gadharaṃ khaḍgakheṭakadhāriṇam / pāŚān˙kuŚadharaṃ devaṃ varadābhayapāṇikam // 5 // vajrahastaṃ
mahāvı̄ raṃ paraŚvāyudhapāṇikam / bhairavaṃ pūjayitvā tu tasyotsan˙gagatāṃ smaret // 6 // pralayāgnisamākārāṃ
lākṣāsindūrasaprabhām / ūrdhvakeŚı̄ ṃ mahākāyāṃ vikarālāṃ subhı̄ ṣaṇām // 7 //. 10.2. [Bhairava] has five faces, mounted
on a corpse, with ten arms, a fierce drum, with a dark face, he is most terrible, roaring a terrifying noise. 10. 3. His face has
a gaping mouth with fangs, his eyes are frowning, he is mounted on a lion throne, [and] adorned with a garland of snakes.
10.4: He wears a garland of skulls, wide jaws, a great body, his chosen garment, the skin of an elephant, the moon in his
tu of hair. 10.5. He bears a skull topped sta , holding a sword and shield, a noose and elephant hook, the god whose
hands bear the boon giving and fear not gestures. 10.6–7. [He holds] a thunderbolt in his hand, the great hero, holding the
axe weapon. Having worshipped Bhairava [the practitioner] should bring to mind the [Goddess] sitting on his lap, like the
fire at the end of time, radiant in red clothes, with hair piled high, a great body, horrible [and] frightening.ʼ I have taken
kṣapāmukhaṃ (10.2c) to mean dark face, i.e. one whose face is like night.
6 NT 6.8: sūkṣmaṃ cakrādiyogena kalānāḍyādayena ca / paraṃ sarvātmakaṃ devaṃ mokṣadaṃ mṛtyujid bhavet //. ʻThe
subtle [method] is by the practice of the centres of the body and so on, and by the arising of the channels and powers. The
supreme [method] is God who bestows liberation, the essence of all, [whereby] one becomes the conqueror of death.ʼ
7 NT 6.16–19: tilataṇḍulam ākṣı̄ ka ājyaṃ kṣı̄ rasamanvitam / eṣa pañcāmṛto homa[ḥ]̣ sarvaduṣṭanivāraṇaṃ // 16 //
guggulān˙ gulikābhiś ca tryaktāś ca śakramātrayā/ homāt puṣṭir bhavaty āśukṣı̄ ṇadehasya suvrate // 17 // yadā
vyādhiśākı̄ rṇā hy abalo dṛśyate naraḥ /tadā tu sampuṭı̄ kṛtya nāma japtvā vimucyate // 18 // yaṃ yaṃ maṃtraṃ japed
vidvān amṛtı̄ śena saṃpuṭam / satasya siddhyate kṣipraṃ bhāgya hı̄ noʼpi yo bhavet // 19 //. ʻ6.16. To destroy all impurity
[one must make] a sacrifice of five ingredients [nectars], sesamum, rice, honey, clarified butter, and milk. 6.17. The
emaciated body will be nourished, O one observing the vow, from the fire oblation, by being smeared with three kinds of
balls of fragrant resin, merely [the size of] a chickpea. 6.18. If a weak man filled with a hundred diseases is looked a er,
then a er repeating his name framed [by the netra mantra], he will be freed. 6.19. Even though by itself ine ective,
whatever mantra the wise man repeats framed by the Lord of Immortality [mantra], with that he will quickly achieve
success.ʼ
8 NT 6. 46–48: āyur balaṃ yaśaḥ kı̄ rtir dhṛtir medhā yaśaḥ śriyaḥ/sarvaṃ pravartate yasya bhūbhṛto rājyam uttamam // 46 //
duḥkhānvito viduḥkhas tu vyādhimān nirujo bhavet / vandhyāpi labhate putraṃ kanyā tu patim āvahet // 47 // yayat
samı̄ hate kāmaṃ taṃ taṃ tasya dhruvaṃ bhavet/ abhiṣekasya māhātmyaṃ vidhānavihitasya ca // 48 // ʻ6.46. [Through
this gross method he gains] long life, strength, fame, brightness, firmness, power, fame, [and] beauty, [and] for him
everything can be realised, he attains the earth, [he acquires] the best kingdom. 6.47. One a licted becomes healthy,
possessed of su ering he becomes free from su ering, a barren woman attains a son, or a daughter may get a husband.
6.48. Whatever desire he wishes to attain that will certainly come about for the great soul who is consecrated according to
the method [laid out here].ʼ
9 NT 8.2–6. Here Śiva describes this state: yogı̄ sarvagato bhāti sarvadṛk sarvakṛc chivaḥ /tam ahaṃ kathayiṣyāmi yasmād
anyan na vidyate // 2 // yaṃ prāpya tanmayatvena bhavate hy ajarāmaraḥ / yan na vāg vadate nityaṃ yan na dṛśyeta
cakṣuṣā // 3 // yan na saṃśruyate karṇair nāsā yaś ca na jighrati na cāsvādayate jihvā na sparśeta tvag indriyaṃ // 4 // na
cetasā cintanı̄ yaṃ sarvavarṇarasojjhitam sarvavarṇṇarasair yuktam aprameyam atı̄ ṃdriyam // 5 // yaṃ prāpya yogino
devi bhavanti hy ajarāmarāḥ tad abhyāsena mahatā vairāgyena pareṇa ca // 6 // . ʻ8.2. The Yogi shines forth as Śiva who is
the omnipresent, all seeing, [and] all doing. I will speak about that [condition], beyond which there is nothing else. 8.3–6.
Having attained that [state, the Yogi] becomes ageless and deathless through identification with it. It is that eternal which
speech cannot express, that cannot be seen by the eye, that cannot be heard with the ears, that the nose cannot smell,
that the tongue cannot taste, that the sense of touch cannot feel, that cannot be thought by the mind, freed from all
colour and taste [yet it is] endowed with all colour and taste, immeasurable, [and] beyond the senses. When that is
attained, O Goddess, the Yogis become free from old age and death through their exalted practice and supreme
detachment.ʼ
10 NT 8.44–46: ʻ8.44. nendriyāṇi [na] bhūtāni śabdasparśarasādinā/sarvaṃ tyaktvā samādhisthaḥ kevalan [tan]mayo bhavet
// 44 // sāvasthā paramā proktā śivasya paramātmanaḥ/ nirābhāsapade taṃ tu taṃ prāpya vinivartate // 45 // evaṃ
bhāvitām ātmānam ātmano bhāvanābalāt/ sa bhavet paramaṃ śāntaṃ śivam atyantanirmalam // 46 //. ʻ[The Yogi should
not meditate on] the senses, nor the elements, nor on [the objects of the senses] sound, touch, and taste. Abandoning
everything, established in concentration, [the Yogi] becomes only made of that [reality]. 8.45. This is called the supreme
state of the highest self of Śiva. Having attained that, the condition beyond manifestation, [the Yogi] turns away [from the
cycle of reincarnation]. 8.46. In this way [the Yogi] should meditate on the self through the powerful meditation on the self.
He [then] becomes the supreme tranquillity that is Śiva, the transcendent purity.ʼ
11 NT 9.6–11: na tasya rūpaṃ varṇo vā paramārthena vidyate yasmāt sarvagato devaḥ sarvāgamamayaḥ śubhaḥ // 6 //
vyāpakaḥ sarvamantrāṇāṃ sarvasiddhipradāyakaḥ nirmalaṃ sphaṭikaṃ yadvat tantau protaṃ sitādike // 7 //
pratibimbeta sarvatra yena yena hi rañjitamtattad darśayateʼnyeṣāṃ na svabhāvena rañjitam // 8 // tathā tathaiva

deveśaḥ sarvāgamaniyojitaḥ phalaṃ dadāti sarveṣāṃ sādhakānāṃ hi sarvataḥ // 9 // tasmāt srotaḥ susarveṣu
cintāmaṇirivojjvalaḥ bhāvabhedena vai dhyātaḥ sarvāgamaphalapradaḥ // 10 // śivaḥ sadāśivaścaiva bhairavas tumburus
tathā somasūryasvarūpeṇa vahnirūpadharo vibhuḥ // 11 //. ʻ9.6. The nature of the supreme reality is colourless, so the
pure, all pervading God comprises all the revelations. 9.7–8. [He is] all pervading, who bestows the total perfection of all
mantras. As a pure crystal threaded on a coloured thread, always reflects [the colour] by which [the thread] is coloured, so
[God] is seen among others, not being coloured by its own nature. 9.9. As the Lord of Gods is expressed in all revelations,
he always bestows fruit for all practitioners. 9.10. Therefore, the blazing one is the stream [of tradition] among all [of
them], like a wish fulfilling gem. Visualised according the division of [di erent] natures, he gives the fruit of all the
revelations. 9.11. The Lord Śiva [reveals himself as] Sadāśiva, Bhairava, and Tumburu, with the nature [respectively] of the
moon, sun, and fire.ʼ
12 E.g. the Matan˙gaparameśvarāgama Kriyāpāda 7.17–18: śarvaśarvapadoccārāt samyaksaṃhāramudrayā / gṛhitaṃ yojayed
garbhe sadyojātena mantravit //17// kālāgnirudrabhuvaṇaṃ purā saṃkalpya kalpayet / śivo jñāpayati svāhā rudrāhaccha
paśorvidhau // 18//. ʻThe mantra master, with the appropriate ritual gesture of destruction and with the formula
ʻśarvaśarva,ʼ should unite [the soul of the disciple] in the womb [of the world] to be grasped with [the form of Śiva]
Sadyojāta. Having first imagined the world of the Rudra of the fire of time, he should visualize it [?]. In accordance with the
rule of the soul, Śiva commands ʻcome from the world of Rudra, svāhāʼ.ʼ
13 Mṛgendrāgama Caryāpāda 1.2: athāto deśikādı̄ naṃ sāmānyācārasaṃgrahaḥ / paraś cāvasaraprāptaḥ samāsenopadiśyate
//1.1// deśiko mantravṛttiś ca putrakaḥ samayı̄ ca yaḥ / catvāra ete śaivāḥ syur vratinoʼvratinoʼpi vā //1.2// vratino jaṭilā
muṇḍās teṣv agryā bhasmapāṇḍarāḥ / tilakaiḥ puṇḍrakaiḥ paṭṭair bhūṣitā bhūmipādayaḥ //3//. ʻ1.1. Now is taught in a
concise way, a compendium of shared comportment for masters and so on [and also for] others, when the opportunity
has arisen. 1.2. There are four [classes of] Śaiva, the master, the mantra holder, the son of Śiva and the ordinary follower,
who may be bound or not to an observance. 1.3. Those lords of the earth and others, bound to an observance, with
matted locks or shaved head, of them the highest placed are white with ashes, adorned with turbans, sectarian lines and
marks [on the forehead].ʼ
14 Ibid. 1.4. The commentary glosses the list as śūdramūrkhapramattastrīvṛddhāmayāvivikalpān˙gavā jaṭā na dhāraṇīyāḥ,
ʻThose who may not bear matted locks are the lowest caste, the foolish, the insane, women, the old, the sick, or those with
insu icient limbsʼ.
15 Matan˙gapārameśvarāgama, Caryāpada 4.2–3: samayı̄ sarvadāyatto guroḥ sarvāmanā sphuṭam / yadā tadā sa muktātmā
nānyathā ucyate bhavāt //4.2// dāsavan nivasen nityaṃ dı̄ kṣām āśritya mokṣadām //4.3//. ʻWhen the common initiate,
giving all, manifests every wish of the master, then he whose self has been freed, speaks as appropriate and not otherwise.
Being like a slave, he may constantly enter the [condition in which] liberation has been bestowed, having taken initiationʼ.
16 Mṛgendrāgama Caryāpāda 1.21ab: gurutattulyabandhūnāṃ brātṛṇāṃ jyāyasām api / pūjanaṃ madhuparkādyaiḥ
...//21ab//. [The disciple] should o er worship with honeyed water and so on, to the master even to his brothers and
relatives equal to him.
17 Mṛgendrāgama Kriyāpāda 3.45b–47: muktyārthaṃ sphaṭikākāraṃ prasannaṃ cetasā smaret //3.45// ı̄ ṣatprahasitaṃ
garvitaṃ stambhanādiṣu / karālamasitaṃ pin˙gajaṭāmakuṭabhūṣitam //3.46// kṣādiṣu tirobhāve
raktacāvan˙gamaṇḍanam / janane sarvabhāvānāṃ dhyānāsakta anusmaret //3.47//. 3.44cd. To obtain liberation one
should recall [the deity] with the mind, with a pleased countenance, whose form is like crystal. 3.45. For rites of
immobilization [of enemies] and so on, [one should recall the deity] with a haughty expression, laughing a little, with a
gaping mouth, adorned with yellow matted locks. In the acts of destruction and so on, one should bring [the deity] to
mind, adorned with a red chignon; one attached to meditation should contemplate him in the producing of all beings.ʼ
18 Ibid. 6.45cd–49. The six are stambha-tāpa-bhaya-dhvaṃsa-śānty-uccāṭa. For a study of upacāra see Teun Goudriaan, Māyā
Divine and Human (Delhi: MLBD, 1978).
19 Nityākaula, NGMPP Reel No. B26/21a. DSCN 6586. My understanding of the text is entirely due to reading it in a class with
Alexis Sanderson, Oxford, January 2014.
20 This is a good example of external, temple ritual that comprises so much of Śaiva practice. Here the text describes the
procession of the deity Maheśa from the temple to the audience pavilion and the next day the return procession.
Sūkṣmāgama 14.39–41: apare divase dhı̄ mān prātaḥ sandhyārcanāt purā / maheśvaraṃ samānı̄ ya pūrvasthānaṃ
praveśayet //39// vāstuhomaṃ tataḥ kṛtvā paryagnikaraṇaṃ kuru / tadvāstuśobhanārthāya bhaktānām utsavaṃ kuru
//14.40// tadrātrāv eva kartavyaṃ yānam ekaṃ samācaret /. 14.39. ʻOn the next day, early morning, before the worship at
the juncture of the day, [the priest] should return Maheśa to his former place. 14.40. Then having performed the fire
worship of the site, you must perform the circumambulation with the fire. For the purpose of the purification of the site,
you must perform a procession of the devotees [Nāyanmarʼs images]. 14.41. In that night for the performance, he should
conduct a single procession.ʼ
21 The Tirumurai is a vast body of literature compiled over a period from the sixth to twel h centuries. It contains poetry of
the Nāyanārs. See Normal Cutler, Songs of Experience: The Poetics of Tamil Devotion (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN:

Indiana University Press, 1987).
22 E.g. the Sūkṣmāgama chapter 14 details rules for a festival of faith (śraddhotsavavidhi). The text gives detailed instruction
for carrying out the festival including the flag, drum beating, and procession.
23 Netra-tantra 19.63c–65: yadi tair vighnitaḥ kaścid abhibhūto bhaven naraḥ // tatrādhidaivataṃ pūjyo vighneśas tu
vināyakaḥ / anyatantropacāreṇa dhyānayogena pūjayet // modakair vividhaiś citrair valibhir ghasmarais tathā /
bhūrimadyais tathā māṃsair raktapuṣpavilepanaiḥ. ʻIf a man is overcome and obstructed by them [the Vināyakas] then
Vighneśa is to be worshipped, the remover of obstacles, their presiding deity. [A practitioner] should worship [him] with the
practice of meditation, a procedure [described] in another Tantra [and by o ering] many types of sweets, various voracious
o erings, with strong drink, with meat, and with the perfume of red flowers.ʼ
24 Iśānaśivagurudevapaddhati 2.43.1–8: [text gives the mantra] anena māṣakṛsarair jāpitvā grastatādḍanāt / taṃ muñcanti
grahāḥ svaikhyaṃ rudradhyānena tat kṣanāt. //2.48.1//. Repeating [the mantra]. … [while o ering] pulse and jaggery, [the
holder of mantra] should visualise himself as Rudra, hold down and beat [the possessed person] on account of which the
demons flee from him in a moment.ʼ See also the Khadgarāvaṇa tradition of exorcism described and translated by Jean
Filliozat. 1937. Le Kumāratantra de Rāvaṇa et les textes parallèles Indiens, Tibétains, Chinois, Cambodgien, et Arabe (Paris:
Imprimerie National).
25 See Kiss. 2015 and Hatley 2019.
26 Brahmayāmala 45.185cd–187. This sentiment is also echoed in Abhinavaguptaʼs Tantrāloka where the dūtı̄ should have
the suitable qualification (adhikāra). Jayaratha in his commentary quotes the Tantrarājabhaṭṭāraka that says this
qualification means that the dūtı̄ should have eyes rolling with intoxication (madaghūrṇitalocanām), trembling (trasta),
quivering (sphura), shining (śubha), laughing merrily (cāruhāsinı̄ ), beautiful (subhaga), with a happy nature (sukharūpa)
and whose own being is pure consciousness (citisvabhāvikām). TA 29.64 commentary p. 68f.
27 Brahmayāmala 45.213–222: tālamārge tu vai śastaṃ nityam āmiṣabhojanam //45.213// chāgaṃ vārāha māhiṣya hariṇaṃ
śaśakaṃ tathā / māyūraṃ lāvakāś caiva tittirāś ca kapiñjalāḥ //45.214//. ʻDaily meat consumption is recommended for
those who follow the Path of the Tālaka [type of practitioner who uses sex and meat]. Goat, pig, bu alo, horse, hare,
peacock, quail, partridge and heathcock …ʼ and so on. Having given a list of impure food, the text says ʻthese, O Goddess,
may be impure, but they are to be eaten all the sameʼ (etāni devy aśuddham syād bhaksayāṇi na saṃśayaḥ) (Kiss
translation, pp. 259–260).
28 The somewhat obscure and di icult description that would need extended interpretation is in the Tantrasāra 4, pp. 28–29:
tā eṣāḥ catasraḥ śaktayaḥ svātantryāt pratyekaṃ tridhaiva vartante sṛṣtau sthitau saṃhāre ca iti dvādaśabhavanti /
tathāhi: 1. saṃvit pūrvam antareva bhāvaṃ kalayati, 2. tato bahirapi sphuṭatayā kalayati, 3. tatraiva raktimayatāṃ gṛhı̄ tvā
tataḥ tam eva bhāvam antarupasaṃjihı̄ rṣayā kalayati, 4. tataś ca tadupasaṃhāravighnabhūtāṃ śan˙kā nirmaṇoti ca
grasate ca, 5. grastaśan˙kāṃśaṃ bhāvabhāgam ātmani upasaṃhāreṇa kalayati, 6. tata upasaṃhartṛtvaṃ mamedaṃ
rūpam ity api svabhāvam eva kalayati, 7. tata upasaṃhatṛsvabhāvakalane kasyacid bhāvasya vāsanātmanā avasthitiṃ
kasyacit tu saṃvinmātrāvaśeṣatāṃ kalayati, 8 tataḥ svarūpakalanānāntarı̄ yakatvenaiva karaṇacakraṃ kalayati, 9. tataḥ
karaṇeśvaram api kalayati, 10. tataḥ kalpitaṃ māyı̄ yaṃ pramātṛrūpam api kalayati, 11.
san˙kocatyāgonmukhavikāsagraṇarasikam api pramātāraṃ kalayati, 12. tato vikasitam api rūpaṃ kalayati. ʻThese four
powers [the supreme Śakti called Kālasaṃkārṣinı̄ who emanates Parā, Parāparā and Aparā] due to their freedom, become
manifested singly in three ways: in creation, maintenance and in destruction and thus become twelve. 1. consciousness
projects existence at first only internally; 2. then expanding, it projects it externally; 3. then having grasped that [state of
externality] made of the Goddess Rakti, it manifests existence by wishing to withdraw it internally; 4. then [consciousness]
fastens onto and swallows the inhibition that has become an obstacle to reabsorption; 5. [next] with a portion of
inhibition swallowed by means of withdrawing into the self, [consciousness] withdraws [even that] part of existence; 6.
Then [thinking] ʻthis withdrawal is my natureʼ [consciousness] withdraws even [this] essence; 7. Then [consciousness]
withdraws [even] what remains of any simple consciousness of any existence, established through the nature of being a
destroyer, [which remains] as a trace. 8. then [consciousness] whose nature is manifested internally, withdraws the sphere
of the senses; 9. then it reabsorbs even the Lord of the senses; 10. then it reabsorbs even the nature of being an experient,
constructed as illusion; 11. then it reabsorbs the object of experience even abandoning contraction and looking out to
expansion, grasping, and tasting; 12. Finally it reabsorbs even the nature of that expansionʼ.
29 Kṣemarāja, Śivasūtra-vimarśiṇi 3.20: triṣu caturthaṃ tailavad āsecyam //3.20//. triṣu jāgarādiṣu padeṣu, caturthaṃ
śuddhavidyāprakāśarūpaṃ turyānandarasātmakaṃ dhāma, tailavaditi, yathā tailaṃ krameṇa adhikamadikhaṃ prasarad
āśrayaṃ vyāpnoti tathā āsecyam. The fourth state is to be poured like oil in the three [states]. ʻin the three statesʼ [means]
in waking and so on. The fourth [means] the form of light which is pure wisdom, the place whose nature is tasting the bliss
of the fourth. ʻLike oilʼ [means] as oil gradually spreading more and more, fills its container, so [the fourth state] should be
poured.ʼ J.C. Chatterji (ed.), Muktabodha e-text, M00349.
30 Vijñānabhairava 1.34: kapālāntarmano nyasya tiṣṭhanmı̄ litalocanaḥ / krameṇa manaso dārḍhyāt lakṣayel lakṣyam
uttamam //1.34//. ʻHaving fixed the mind within the skull, with eyes closed, one may gradually perceive the highest thing

that can be perceived, due to the stability of the mindʼ.
31 Tantrasāra, p. 9: tadeva ca aham tatraiva antarmayi viśvaṃ pratibimbitam evaṃ dṛḍhaṃ viviñcānasya śaśvadeva
pārameśvaraḥ samāveśo nirupāyaka eva, tasya ca na mantrapūjādhyānacaryād-iniyantraṇā kācit /. ʻI am truly that; right
there, the universe is within me as a reflection. Thus, for one with firm discernment, there is the constant immersion of the
Supreme Lord without method. Such a one is not restrained by mantra, ritual, meditation, conduct and so on.ʼ
Gavin Flood, Practice in the Tantric Religion of Śiva In: Hindu Practice. Edited by: Gavin Flood, Oxford University Press (2020). ©
Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0010

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9 Practice in the Tantric Religion of Śiva 

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0010 Pages 243–271

Keywords: Śiva, śaiva, Tantra, ritual, yoga

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(Goodall 2015: 59)

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1. Daily Ritual (Nitya-Karma)

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2. Occasional Ritual (Naimittika-Karma)

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3. Ritual for a Desired Purpose (Kāmya-Karma)

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4. Bhakti and Temple Worship

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6. The Sādhaka and Transgression

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8. Models of the Person

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Secondary Sources and Translations

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Goudriaan, Teun. 1978. Māyā Divine and Human. Delhi: MLBD.

Lewis, I.O. 1975. Ecstatic Religion. London: Penguin.

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Parry, Jonathan. 1994. Death in Benares. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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