from a source distinct from the self, whereas theistic or dualist theologies, such as the Saiva Siddhanta and Pancaratra, maintain a stronger notion of revelation because it is truly the divine word expressed to beings who are ontologically distinct from its source. But while this issue of dualism and non-dualism is important, there are general features of tantric revelation and its interpretation that distinguish it from the Veda and vedic schools of interpretation, particularly the Mimamsa, although there is some overlap between Pratyabhijna epistemology and Mimamsa. We can express this first in terms of a rejection of Mlmamsaka doctrines, and second in a particular understanding of language that draws heavily on the Grammarian school.

The tantric theology rejects the Mlmamsaka proposition that scripture is without authorship. The Tantras are composed and revealed by a transcendent theistic reality for the sake of suffering souls. 54 They give an account of the path to liberation and an account of how the world came to be as it is. Ramakantha, the Saiva Siddhanta commentator on the Kit-ana-tantra, says that a teaching (sastra) is authoritative 'only because it is the creation of the Lord, not because it is unauthored [as the Mimamsakas assert in the case of the Veda] since that is impossible.' 55 The Kirana-tantra is taught by the Lord, Hara (a name for Siva), to Garuda and records their conversation, Garuda having received the requisite initiation to hear the scripture, which is only opened to the initiated. 56 In his commentary on the Sardhatrisatikdlottara, Ramakantha says that Agamas are revealed by Sadasiva to the Vidyesvaras and thence to the sages, becoming more and more abridged in their descent due to the limited span of human life, their limited energy, limited intellect, limited wealth and possessing greed and delusion. 57 The Matangaparamesvara-tantra describes the transmission of the treatise from the mouth of Paramesvara as a subtle sound to the lineage of the various masters. Sadasiva announces it in 10 million verses, Ananta condenses it in a 100,000 verses to the sage Srikantha, who recites its 3,500 verses to the sage Matanga. 58 Again, the Sardhatrisat ikalottaragama declares that it is a condensed version in 35 verses of a version of 100,000 verses revealed by Siva to his son Kartikeya, not a small book Ramakantha dryly observes (na hy alpagrantham), which

itself was a condensation of the Vdtuldgama of 10 million verses! 1 ' In its opening verses the Mdlini describes its descent to the world from the mouth of the supreme Lord, who communicates the text to the Goddess Uma, saying that he himself had obtained it from the Supreme Self Aghora. Kumara, who heard the exposition, told the text to the sages (rsi), who in turn conveyed it to humanity. 60 The Jaydkhya-samhitd of the Pancaratra was originally taught, it says, by the Lord (Bhagavat) to the sage Narada, but in the current age, due to the absence of dharma, must be rendered in a shorter and simplified form. 61 This is a standard pattern in the Tantras: they perceive themselves to be smaller, simpler versions of texts which are lost or which are too long and complex to be understood by modern humans and so a more limited version is required. As the text descends we might say that it becomes more diluted. Unlike the Mlmamsaka position, meaning lies in the intention of the author, namely a transcendent theistic reality, to communicate a message to those with the qualification to hear it.

Extending this idea we might even say that as the voice of Siva is expressed in the texts of revelation, in the Tantras, it is also expressed in the cosmos itself. As in the texts there is an inherence of word (sabda) and denotation or meaning (artha), so in the hierarchical cosmos there is an inherence of sound with cosmic structure. The course of cosmic unfolding involves a relation between language, the signifier (vdcaka), and that to which it points, the signified (vdcya). According to the monistic Saivas, this relation is one of inherence; word and meaning are united whose meaning explodes upon consciousness (sphota). 62

Behind this more philosophical formulation is the idea of divine sound, that the absolute power is primarily manifested as sound (ndda, sabda). This cosmic sound manifests and resonates in all the levels of the cosmos, through supreme and subtle to gross levels where it is expressed as mantra. The Siddhanta text the Sdrdhatrisatikdlottardgama says that this sound or ndda is the supreme seed within all beings 63 whose form, says the commentator Ramakantha, is an inner sound which (and he here quotes an unidentified text) moves up through the body to the mouth and takes on the quality of formulated sound (vamatva) as a word (sabda). Without ndda sentence could not be

heard nor words denote; it is the basis of conversation (samjalpa). Thus even transactional speech has its root in the hierarchical cosmos pervaded by the power of the Lord as sound. This cosmic sound emanates from Sakti and from it the 'drop' (bindu) which generates the lower universe. 64

Revelation and Doctrine

Before we move to express the ways in which scripture is internalised within the practitioner's body, we need finally to make some remarks about the metaphysical content of the tantric revelation. Abhinavagupta and others in the Pratyabhijna tradition were metaphysical non-dualists, believing that what is revealed through scriptures is a supreme reality of consciousness only and that all appearance is but a form of consciousness. Subjects and objects adhere within this substratum of consciousness, and liberation is the recognition (pratyabhijna) of one's identity with that. The limited indexicality of the practitioner fills out to the cosmic indexicality of Siva; T (aham) becomes 'I-ness' (ahanta). The universe, says Abhinavagupta's student Ksemaraja, is identical with consciousness, which, although appearing to be distinct from consciousness, in reality is not, as the reflection of a city in a mirror appears to be distinct from it, yet in reality is not. 65 This monistic idealism (to which we will return in Chapter 7) is what is revealed in scripture. The true revelation, on this view, is not simply the text but the power of consciousness behind it. As with all monistic systems, it is difficult to maintain consistently a pure monism in language which implicitly contains a distinction between subject and object; inevitably the Saiva monists needed to lapse into a language of emanation and manifestation. The universe, along with the scriptures of the different traditions, is the emanation of a consciousness which at the highest level is pure and unsullied, but which becomes more and more differentiated into subject and object. This is a 'descent' or manifestation of consciousness as lower cosmic levels. All other traditions are partial revelations from Siva, fragments (khandakhanda) extracted from the one revelation (agama) but which cause people to wander in the world

deluded (mohita). 1 ' 1 ' Thus Ksemaraja places different scriptures and their teachings at different levels of this hierarchy. The Buddhists and Mimamsakas are only at the level of the higher mind (buddhi), while the Pancaratra is at the level of unmanifest nature (prakrti), the Vedantins at the level of Isvara in the 'pure course' of creation, and so on, with only the Saiva teachings of pure consciousness, the Trika, at the top in maintaining the doctrine that consciousness is transcendent (visvottirna) and immanent (visvatmaka) in manifestation. 67 The scriptures of the respective schools are thus linked to those levels in a graded hierarchy. The scriptures of the Siddhanta are lower than those of the non-Saiddhantika traditions (in their view) because they teach dualism, that the self is distinct from the Lord and the manifest and unmanifest universe. In contrast, the scriptures of the Trika, particularly the Mdlinivijayottara-tantra, emanate from the highest cosmic level for the non-dualists.

If we are to maintain, as the non-dualist Saivas did, that the actual text before the reader is a physical manifestation or pale reflection of a pure work, then it follows that the 'work' as the revelation proper is identical with consciousness. For the Saiva monist the true revelation is that all is consciousness. While recognising that the scriptures of the Siddhanta were dualist, texts of non-Saiddhantika tradition and texts that were close to the Saiddhantikas became subject to rigorous interpretation through the lens of this monistic metaphysics by the Kashmiri non-dualists. The Saiva texts that occupied the middle ground between the Siddhanta and the more extreme Saiva and Kaula texts, namely the Netra-tantra and Svacchanda-tantra, came under the scrutiny of Ksemaraja, who wrote commentaries on both texts, claiming them for the monists. This raises interesting questions about the relation of doctrine to these revealed texts and the historical influences at work in them.

Alexis Sanderson has argued that most of the Tantras are in fact dualistic in their orientation. This is clearly and explicitly so with the Tantras of the Saiva Siddhanta, but is also the case with most texts of the non-Saiddhantika tradition. Indeed, he argues that the root text of the Trika tradition, the Malinivijayottara itself is actually dualist; Abhinavagupta projecting on to it his monism derived from Krama sources and from his own lineage in the 'recognition'

or Pratyabhijfia school. 68 References to non-dualism in the text are to ritual, namely that in worship one should adopt the highest non-dualism (paramadvaita), which means that one should not perform external worship without internal awareness. 69 Furthermore, the 'non-dualism' of the practitioner identifying himself with the deity in ritual procedure is common to all Tantras, including explicitly dualist texts. We shall see in the following section how such identification is the internalisation of the text and does not necessarily reflect a metaphysical non-dualism. Indeed, as Sanderson observes, texts that are primarily concerned with ritual are implicitly dualistic. He writes:

Certainly dualism is more natural to the Tantras considered in their primary character as a system of rites and meditations. Nondualism, I suggest, connotes, just as it does in orthodox Hindu thinking about the Vedic revelation, an undermining or subordination of the ritualism that inspired these systems. It is a metaview of a complex of practices that suggests their ultimate superfluity and therefore is hardly likely to have been the basic theoretical attitude of those who elaborated the mainstream tradition. 70

This is surely right. It does indeed make sense that elaborate ritual systems that imply a structure, and the notion of a goal to be achieved that is implicitly or explicitly separate from oneself, are not metaphysical non-dualists. As Sanderson observes, a non-dualist metaphysics undermines a ritual structure that implies within it distinction and separation in the ritual process. One could perhaps argue that soteriological ritual, as in the Saiva Siddhanta, implies dualism or pluralism in the sense that this procedure is thought to transport the self through the cosmos to its freedom. When the ritual process is aligned with cosmological unfolding and contraction, there is clearly the implication that this cosmos creates a distance between self and cosmic origin, or between self and its freedom from entanglement in the cosmogonic process. Ritual in the Saiva revelation implies a structured path to the goal of liberation. For the metaphysical dualists there is no problem with this, but for the non-dualists there is, in the sense that the self's identity with consciousness undermines any notion of separation between self and goal.

That the Tantras are mainly dualist in their metaphysics is furthermore attested by the strong influence of Samkhya. The Samkhya tradition maintains a strict dualism between self and matter or nature and describes the unfolding of matter in terms of categories, the tattvas, which are fundamental to the tantric texts. We cannot understand the Tantras without reference to the Samkhya system. Indeed, the Saiva Siddhanta could be said to be almost purely samkhyan in its metaphysics, with the addition of a transcendent theistic reality. In Samkhya the self is entangled, or appears to be entangled, in nature and the goal of practice is to free the self from such entanglement and to experience its isolation (kaivalya) both from nature and from other selves.' 1 This is not dissimilar to the Saiddhantika view that at liberation the self becomes distinct from nature, from power (sakti), and realises itself to be a Siva, equal to Siva but ontologically distinct and distinct from other selves. For the Saiva Siddhanta the tantric revelation is intended to show bound souls the way to this freedom and knowledge out of entanglement in matter. Through the initiation and the ritual procedure revealed, along with the grace of Siva, the self can cleanse itself of the substance of impurity and, in a way not dissimilar to Jainism, for whom karma is a substance, through this purification rise through the hierarchy of the cosmos to its liberation. For the monist, of course, this way of speaking is ultimately simply ufacon de purler, for in truth liberation is the recognition of identity with consciousness, a truth revealed in scripture and understood in one's own experience (svanubhava).

The tantric revelation is primarily concerned with ritual closely linked to cosmology. Sometimes the metaphysics of the texts are explicitly dualistic, as in the Saivagamas of the Siddhanta, and sometimes the metaphysics are not, in which case the texts are open to monistic interpretations by the Saiva idealists. This lack of a developed concern with philosophy and argument in the Tantras suggests that doctrine is subordinate to the practical concerns of ritual and, in some cases, yoga and meditation. It is not to the epistemological discourse in Indian thinking that we should look to make sense of these texts but rather to the cosmological discourse of Samkhya and its implied yogic dimensions along with ritual procedures whose origins lie in Brahmanical, vedic ritualism. The

Mlmamsakas maintained that the most important thing about the Veda was the injunction to act, to perform ritually. We might say that in a parallel way the most important thing about the Tantras is their injunctive force, that they impel their adherents to ritual action as being more important than philosophical speculation, and that this ritual action is the internalisation of the text, the internalisation of tradition, and the forming of the self in text-specific ways. It is to the details of this process that we must now turn.

FOUR

Tantric Civilisation

Tantric texts and ideas became increasingly influential from the earlier centuries of the common era through to their expansion in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, and, although these traditions became attenuated largely due to Muslim polities in South Asia, their impact was nevertheless felt into the nineteenth century and into later modernity. We might even speak of 'tantric civilisation' flowering during the medieval period before the rise of the hegemony of the Delhi Sultanate and continuing after this in the South and in Nepal. While the concept of civilisation arose with the development of historical consciousness in the West, 1 it is nevertheless a term that can be meaningfully applied elsewhere, and we might take it simply as shorthand for the operation of macro-cultural forces. While the focus of this book is on the micro- rather than the macro-level of culture, in looking at texts and their expression in practice we nevertheless need to pay attention to the broader historical contexts in which these texts and practices have arisen and to propose ways that the micro-structure of the internalisation of tantric revelation articulates with broader social and political forces in so far as the body, or more specifically its divinisation, is the root metaphor of tantric civilisation.

We can take 'civilisation' to be a broader concept than 'society' in that a civilisation might contain a number of social systems and unlike a social system is not teleological: a civilisation is not functional in the way that a society is in directly maintaining the specificity of power relations such as a particular kinship system and family dynamics. But perhaps, unlike 'culture', a civilisation entails a polity or structural politics that articulates with culture and social structure and is geographically located over a particular spatial area. There are Sanskrit analogues for the term 'civilisation' such as Aryavarta in the older literature, the homeland of the Aryans, an area to the north of the Vindhya mountains, which is contrasted to the land of 'barbarians' {mleccha) outside of this. Aryavarta is the land of ritual action (karmabhumi) where liberation is possible and where dharma is maintained. 2 There are also terms for refinement, politeness and sophistication implied by 'civilisation', such as sabhya, 'being at court' or refined and courteous, and suslla, 'cultured'. Although there is no direct translation of 'tantric civilisation', it nevertheless conveys the important idea that the tantric traditions had historical depth, a textual semantic density, and ideas expressed in art and in polity. Not only are the Tantras and their traditions concerned with individual practice leading to the personal goals of power and/or liberation, they are concerned with broader culture and political developments, particularly the building of temples and, closely related to this, the legitimising of kings.

Tantric civilisation arose within what Sheldon Pollock has called the 'Sanskrit cosmopolis',' a transcultural formation focused on Sanskrit as a written, literary language of culture articulated in 'literature' (kavya) and in the 'praise poem' (prasasti) found especially in inscriptions that issued from the courts of kings. 4 Imperial formations bought into this culture - the just king is one who promotes correct language (sadhusabda) 5 - which helped serve to legitimise their authority although cannot be reduced to this function. But while on the one hand we have the development of a Sanskrit cosmopolis throughout South and Southeast Asia during the early centuries of the common era, on the other hand we have the rise of vernacular languages as the chosen medium for expressing identity and ethnicity from around 1000 to 1500 CE. 6 These consciously

defined themselves in relation to the Sanskritic model; Pollock has illustrated this in some detail in relation to Kannada, as has Freeman with the development of Malayalam literature. 7 It is against this general cultural-linguistic background that we need to understand the rise of the Tantras, particularly the fact that they were written in Sanskrit at a time when regional vernaculars were developing. In many texts this Sanskrit is not polished and highly literate, a peculiarity characterised as 'divine' (aim), which suggests that these texts' authors and redactors were not completely at home in this milieu but nevertheless thought it imperative to locate these texts and traditions within the wider, 'high' literary culture of the Sanskrit cosmopolis; we see the success of this strategy in writers such as Abhinavagupta who were not only tantrikas but aesthetes, deeply immersed in literary culture. While the great edifice of Sanskrit literature and traditions cannot be reduced to a means of articulating and legitimising political authority in medieval India, this literature nevertheless did express and legitimate an ideology of kingship that sees polity as the expression of divine power along with the expression of that power in the construction of temples. The Tantras play into this structure. Although the legitimising of kings is not their main, overt concern, they came to be used in this way. The tantric texts are part of the Sanskrit cosmopolis and as such must also be seen in the context of literature that expresses values encapsulated in the 'goals of life' (purusartha) on the one hand, and the rise of the vernaculars on the other. Indeed, Tantrism did have an impact on vernacular devotionalism (bhakti), especially in its erotic, Vaisnava forms, and tantric civilisation is evident at popular, village level where tantric deities, especially ferocious goddesses and guardians, become important for the life of the community. The cultural, religious and political history of India in the medieval period cannot be understood without Tantra. David White is surely correct in maintaining that 'Tantra has been the predominant religious paradigm, for over a millennium, of the great majority of the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. It has been the background against which Indian religious civilisation has evolved.' 8 The root metaphor of this civilisation is arguably the body, or more specifically the divinisation of the body which is its entextualisation.

The Divinisation of the Body as Root Metaphor

The body needs to be understood in terms of both representation and lived experience. As representation, on the one hand, it provides the model for the hierarchical universe and the ways of mapping the self, and, on the other, it is the means of experiencing a world structured by text and tradition. In both representation and in experience the central theme of tantric civilisation is the body's divinisation. This divinisation of the body is a way in which the body can be said to become the text and which operates at a number of levels. At the level of individual practice, the body of the practitioner becomes divine through ritual construction in text-specific ways (as I demonstrate with particular examples). In the political realm the body of the king becomes divine through ritual construction which parallels the divinisation of the deity in the temple. The temple as the analogue of the palace is the body of the deity. Indeed, as the god is to the temple, which itself reflects deity and cosmos, so the king is to the body politic and palace. At a popular, often low-caste, level the body becomes divine in possession (avesa). Indeed, Rich Freeman has put forward an argument to say that possession is the common theme that unifies the tantric body, linked to language, especially performative utterance. 9 But certainly in English the term 'possession' has negative connotations and we might argue that, rather, divinisation is a more accurate term to describe a process that occurs at a number of cultural levels where its function also differs. For the practitioner seeking liberation the divinisation of the body is a necessary ritual step in the existential realisation of that truth; for the king the divinisation of the body is political empowerment by the deity and the legitimisation of his regime - divinisation enlivens the temple and its deities; and for the low-caste divinisation is possession which can be an empowerment and the bestowing of voice for someone otherwise voiceless, although it can also simply mean illness.

These processes of divinisation are made somewhat complex by the tension between 'institutionalised Tantra' and 'transgressive Tantra' (which roughly map on to Samuel's priestly and shamanic forms). The latter, much of the material contained in the Bhairava and Tantras of the Southern transmission, has emphasised those

scriptures that transcend the orthodox revelation of the Veda whose practices transgress orthodox dharma, particularly in the emphasis on eroticism in worship and the violence of its deities. But this violence and eroticism quickly become incorporated within institutionalised Tantra, particularly where political power is concerned. Indeed, Tantrism becomes orthodox through official patronage as much as through Brahmanical incorporation. Through institutionalisation, sacred violence and eroticism become cultural tropes articulated in text and art, and contained in high tantric ritual. Of particular importance here is the temple. Many Tantras, notably the Saiva Siddhanta Tantras and Upagamas, contain long sections on temple building, the installation of icons in temples, and temple worship. There are also texts specifically devoted to tantric temple architecture, such as the Mayamata™ the Diptagama 11 and Silpaprakdsa, 11 and some Tantras such as the Ajitagama and Rauravottaragama have significant sections given over to temple architecture and the installation of icons. These texts described different designs for temples and prescribe the deities to be installed, such as what deities are to be placed on the temple facades {din murti). n

The current section therefore proposes to broaden the parameters of the discussion to examine the relevance of the body as the internalisation of text in terms of polity, temple art and popular religion, specifically possession. I intend to pursue two interrelated lines of argument to show that when tantric rites are injected into the pre-existent structure of kingship, the king becomes the analogue of the tantric Brahman, and to show that this needs to be understood in terms of the model in tantric revelation of the internalisation of the text. The divinisation of the body is applied to the king. We must conclude from this the primacy of the body as an index of tradition-specific subjectivity and the primacy of revelation and its internalisation in any understanding of tantric civilisation. Clearly there are macro-cultural forces at work, such as economic constraints, trade and caste, in the creation of what Inden has called 'imperial formation' in the medieval period, 14 but important here is that sovereignty is mediated through revelation, through the structure of internalisation and entextualisation. The internalisation of revelation, the body becoming deified through the

mediation of text and tradition, is the primary tantric model at the base of tantric civilisation, which can be demonstrated in the three realms of polity, temple sculpture and possession.

Tantric Polity

Kingship in the medieval period was formed by historical contingency and justified by textual tradition. From the early medieval period to the rise of the Delhi Sultanate, the history of India is characterised in political terms by the development of feudal kingdoms and of the increasing awareness of regional identity with the rise of important regional centres focused on temples and the development of region-specific styles of art and architecture. After the collapse of the Gupta empire and generally from the mid-eighth century, kingdoms such as those of the Rastrakutas in the Deccan, an early form of the Rajputs called the Gurjura-Pratiharas of Malava-Rajasthan, and the Palas of Bengal, were engaged in bitter rivalry; kings and princes pursued policies of military adventurism and an ideology of warfare developed, which became, in Davidson's phrase, 'a facet of the erotic play of king, who was understood as the manifestation of a divinity'. 15 The king, as divine, was the male consort of the land represented by the Goddess. 16 Tribal and clan power developed during this period, with Brahmans being given land in return for legitimising the new rulers and instigating a process of Sanskritisation whereby local customs and deities became integrated into the overarching, Brahmanical paradigm.

One example is the Candella clan of the Gond tribe, which built the famous temples of Khajuraho. They wielded considerable power and influence and could, for example, reinstate to his throne their nominal Pratihara overlord, Mahipala (c. 900). 17 In the Deccan the most important dynasties to develop were the Chalukya and the Cola empire (c. 870-1280 Ce), which replaced the Pallavas, although it was the Pallavas who exported the cult of the divine king to Southeast Asia in the kingdom of Fu-nan, which fell to the Khmers. Indeed, Indie kingdoms continued to develop in Southeast Asia with the Indonesian empire of the Sailendras, of Orissan origin, establishing settlements as far as Bali and Java. A Cambodian inscription dated

to 1072 ce (Saka era 974) refers to the introduction of Tantras into the Khmer kingdom during the reign of Jayavarman II, of particular importance being the continuation of texts of the left current, eliminated from India, in Cambodia and Java. We know of these from the Cambodian Sdok kak Thorn inscription. 18 With the Colas we see the development of Tamil culture and the growth of the extraordinary temple cities of Thanjavur (the Cola capital), Cidambaram, Darasuram and Gangaikondacolapuram, whose Saiva temples demonstrate not only an impressive imperial power but a thriving, Brahmanical, Agamic culture. By contrast in Kashmir tantric culture faded from around 1320 to 1819 ce, during which time Kashmir was under almost constant Muslim rule and the majority of the population turned to Islam. 19

These medieval kingdoms shared an ideology of divine kingship: that the king was a deity or manifestation of a deity. As Davidson observes, the corollary to this was 'the feudalisation of divinity, wherein the gods became perceived as warlords and the rulers of the earth'. 20 The king is not merely a 'secular' ruler but a divine king, a god incarnate, as expressed in the very term deva, which can mean both deity and king. As Hocart has argued, the king became the high point of the social structure identified with the sun, with the rest of society below. Officialdom is equated with lesser gods of the sky, and the queen is identified with the earth. The commoners beneath this also formed part of this total structure. 21 What Inden calls a 'world ordering rationality' becomes integral to Hindu kingship, so 'that the divinity of that kingship can be seen as an issue of "reason" and "will" in the formation and re-formation of political societies in ancient India.' 22 Kingship gave order to the world, and a world without a king (arajaka) was in chaos. 23 We must also remember that the medieval Hindu kingdom was not like a European kingdom. Rather, as Burton Stein has shown, it was segmentary in character, comprising a number of embedded socio-political structures that formed a pyramid. This hierarchy meant that the village was embedded within the locality, the locality within the supralocality, and that within the kingdom. Within this structure, lesser kings paid ritual obeisance to higher, more powerful ones. 24 Tantric notions of kingship are therefore easily injected into this already existing institution.

Although the idea of divine kingship has been criticised, especially in a postcolonial context, we do need to maintain this notion in order to understand kingship and its legitimisation in the tantric context.

According to dharma literature the functions of the king are the protection of the people, the maintaining of social order through the maintenance of caste boundaries, and the administration of justice. The king is also the patron of ritual, who assumes the classical, vedic role of the patron of the sacrifice (yajamana). 2 ' In Manu's terms the king is the protector of caste (varna) and dharmic stages of life (asrama). 2b But the new tantric conception of kingship saw the king as a deity warrior whose power is derived from the violent and erotic warrior goddesses worshipped as the retinue of a deity such as Bhairava, located at a particular level of revelation. The power of the king was linked to the power of the Goddess or goddesses and this power endowed at coronation or through tantric initiations by specialist priests. Indeed, through consecration and initiation these kings sought legitimacy from the textual traditions and sought to derive power through their identification with deities and use of their mantras. 2 ' There are certainly continuities with more ancient conceptions of kingship - even in the Laws ofManu the king is regarded as embodying fragments of the gods 28 - but with the medieval period a new sense of divinity and an aggressive, power-hungry lordship came into play that sought legitimacy from theology. The erotic violence of the Goddess is contained within the king and controlled through a political structure that is scripturally and ritually legitimated. This legitimacy and new concept of kingship were achieved in the first instance through texts of secondary revelation, the 'ancient texts' or Puranas formally concerned with the five topics of cosmogony (sarga), the regeneration of the cosmos (pratisarga), the genealogy of populations (vamsa), the great epochs of Manu (manvantara), and the genealogy of kings (vamsdnucarita). 29 An important text that exemplifies this, studied by Inden, is the Vimudharmottara-purdn a. Inden shows how this text expressed Pancaratra or tantric Vaisnava theology. While the text is not a Tantra, rather locating itself at the apex of a 'scale of texts' within the Puranic, orthodox tradition, 30 it nevertheless embodies the theology of tantric Vaisnavism. In contrast to the Puranas, few tantric texts show explicit concern for the nature

of kingship - although texts such as the Netra-tantra may well be from courtly circles - yet the ideal of kingship is directly influenced by them in the medieval period, as Davidson 11 and White 32 have shown. The focus of the Tantras, as we have seen, is on daily and occasional rituals, the formation of mantras, cosmology, the installation of icons, and temple building. But the influence of a tantric ideology of power is deeply embedded in medieval ideas of kingship, and the Puranas themselves are influenced by Tantrism, 33 although it is also true that orthodox Brahmans maintained a distance between themselves and dangerous or defiling tantric mantras.

The impact of Tantrism on kingship extends from India through to Southeast Asia. At the heart of the tantric idea of kingship is the ritual diagram, the mandala, where the deity and his consort are surrounded by a retinue of deities who are themselves emanations or belonging within the same sphere, clan or lineage. The classical model is thus the lord of the clan Kulesvara and his consort Kulesvarl, surrounded by goddesses such as the eight mothers (see pp. 154-7). The king is the analogue of Kulesvara and his queen, from whom he derives power through sex, the analogue of Kulesvari. Power flows from her to the king to the deities of the clan and so to the wider community. 34 White has convincingly argued that underlying this structure are the goddesses of clans and land, and the formation of alliances between ruling families is important in this understanding. At one level the king is identified with the high god Visnu or Siva and so transcends particular political alliances within the kingdom, while the tutelary goddesses represent connections to land and powerful ruling families, who 'ratified and energised the pragmatic religious life of the kingdom as a whole'. 35 This mandalic model of kingship can be seen in Nepal, as Tofflin has shown, where three gods are important for royalty and from them the king derives his power: the sovereign god Visnu; the master of ascetics and of Nepal, Pasupati; and the secret tantric goddess, Taleju. Indeed, among the Newars of Nepal the power of the Goddess lies in royalty. 36 The most important tantric rite connected with kingship is the king's consecration or anointing (abhiseka) and Davidson has shown the connection between royal consecration and tantric initiation. 37 The jfayakhya-samhitd interestingly links the anointing

(abhiseka) of four classes of initiate with four kinds of political actor. Thus the procedures for the samayin, putraka, sadhaka and acarya (see pp. 133-4) are t0 De modelled on the procedures for anointing a military general (senapati), a prime minister (mahamantrin), a prince (yuvarclja) and a king (raja).™ Here we have an explicit identification of the procedure of anointing with political institution, with the king analogous to the master (acarya); as the master embodies the divinity disclosed by the text, so does the king disclose the divinity. There is documentary evidence that kings were consecrated with tantric mantras, at Viyajanagara, 39 for example, and an early king of Nepal, a practice which continued into modernity. 40 These tantric rites of anointing at coronation using tantric mantras fitted easily into an ideology of divine kingship and simply injected a further layer of textual empowerment into the pre-existing puranic scheme. The transgressive violence and eroticism of tantric deities become tapped and controlled by the institution of kingship. That this layer of further empowerment was regarded with suspicion by the orthodox in the case of Kashmir is clear from a number of sources (such as Jayanthabhatta's play, Agamadambara, which we have cited (pp. 51-2)), but it is also the case that kingship was supported by wholly orthodox Brahmans using Puranas as their core texts, as Inden has shown, but whose theology was tantric, as in the case of the Pancaratra Visnudharmottara.

Some passages in tantric texts deal directly with kingship. The Netra-tantra states that the tantric teacher (acarya) needs to worship the eight mothers for the protection of king and kingdom. He should construct a 'lotus' diagram for appeasement, prosperity, good luck, protection of women and sons, and for the protection of the king and intimidation of other rival kings. The teacher should use mantras for the well-being of the king, for his protection from illness, his happy sleep and good digestion. 41 The Isanasivagurudeva-paddhati contains some material on kingship and it undoubtedly assumes that its teachings are for royalty as well as for initiated Saivas. We see this in the chapter on battles and in the extensive sections on temple building and temple architecture. Only kings, with their armies, go to war and, while others build temples too, it is kings who build large, prestigious temples that glorify the deity and thereby themselves.

In the chapter on protection in a battle, the text presents five birds connected with the five actions of Siva (see p. 57) and with different mantric syllables. These birds are furthermore related to five stages in the king's life, namely childhood, youth, kingship, old age and death, which in turn are related to five activities of enjoyment, sacrifice, marching to war, ruling, retirement or the cessation of action, and dying. 42 Through studying the omens of birds we can determine the positive or negative outcome of a battle for a particular person, who should prepare accordingly by, for example, wearing armour for good bodily protection (suguptadeha) or dividing his wealth if the augury is pessimistic. 43

Through consecration the king becomes the analogue of the tantric Brahman. As the divinisation of the body is described in the texts, so the king's body is divinised in consecration, and as the body of the practitioner becomes an index of a tradition-specific subjectivity, so the king's becomes an index of the wider social body. In a way not dissimilar to medieval Europe, 44 the king's body points to the health of the society as a whole. In one sense the king is the ideal householder who can fulfil the goals of dharma in the projection of the people, artha, the pursuance of wealth and political success, and kama, the pursuance of pleasure, especially sexual pleasure with courtesans; in another sense he is like the Brahman in mediating transcendent power and, indeed, himself becoming divinised. The king absorbs the violent and erotic power of the divine and transforms it into political strategies of expansion and consolidation. This becoming divinised is a formal empowerment through the king's ritual anointing in which power descends upon him. The body of the king becomes a divine body, as the body of the practitioner becomes divine through initiation (and every day following that). As the practitioner's, the king's body becomes entextualised through tradition-specific mantras.

The Tantric Temple

While the primary and most important forms of tantric deities are always as mantras rather than as plastic representations, there is nevertheless significant overlap between tantric and puranic texts

in the areas of temple-building and iconography. As the body of the king becomes divinised in the rite of anointing, so the temple deity becomes enlivened through the appropriate rites (as in standard temple Hinduism). The divine body of the king in the palace recapitulates the divine body of the deity in the temple and there is a parallelism between the temple and the palace, as Tofflin has shown existed in Nepal to recent times. 45 Temples are an important concern in tantric literature, and texts of the Saiva Siddhanta contain much material on the construction of temples, installation of deities, and temple rites. The Rauravottaragama describes different kinds of temple styles, octagonal (dravida), circular (vesara) and square (nagara), along with the deities to be installed. 46 The text describes the installation of the main deity, the Siva linga on its pedestal (pitha), the installation of the Goddess and her marriage to Siva, and the installation of the guardians of the doors (dvdrapdla),* 1 descriptions which, with some variation, are found in other Tantras as well. Temple tantrism continues into present times in temples of Tamil Nadu and, especially, Kerala where 'tantric Hinduism' is normative, some Nambudiri families using the fifteenth-century Tantrasamuccaya as their base text. 48 Even the more extreme cults of goddesses, the Yoginis, were expressed in temples during the early medieval period, as White has shown. 49 In line with orthodox, puranic tradition, such temples can be seen as the body of the deity, and indeed when discussing the temple the distinction between the tantric and non-tantric becomes blurred. The great Saiva temple at Cidambaram, for example, a centre of orthodox power and learning, performed temple rites according to Saiva Siddhanta texts, yet there were also non-dualist theologians such as Mahesvarananda writing against dualist interpretations of scripture within the institution of that temple. 50

Along with guardians and protectors, temple facades of the medieval period are famous for their erotic sculpture, which is the focus of wide interest and often associated with 'Tantrism' and 'tantric art', especially in the West, because it seems to disrupt the Western disjunction between 'religion' and 'sexuality'. Indeed, the presence of erotic sculpture associated with Tantrism has reinforced the idea of later tantric culture that bhukti is mukti, pleasure is liberation, and, in

the Kuldrnava-tantra, bhoga is yoga, pleasure is the method. 51 But to begin to understand these images we must look to their context and the systems of value operative at the time of their composition.

Tantra and Erotic Sculpture

Both the terms mukti and bhukti point to values within the history of Indian civilisation that are in tension. Pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure or kdma, has a long history as one of the four legitimate goals of life (purusdrtha) along with dharma, prosperity (artha) and liberation (moksa). While one of the key texts of tradition, the Bhagavad-gttd, is virtually silent on the subject of kdma, as Killingley observes,' 2 it is nevertheless treated systematically and deeply in other literatures, most notably the kamasastra, of which the most famous text is the Kdmasutra. This literature rejoices in sexual pleasure and, though it may seem mechanistic in relation to Sanskrit erotic poetry and even sexist to contemporary Western sensibilities, demonstrates the importance and legitimacy that sexual desire was perceived to have in classical Indian civilisation before the rise of Islam and the advent of puritanical colonialism. Liberation, by contrast, was traditionally a transcendent (visvottirna) state achieved by world renounces through asceticism and celibacy; the reversal of the flow of the body outwards towards the objects of desire. Sanskrit literature is replete with sages falling from their austerities due to being seduced by beautiful women, usually sent by gods such as Indra fearing the power created by their abstinence and austerity, 53 demonstrating the tension between cultural values and the difficulty in transcending worldly concerns. Dumont highlighted two realms of value, that of the householder and the renouncer. 54 While we might dispute who precisely is a householder and whether the Brahman is closer to the renouncer than to Dumont's 'man-in-the-world', the distinction does nevertheless point to an aporia in Indian civilisation. Part of the ideology of tantric traditions, particularly the more philosophical accounts, is that liberation and the world-affirming value of desire are not incompatible, but desire can be used to transcend desire. It is precisely here that the difference between desire in wider Indian

civilisation and tantric traditions can be seen. For the kamasastra pleasure, the result of desire (the term kama can mean both 'pleasure' and 'desire'), is an end in itself. Sexual pleasure has no goal in this context other than its own fulfilment. In contrast to the ideal and value of dharma, where having children is a purpose with a high priority, the purpose of kama is not children but pleasure for its own sake. In this sense kama is barren and indeed transgressive of dharma. Pleasure rather than progeniture is the goal.

Although much is often made of desire in Tantrism, in the kamasastric sense, it is distinct from its tantric use, although the boundaries between tantric and non-tantric kama have sometimes been blurred even within the tradition itself. As White has shown (as we will see in Chapter 7) in early tantric traditions of the extreme left, sexual desire was used to produce sexual fluids, power substances, that were to be offered to the deities of the mandala. 5S We also find in these extreme texts the advocation of consuming bodily waste products, and one thinks here particularly of extreme Buddhist Tantras such as the Candamaharosana-tantra where waste products are to be consumed as the diet 'eaten by all the Buddhas' without 'even slight disgust'.' 6 All bodily products are thought to contain power potentially through their transgressive use in a ritual context. 37 Only in later tantric traditions does kama come to be regarded as itself a means of transformation to the condition of the deity. Thus we have a shift from the appeasement of ferocious and erotic deities with the 'sacrifice' of sexual substances to the practice of sexual union in a ritual context as the transformation of desire such that the experience of coition is thought to reflect or recapitulate the bliss of Siva and Sakti. We also have the use of sex to produce sexual fluids, which are then contracted back into the male partner in an often elaborate rite, the vajroli mudra. %i In both of these senses kama is different from the kama of the kamasastra. In the tantric traditions of the left kama is not an end in itself but a means to an end; desire used to transcend itself as a thorn can be removed by a thorn, or perfection attained by those things that would normally lead one to fall from the path, in the image of the Kulamava-tantra.^ And the strong links between eroticism and death place sexual desire in Tantrism even further from the kamasastras. In

Shulman's words, Tantrism presents a 'barren eroticism'. 60 Indeed, the extreme antinomian practices of the left cannot be seen in terms of pleasure; as Hardy points out, there are other occasions where promiscuity could take place on festival occasions such as holi."

Conceptually the distinction between kama in the Tantras and kama in erotic science is clear in the former being teleological (its goal being power and/or liberation) and the latter being an end in itself, but some blurring of the boundary does occur. A notable feature of the magnificent temples of medieval India is the erotic scenes sculpted on the temple walls known to gawking tourists and giggling schoolchildren. These have often been taken as paradigmatic of 'tantric art', but, given that 'tantric eroticism' is of a distinct kind, do these sculptures have any relation to tantric civilisation and, if so, what could it be? This is a difficult question, to which a number of responses have been made, such as that they are protective against demonic powers, that they reflect what goes on in the heavens, or that they are depictions of tantric ritual activity.

Erotic sculpture on medieval and later temples is a common feature, still seen on temples in the South, though little remains in the North, largely due to temples being destroyed. One interesting and plausible theory put forward by Fred Hardy, first expressed to him by people in a temple's environs, is that the sculptures are intended to keep demons away from the pure sanctuary, acting as mirrors to reflect the demons' obscenity back on themselves. 62 Given that the universe was peopled with supernatural powers, both auspicious and inauspicious, and the temple was considered to be a pure abode of the deity, this is a highly plausible thesis. Indeed, the facades of temples contain the pantheons of deities that form the outer wall (avarana) of the main deity's power, namely the guardians of the directions and the guardians of the doors. Erotic sculpture fits well into this context of magical protection. However, this is not attested in any texts and at least one text, the Silpa-prakasa, links such sculptures with the kamasastra (see below). Moreover, many of these sculptures have very great elegance and beauty, and one would perhaps expect the grotesque to function in this way rather than the beautiful. White, on the other hand, has argued that there is indeed a connection between Tantrism and the coital couples (maithunas) of

erotic temple sculpture, pointing out that there are ruins of YoginI temples scattered across the central Indian region where Kaula practices were performed in the royal courts. With special reference to the Bheraghat Yogini temple in Orissa, White argues that the maithunas on the sides of early temples in all likelihood depict tantric rituals because they appear to follow a sequence. 63 Such depictions only lasted for a comparatively short duration (White thinks no more than two hundred years), after which time the maithuna motif becomes decontextualised from its ritual origin. In other words, we might say that erotic depictions shift from representations of tantric sexuality, which therefore point to the transcendence of sex as action for its own sake, to depictions of sex more in keeping with kamasastra. Either way, whether these representations are linked to trangressive tantric practice or to kamasastra, this points against their being linked to 'fertility cults' other than in a very broad and general way. 64

This is clearly the case by the time of the composition of the Silpa-prakasa, a text of temple architecture composed by a tantric practitioner, judging by his name, Ramacandra Kulacara, between the ninth and twelfth centuries in Orissa. 65 This text describes the building of a temple as parts of the deity's body, the deity being the foundational god Mahapurusa. What is of note is that the text clearly links the temple with the idea of desire and with the science of erotics, the kamasastra. Desire (kama) is the root of the universe, says the text, from which all things are born, and through desire all is reabsorbed into primordial matter (mulabhuta). 'Without Siva and Sakti creation would be mere illusion. Without the action of desire (kamakriya) there would be no life, birth and death.' 66 This is to place desire as the most important goal of life, and so is in accord with a strong theme in Sanskrit literature. Moreover the text links maithuna couples with the kamasastra, saying that there should not be representations of sexual union (samghama) but only depictions of love play as there are many types of love play in the kamasastra. 67 Of course, the truth of temple sculpture goes against this recommendation as there are innumerable examples of fully coital representations on temple walls, including scenes involving multiple actors. The 'orgy' scenes on the sides of Khajuraho or Konarak are against the norms of dharma but not at variance with kamasastra, and, indeed, there

are occasions of 'orgiastic' worship contained in some texts. 68 But what is significant is that maithuna couples are here directly linked to the kamasastra, an important shift in relocating eroticism to a context of aesthetics. With the erotic carvings on temple walls, eroticism is stripped of its violence and link with death that we find in early tantric appeasement and taboo breaking. The depiction of the body on temple walls is a representation of the body in an idealised eroticism that is grounded in text; an eroticism which rejoices in the body yet which points beyond itself to a divine transcendence. The body's representation here is divinised and textualised in a way that goes beyond transgression or protection. Indeed such representation points to the sexualised body as a manifestation of the deity, as other deities on temple facades are manifestations: the temple is the body of the deity and is not devoid of sexuality.

Possession

As the divinisation of the body occurs at the level of the individual practitioner, in the body of the king, and, in an extended sense, with the temple, so the same topos occurs in possession and exorcism and even in popular devotion (bhakti). Indeed, if anything is characteristic of popular religion in India it is possession. It would be possible to read the history of religion in South Asia in terms of possession as the central paradigm of a person being entered by a deity which becomes reinterpreted at more 'refined' cultural levels. We see this with the term samavesa, whose primary designation is, like avesa, 'possession', coming from the root vis, 'to enter', but which comes to mean 'immersion' in non-dual consciousness for the Saiva theologian Abhinavagupta. 69 The whole idea of the self becoming brahman, the very term vipra, 'shaker', as a term for a Brahman and ritualised divinisation through initiation and consecration (abhiseka) might be seen as pointing to this foundational, recurring topos. Indeed, Rich Freeman's thesis is that institutionalized possession is a central paradigm of worship which is anciently attested from Tamil Cahkam literature of the early centuries of the common era. 70 Clearly possession is a fundamental trope in the history of Indian

religions, but I wish to propose that a more basic metaphor is not possession per se but rather the body becoming divine through entextualisation, through the identification of the self with the 'text' both oral and written.

Possession has a 'good' aspect when the deity enters a performer and so gives a blessing (darsana) to the assembled community or makes a prophesy, or a 'bad' aspect when possession is uninvited and manifested as illness, especially illness in children, about which much of the literature is taken up. Smallpox, for example, was thought to be due to the hot goddess euphemistically called Sitala, 'the cool one', or Mariamman in the South. Possession can be seen as the divinisa-tion of the body, which is also its entextualisation. In becoming the host for the deity or supernatural being external to the self, the body becomes constructed in tradition and text-specific ways. While the process and symptoms of possession might be common - even across cultures - it is the specificity that is important and that gives the possession legitimacy for a particular community.' 1

A fine example of this is the public, costumed, ritual possession of the teyyam dancers of Kerala, described by Rich Freeman. These rites continue to the present day, and Freeman has provided an excellent ethnography of the tradition, showing its historical and textual depth. These local deities of northern Kerala, each with her own particular costume and make-up, are danced at annual festivals by professional dancers who incarnate them. These traditions have been preserved mainly through oral narratives, and the goddesses they embody were linked to royal lineages. Indeed, the teyyams are often apotheosised warrior chiefs and the traditions had royal patronage. These rites embody complex caste and gender relationships; the performers are of a lower caste than the hosts for whom they perform, and the dancers are exclusively male while the deities are generally female. The actual performance follows a ritual sequence in which the castes performing the rites each have their own make-up rooms; the rites, which take place over several days, become more elaborate and complex, with a more simple phase (torram) being followed by a more elaborate one (velldttam) and so into the fully costumed teyyam. I refer the reader to Freeman's important work on this, which he links to a general theory of possession in South Asia

and to its linguistic mediation. But what I wish to emphasise here is that the teyyam dancers follow a text; they enact the narrative of the particular deity and perform the teyyam songs such that the body becomes the text. Freeman notes that the most significant aspect of the rite is the ritual transformation of the practitioner into the deity. He describes the process as follows:

each dancer comes individually before the opened shrine in which the priests have been performing piija to receive from them a folded banana leaf containing sandalwood paste and a ritual vessel of water (kindi). The dancer uses these to sprinkle himself and daub the paste over specified parts of his body in a prescribed fashion, starting with his head and ending at his feet. This sandalwood paste comes from the deity and being co-substantial with it, helps to transubstantiate the body of the dancer into that of the god. The places the paste is daubed are additionally said to correlate with the significant nodes and portals of the body according to the physiological conceptions of tantra, through which the performer absorbs, and is purified by, the divine energy. Some compared this explicitly with the ritualized bodily purification, the deha-suddhi rites of tantric priests. 72

The divinisation process culminates in the dancer gazing into a mirror when the thought arises 'this is not my form - this is the actual form of the goddess that I am seeing.' 73 Here Freeman shows how the everyday subject of first-person predicates becomes subsumed by the first-person predicate of the deity, who is a being within a cultural narrative, within a text. The dancer becomes the deity: to use Urban's technical terminology, the indexical-I becomes the T of discourse' in the text (see pp. 178-80) and the body of the dancer becomes entextualised. The process we have identified as characteristic of tantric traditions, namely the divinisation of the body as entextualisation, is clearly visible here where the teyyam dancer is directly linked to tantric conceptions of centres of corporeal power or cakras, and the purification of the body is directly linked to text and tradition.

While this is an example of 'good' possession, tantric texts and tantric-influenced texts are also concerned with 'bad' possession, with illness such as smallpox, madness or trance (unmada) and epilepsy (apasmara) caused by malevolent beings who need to be appeased or acknowledged in some way. Some tantric texts bear

witness to traditions of possession and exorcism. Three early texts in particular stand out which seem to bear witness to three distinct, though arguably interrelated, traditions, namely the Netra-tantra, the Kumdra-tantra, and the Isdnasivagurudeva-paddhati. Other texts also bear witness to possession and exorcism, such at the fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Kerala text the Tantrasdra-satngraha by Narayana, concerned with health more generally through mantra and toxicology. There are also connections between the material on possession in these texts and broader concerns of Ayurveda, especially the 'science of (exorcising) demons' {bhutavidyd). The precise relationship and intertextuality of all this material is a desideratum. Before this is done the following comments can be only of a general nature as pertaining to our theme. 74

The popular Saiva cults of the Kashmir valley in the medieval period, those of the Lord Netra and Svacchandabhairava, both forms of Siva each with their own Tantra (see p. 59), contain material on magical protection, rites for a desired goal (kdmya) such as the destruction of enemies or seduction, and possession and exorcism. The Netra-tantra presents us with a fascinating taxonomy of beings which need to be appeased to deflect possession, which include categories such as 'mothers' (mdtrkds) and 'demon-grabbers' (bhutagraha). These innumerable beings are classified by the Netra according to their desire; thus there are those wanting meat offerings (balikdma), those desiring to harm and kill (hantukdma) and those wanting sexual pleasure (bhoktukdma). 75. These beings are part of the hierarchical cosmos and each group forms a clan or family (kula) of a higher deity. By appeasing the higher deity the lower are thereby appeased. Thus the class of beings called vindyakas are themselves removed by worshipping their lord, Vighnesa (namely Ganesa) by offering him sweetmeats and plenty of alcohol.' 6 If someone is possessed by one of the innumerable 'mothers' who wish to harm a person, then the practitioner needs to perform worship to their source, namely the seven 'great mothers' (mahdmdtr), Brahml, Mahesvari and so on, from whose wombs they originated (see pp. 155—6). 77 Once these higher beings are appeased with offerings of rice, flowers, and four kinds of meat from domestic and wild, aquatic and flying animals, then so are the lower manifestations. 78

The Netra-tantra presents a tradition of possession and exorcism which, while having significant overlap with other Saiva systems, is nevertheless distinct. The Kumara-tantra, which Filliozat thinks originated in the north and spread to Tibet and Southeast Asia, contains material on possession by a number of different beings; the text is particularly important for the anti-demonic rituals it contains to appease the possessors of children, who give them sickness and fever. The text presents details of these ritual procedures, which comprise making offerings (bali), ablutions, fumigation, mantra repetition and pious works. 79 The text details the different kinds of being that possess children, such as the mothers (mdtr), Nandana, Putana, Kataputana and so on, 80 who are made calm (sdnti) by various offerings. For example, Kataputana, who has seized a small child with a fever, is appeased by making a clay effigy and offering perfumed betel, good white rice, white flowers, five standards (dhvajah), five lamps, and five pulse cakes (vatakdh) in the direction of the northeast, bathing the child with blessed water (sdntyudakam), offering garlands consecrated to Siva, a snake skin, incense and so on, along with the appropriate mantra. 81

There is some overlap between the concerns of the Kumara-tantra and the southern text of the Saiva Siddhanta, the Isdnasivagurudeva-paddhati, with one chapter focused on the Saiva exorcist deity Khad-garavana considerably overlapping. Here we find possession by twelve mothers (mdtrkd) or 'grabbers' (graht) who are within the sphere of Khadgaravana, 'Ravana with the sword', who is described in the ISG as having three heads each with three eyes and with ten arms holding a skull-topped staff, a trident, a sword, drum, a shield, a skull bowl, with the fear-not and boon-giving gestures. 82 The mothers within his sphere take away children but can be exorcised according to the same processes as found in the northern text. 83 It would seem then, that the Ravana cult existed in the South and indeed the Kumara-tantra does have a Tamil version. 84 We are, however, in a different world with the Isdnasivagurudeva-paddhati; it contains a distinct typology of eighteen kinds of supernatural beings, 85 the same typology occurring in the Kerala text the Tantrasdra-samgraha. 1 "' In a way not dissimilar to the Netra-tantra, Isanasivagurudeva groups these beings into those wanting to harm (hantukdma) and those wanting sexual

pleasure (ratikama), who are respectively fierce (agneya) and gentle (saumya). These innumerable beings, who inhabit remote places such as rivers, gardens, mountains, lakes, empty places, Buddhist stupas, (deserted?) temples and cremation grounds, possess vulnerable people with a low social standing or who are in a liminal condition such as children, people on their own at night, people whose wealth has been lost, those intoxicated with love, and those who wish to die. The text goes on to list various women vulnerable to possession, such as those who have bathed after menstruation, those who are naked, filled with passion, intoxicated, pregnant or prostitutes. 87 The world is populated by these supernatural beings, particularly Yoginis who take theriomorphic forms; one should never show anger towards them. 88 Possession is also related to caste: there are demons who possess Brahmans (brahmardksasa), warriors (ksatriyaraksasa) and commoners (vaisya). w The Tantrasara-samgraha presents similar concerns, although here interfaces much more explicitly with Ayurveda. Indeed, the text is particularly interesting in locating the origins of 'trance' or 'madness' (unmada) in both naturalistic and supernatural causes, due to the anger of a deity of guru certainly, but also due to unwholesome food, or emotional upset such as grief, fear, and desire for joy, and born from an inbalance in the three humours (tridosajdh) known to Ayurveda. 90

One interesting feature of this material is that the Isanasivagurudeva-paddhati does not maintain a distinction between the possessing being (the bhuta or whatever) and the possessed person. For example, the text describes the 'angry possessor' (hedraga grahi) as one who kneels or whose face is on the ground, grimacing, with clenched fists, and one afflicted by an 'ash' as being (bhasmagrahi) is ill-mannered, trembling and babbling with her/his eyes crossed. 91 This is a description of the possessed person but the text does not make any distinction clear, so in afflicting the possessed with 'remedies' the exorcist or mantrin is afflicting the possessing being. Having described these beings, the text goes on to prescribe how to banish them with varying degrees of harshness; if medicine and offerings {ball) have not freed the possessed, then the medicine (citkitsd) may be force. 92 Thus, the exorcist or master of mantras, the mantrin, should release the ghosts by repeating mantras, but if this does not work he needs to resort

to firmer ritual methods. Thus the opening of chapter 43 describes the following ritual procedures.

1-2. Repeating [the mantra] 'Heart, the sound of the Lord etc...' [while offering] pulse and jaggery, [the mantrin] visualising himself as Rudra, should hold down and beat [the possessed person], on account of which the demons free him in a moment. [Repeating the mantra] 'at the end of the heart...]' and so on and preparing this pulse, the demon frees one who eats it. A man who repeats [this mantra] namo bhagavate etc. should free the demons, ghosts and so on. 3. Having repeated [the mantra] 'savour, the sound of the moon of the heart' etc. seven times, [the mantrin] should fasten the top-knot of the possessed [to a tree] [then] the possessor will in time return once more in the citadel of fire and wind. 4-5. Writing on the possessed with ash and fixing him with mantra repeated a hundred and eight times, [the mantrin] should thrown water on his face. Repeating mantras and binding him to a pillar with a rope muttered over with mantras, [the mantrin] should fix [the demon]. 6. [Then] making a substitute body with rice flower (pristapratikrtim), he should invoke the demon into it, bringing it to life, [the mantrin] should destroy it with a knife. 7. [Then the mantrin] should cut the esoteric centres of the body (marman) with a trident and make blood flow if he has not [yet] freed the possessed from the possessor. 8. He should then offer the cut image anointed with black mustard into the fire pit, [then] abandoning the thousand [pieces in the fire] the burned demon flees. 1 "

Here we have the mantrin identifying himself with Rudra, empoy-ing mantras given in the text, writing mantras upon the possessed person, and even inscribing him with a trident to make blood flow from the secret centres {marman) known to Ayurveda. With these procedures the demons leave and return to their abode in fire or wind. Other procedures involve piercing the ersatz body (puttali or pistapratikrti) with sharp sticks. 94 Or the mantrin should 'write the demon' (likhed graham - the name) on the floor with charcoal and then, as before, pierce the body's centres {marman) with sticks of the neem tree. Either the 'crushing demon' dies or, having been released, he leaves immediately.' 5 There is an ambiguity in this verse about who dies, especially as the demon is identified with the possessed person in the text. If these procedures fail, then the mantrin should make offerings {bait) such as grain and blood-water {raktatoya) to appease the demons.*' The offering of 'blood-water'

strongly supports the view that this text is from Kerala, where, even to this day, a thick substance of substitute blood, 'blood-water' (guruti) is offered to deities. 97 This substance is to be used to purify and protect the house; thus the mantrin should scatter offerings {ball) in all directions for the pacification (santi) of all the bhutas and to ensure liberation for the possessed and possessors alike. 98 We can read 'liberation' (moksa) as being brought back into the fold of textually sanctioned, Brahmanical control. The supernatural beings succumb to the power of scripture sanctioned by tradition, so the possessed succumb to tradition through its inscription on their bodies.

Possession thus happens to people generally of low social standing, such as women and low castes, or those who are in liminal conditions such as emotional distress. The text is an excellent example of the ways in which the body is entextualised. We have a detailed account of how the possessed body is constructed through ritual procedures and an account of the colonisation of the body by tantric, Brahmanical orthodoxy represented by the mantrin. The interiority of the first person is subsumed by a more powerful first person, and the T comes to refer not to the everyday self but to a greater self defined within the parameters of the tradition. The body is colonised by textually defined supernatural beings, it is then recolonised by the Brahmanical tradition, tamed, controlled, and brought back into conformity through being entextualised in ways legitimised by a tantric, Brahmanical orthodoxy. Indeed the ritual procedures are familiar to us from other contexts, especially divinisation in the dehasuddhi or bhutasuddhi. This inscription of the text on to the body is at times literal, with the subtle centres of the possessed being inscribed with Siva's trident. The ritual procedures are tradition-specific - as we see from overlap with the Kumara-tantra - showing how the body becomes the vessel for supernatural beings, in a way not dissimilar to the divinisation of the body in the tantric ritual process of the bhutasuddhi, but this process is controllable and unwanted entry by lower categories of supernatural agents can equally be affected through ritual means. The entextualisation of the body is the control of the body and arguably the community's self-policing of its boundaries, as well as giving expression to those otherwise excluded from mainstream channels of expression.

So far we have seen how divinisation functions as a theme at different levels of tantric civilisation outside of the individual practitioner. The king becomes divinised through tantric abhiseka; the representation of erotic bodies on temples walls are divinised; and the body in possession becomes divinised in the sense that an external power occupies it. Kingship, the temple and possession share this common theme of transformation through empowerment, and this empowerment is determined in text- and tradition-specific ways. One last area that needs be mentioned here is devotion. Devotion or bhakti as a particular form of interiority is not central to tantric discourse and practice generally, but it is undoubtedly present as is attested by devotional hymns to deities and the supplication of practitioners to their gods for the purposes of power and/or liberation. Moreover tantric themes have affected the wider devotional culture of medieval India in profound ways. There is not time to examine these now, but suffice it to suggest that erotic bhakti, such as that articulated in the Bhagavata-purana and the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition more widely, is pervaded by tantric ideas, not only seen in the centrality of tantric Vaisnava theology in the form of the Pancaratra, but seen in the erotic devotion (madhural'srngara bhakti) of the late medieval Caitanya sect and the Gosvamins. Here devotion to Krsna is akin to the devotion of lovers, and as the deity enters the practitioner through formal ritual structure in tantric daily ritual or in possession, so the deity is invited to enter into the devotee. The types of devotion articulated by rupa Gosvamin in his Bhaktirasamrta sindhu" are ways in which the body becomes entextualised. Indeed, this kind of devotionalism becomes explicitly fused with a left-hand ritual practice in the Vaisnava Sahajiya sect. 100 The reverse is also true, that bhakti becomes influential and important in tantric traditions, especially the Pancaratra and Saiva Siddhanta in the South, but also in monistic Saivism.

We see from these examples that the body as structuring topos is closely connected to tantric revelation and the body's divinisation is closely linked to the text and the ritual construction of the body based on textual models. The body is central as a foundational metaphor in the history of tantric civilisation. More could be said about interface between Tantrism, especially possession, and bhakti,

but the examples given here are sufficient to show that divinisation is a theme common to this culture that has lasted for a millennium. We must now leave these more general considerations and return to the particularity of text and tradition in order to show how text and body interrelate, and to show in the context of practice the specificity of the claim of the body as text.

PART II

The Body as Text

FIVE

The Pancardtra

Although there are considerable difficulties, we can perhaps claim that our textual sources demonstrate three general levels at which the tantric traditions operated. First, there is the level of the individual practitioner, performing rites outside of the public gaze, who has undergone a possibly secret initiation in order to gain, primarily, supernatural power and final liberation. Second, there is what we might call temple tantra, which in the past supported royal claims to identification with tantric deities and is concerned with the installation of icons in temples, the performance of formal, temple worship, and rites of passage including funeral rites. This temple tantra still exists in South India in the Saiva Siddhanta tradition, in South Indian Sri Vaisnavism, and in Kerala where it is normative, temple Hinduism. Lastly we have popular religion, which is primarily concerned with the appeasing of ferocious deities, possession and exorcism. All of these layers of tantric practice involve the entextualisation of the body, and common ritual processes can be identified.

Although the vedic body forms the backdrop of tantric developments, the tantric traditions extend, modify and reject much of the vedic discourse about the body. While there are ideas in the tantric tradition that reflect the vedic, such as the theme that the body recapitulates the structure of the cosmos, some ideas and practices

are prototypically tantric, such as the divinisation of the body and tantric mantras. The tantric traditions are aware of Brahmanical purity laws as articulated in the dharmasastra and either accept and appropriate these laws at some level of practice or consciously transgress them in particular rites as being irrelevant to power and salvation.

In this chapter I will begin to show in some textual detail, with reference to the Pancaratra, the tantric Vaisnava tradition, how the body becomes inscribed by the text through which the practitioner internalises the tradition. The emanationist, hierarchical cosmology is reflected and enacted in the body in text-specific ways. Through an examination of this detailed example, we will be able to appreciate tantric ritual and soteriology in general, for to attain liberation is, broadly speaking, to trace a route back through the cosmos to its source, which is to trace a route through the body. This tracing a route through the body is the inscribing of tradition on to the body. While there are undoubtedly continuities from Brahmanical orthodoxy and orthopraxy, the specificity of the tantric traditions and their mutual differentiation lies in the way the body becomes the text. Understanding the entextualisation of the body allows us to see the commonality of process at work within tantrism and also the differentiation and particularity of tradition.

We begin our account with a description of an emanationist cosmology that is recapitulated in the body through ritual (both external and internal). The cosmos is mapped on to the body, not in an invariant way, but in different ways for different purposes in different texts. The entextualisation of the body is tradition- and text-specific, although the process is shared across traditions. This kind of mapping of the cosmos is of central importance for the tantric practitioner as it has soteriological consequences. Through symbolically mapping the cosmos in this way, the practitioner can retrace the emergence of the cosmos back to its source, the transcendent source of all phenomena. Historically much of this cosmology is derived from Samkhya philosophy. Like Samkhya the earliest texts and traditions are predominantly dualistic, or present a qualified dualism. There are no early texts that present an uncompromising monistic doctrine, as Sanderson has argued. Among the earliest

texts are those of the Pancaratra, which intend to maintain some distinction between the transcendent Lord and his creation and creatures, even though by 'creation' we mean that the Lord acts upon already pre-existent matter and upon beginningless souls. Although these texts are tantric and centrally concerned with ritual, they are also pervaded with devotionalism {bhakti). Indeed, bhakti could be said to be an important dimension in the Pancaratra textual corpus, as Oberhammer has shown with regard to a devotional creation narrative forming the 'frame story' (Rahmenerzdhlung) to the ritual description of the Paramasamhita. Indeed, as Oberhammer describes, one can connect this text with the Visistadvaita tradition, with its central emphasis on grace, whereby the individual entrusts himself to the highest God knowing that he cannot contribute to his own salvation. 1 But while there may be a strong theistic metaphysics in these texts, they are concerned with the ritual construction of the body as divine in order to approach this deity and share the common ritual concerns of other Tantras. Let us take our first example from Pancaratra cosmology and ritual.

Emanationist Cosmology

Accounts of cosmology in the texts are emanationist, which means that lower levels of the cosmos are thought to emerge or emanate from the higher due to the action of the will of a transcendent being. These cosmologies are generally structured with different levels embedded within each other, such that, to use Isayeva's insightful remark in respect of the Mdndukya Upankad, 'each higher level completely absorbs and incorporates all the ones below it'. 2 Let us illustrate this with a concrete example.

One of the most important texts of the tantric Vaisnava revelation is the jfaydkhya-samhitd, one of the Pancaratra's 'three gems', whose first chapters present an emanationist cosmology. 3 The Jaydkhya contains one of the earliest and most elaborate representations of cosmology and its interface with the daily ritual sequence of the practitioner. The text must be dated prior to the Kashmir Saiva author Utpalacarya (925-975 Ce), who quotes it. 4 First, we have pure creation (suddha-sargd), in which the transcendent Lord, the

Supreme Vasudeva, manifests in different forms that have different cosmological functions. Below this we have intermediate creation, in which limiting constraints begin to operate on individual souls, followed by impure creation where souls are bound by the cosmic principles. 5 In chapter four of the Jayakhya, the sage Narada asks the Lord (Bhagavat) to tell him about the pure creation and the Lord answers that the supreme absolute {brahman) is identical to the personal being of Vasudeva, from whom emanate lower forms. Let the text speak for itself:

[The ultimate reality] is non-distinct from Vasudeva and other manifestations. Having a hundred-fold radiance of fire, sun and moon, Vasudeva is the Lord, the truth of that [absolute], the supreme Lord. Agitating his own radiance through his own energy (tejas), the Lord whose form is light manifests the god Acyuta, like lightening, O Brahman. [Then] that Acyuta of firm radiance spreads his own form, dependent on Vasudeva as a wisp of cloud (depends) on the summer heat. Then shaking himself he [in turn] produced the god Satya, whose body is shining, as the ocean [produces] a bubble. He is called the light made of consciousness who produces himself by means of himself [as the god] called Purusa who is great, an unending stream of light. That supreme Lord is [in turn] the support of all the [lower] gods, their inner controller, as the sky [is the support] of the stars. As a fire with its fuel sends forth a mass of sparks, O twice-born one, so the Supreme Lord, who is yet desireless, [sends forth manifestation]. 6

Here Vasudeva (i.e. Krsna, the son of Vasudeva) emanates the forms of Acyuta, Satya and Purusa,' deities we are familiar with from the related Vaikhanasa tradition. The Pancaratra knows these as vyuhai" emanations, who in other Pancaratra literature possess the names of Vasudeva's brother Samkarsana, his son Pradyumna and his grandson Aniruddha. 9 While in their essence these gods are non-distinct from Vasudeva, each is an aspect of the supreme being with a cosmological function in the manifestation of lower worlds. 10 Vasudeva has six pure qualities (guna), namely knowledge (jnana), majesty (aisvarya), power (sakti), strength (bala), energy (virya) and splendour (tejas), from which the vyilhas are made.

In other Pancaratra texts, after the pure creation comes a middle layer or 'mixed creation' containing the categories of lower material energy, the Maya Sakti, along with the cosmic self of Purusa. In the

jfaydkhya, this Purusa is not the vyuha but a lower manifestation conceptualised as the basis for all empirical beings in the lower order of creation. It is a 'beehive' (kosa madhukrta) from which all individual souls (jiva) emanate, contaminated by the dust of beginningless karmic traces (like the scent of pollen 11 ), and to which they return during the periodic destruction or reabsorption of the lower creation. 12 The universe in which they are born and which they inhabit is made up from Maya Sakti, who generates the lower orders. In the Laksmi-tantra she is identified with the Goddess Maha LaksmI as the power (sakti) of Purusa, herself divided into the three goddesses, Maha Sri, Maha Kali and Maha Vidya, as manifestations of the three cosmic qualities or gunas. Maha Sri is identified with a body made of qualities (gaunamaya vapus) and the other two with a body of time (kdlamaya vapus). This complex scheme is the result of the incorporation of an earlier system of twenty-four categories (tattva) in the Samkhya tradition into the Pancaratra and an identification of abstract, cosmic principles with deities.

From Maya emanates Prakrti, the foundation of material creation, from whom emanates the 'great one' (mahat) (see below). From this is generated the 'I-maker' (ahamkara) and thence the mind (manas) for dealing with worldly transaction, the five senses, five capacities for acting, the subtle elements (sound, touch, form, taste and smell) and the five material elements (space, air, fire, water and earth). 13 The individual soul is covered, as it were, by these emanations of Sakti and thereby entrapped. Thus liberation comes to be envisaged as the separation of the soul from this material entrapment through the grace of God.

What is significant about the Samkhya categories is that they both represent stages in the development or unfolding of the cosmos and are also categories for the analysis of the person. There is both a cosmic and an individual function to the tattvas; a cosmic dimension which would seem to have been present from the very beginning of thinking in this way. 14 It is clear that there are difficulties in making the tattvas as an analysis of the person correspond to an analysis of cosmical unfolding. The first emergent principle from foundational matter (prakrti) is the great one (mahat), which is usually identified with buddhi, 15 often translated as 'intelligence' but

perhaps better rendered as 'higher mind' as its function is not only one of discrimination but it also has a cosmological function beyond the individual. 16 This might be reflected in its alternative name, 'the great one' (mahat). In the Samkhya system of philosophy and in the Tantras, the buddhi contains within it the constraints that become operative at the lower levels. These constraints are called the bhavas, which we might render as 'dispositions', and the pratyayas, we might render as 'motivations' or 'foundational conceptions', the dispositions being the cause of the foundational concepts. 17 The dispositions are listed as 'moral duty' (dharma), knowledge (jnana), dispassion (vairagya) and majesty (aisvarya), along with their op-posites, adharma, ajnana and so on. The foundational conceptions are perfection (siddhi), contentment (tusti), powerlessness (asakti) and error (viparyaya). All are contained within the buddhi and are themselves governed by the famous qualities (gunas) of lightness (sattva), passion (rajas) and dark inertia (tamas), which come into operation from within the material foundation (prakrti). 18 Thus there is a complex causal sequence that constrains or limits a being to what it is. The qualities within the material foundation of the lower universe generate the dispositions within the buddhi, which in turn give rise to the foundational conceptions that govern a person.

From the buddhi the 'I-maker' (ahamkara) is produced. This, under the sway of the gunas, generates three forms which govern the lower evolutes, namely rajasic ahamkara, which generates the worldly mind (manas) and the five senses; sattvic ahamkara, which generates the five action capacities (talking, handling, walking, reproducing and eliminating waste); and tamasic ahamkara, which generates the subtle elements (sound, touch, form, taste, and smell). These in turn generate the five material elements (space, air, fire, water and earth). 19

In absorbing this ancient cosmological structure and complicating it through adding their own levels, the tantric traditions inherit a model of causation called 'transformation' (parindmavdda), whereby an effect is a real transformation of its cause, 20 along with Samkhya. In Samkhya there is an eternal distinction between the individual self (purusa) and the material foundation (prakrti), which the tantric traditions adopt but reinterpret within their own metaphysics. Thus

in the Pancaratra we see that the purusa is reinterpreted to mean not the individual self, as in Samkhya, but a cosmic self that is the basis or foundation of all particular selves, which absorbs those selves back at a dissolution of the cosmos and throws them out again at a creation. Unlike the atheistic Samkhya, the Pancaratra claims that all this cosmic process is generated by a transcendent God, the Lord of the universe; while matter is generated out of his female energy, the souls retain some distinction from him even once they are liberated. While there is a sense in which the liberated soul becomes one with the Lord, the texts display a great deal of ambivalence about this and wish to maintain their ontological distinction. As Marion Rastelli observes with regard to the Jayakhya-samhita, this is above all a philosophy of 'difference in identity' (bhedabheda) in which the self is not identical but a fragment (amsa) of the Lord. 21 Thus we read in the Jayakhya (quoted above) that manifestation is akin to sparks from a fire; the sparks partake of the same substance yet are also distinct. So the Jayakhya can say that although the Lord abides in distinctions, he is really one (eka). 22

Clearly the Pancaratra is theistic in positing a transcendent Lord as the creator and source of the universe, and the individual, animating principle as a particle of that transcendent being, yet retaining some distinction. Although the Lord is one, this is no monism in which the totality of the transcendent is coextensive with the totality of the universe. In his essence (svarupa) the Lord has no point of comparison (anaupamya), omniscient, omnipresent, beyond being (sat) and non-being (asat), he possesses all qualities yet is bereft of them; standing far away he is yet in the heart, and so on. 2 ' This apophatic language would not be out of place in Christianity and it conveys the utter transcendence of the theistic reality it proposes. In relation to this the self, constrained by the restrictions that govern the lower order universe, seems insignificant. Yet while the self's being is wholly dependent upon the transcendent theistic reality, Para Vasudeva, it remains distinct in the face of his utter transcendence.

Having given an account of manifestation, the text then goes on to show how this is mapped on to the body in daily ritual procedures and that the cosmological scheme is not simply presented

Pancaratra cosmology

Transcendent Vasudeva Pure Creation

The vyuhas

Vasudeva

Samkarsana/Acyuta

Pradyumna/Satya

Aniruddha/Purusa

Further emanations as sub-vyuhas, incarnations (avatiira) and temple images (area)

Purusa Maya Mixed Creation

(source of bound souls) (source of lower creation) I

The lower tattvas Impure Creation

as information, but is used in ritual procedures and is thought to have soteriological effects. That is, the structure of the universe is part of the process of the soul's liberation, as the path to liberation is a path through this cosmological scheme. The 'map' presented in Pancaratra cosmology functions to show the practitioner a way through to transcendence.

The Purification of the Body 24

The very structure of the Jayakhya reflects the entextualisation of the body. First the text presents an account of the hierarchical cosmos along the lines of the description we have just seen, and second it presents the ritual pattern that the initiated practitioner must follow in his daily practice, broadly comprising, after purificatory ablutions (sndna), the purification of the elements within the body (bhutasuddhi or dehasuddhi), the divinisation of body through imposing mantras upon it (nydsa), internal worship of the deity {antaral manasa-ydga) performed purely in the imagination, followed by external worship (bahya-ydgd) with offerings of flowers, incense and so on to the deity. 25 This general ritual structure is found in all tantric traditions. To illustrate the ways in which the body becomes

text I will focus on the stages of this ritual process, the purification of the body, the divinisation of the body, mental or inner worship, followed by external worship. In order to explicate the point fully, it is necessary to consider the issue in greater detail.

The origins of the bhutasuddhi practice are unclear. The jfaydkhya presents the fullest account of it in the tantric literature, although the purification of the elements is also found in Buddhist Vajrayana ritual, although some Vajrayana texts (the Anuttarayoga Tantras) are themselves derived from Saiva prototypes. 26 The roots of the bhutasuddhi may, however, be much older. There are arguably two sources: offerings made into the sacrificial fire in vedic ritual, and early cosmological speculation of Samkhya and proto-Samkhya metaphysics. For example, the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad describes making offerings of ghee into the sacred fire to the earth, atmosphere and sky, 2 ' 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, 28 where, particularly in the Brahmanas, correspondence (bandhu) between the sacrifice and the cosmos becomes central to ritual performance and speculation. 2 ' Second, its origins may arguably be found in early Buddhist meditation exercises (krtsna/ kasina) and the cultivation of the meditative sign (nimitta) that leads into meditative absorption (dhydna/jhdna). Indeed, it is possibly here that we find the origins of the visualisation methods that were to become so important in the tantric traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist. These exercises are ten among forty objects of meditation described in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga,™ although they also occur in the Pali canon itself. 31 The kasinas comprise the five elements and five colours, 12 focusing upon which leads into the higher levels of meditation. For example, the earth kasina is a clay disc, an object that is concentrated upon until the image is internalised within consciousness without external support. In this way the kasina is akin to the internally arising sign (nimitta), like an afterimage, which leads into jhdna? 3 Traces of these practices can perhaps be found in the bhutasuddhi.

In a Hindu context, the bhutasuddhi earliest occurrences are in the Jayakhya and in the Saiva Kdmikdgama. M There is a passage in

the Netra-tantra, a Saiva text from Kashmir, which mentions the five elements in connection with the pots required for consecration (abhiseka) of the teacher (acarya) and practitioner (sddhaka), although no ritual details are given, the text functioning more as a mnemonic of assumed knowledge on behalf of the reader. 35 In Saiva Siddhanta a standard source for the bhutasuddhi is the Somasambhu-paddhati (eleventh century ce), itself based on the Kamikagama and the Acintyavisvasadhdkhya, which, Brunner-Lachaux observes, follows Somasambhu in places line by line. 16 The Isdnasivagurudeva-paddhati follows Somasambhu, as does the Aghorasivacarya-paddhati (twelfth century ce). The term bhutasuddhi also occurs in other treatises of the Saiva Siddhanta, including a text simply named the Bhutasuddhi. 7 ' 1 Later the bhutasuddhi is found in medical or Ayurvedic practices within the regime of cleansing the body's impurities. 18 To demonstrate a common structure in the bhutasuddhi rite, and so to demonstrate a common structure of the body being inscribed by tradition, I shall follow the ritual procedure described in the Jayakhya and in the next chapter show parallels with the Saiva material.

The Bhutasuddhi in the Tantric Revelation

In spite of the professed divergence of the Saiva and Pancaratra 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 Pancaratra and Saiva traditions. 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, and to the common structure of entextualising the body, although in tradition-specific ways.

Part of this textually represented ritual substrate are various hierarchical cosmologies which share the common pattern of lower forms emanating from higher, as described in the passage quoted above. A common scheme found in tantric texts is the 'six ways'

(sadadhvan), which are parallel ritual courses through the cosmos inscribed on the body." 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 Samkhya ones, while the Pancaratra assumes only the Samkhya categories, although it has cosmological functions analogous to the higher Saiva ones, as we have seen. 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 Tattvaprakasa w - their primary importance is as ritual rather than theological entities; cosmology has a primarily ritual function in these traditions. 41 This can be illustrated particularly well in the bhiitasuddhi sequence where the cosmos is mapped on to 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 Samkhya in which the gross elements (bhuta) that comprise the physical world are dissolved into the subtle elements (tanmdtra) that are their source. The purification of the body through dissolving its constituent elements into their cause would seem to be a characteristically tantric practice. 42

Within all tantric ritual, visualisation of ritual action and deities is of central importance in daily and occasional rites, and in both the Pancaratra and Saiva Siddhanta to perform a visualisation is to perform a mental action that has soteriological effects. Once initiated, the Saiva or Vaisnava adept in these cults was expected to perform obligatory daily worship. For the Pancaratrin his practice meant following the Pancaratra samskaras, whereby his body was inscribed with tradition by being branded at initiation (tapa) with a hot iron discus (cakra), being given a ritual name, reciting mantra, and engagaing in ritual practice (yaga).* 3 The Pancaratrin's daily observances involved five obligatory acts adopted from vedic orthopraxy, characterised by Gupta as the recitation of laudatory verses or stotras (brahmayajna), daily liturgy {devayajna), making offerings to malevolent supernatural beings (bhutayajna), making offerings to the

no The Tantric Body

ancestors (pitryiajha) and the feeding of (Vaisnava) guests (nryajna). 44 The Saiddhantika similarly follows the orthoprax injunctions of the dharmasastra, performing rites at the junctures (samdhya) of the day, particularly the puja at dawn (as do the Pancaratrins). 45 The purpose of this daily rite, apart from its being a sign of the devotee's adherence to the cult of his initiation, was to enable him eventually to destroy the limiting factors (mala) which constrain his soul (jiva) within the cycle of reincarnation (samsara) and so to be ready for liberation (moksa) by receiving the grace of the Lord (Siva or Visnu) at his death. In this sense the Pancaratra and Saiva Siddhanta are very different from the monistic traditions of non-Saiddhantika Saivism, as Sanderson has demonstrated. 46

The Jayakhya describes four classes of adept, the samayajna, putraka, sddhaka and acary a, 41 each having undergone a particular ablution (abhiseka) as part of his initiation (diksa).** As other texts, the Jayakhya has the male practitioner in mind, although it does allow women initiation, aligning them with sudras. 49 Chapter 10 of the Jayakhya is devoted to the bhutasuddhi and the spiritual ascent of the soul (jiva) ready for the creation of the divinised body. 50 Through symbolically destroying the physical or gross body, the adept can create a pure, divinised body (divyadeha) with which to offer worship to the deities of his system. He does this first only in imagination and second in the physical world, for - as in all tantric systems - only a god can worship a god. The textual representation of the bhutasuddhi is set within a sequence in which the physical or elemental body (bhautika-sarira) is purified and the soul ascends from the heart through the body, and analogously through the cosmos, to the Lord Narayana located at the crown of the head. The text presents us with a detailed account of this process, which can be summarised as follows.

Going to a pure, unfrequented, but charming place, the adept offers obeisance to the Lord and pays homage to the lineage of teachers (gurusantati), and having received the mental command (manasi-ajha) from the Lord and lineage of teachers, he is ready to perform mental action (manasim nirvahet... kriyam). 51 The practitioner purifies his hands with the weapon (astro) mantra and purifies the place by visualising Visnu, like a thousand suns, vomiting flames from

his mouth. The earth then appears as if baked by the fire of mantra. 52 In this process we see the construction of a 'ritual body' in opposition to the 'genetic' or 'biological' body, which, in its non-ritual state, is impure (malina), subject to decay, not autonomous (asvatantra), and made from blood and semen (retoraktodbhava).^ The non-purified body is the opposite of the Lord's body possessed of the six qualities. 54 This 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. 55 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 SLAM PRTHIVYAI HUM PHAT corresponding to the earth element, which are modified for each element, replacing the seed syllable (bija) SLAM with SVAM, HYAm and KSMAM as necessary. 56 Each of the elements is visualised 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 (sakti) of the powers (vibhava) or subtle elements (tanmatra) which gave rise to it. For example, the Jaydkhya describes the purification of the earth element as follows:

[The practitioner] should visualise a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder, connected with the five, sound etc. [i.e. the five subtle elements sabda, sparsa, rupa, 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, [the earth is] gradually dissolved in its own 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.' 7

This process of inhaling the visualised 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. The energy of smell having been exhaled 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 flavours {rasa) - 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 (rasasaki), which he emits with the exhaled breath. 58 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 (svaprakasa-sarira), 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 (rupasakti), and exhaled as before. 59 Similarly the air element is inhaled, pervades from throat to navel and is exhaled as the energy of touch (sparsasakti). m This merges into space (akasa), 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 (sabdasakti), and is emitted through the aperture at the crown of the head (brahmarandhra). 61 All this is accomplished by the power of the mantras of the elements. Having left the body through the brahmarandhra, individualised consciousness (caitanya jivabhuta) has transcended the 'cage of the elements' (bhutapahjara) by rising through the stages of space, the stars, lightening, the sun and moon, stages which are themselves found in the Upanisads. 62 In this way the soul ascends in imagination up the central channel of the body (susumna) 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 (tejopunja) standing within a circle of light; 63 a standard identification of Narayana with the sun. The joy that arises is the supreme energy of Visnu (para vaisnavl sakti) M and results in a state of higher consciousness (samadhi) that is the ineffable freedom from ideation (sahkalpanirmukta avacya). bi

He enjoys this state of bliss, but 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 that are then washed away to the quarters in his imagination by a flood of milky water arising from his meditation. 66 With the universe of his imagination now filled with the ocean of milk, a lotus emerges out of it containing Narayana, whose essence is his mantra, the truth of the six cosmic paths. 6 ' The sadhaka's body, identified with Narayana, is purified, freed from old age and death and has the appearance of pure crystal and the effulgence of a thousand suns and moons. 68 Having purified his body in this way, his soul enters the inner lotus of this subtle body {puryastaka) through the aperture of the absolute from which it had earlier vacated its residence. With a calm awareness (prasannadht) the adept is ready to perform worship of the deity (yajed devam); 69 that is, ready to perform the divinisation of the body through imposing mantras upon it, followed by mental sacrifice (mdnasaydga) and external sacrifice (bahyayaga), described in the following chapters.

The Divinisation of the Body

The divinisation of the body is a crucial juncture in tantric worship, for through this procedure the practitioner identifies himself with the deities of the tradition. With the divinisation of the body through imposing or fixing mantras upon it, we see the formation of a body in ways specific to text and tradition. It is perhaps in the divinisation process that we see the particularity of the entextualisation and the variable indexicality that constitutes subjectivity in these traditions. The mantras and deities imposed on the body are specific to the particular text, and the body is thus formed in a text-specific way. The process of imposing mantras on the body is called nydsa, from the verbal root ny plus as, to put or cast down, 70 within whose semantic range is to place something in a picture, to paint and depict. The practitioner touches the requisite part of the body and recites the correct mantra. The jfaydkhya is in no doubt about the importance of this procedure as it makes the practitioner 'equal to the god of gods' (devadevasama), fearless, and having power over unexpected death. 71

The simple plank laid on the ground upon which the practitioner is seated becomes the 'throne' (dsana) for the divinity he will become. Beginning with the hands, specific mantras from the pantheon of the jfaydkhya are imposed on all the fingers. Thus the root mantra (mulamantra) along with the form mantra (murtimantra) (namely om kslm ksih namah, Narayanaya visvdtmane hrim svdhd) should first be fixed on the right thumb followed by the other gods beginning with the forefinger. The sakti mantras, comprising the four Vaisnava goddesses Laksmi, Klrti, Jaya and Maya in their sound form as their mantras, are placed on the fingers. Thus the Laksmi mantra is placed on the ring finger, the Klrti on the middle finger, Jaya on the ring finger, and Maya on the little finger. Next the anga mantras are imposed on the hands in reverse order from this procedure, the 'heart' (hrt) mantra on the little finger, followed by the 'head' (siras), 'tuft' (sikhd), 'armour' (kavaca), to the 'weapon' (astro) on the thumb and the 'eye' (netra, locana) on all the fingertips. This is followed by imposing further sets on mantras on the hands, the vaktra mantras comprising the deities Nrsimha, the man-lion incarnation of Visnu; Kapila, the founding sage of the Samkhya tradition identified with Visnu; and Varaha, the boar incarnation. The 'marking' or lanchana mantras comprise the objects held by Visnu such as the conch, discus, and club, themselves regarded as deities, and the secondary, updnga mantras comprise the all important vyuhas, the emanations Vasudeva, Sarikarsana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha along with Satya. All of these are finally sealed with the pervading, seven-syllable mantra that is imposed over them all.' 2

With the hands divinised, the practitioner goes on to place mantras of the same deities throughout the body, on the head, eyes, ears, mouth, shoulders, hands (again), buttocks, heart, back, navel, hips, knees and feet. 73 For example, Laksmi and Kirti are fixed on the right and left shoulders with Jaya on the right hand and Maya on the left.' 4 This stage of the process is completed with the great seven-syllable mantra of Narayana being applied to the body from head to foot, covering and protecting it like armour. Indeed, Narayana is the inner support of all the mantras, all the deities.' 5 Finally the practitioner is fully divinised and identified with Visnu-Narayana. He visualises himself as Visnu possessing the six divine qualities (guna) of the

Pancaratra divinity, namely knowledge (jnana), majesty (aisvarya), power (sakti), strength {bald), energy (vlrya) and splendour (tejas). 76 His ritual action has ensured the identification of himself, his everyday indexical-I, with the absolute divine subjectivity of his god. His ego (ahamkdra) is ritually transformed into the absolute subjectivity of Visnu, and thus he can say at the end of the divinisation process 'I am the Lord Visnu, I am Narayana, Hari, and I am Vasudeva, all-pervading, the abode of beings, without taint.' 7 ' Divinised in this way, the practitioner can proceed to inner worship and finally external worship of his god.

With this ritual sequence we are presented with an excellent example of the way the body becomes the text in tantric traditions. The practitioner imposes deities as mantras upon his body and these mantras and deities are text- and tradition-specific. While the material of the Jaydkhya is recapitulated to a large extent in the Laksmi-t antra, the text is unique in its full explication of the ritual process of the identification of the practitioner with the universe and divinity. While the process, as I argue, is common to tantric traditions, the content is always text- and tradition-specific. Thus the initiate into the Pancaratra, specifically the jfaydkhya-samhitd, becomes divinised by Pancaratra deities through Pancaratra mantras.

This divinisation of the body in a ritual sequence furthermore functions to expand the practitioner's subjectivity. Once again we see how indexicality is variable and the subject of first person predicates, the indexical-I of everyday transaction, becomes expanded to the cosmic subjectivity of Visnu. It is this indexical variability that is important in the ritual sequence that is directly linked to the entextualisation of the body. With the Pancaratra there is a potential theological problem in that Visnu-Narayana is thought to be ontologically distinct from the devotee, and this would generally seem to be the case, but at the level of ritual this theological desire for separation is eroded. We are dealing here with a tradition that might be characterised as having both monistic and theistic or dualistic dimensions, or, as its later theological articulation has it, a theology of 'qualified non-dualism' {visistadvaita). The Lord is transcendent in himself (and essentially unknowable in his inner essence, as Ramanuja claims) but is known in the ritual process. The

question of the relation between doctrine and ritual in the tantric traditions is complex, but the evidence of the jfayakhya and other texts indicates a level of processual invariance between traditions. The pattern of ritual remains constant, but is filled out with text- and tradition-specific content, especially the mantras. The theological distinction between self and transcendent Lord is suspended in the ritual process and the subjectivity of the practitioner becomes coterminous with the subjectivity of the Lord, an identification that is created and enacted in ritual, in the entextualisation of the body. The ritual process continues with inner worship.

Inner Worship

The Jaydkhya describes a process of visualisation for establishing the supreme Lord within the heart envisaged as a throne (antara-manasa-yaga). During the inner worship, the practitioner visualises the hierarchical cosmos in the forms of deities located within his own body. The account that follows is from the Jayakhya, although an almost identical account is found in the Laksmi-tantra. Rastelli shows how the throne, as visualised in this sequence, also occurs in other Samhitas.' 8

We have here a constructed vision of the body in which the hierarchical universe pervades the practitioner's body from the genitals to the heart. 79 First, the power of the earth, the adhara-sakti, is mapped on to the penis; Rastelli notes that that this power corresponds to the famous Goddess Kundalini, 80 although she is not explicitly mentioned in the Jayakhya. Above her is the 'fire of time' (kdldgni), then the Tortoise (kurma) bearing the insignia of Visnu, the discus and club. Above him is the cosmic snake Ananta, upon which Visnu is represented as lying, in traditional mythology; above him is the Earth goddess and above her at the level of the navel is the ocean of milk. Out from this arises a white lotus which gives rise to sixteen supports of the throne. These comprise the eight dispositions (bhava) of the buddhi, the four sacred scriptures or Vedas and the four ages of the world (yuga). They support a white lotus, upon which are the sun, moon and fire. Above these, although not explicitly named in

this sequence in the Jayakhya, is the 'throne of being' (bhavasana), upon which rests the vehicle of Visnu, the great mythological bird Garuda, and the boar incarnation Varaha. Visnu is invoked in due course upon his mount. Each of these visions is in turn identified with one of the hierarchical categories or tattvas of the Sankhya system, with the addition of two more tattvas, time (kdla) and lordship (jsvaratva), making a total of twenty-seven. I shall cite a long passage of the constructed vision in the Jayakhya in order to present some flavour of these ritual, visionary texts, and in order that we can demonstrate in concrete terms the entextualisation of the body. The visualisation in the Jayakhya is described as follows:

So having formerly become Visnu [through the purification of the body previously described], the practitioner should then worship Visnu with the mental sacrifice. [1] Imagining [the area] between the penis and the navel filled with four parts, one should visualise the energy whose form is the earth (Adhara-sakti), above that the fire of time [Kalagni], above that Ananta, and then the Earth Goddess [Vasudha Devi]. [2~3b] From the place of the 'bulb' (kanda) to the navel is divided into four parts. Visualising the ocean of milk in the navel and then a lotus arising [out of it], extending as far as a thousand petals and whirling with a thousand rays [of light], having the appearance of a thousand rays, he should fix the throne on its back. [3C-5b] The fourfold [dispositions] dharma, knowledge, detachment, and majesty, descend by means of their own mantras to the four [directions] of Fire [the south east] and so on [south west, north west and north east], fixing those four up to the abode of the Lord Isana [the north east]. On the four feet of the throne they are white, with lion faces, but the forms of men in their body and possessing exceeding strength. [5c—7] The parts from the eastern direction up to the northern abode are fixed with the opposites of dharma, knowledge, detachment, and majesty. These are of human form, blazing like the red bandhuka flower. [8-oh] The four [scriptures] the Rg-veda and so on have the form of a horse-man, are yellow, and [situated] in between the east and the direction of the Lord [north-east], between the east and the direction of Fire [the south east], between the south-west and Varuna [the west], and between the wind [north-west] and Varuna [the west]. [9C-10] The group of ages, namely Krta and so on, have the form of a bull-man, are black, and are located in the directions between Isana [north-east] and Soma [north], between Antaka [another name for Yama, the south] and Agni [south-east], between Yama [south] and the demon [Yaksasa, the south-west], and between the Moon [the north]

and the wind [north-west]. [11-120] They all have four arms; with two they support the throne and with two they make obeisance to the Lord of the universe. [12C-130]

Above them he should fix first a white lotus [and then] threefold [forms, namely sun moon and fire], way above with those mantras, arising from himself and previously articulated, O Narada. On the back of that he should establish both the King of Birds and the Boar. Having imagined [the area] from the navel to the heart pervaded by five equal sections, he should worship the mantra-throne. [13C-15]. 81

In this complex ritual process the structure of the body is made to correspond to the structure of the cosmos: the body becomes an index of the cosmos, which, as we shall see, is itself conceptualised in terms of the body. But this is a representation always mediated by the text. The cosmos is represented in the text and the cosmos within the body is represented in the text. The enactment of this correspondence in daily ritual therefore makes the body conform to the text. We can understand the text as body more clearly by paying attention to the language of the texts themselves, particularly their indexicality, and through the processes that are involved in their reading.

External Worship

After creating himself as the deity, inscribing the body with the text in visualisation and imposing mantras upon it, the practitioner is ready to perform external worship (bdhya-ydga), making offerings to the deity in the physical world. The Jaydkhya raises the question that the performance of external worship may seem superfluous, 82 and to the question as to why external worship should be performed after the internal the Laksmi-tantra says that while inner worship removes karmic traces (ydsand) from internal causes, external worship removes karmic traces from external causes. 83 The Jayakhya describes the construction of a diagram (mandala) in which to house the deity for the purpose of worship. Offerings are gathered together and Narayana's presence along with his retinue of deities is invoked through mantra and visualisation and installed in the mandala. Incense and food are offered to the deity, along with bell

sounds and so on - in other words, a standard puja for a Hindu deity. Mantra repetition is performed with a rosary (aksamala),* 4 followed by the fire offerings (homo) made into the fire-pit (kunda), as would occur in a standard Brahmanical rite. 85 Some concluding rites round off the ceremony and the practitioner is enjoined not to forget the Lord.

The ritual procedure for the initiate presented in the Jayakhya-samhita follows a standard pattern that in some sense shows the conservative nature of tantric tradition in following a textually prescribed ritual procedure and also shows the continuities with standard, Brahmanical practice in the early medieval period. The composers of the Jayakhya and the practitioners who followed the text were not radicals trying to disrupt the Brahmanical system, but practitioners upholding the traditional values of their community through participating in the rites. The tantric Pancaratrin saw his tradition as complementing and completing the vedic, and the deity and practice of his cult as ensuring salvation. Through entextualising the body in ritual he is making himself conform to the tradition and attempting to undergo a transformation in text-specific ways. We will look at further examples of this from the Saiva tradition before going on to present an analysis of some of this material showing how the indexical-I becomes identified with the I implied in the texts.

SIX

Saiva Siddhanta

In the texts of the Saiva Siddhanta, the central tantric Saiva tradition which provides the normative rites, cosmology and theological categories, we find a similar process occurring as that in the Pancaratra. The Saiva texts prescribe not only ritual procedures along with their theological justification but behaviour for a whole way of life. The texts lay down details of how tradition is internalised and how the narrative of a life is to be made to conform to it through a ritual pattern occurring over a lifetime, through control of the general bodily habitus, and through developing tradition-specified codes of conduct.

The ritual manuals Somasambhu-paddhati and Isdnasivagurudeva-paddhati (which quotes the former), are separated from the Jfaydkhya by at least a couple of centuries, and their origins are in different parts of the subcontinent: the jfaydkhya is probably from the Kashmir region, 1 Somasambhu (second half of the eleventh century Ce) was the abbot of a monastery at Golaka (golakt-matha) in South India, probably in Tamil Nadu or the Telugu region, himself in a lineage of compilers of ritual manuals; 2 and the Isdnasivaguradeva-paddhati, which postdates Somasambhu, is probably from Kerala. 1 Considering the regional, temporal and cultic diversity of these texts, it is therefore very striking that such common process occurs at the level of ritual representation as, while there is a line of development

from Somasambhu to Isanasivagurudeva, there is no such direct historical link with the JS. While we need to raise the question as to whether a repeated ritual sequence that shares a structural process with another text is the same, there is clear textual evidence that the texts follow a sequence of purification of place and body, divinisa-tion of the body, inner worship followed by external worship. We are arguably looking in the medieval tantric traditions at a shared pattern of ritual behaviour, which may be accompanied by different cosmological terms and a different understanding of precisely what is occurring. The monist theologian Abhinavagupta, for example, claims in his commentary on the Paratnsika that the ritual sequence in the text should be understood as occurring within consciousness itself, 4 thereby critiquing the Saiva Siddhanta view that ritual itself is efficacious in liberation, and raising the question as to whether a ritual sequence that appears similar or identical at a surface level is nevertheless quite different because of the different metaphysics underlying it. While this is a valid point, I would simply wish to claim that at a descriptive phenomenological level there are shared ritual terminologies and processes that suggest that in terms of ritual action there is a constant pattern across traditions even though there may be a divergent theological superstructure. Indeed, more than this, Helene Brunner has convincingly argued that three Tantras seem to share a common ritual inheritance with regard to daily Saiva ritual, namely the Svacchanda-tantra, the Mrgendra-t antra and the Kamikagama. The Svacchanda is purportedly non-dualist and from the north, while the Mrgendra and Kamika are from the south and dualistic, yet they all participate in a common ritual heritage which is later described by Somasambhu and those who base their own manuals on his. Indeed, Brunner observes that the three Tantras form the base of modern Saiva ritual in the south, as can be witnessed in the Saiva temples of Tamil Nadu. 5

To illustrate the ritual process let us begin, as we did with the Paficaratra, with cosmology in the Saiva Siddhanta, or how the cosmos is mapped on to the body in the ritual process, which is a mapping of the self and placing of the self in a cosmological context. While the Paficaratra used the Samkhya categories, the Saiva Siddhanta developed this much more, adding eleven Saiva categories

or tattvas to the twenty-five Samkhya ones. The pattern of supreme, mixed and impure creation that we find in some Pancaratra texts we also find in the Saiva Siddhanta. Following the pattern of the previous chapter, we will begin with the cosmological account in a Saiva Siddhanta as presented in Bhojadeva's Tattvaprakasa and Bhatta Ramakantha's commentary on the Kir an a-t antra. We will then be in a position to move on to an account of ritual, showing how the body becomes populated with the cosmic hierarchy; in the terminology I have developed here, how the body becomes entextualised and the cosmos mapped on to the self.

Saiva Siddhanta Doctrine

Doctrinally the Saiva Siddhanta is 'dualistic' in maintaining an ontological distinction between self and transcendent Lord, though it might more accurately be called pluralistic in maintaining not only this distinction, but a distinction between self, Lord and universe which itself comprises innumerable particularities (although these particularities stem from a common substrate). 6 Bhojadeva (c. 1000-1050) 7 in his Illumination of the Categories {Tattvaprakasa) sums up the doctrine in his opening verses, that in the Saiva scriptures (saivdgama) the principal topic is the triad of Lord (pati), bound soul or beast (pasu), and universe or bond (pdsa). s The soul is likened to a cow tethered by a rope, to be freed from its tether by the Lord. This bond has five components, which the commentator Sri Kumaradeva, citing a scripture, lists as pollution (mala), action (karma), illusion-power (mayo), the universe, that arises from that illusion (mayotthamakhilam jagat) and the power of concealing (tirodhanakari saktih). 9 The innumerable souls, although in reality distinct, are bound within the universe from which they may be freed (mukta) by Siva's grace (prasdda). Once freed they realise themselves to be Sivas or to be like or equal to Siva (sivatulya, sivasamaya), but they remain ontologically distinct. Only Siva has always been free (anadimukta). 10

The general cosmological function of the five components of pdsa is to bind souls into the cycle of transmigration through the

innumerable worlds of the cosmos. Bhojadeva - as Saiva Siddhanta texts generally - classifies kinds of souls according to their degree of entrapment by these bonds, namely (and I follow Goodall's reading here 11 ) those who are separated from fetters because of knowledge or consciousness (vijndna-kevala), but still entrapped by impurity (mala); those who are separated from fetters due to the cosmic dissolution (pralaya-kevala); those who are entrapped by both impurity and action (karma); and those who are not separated from all bonds and possess the power of limited action (sakala), entrapped by all three - pollution, action and illusion-power (maya). 12 The first two of these categories are also known by the names vijndndkala or vijndnakevalin and pralaydkala or pralaydkevalin. 11 The degree of entrapment is their degree of impurity. Ramakantha in his commentary says that the term pasu only refers to those souls (atman) who are subject to impurity (samala). Of these, he says, there are two types, those who have the force called kald and those who do not. Those who possess the power of kald are in turn of two types, those with subtle bodies (suksma-deha) and those with gross bodies (sthula-deha). Those without kald are also of two types, those without kald because of knowledge or higher awareness, the vijnanakevalins, and those without it because of cosmic dissolution, the pralayakevalins. 14 The term kald in the sense here is rendered by Goodall as 'power of limited action', although it is also used on a broader cosmological canvas to refer to levels of the hierarchical cosmos within which the tattvas operate (see below). 15 This power of limited agency shows that the sakala souls have the power of action and can accumulate new karma through their action in the lower worlds, while the vijnana and prayala souls, on this account, are devoid of the power of agency and only reap the fruits of their actions.

The consciousness-only souls are further subdivided by Bhoja into those whose impurity is completely finished (samdptakalusa) and those for whom it is not (asamdptakalusa). Out of the former Siva makes eight 'Lords of Wisdom' (vidyesa or, more commonly, vidyesvara) and out of the latter a countless number of mantras. 16 There are a couple of problems here in that if the eight Lords are free, then in some sense they are not entrapped by the power of impurity, yet in order for them to act they need to be embodied, although their bodies are

pure and not made of maya, unlike the pralayakevalins which are held in the worlds of maya. 1 ' These eight Lords are highly significant in cosmological terms, for through them Siva creates or impels the lower levels of creation. In his commentary, Aghorasiva names them as Ananta, Suksma, Sivottama, Ekanetra, Ekarudra, Trimurti, Srikantha and Sikhandin, who are qualified to perform the five actions in the lower worlds (of creation, maintenance, destruction, concealing and revealing). 18 Among them Ananta is the most important as Siva's agent or regent. Like the rest of the Vidyesvaras, says the Kirana-tantra, his body is pure {suddhadeha), he is omniscient (sarvajna) and he reveals all the scriptures. 19 In his commentary Ramakantha says that the vidyesvaras teach all the Saiva Siddhanta scriptures. Ananta has a body simply because he has the cosmological function of the creation of lower worlds, or more specifically the stimulation of maya to evolve. His body is therefore 'pure' in not being made of maya but being made from a pure origin (suddhayonimaya) which is not due to the results of past action (akarmaja). 20 While these eight Lords express Siva's will, they do not appear to have agency themselves but only the agency of Siva; they are free of kala, the power of limited agency in the lower worlds.

Bhoja divides the dissolution-only beings in a similar fashion to the Vidyesvaras, into those whose pollution and karma have matured and so enter liberation and those whose pollution and karma have not matured and who exist as subtle bodies. 21 Presumably the sense here is that these two kinds refer to beings who, because of their karma, have become pralayakevalins and who will either, in the course of time, leave that state and go into final liberation from there or return to the lower worlds, being born in wombs due to the impulse of karma, although Aghorasiva observes that those whose mala has matured enter liberation through the door of the descent of power (saktipdta). 22 Indeed, he quotes a text that says that liberated pralayakevalins become Lords of worlds (blmvanesah). The souls with limited agency (sakala), who have all three impurities, inhabit the lower worlds of creation, although they too include divine beings. Among them, says Bhoja, Siva makes a hundred and eighteen Lords of mantra (mantresa), linked to the power of limited agency, higher powers which animate mantras as sound formulas in this world. 23

The cosmological function and consistency of accounts of these levels of beings are not always clear in our sources; there is some variation between, for example, the dualist Saiva Siddhanta account exemplified by Bhoja and the monistic 'Kashmiri' Saiva doctrine seven experients, exemplified by Ksemaraja, 24 whose origin is the Malinivijayottara-tantra. But the point that is important for our purposes is that this hierarchy of souls, graded in accordance with their degree of pollution, their subtlety, and power as agents of Siva, is tied into a system of ritual. The souls whose pollution has matured (paripdkamala), says Bhoja, Siva joins to the highest category or level of the cosmos (siva-tattva) through the descent of power (saktipata) at initiation (diksa) when he takes on the form of a teacher or master (acarya). 25 Aghorasiva quotes a text that says that, on account of a strong descent of power (tivrasaktipata) through the master, the lost soul (samsarin) is not reborn again but becomes filled and pervaded with the condition of being Siva (sivatva). 26 This condition of being Siva, Siva-ness or equality with Siva (sivatulya, sivasamaya) is the purpose of the bound soul's existence; without being joined to the structures of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition through the grace of Siva, they remain wandering through the manifold universe according to the fruits of their actions. Indeed, if the universe has a purpose, for texts such as the Mrgendragama and Kirana-tantra it is to give souls experience in order that in due course they may achieve liberation; the purpose of the universe is to free bound souls 27 which allows them to burn up the fruits of their action and to be receptive to Siva's grace. Because souls have no beginning in this system, in the act of creation and in the act of concealing himself Siva is allowing souls the opportunity to be liberated and free, just as he is himself. Siva unites these remaining bound souls with experience (bhogabhukti) appropriate to their actions, 28 and so they wander until liberated through the ripening of their bonds, through the Saiva Siddhanta ritual structure, and ultimately through Siva's grace. The suffering of souls is a kind of medicine that in the end procures their desired goal of liberation. 2 ' The souls thus have bodies made of maya in the lower creation in order to experience worlds. Without a body a world cannot be experienced and liberation cannot be attained; only through the body

is the experience of a world undergone and only through a body is liberation reached. 30 In one sense the universe is simply Siva's sport and dance, yet in another sense it is a manifestation of his grace to allow beginningless souls to gain freedom.

The Tattva Hierarchy

For the Saiva Siddhanta the structure of the universe is linked to the degree or level of concealment of Siva. The universe unfolds in increasing degrees of coagulation, from subtle to gross, which increasingly entrap the soul, who becomes lost within it and subject to suffering due to pollution, karma and illusion-power. As with other Hindu systems, the Saiva cosmos is created, or rather manifested from a quiescent state, and destroyed or reabsorbed over and over again over vast periods of time. Through his energy or Sakti, the Goddess, Siva acts upon pure substance in potential called the 'great power of illusion' (mahamaya) or 'the drop' (bindu), which then develops the 'pure' levels of the cosmos. From bindu then emerges the material substrate of the lower universe, the power of illusion or maya, from which emerge the elements that comprise the lower or impure universe. Bindu and maya are the material causes (upadana) of the worlds. 31 After a period of time the universe is reabsorbed back to the level of maya, and in a great dissolution back to the level of bindu. After a period of sleep the process begins over again. 32 I have rendered maya as 'illusion-power', which, although somewhat dissatisfactory, conveys the idea of maya as a lower emanation of Sakti, a power that conceals Siva and entraps lower souls through the operation of the 'coverings' (kancuka) that include limited agency and time. 33 For the Saiva Siddhanta maya is a substance (vasturupa), the eternal (nitya) root (mula) of the universe, says Bhoja. 34 As substance it is not in itself illusory or unreal, but is rather the cause and context of the soul's illusion that it is entrapped in the lower worlds. Indeed, the Kirana-tantra calls maya a 'seductress' (mohini) because through her the soul has experience (bhoga) of external objects (visaya), is although we must not forget that maya is not a conscious being for the Siddhanta, but a form or force that is

insentient (jada). 36 The Saiva Siddhanta presents a realist ontology in that the cosmos is a real substance that entraps the soul.

bindu / mahamdya

I

mayd

I prakrti

A number of terminologies are used to describe this process of unfolding. Perhaps the most important is the system of the categories or tattvas. The Saivas add eleven to the twenty-five Samkhya ones (see figure). This is most important because it is an attempt to explain in detail the unfolding universe and the soul's entrapment within it, and is also integral to Saiva soteriology and the ritual system. The cosmos unfolds in order that souls can experience the results of their actions, and so tattva hierarchy describes that entrapment. Yet through understanding this entrapment and, above all, through the ritual reabsorption of the tattvas, the soul can become free. The tattvas are therefore the cause of both bondage and liberation in one sense, although the ultimate cause is Siva's grace.

Prakrti becomes a lower manifestation or reflection of mayd, which itself is a lower manifestation of bindu. Bindu is identified with the first, the Siva-tattva from which emerge the other pure tattvas, namely Sakti-tattva, Saddsiva or Sdddkhya-tattva, Isvara-tattva and Suddhavidyd-tattva. Maya, itself classed as a tattva, produces those in 'mixed' creation, and the prakrti tattva produces the lower categories as described in Samkhya." While thirty-six is a standard number in the texts, there is some variation of content. The Matangaparamesvardgama, an upagama of the Paramesvardgama, lists the twenty-five Samkhya tattvas replacing matter (prakrti) with the 'unmanifest' (avyakta) and 'quality' (guna), and in the pure creation listing dissolution (laya), joyous experience (bhoga), governance (adhikdra), pure knowledge (vidyd), and mayd™ Other texts have some variation on the thirty-six and the Mrgendrdgama lists thirty-nine. 39

The tattvas are not in themselves sentient but are categories that comprise the bodies and coverings of souls, and are also levels

The thirty-six categories or tattvas of Saivism

PURE CREATION

i. Siva

2. Sakti

3. Sadasiva

4. Isvara

5. Suddha Vidya

IMPURE CREATION

13. Prakrti - matter/ nature

14. Buddhi — higher mind

15. Ahamkara - ego

16. Manas - mind

organs of cognition organs of action subtle elements gross elements

17. Hearing

18. Touching

19. Seeing

20. Tasting

21. Smelling

22. Speech

23. Handling

24. Locomotion

25. Excretion

26. Generation

27. Sound

28. Touch

29. Form

30. Taste

31. Smell

32. Space

33. Air

34. Fire

35. Water

36. Earth

of experience for those souls. Thus the Siva-tattva is not to be confused with Siva, the transcendent efficient cause of creation. There are, therefore, a number of English renderings of the term tattva whose semantic field incorporates the notions of 'reality', 'essence', 'principle' and 'category'. While interpreting the tattvas in a non-dualist way as emanations of consciousness, the non-dualist

Saivas nevertheless adopt the Siddhanta system. Their readings of the tattva hierarchy are illuminating. For the non-dualist theologian Abhinavagupta, tattva designates a constituent of a level of reality (vastu, prameya), a principle underlying reality or a level of it (for example, in the sense of earth being an appearance of an underlying principle of hardness), and a category of perception (padartha). 40 These are furthermore integrated into a system of correspondences with other hierarchical cosmological schemes, all of which become important in ritual procedures.

The Six Paths

The cosmological schemes are collectively known as the 'six paths' (sadadhvan); they are found or mentioned in most texts. 41 The term designates different paths of emanation and reabsorption of the cosmos that the soul takes on its symbolic journey in ritual back to and beyond the source of the cosmos. These paths are named varna (phonemes), mantra, pada (words), kala (cosmic regions), tattva, and bhuvana (worlds). Both the Saiva Siddhanta and the non-Saiddhantika systems maintain the doctrine of the six paths. For the monistic Saivas these are manifestations of consciousness paired in a hierarchical sequence, kala with varna, tattva with mantra, and bhuvana with pada, whereas for the realist Saiva Siddhanta, as Brunner-Lachaux observes, they are traced in matter (maya and bindu) and must be understood as parallel to each other and not in a hierarchical sequence. 42

Path of Sound (vdcaka) Path of Objects (vdcya) varna (phoneme) kala (power)

mantra tattva

pada I (word) bhuvana (world)

There is no space to describe them in detail (for which see the work of Brunner and Padoux), 43 but the idea can illustrated with a brief account of the path of the worlds, the bhuvana adhvan.

The path of the worlds {bhuvana) is particularly interesting as it clearly illustrates the idea that the body contains within it the

cosmos and that the ritual dissolution of the cosmos in the body is a dissolution of all possible realms of experience into which a soul could be born. The Siddhanta texts formally contain 224 worlds, so many in each kala, although there are many more, this number being notional. Indeed, the listing of worlds that beings inhabit is an important and interesting feature of some Tantras, which allows us to understand the vast cosmological imagination of the composers of these texts and enables us to see how later developments of tradition or new traditions did not abandon the old but built up further worlds upon the old. For example, in the nivftti kala the Rauravagama contains 108 worlds, beginning with the lowest of Kalagni, 44 which are recapitulated with some variation in other Agamas and in the Somasambhu-paddahti.* 5

The non-Saiddhantika Tantras of the north follow the same structure and list many of the same worlds. For example, the non-Saiddhantika Malinlvijayottara-tantra lists among the various worlds in the nivrtti-kala six types of beings in the community of beings (bhutagrama) who inhabit the material world, namely those of the vegetable kingdom (sthavara), insects and other crawling things (sarpjdti), the birds (paksajati), wild (mrga) and domestic (pdsava) animals, and the human world (manusabhuvand). 46 Indeed, the Malinl may have been a dualist text like those of the Siddhanta. 47

While the basic pattern is fairly simple in the sense that the scheme represents the two dimensions of the hierarchical universe, time and space, word and object, with all the paths parallel to each other and each path arranged in a graded sequence from supreme to subtle to gross, the details of the paths are nevertheless quite complex and each path is pervaded by the others. 48

Although there is no doubt an explanatory dimension to the six paths, the function of this whole complex structure lies primarily in ritual. It is only in the ritual context that the scheme comes to life and becomes embodied. As the universe is populated with multiple worlds, levels and beings, so the practitioner's body is populated with worlds, levels and beings, themselves derived from the textual sources of the tradition. The destruction of the six paths within the body enacted in daily ritual leads to the soul's liberation at death or the soul becoming a Vijnanakevalin until its final liberation

at a great dissolution. 49 The body is the meeting point or mediation between the universal and the particular, in that it enacts the particularity of revelation, of text, and at the same time enacts the proclaimed universality of the cosmic structure revealed in the texts. The entextualisation of the body makes the body particular to text and tradition, but this is also understood as the universalisation of the body through locating the universe of beings within it.

The Ritual Process: Initiation

Initiation conducts the soul to perfection from the human condition {pumsbhava) in which the soul is located at the level of the purusa-tattva, 50 by purifying the six paths within the body. This purification overcodes the vedic body with the tantric cosmology; indeed some texts claim that Saiva initiation eradicates caste. The Rauravagama, for example, lists a number of Saiva groups and seems to say that simply following and adopting the ways of the Saiva are sufficient and that this constitutes initiation. In constructing the body through the Saiva rites (sivasamskdra) and following the Saiva path one thereby deconstructs the vedic body, and the Brahman and outcaste can both become Sivas. Adopting the bodily habitus of the Saiva ensures liberation:

From combining ashes and rudraksa beads and from binding [the body] by the ritual process of Siva, wearing the topknot and sacred thread, one is said to be initiated. A living being should devote himself to pure saiva [path] in this Tantra. By giving himself over to the sastra he is said to be initiated into the sastra. Wearing matted hair or shaved, the teacher of Siva makes entrance before the immovable icon (lihga). They say he is a living Mahesvara. Entering the condition of the Mahesvara he abides possessing the mark [of the Saiva]. Brahman or outcaste, with good qualities or bad, combining ash and rudraksa beads, without doubt [he becomes] a Siva. After becoming a Saiva in this way he should act as a Saiva. 51

While the Rauravagama is unusual in not seeming to advocate here a formal initiation, acting like a Saiva generally means not only wearing a chignon or shaved head and bearing the marks of a Saiva, but having undergone formal initiation and consecration. Most

Saiva texts follow almost the same ritual sequence as we found in the jfaydkhya-samhitd. Generally absent from the Saiddhantika and more closely aligned vedic traditions is the sexualised ritual of the non-Saiddhantika traditions, although it is not wholly absent; sexual imagery is clearly present in visualisation and worship of the Siva linga, the phallic representation of Siva embedded in its pedestal throne (pitha) or vulva (yoni)P For a good account of the Saiva Siddhanta ritual structure I refer the reader to the clear description by Davis and, especially for more detailed treatment, to Helene Brunner-Lachaux's edition and translation of the Somasambhu-paddhati. This is a milestone in the study of the tantic traditions, a major work of scholarship; its notes highlighting intertextuality and useful diagrams of how the cosmos is mapped on to the body have become a fundamental resource for the study of Tantrism. 53 It is to Brunner-Lachaux's edition and commentary that I largely turn in the following, abbreviated account, in order to demonstrate the Saiva entextualisation of the body. Saiva ritual - as with all tantric ritual — is classified as daily rites (nitya-karman), occasional rites (naimittika-karmari) and rites for a desired goal (kdmya-karman). This classification provides all that is necessary for somebody to live the life of a Saiva Siddhantin and to form their life in accordance with the tradition.