Sivananabodham

ŚIVA-ÑĀNA-BŌDHAM
A MANUAL OF ŚAIVA RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE
Translated from the Tamil

with synopsis, exposition, & c.,
by
THE LATE GORDON MATTHEWS M.A., B.Litt.
JAMES G. FORLONG FUND

VOL XXIV
PREFACE
Śiva-ñāna-bōdham is a Tamil manual of Śaiva religious doctrine by Meykanda Dēvar and

belongs to the first half of the thirteenth century A.D. It appears to be based on twelve
Sanskrit Sūtras said to be from the Raurava Āgama. These, freely paraphrased, are to the
following effect:
1. The world, animate and inanimate, passes through a cycle of three phases, evolution,
maintenance, and dissolution. As the world evolves, it exists; for that which does not
exist never evolves, never comes into being, as, for example, the horn of a hare. As the
world is something which exists, it must have an efficient cause. This efficient cause is
not Māyā, the measurable, the empirically objective; for Māyā is material and devoid of
consciousness. The efficient cause must be the Agent of dissolution. He is the Primal
Being, the Supreme Deity; for of the three phases dissolution is primary, all evolution
being but the manifestation of the inherent potentialities of the unevolved or dissolved;
and, secondly, because all deities other than the Agent of dissolution are themselves
necessarily involved in the universal dissolution. The purpose of this periodic
reproduction of the world of animate and inanimate being is to free souls from Ānava, the
principle of individuation, called Sahaja Mala, the impurity born together with the soul,
by association with which from eternity souls have been enveloped in the darkness of
unconsciousness. This release is effected by providing for souls the earthly experience in
the midst of which they may receive by divine grace the light of the knowledge of their
oneness with God and their dependence upon Him.
2. God’s relation to souls is advaita, non-duality; this relation is understood as a synthesis

of three relations, abhēda or identity, bhēda or difference, and bhēdābhēda, a
combination of these two. God causes the world to re-emerge from Māyā through the
instrumentality of His Śakti or Power, with which He is in implicit union, samavāya, the
union of substance and quality. When Śakti functions thus as the instrumental cause of
the evolution of Māyā, it is called Tirōdhāna Śakti or Concealment-Power; for though in
associating the soul with a material body, sense-organs and intellectual faculties, all
1
evolutes of Māyā, it causes a finite experience in which the utter unconsciousness of the
soul involved in Ānava is dissipated, yet in that finite experience the Truth, the
Knowledge of Reality, is still concealed from the soul until such time as by God’s grace
it is revealed. It is Śakti, not Karma, which provides souls with the conditions of finite
experience; but Karma, the principle of action and reaction, determines the form and
quality of the experience. The soul experiences prārabdha karma, ‘that which has
begun’, in other words, the consequence of so much of the ‘store’ of previous deeds,
sañcita, as is ready for fruition.
3. Besides (a) Pati, the Master, God, and (b) Pāśa or Bond, the threefold fetter consisting
of Ānava, Karma, and Māyā, there is a third padārtha or category of being, (c) Paśu, the
herd, i.e. souls. The argument for the existence of this third category, the soul, is that
there is something which, failing to discover the soul among empirical objects, denies
that there is a soul; that something is the soul. Soul is not the body; it is that which is
conscious of possessing a body. It is not the five sense-organs; it is that which is
conscious of all five kinds of sensation, whereas each sense perceives only one, and
which is conscious of the functioning of the sense-organ, whereas the sense-organ is
aware only of its object. It is not the sūksma śarīra or subtle body which functions in the
dream-state, svapna; it is that which in association with the sūksma śarīra dreams and in
association with the sthūla śarīra or gross body wakes and realizes the dream to have
been a dream. It is not prāna-vāyu, the vital air, that functions in deep sleep, susupti, and
in the fourth state, turya; it is that which causes the difference between these states and
the waking state, in which the functioning of Prāna-vāyu is a common factor. It is not
Brahma; it is that which lies unconscious when devoid of sense-organs, and only
becomes conscious when associated with them. It is not the whole material organism,
body, sense-organs, &c.; it is different from it as eyesight differs from lamplight.
4. Nor is the soul to be identified with the antahkaranas, namely, citta, manas,
ahamkāra, and buddhi, which constitute the inner sensorium. But it is associated with
them. Through citta it is vaguely aware, through manas it registers the message of the
senses, through ahamkāra it questions these data, and through buddhi it reaches a rational
conclusion. The necessity of this association is that by reason of Ānava the soul without
them is utterly devoid of consciousness. In association with these mental faculties and
other tattvas or evolutes of Māyā the soul passes through five phases or states of
consciousness, jāgrat, svapna, susupti, turya, and turyātīta, as the activity of successive
tattvas is suppressed.
5. Without the soul the sense-organs are not sensitive to the stimuli of their respective
objects; they are percipient only when the soul in union with them perceives in and
through them. Their capacity to perceive is dependent upon the soul, and is limited to
their objects; they cannot perceive themselves or the soul. Similarly the soul’s
consciousness is dependent upon God, who is in union with the soul; its knowledge is of
the empirical world; the soul does not know itself or God. God is not Himself subject to
change by reason of the changeful experience that He makes the soul undergo. The
changes of the soul are like the movements of a piece of iron which a magnet causes; and
God is no more affected than is the magnet.
2
6. What is knowable by Pāśa-jñāna, sense-perception, and by Paśu-jñāna, the soul’s

sense-conditioned knowledge, is asat, the non-real. What is not thus knowable is śūnya,
the void, the non-existent. God is not knowable in that way; nor is He in that sense
unknowable; He is neither asat nor śūnya. He is beyond Vāk and Manas, that is to say,
beyond, Pāśa-jñāna and Paśu-jñāna, and yet He is comprehensible. He is Cit-sat, Śiva-
sat, Absolute Spiritual Reality, and is knowable only by Pati-jñāna, immediate
knowledge of God imparted to the soul by divine grace.
7. God, the Real, does not know Pāśa, the non-real; for the non-real cannot appear in the
presence of the real, even as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. And even if
God did know Pasa, He would not know it objectively, because it does not exist apart
from Him. Conversely, Pāśa, the non-real, which includes Māyā and its evolutes, the
sense-organs and intellectual faculties, has no knowledge of the real; for Pāśa is
insentient and impercipient matter. The appearance of knowledge in the non-real is an
illusion, like the appearance of water in a mirage. But the soul, which is neither real nor
non-real, can depend on and identify itself with either. In association with the non-real, it
can by its help know the non-real; and in association with the real it can with its help
know the real.
8. When the soul in association with the senses and intellectual faculties is immersed in
earthly experience, it knows the non-real through the non-real, but it does not know itself
or God. But when God comes as a guru and teaches the soul, the soul is made to see that
the world of experience, evolved from Māyā, is non-real. It ceases then to identify itself
with the non-real and to depend upon it; and in so doing it discovers its oneness with
God. This knowledge received from a guru is the last of the four pādas which prepare the
soul for release. Jñāna, knowledge, follows upon the due performance of the first three,
viz. Caryā, menial service in the temple, Kriyā, acts of worship, and Yōga, inward
spiritual worship. It is, in all cases, of divine, not human, origin; but the manner in which
it is imparted varies according to the class of soul. To Sakalas, souls immersed in all three
impurities, God comes as a guru of human form; to Pralayakalas, souls affected only by
Ānava and Karma, He comes as a guru in Siva’s form; and to Vijñānākalas, souls
involved only in Ānava, He comes as the inner principle of the soul’s consciousness.
9. It is not by pāśa-jñāna, nor by paśu-jñāna, in other words, not by sense-perception nor

by discriminative reason, that the soul can know reality, God. To know Him is God’s gift,
an experience of illumination to which the prepared soul is brought by the instruction of a
guru in whom God dwells. Such knowledge is pati-jñāna, variously termed in Tamil
tiruvadiñānam, knowledge of God, meyññānam, knowledge of the truth or reality, and
ñānakkan, spiritual vision or illumination. This experience of illumination, this
knowledge of reality, arises in the instant when the soul, with God as immanent but
hidden principle of its consciousness, the unseen light of all its seeing, recognizes the
non-reality of the non-real. What in that recognition the soul discovers is the Real; what
shines forth is Knowledge, Jñāna-svarūpa, knowledge which is not only of the Real but
is the Real, Divine consciousness itself, Absolute Spiritual Reality. But through the
influence of long association with the non-real the soul may tend to lose its new sense of
3
oneness with God and dependence on Him, and to resume its old dependence on the non-
real. To combat this tendency, the jīvan-mukta, the soul released but still in the body,
must concentrate meditation upon the Śrī Pañcāksara, the Five-Letter symbol of
Absolute Spiritual Reality.
10. The results attained by this sādhana, this way of release, through Jñāna, are twofold,
the soul’s release from Pāśa and its attainment of Siva. As to the former, release from the
threefold bond consisting of Ānava, Karma, and Māyā, the soul achieves its escape from
Ānava, the principle of individuation, through its union with God. It is not enough for the
soul to know God; because even when it knows Him there is the illusiory thought, ‘I
know Him’. The soul, to destroy this illusion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, must not only know Him
but be one with Him. The removal of the other bonds, Karma, and Māyā, release from the
necessity of finite experience in association with evolutes of Māyā, is achieved through
devoted service of God. The jīvan-mukta continues to experience prārabdha, the karmic
fruit of previous deeds; but if in devoted service, knowing that he does nothing but y
God’s grace, he regards his every action as God’s action, then prarabdha, his present
experience, cannot sow āgāmya, the seed of future experience. It cannot create the karmic
necessity for rebirth.
11. The second result attained by this way of Jñāna is Śivappēru, ‘the attainment of
Siva’, the soul’s experience of Divine Blessedness in conscious oneness with God. This
is the soul’s nisthā, its final goal or resting-place; and it may be reached while still in the
body.
12. So long as those who have found release remain in the body, their thought is
concerned with the knowledge of the non-reality of this world of sense; their affection
finds expression in the fellowship of Śiva’s devotees; and their activity is occupied with
the worship of Śiva, as dwelling in the emblems worn by His devotees and in the linga.
TRANSLATION
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SŪTRAS1
ACCORDING TO MEYKANDAR’S KARUTTURAI
SŪTRA
1. God, who causes its Dissolution, is the Primal source of the world.
2. How the world is evolved again.
3. The existence of the soul.
4. The same.
5. God’s first service to souls.
6. The real and the non-real.
7. A supplement to the above.
8. How the soul obtains Knowledge.
9. How the soul is purified.
10. How Pāśa, the fetter, is removed.
11. How the soul reaches the sacred feet of God.
12. How God, invisible and unknowable, can be worshipped as visible and knowable.
4
FIRST SŪTRA
Because the world, consisting of things male, female and neuter, is subject to the three
operations (production,2 maintenance,3 and dissolution), it is an entity produced (by an
Agent). Having dissolved,4 it comes into being again because of Impurity.5 The end is the
beginning, say the wise.
1
To each Sutra (aphorism) Meykandar appends a summary statement of its substance (karutturai), and then gives a rendering of the
Sutra followed by an exposition in a series of articles (adhikarana). An article usually consists of a thesis (merkol), supported by a
reason (hetu) and one or more illustrative verses (udaharana).
2
Or ‘evolution’, ‘coming into being’.
3
Or ‘preservation’.
4
Or, ‘From that into which it dissolved’.
5
Mala, here signifying sahaja mala, the impurity ‘born together with’ the soul; otherwise called anava, the principle of the soul’s
individuation, the term being formed from anu, atom, atomic smallness.
1. The world perceived to exist in forms male, female, and neuter undergoes production,
maintenance, and dissolution; for, beside maintenance, production and dissolution also
are seen.
(a) O foolish man, for the material world the state of maintenance arises through
dissolution and production. Having seen that in its season every species is produced and
preserved and dissolved, will (the wise) not conclude that this is true likewise of the
world as a whole?
2. (The world exists ;)

because for that which does not exist there is no coming into being.
(The world has an efficient cause ;)
because for that which exists there is no coming into being without a producer.
Nothing can come into being except out of the dissolution1 into which it dissolved;
for it dissolves there.
(a) That which dissolved is produced (again) from that into which it dissolved. (This
process is) on account of Impurity. That which is produced must be that which dissolved.
If thou sayest that that which dissolved is in (the Agent of preservation), then the whole
world has not dissolved. (The Agents of) preservation and production dissolve there (viz.
in the Agent of dissolution).
(b) Even as the seed resting in the moist ground sends up a shot, so Māyā2 resting on the
foot3 of the Lord receives power to evolve, on account of ‘works’.4 Like the caterpillar
which turns into a wasp, each soul is given its due form by Him.
(c) Because God, Himself unchanging like Time, produces the world without act of
production, and similarly maintains
1
Samhara.
2
Lit. ‘it’ referring to ‘that which dissolved’ in the previous udaharana.
3
Tal, signifying Sakti, an hypostasis of the gracious Power of God in effective operation.
4
Vinai, Tamil synonym for karma; sometimes iruvinai, ‘twofold works’.
and destroys it, He is transcendent,1 even as the mind, or as one who remembers, when
awake, things dreamed.
5
3. It is (the Agent of) dissolution that is Primal (God): for the world (of souls) with sense-
conditioned knowledge2 is not self-dependent, but depends on (the Agent of) dissolution,
whose knowledge is not sense-conditioned.
(a) Because they dissolve in the One who is not one (of them), just as they are evolved
and maintained by the One who is not one (of them), (the Agent of) dissolution, who is
not one of them, is the Primal (God). Souls, though like Him imperishable, are in many
ways His servants even there (viz. in the state of Release).
SECOND SUTRA
He, being one with souls and other than souls, abides in inseparable union3 with the
Power,4 so that souls experience going and coming5 because of twofold works.
1. The Primal (God) is one with souls and other than souls: for the word advaita means
‘not two’; for if it be taken to mean ‘one’, there is that which thinks it is one.6
(a) As the soul takes a body knit (by sinews) and sense-organs, and replies when the
body’s name is called, even so is
He joined with souls, and even so, because He is not soul, soul cannot be He. He is soul
and is not soul.
(b) When the Rg-Vēda says ‘one’, it means that reality is one, that the Lord is one. Thou
who sayest ‘one’, understand that thou art soul bound by the fetter.7 The Vēda means that
just
1
Lit. ‘not bound’.
2
Cuttunarvu, knowledge by anumana, knowledge through the antahkaranas working on the data of the senses (vide Sutra
IV, note I), the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge.
3
Lit. ‘without nikkam’, Tamil synonym for samavaya, implicit union, as of substance and quality.
4
Ajna, here signifying Cit-sakti.
5
Viz. death and rebirth.
6
Viz. a knower as well as a known.
7
Pati, pasu, pasa: the master, the cattle, and the hobbling-rope.
as there can be no letters if the vowel ‘a’ is not, so there is nothing (if Brahma is not).
(c) Because, like tune and sound, like fruit and its essential sweetness, the foot1 of the
omnipresent Lord is in advaita relation (with souls), the precious Scriptures do not say
‘one’ but ‘not two’.
(d) Like the sand which unites with the wax when it is melted, He being closely joined to
the world (of souls) is in inseparable2 union with it. Because He enters my solitary soul, I
can now3 say ‘I am the world’.
2. Twofold works4 come to these souls by the Power of the Primal One; for His Power
operates through twofold works, just as the protector of a city [acts] through a guard.
(a) When that which is5 causes rebirth, it is soul in the body that experiences (the
consequences of previous works). In experiencing the fruit of previous works there is
action (bearing fruit in the future). Just as the ground bears fruit through the toil of the
cultivator, so souls (experience the consequences of their works) through the operation of
God. Works cannot of themselves attach themselves (to souls).
(b) As the magnet draws the iron (through someone placing it near), so the doers of
works in that in which they work6 experience the consequences of their works through the
6
Lord, who unerringly gives to each his due. If not, who else knows the works and
attaches them to souls there?7
(c) If thou considers the husk on the rice-grain and the verdigris in copper, they are not
new but old. The Fetter and Impurity and Works8 are of like antiquity.9 Just as the
opening
1
Vide Sutra I, p. 8. n.3.
2
Without pirippu, synonym for nikkam; vide note I.
3
Viz. in the soul’s freed state.
4
Vide Sutra I, p.8, n.4.
5
Signifying sancita, the ‘compilation’ or store of works.
6
Viz. the body.
7
Viz. in the soul’s fettered state.
8
Valli, Mala, and Karma; signifying Maya, Anava, and Karma.
9
Lit. anadi, without beginning, from eternity.
and closing of the lotus is caused by the sunlight, so they (are made of function) by the
Bountiful One.
3. These souls are continually dying and being born:

for there is not coming into being except for that which undergoes both evolution and
dissolution.
(a) When eye and ear1 perish, that which is2 appears, and with it the soul passes to heaven
and forgets, as one forgets in a dream what was seen while awake. By reason, of its
works, the soul passes as subtle body3 into the womb, desire4 propelling.
(b) (For the soul’s condition on departure from the material body) it is not proper to use
the analogy of air in a pot mingling with the atmosphere, instead of the analogies of the
snake sloughing its skin, of the dream-state,5 and of the Yogi entering other men’s bodies;
for that is (an analogy of) the way of (the soul’s) departure from the subtle body.
4. He is in inseparable union:
for being neither one with nor other than (His Sakti), He is omnipresent.
(a) Because He is omnipresent, He cannot be one; but if thou sayest He is two, He cannot
be omnipresent. Nothing can exist without Him. He is like sun and sunshine. They (the
three fetters)6 are subordinate to Him; and we (souls) are His servants.
THIRD SUTRA
By saying that it7 is not, by saying ‘my body’, by knowing of the five senses, by knowledge
when they are suppressed, by the absence of feeling and activity in sleep, by knowing
when caused to know, (it is proved that) there is a soul in the body which is an instrument
produced by Maya.
1
Viz. sthula sarira.
2
Viz. suksma sarira.
3
Lit. anu, here signifying suksma sarira.
4
Manas
5
Viz. the analogy of passing from the waking state to the dream state.
6
Viz. Anava, Karma, and Maya.
7
Viz. the soul.
7
1. Saying the soul is not implies that there is soul.

This means that that which rejects everything, saying ‘This is not the soul, this is not the
soul’, and then declares that there is no soul, is itself the soul.
(a) Something which is in union with all1 and rejects each, saying ‘This is not I’, exists in
the form of the Five Letters.2 That art thou. Thou art not Māyā; for Māyā, on which thou
dependest, only assists thee in this fettered state to know, as spectacles assist the eye.
Thou art not the Supreme Being. Thou art different 3(from both).
2. Saying ‘my body’ implies that there is soul.

This means that because there is something which says ‘my head’, ‘my leg’, just as we
say ‘my house’, ‘my wife’, that something is the soul.
(a) Thou now sayest ‘my hand’, ‘my leg’, ‘my body’, and ‘my knowledge’4 – though they
are not thyself – just as formerly thou sadist ‘mine’ (of other things) without
understanding that what thou sadist was thine was not thyself. But if thou considerest,
thou wilt see that they are different from thee.
3. Because there is knowledge of the five senses, there is soul.

Because each of the sense-organs perceives only one of the senses, sound, touch, sight,
taste, and smell, there is something which by means of the five sense-organs perceives
the five senses; that something is the soul.
(a) If there is something which is conscious of the Five Letters5– each sense-organ in the
body being able to perceive only one kind of sensation – that something is thyself.
Because
1
Viz. the body and sense-organs.
2
Anjeluttu, Tamil synonym for Pancaksara, the Five-Letter ejaculation namas sivaya, ‘homage to Siva’, symbolizing
supreme spiritual reality.
3
Lit. alone, unique.
4
Viz. the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge, not the soul’s grace-given knowledge of reality.
5
Vide note 3. Here Anjeluttu signifies the five sensations, the sense-organs being activated by the Anjeluttu through the five tanmatras
or subtle elements.
these sense-organs perceive only their respective sensations, understand that thou art not
one of them.
4. Because there is knowledge during the suppression (of the senses), there is soul.
Because there is something which in the waking state says ‘we dreamed’ or ‘we did not
dream’, that something is the soul.
(a) When the five sense-organs which function in the body1 lie quiescent, (all external
sense-activity) suppressed, thou passest duly from that body and assumest a different
body,2 and then changest back again. Therefore thou art not that body.
5. Because there is no feeling or activity in sleep, there is soul.

(In other words), because when the sense-organs are suppressed there is in the body3 no
pleasure or pain or activity, and when the sense-organs are not suppressed there is
pleasure and pain and activity, (there is something which, suppressing and releasing the
senses, causes the absence and presence of feeling). That something is the soul.
(a) Because prāna-vāyu4 is active even when, the sense-organs being suppressed, there is
no sensation or activity in this body which is the means of sense-perception, there is a
8
conscious soul which is not prāna-vāyu; for if the soul unsuppressed enters the body, the
body possessed feeling and activity. Understand that.
6. Because there is something which knows when made to know, there is soul.
(In other words), because there is something, a recipient of instruction, which when it is
made to know that there is One who ever knows as He has known,5 there is soul.
(a) What is that which knows one thing, and proceeding to know something else no
longer knows the former; and which
1
Viz. sthula sarira.
2
Viz. suksma sarira.
3
Lit. Prakrti.
4
Viz. the Vital Air which causes the organ of respiration to function.
5
Viz. whose knowledge is perfect and unchanging.
subsiding (through the five states)1 ceases to know? It is not knowledge.2 If he who has
seen the Truth considers (this question) - it is the soul,3 which knows according to that
with which it identifies itself.
7. In the body composed of products of Māyā, there is soul:

for they have each a different name.
(a) On examination, they are evolutes of Māyā, beginning with Kalā and ending with
earth, and they are not lasting. If having first firmly grasped (the nature of) knowledge,
thou inquirest (what this collection of tattvas4 is, thou findest that) it is a body which is
like a lamp (to the soul). The soul is other than the body.
FOURTH SUTRA
The soul is not one of the inner faculties.5 But being without knowledge owing to Innate
Impurity,6 it is associated with them like a king with his ministers, and has five states.7
1. The soul is not one of the inner faculties, Manas, Buddhi, Ahamkāra, and Citta:
for they are light8 and not light.
(a) The knowledge which Manas and the other inner faculties have of sense-objects, and
the knowledge which the soul has of what rises above Manas, arise like waves in the sea.
Manas and the other inner faculties are different from the senses; and soul is different
from Manas and the other inner faculties.
(b) The soul as Citta is aware (of something); as Manas it receives the sense-impressions;
as Ahamkara it questions (these
1 Vide Sutra I. IV. 3, p. 15.

2 Viz. Perfect Divine Consciousness.
3 Lit. akam, mind.
4 Viz. evolutes of Maya.
5 Antahkarana, in Sanskrit, the inner sensorium; but in Tamil applied to each of the four mental faculties that compose this
sensorium, vide Sutra IV. I.
6 Sahaja mala, vide Sutra I, p. 7, n.5.
7 Vide Sutra IV.3.
8 Prakasa, here signifying ‘consciousness’.
9
data); and as Buddhi it decides what the object is. Therefore because the soul functions
in each of these ways, it is other than the inner faculties, just as Time is other than (its
measuring agents, the sun and moon and stars).
(c) A causes Ahamkāra to function; U, Buddhi; M, Manas; Bindu causes Citta to
function; and Nāda, the soul. Thus knowledge is like the waves in the sea. If you take
these letters together, they form the Pranava (AUM).
(d) When one considers the presiding deities for Nāda and Bindu which are associated
with AUM, which dwells in the knowledge of the inner faculties, they are Sadāśiva and
Īśvara. In M, U, and A the deities are the Supreme and Māl and Ayan.1
2 The soul is without knowledge because of Innate Impurity:

for Innate Impurity is the obscurer of knowledge and hides it.
(a) The soul knows nothing unless it has a body, a product of Māyā, as a means of
enlightenment. The eternal union of the other Impurity with the soul is like the union of
firewood with fire. Firewood is one with fire and conceals it within itself. Fire, though it
is one with firewood, does not cease to exist.
3. The soul has five states, waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, ‘the fourth’, and ‘beyond
the fourth’:2
for when hidden in Impurity it is formless.3
(a) In the forehead the soul is associated with twenty-five organs and five organs of sense
and five organs of action. In the throat it leaves these ten. In the heart it is associated with
Citta. In the navel it leaves Citta. In the mūlādhāra, the soul is alone without organs.
(b) The soul which has reached the waking state in the forehead there experiences the
five states. In that position it perceives by the several organs their respective objects, and
then withdraws from them. That4 is similarly (fivefold).
1
Viz. Siva, Visnu, and Brahma.
2
Viz. jagrat, svapna, susupti, turya, and turyatita.
3
Viz. as taking the form of the evolutes of Maya with which it identifies itself.
4
Viz. Suddha-avastha (‘pure state’).
FIFTH SUTRA
Though body, mouth, eye, nose (and ear) perceive by the help of the soul, they do not
know. Like them, souls, (though they know), by the grace1 of the Peerless2 One in their
knowing (do not know). They are like the iron in the presence of the magnet.
1. The five senses perceive by the help of the soul:

for unless the soul in union with them perceives, they cannot perceive.
(a) When the soul like a king is there ruling the five senses, the five senses do not know
the soul. The soul does not perceive unless it perceives in the senses; and if the soul does
not perceive, the eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear.
2. The soul knows3 by the help of the Primal One:

for, like the sense-organs which perceive by the help of the soul, the soul does not know
itself.
10
(a) Thou who hast forgotten the passage of the Scriptures where it is said that the world4
is active in the presence of Śiva who abides for ever, understand that the soul with Śiva as
its enlightener has a conscious experience5 according to its works. Śiva is not conscious of
the non-real,6 because the non-real is nothing.
(b) Understand that as a star shines, lost in the sunlight and yet not (the same as) the
sunlight, the soul perceives the fire senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, in
Him who is True (neither one with Him nor other than He), but in union with Him.
(c) The grace of Iśa7 is eternally with Him. It is Śakti. Without Him grace does not exist;
without grace He does not exist.
1
Viz. Tirodhana Sakti, as causing the soul to pass through finite experience in which the truth is hidden until revealed.
2
Lit. Tami, solitude.
3
Viz. has a conscious experience.
4
Viz. the world of souls.
5
Lit. knows.
6
Asat.
7
Viz. Siva.
To the knowledge of those enlightened by grace, Hara1 is one (with His Śakti), as the sun
(is one with the sunlight).
SIXTH SUTRA
If He is knowable, He is non-real;2 if He is unknowable, He is non-existent.3 Therefore the

truly wise say that He is neither, but is spiritual reality,4 knowable and unknowable.5
1. All things which are known by sense-conditioned knowledge are non-real: for they are
light and not light.6
(a) O thou which art ignorant of the non-real, hearken. If he who has seen the Truth
considers (the question), all things which (sense-conditioned) knowledge knows are non-
real. O thou who art not non-real, if thou seekest analogies for the nature of those things
which are and are not, they are a writing on water, a dream, and a mirage.
2. That which is neither knowable nor unknowable but beyond speech and mind,7 and yet
is comprehensible, is Absolute Spirit, the Real:8
for in the case of that which is light there is no need of enlightening, and in the case of
that which is not light9 there can be no enlightening.
(a) If it be said that He is neither real nor non-real, consider then what ground there is
saying that He exists. If he who has seen the Truth examines (the question), both (that
which
1
Viz. Siva.
2
Asat.
3
Sunya.
4
Siva-sat; synonym for Cit-sat.
5
Knowable by the soul’s divine grace-given knowledge, unknowable by the soul’s knowledge through sense-organs and
antahkaranas.
6
Viz. perceptible and imperceptible; perceptible when evolved as tattvas of Maya, imperceptible when exisiting in Maya as
unevolved potentialities.
7
Lit. Vak and Manas, signifying the soul’s knowledge through sense-organs and antahkaranas, in other words, sense-
perception and reason.
8
Lit. Siva which is Sat.
11
9
Light… not light; viz. known and unknown by the soul’s knowledge through the senses and the antahkaranas; in other words, asat
the non-real, and sunya the non-existent.
can and that which cannot be known) are non-real.1 Therefore the Truth, the Real, which
knowledge cannot know, is Śiva’s Foot.2
(b) All the organs of knowledge are non-real; therefore none knows the One. And thou,
the knower, cannot know (Him). If thou knewest Him, He would be (an object) other than
thou.3 He who has seen the Truth knows (Him) by Himeslf.4 So he does not know the
Peerless One as (an object) other than himself.5
(c) If thou sayest (He is comprehensible by) ‘meditation’, (its object) is non-real. If thou
sayest, ‘meditation in the state beyond the Fourth’, it is meditation (on nothing). If thou
sayest that it is neither this nor that, it is nothing.6 If thou sayest that it is to imagine
meditation, it is meditation (on nothing). But that which is meditated upon by His grace is
not nothing, but the Divine Being.7
(d) He is not (an object) other than8 (the soul), so that the soul might know (Him). He
being one with the soul’s knowledge cannot be known by the soul’s knowledge even
yonder.9 So the soul’s knowledge cannot know and reveal Him who enlightens the soul,
even as the eye cannot see the soul.
(e) He is not One, a That.10 Even yonder there is not only a ‘known’ but also a ‘knower’
who knows that there is something other (than himself). He is not an object to be known
(by the soul) as ‘That’;11 He is one with the soul’s knowledge. So the soul which knows is
(also) Absolute Spirit.
1
Asat, here including sunya.
2
Vide Sutra I, p.8, n.3.
3
Lit. ‘two to thee’.
4
Viz. by the Divine Grace, Sakti, which is in advaita union with him.
5
Lit. ‘as two’.
6
Pal, Tamil synonym for sunya.
7
Param.
8
Lit. ‘two’.
9
Viz. in the soul’s freed state.
10
Viz. not a unity undifferentiated into subject and object. But Siva-nana-yogi interprets it as ‘not something
incomprehensible as the Mayavadins hold’.
11
Viz. other than the soul.
12
Siva.
SEVENTH SUTRA
In the presence of the real all things are non-existent;1 so the real does not know (them).
The non-real is not; so it cannot know (the real). (Therefore) that which knows both is the
soul which is neither.
1. In the presence of the real the non-real does not appear:

for in the presence of the true the false cannot appear.
(a) As Hara is not distinct from2 (the non-real), there is for him nothing to know
objectively. If He who is not distinct from (the non-real) knew the non-real, He would not
know it as (an object) other (than Himself). In His presence there is no inglorious non-
real, even as there is no darkness in the presence of the sun.
2. The non-real is devoid of knowledge:
for on examination it is found devoid.
12
(a) When an ignorant man approaching a mirage thinking it to be water, he finds it non-
real when he reaches it. Similarly in the absence of those who have obtained
(enlightenment) and know the non-real, it (viz. the appearance of knowledge in the non-
real) will seem not to be non-real. Understand: to those who have examined the non-real,
it is without knowledge.
3. That which knows both is the soul which is neither.

(In other words) that which knows both, that which knows when helped to know, that
which is in union with both, is the soul.
(a) The soul, which studies abstruse scripture, knows both the formless and the formed;3
so it is neither. Its nature is that it does not appear as either of them, nor, through not
appearing as either, is it non-existent. It is like the scent in relation to the flower.
(b) Knowing nothing,4 and then by means of a medicine
1
Sunya.
2
Viz. because it is vyapya, pervaded by Him.
3
Viz. the real and the non-real.
4
Lit. experiencing mayakkam, Tamil synonym for ajnana, here signifying the soul’s unconsciousness prior to association with sense-
organs, &c.; but more often signifying the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge, as knowledge of the empirical phenomenal world, but
ajnana, non-knowledge’, of the real.
gaining knowledge, thou whose knowledge thus changes art not real.
Thou canst experience the fruit of works; the non-real unlike thee cannot. Therefore
neither art thou non-real.
(c) Ignorance, being non-real, cannot appear in the presence of True Knowledge.1 It
attached itself to souls, there being souls fit for it, at the time when True Knowledge
came into being.2 Understand that it is like salt in the cold ocean-water.3
EIGHTH SUTRA
When because of the soul’s meritorious practices4 the Primal One enlightens the soul as a
guru also, saying, ‘Brought up among savages, the five senses, thou hast lost
consciousness (of thy true estate), the soul leaves them and, being not other (than Hara),
reaches Hara’s feet.
1. These souls obtain knowledge by austerities previously performed:

for when the soul in previous births has performed Caryā, Kriyā, and Yōga, these
meritorious practices reveal the knowledge which is the right path, but do not themselves
give deliverance.
(a) Those who have performed these practices enter the respective heaven. In order that
they may sever the attachment of desire, they are born again in high station for the
performance of such works, and attain knowledge. So in their wisdom say those who
have studied.
1 Ignorance… Knowledge; the verbal antithesis annanam and meynnanam might be reproduced in English by ‘non-
knowledge’ and ‘knowledge’. The former refers to mayakkam in the previous udaharana, the unconsciousness of the soul
in association with anava from eternity; the latter refers to Absolute Reality, Divine Conscious Spirit.
2 Viz. form eternity.
3 Salt affects the water, not that which contains the water; similarly anava affects souls, not Him in whom they have their
being.
13
4 Tapas; here signifying the first three of the four Saiva padas or stages in the way of salvation. Vide Sutra VIII. I.
(b) The joy which comes from prescribed acts is like the joy of one who being hungry
eats and again hungers. When two-fold works which resemble1 each other are balanced2
by these practices of imperishable merit, the soul comes3 and attains knowledge.
2. The Primal One Himself teaches these souls as a guru:

for in the form of Consciousness He is in union (with him).
(a) To the Vijñānākalas He Himself appears, as True Knowledge. To the Pralayākalas He
Himself standing before them as as guru imparts True Knowledge. To ignorant Sakalas,
He imparts it concealing Himself as a guru. Understand.
(b) Souls do not know unless they are helped to know in the way (appropriate to their
degree). For those4 which need the instruction of the Lord of the world, who Himself
needs nothing, their need’s supply appears directly or indirectly.5 For those6 which do not
require the teaching that supplies such need, understand that there is (knowledge which
brings) Deliverance (through God), within them.7
(c) O scholar blessed, the richly jeweled one’s breast-milk and tears8 at first are not, but
later arise. Even so, who could know Him who like the shadow of water is without visible
form, if He did not reveal Himself, taking visible form?
3. These souls, confused9 by the five senses, do not know themselves:

for the five senses reveal what they reveal like the colors in a crystal.
(a) Like the crystal which displays many colors, the soul
1
In that they both cause rebirth.
2
In that the soul regards both with equanimity, neither desiring the good effects of good deeds nor fearing the evil effects
of evil deeds.
3
Comes seeking a guru.
4
viz. Pralayakalas and Sakalas.
5
Vide previous udaharana.
6
Viz. Vijnanakalas.
7
Li. In their own being, bhava.
8
The invisible forms of a mother’s invisible love.
9
Mayanki: vide Sutra VII.3, p.20.
thinks its nature is displayed in the sense-organs. Then perceiving that the false sense-
organs, like the (crystal’s) many colors, are different from it, it sees the True and rejects
the false as false; and being different from the non-real, it becomes dependent upon the
True.
4. When this soul sees itself different from the sense-organs, then it attains the blessed
feet of the Primal One:
for if the swing-rope breaks, mother earth is our support.
(a) The soul, like a great river dammed, escaping from the restriction of sense-knowledge
attains the everlasting feet of Hara and never returns, just as the river bursting the dam
flows into the sea and merges itself therein.
(b) If all things are He, there is none to reach His feet. If he is other than any, He is not
Lord.
The (other) senses do not like the eye range at large.1 When sight is regained by the blind,
see the superiority2 of the eye.3
14
(c) O thou who hast learnt the great truth that thou art not like the sense-organs, the
Sakala soul which has put away the five senses and united with Śiva will not leave Him
by again uniting with the sense-organs. If Impurity and Karma, dispersed like water-
weed, return again, the soul, meditating on Him who never forsakes it, can make them
forsake it.
NINTH SUTRA
Let the soul by spiritual vision4 discover the Lord in its own consciousness-the Lord who
cannot be known by imperfect knowledge5 and sense-perception.6 When the
1
Lit. perceive all forms.
2
Kalal, ‘anklet’, by metonymy signifying ‘triumph’.
3
The meaning of this verse is that God is in the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge as well as in its grace-given knowledge. But just
as the sense of sight is superior to the other senses, so the knowledge imparted by divine grace is superior to knowledge imparted by
the senses.
4
Nanakkan, synonym for Pati-jnana, the soul’s knowledge of the Real through the grace of God.
5
Unakkan, ‘defective knowledge’, synonym for Pasu-jnana, the soul’s knowledge in association witht the antahkaranas, as being
knowledge of the non-real, the empirical.
6
Lit. Pasa, here used for Pasa-jnana.
soul abandons the world of sense1 as a quickly passing mirage, the Lord becomes cool
shade (for it). It will ponder the Five Letters in the manner prescribed.2
1. See the Primal One by spiritual illumination:

for, though beyond speech and mind,3 He is comprehensible.
(a) When the soul, inquiring whether it is vein or nerve or bone or fat or phlegm, fails to
discover what it is, it learns (that there is another way to know itself). Those who do not
know themselves, first knowing Hara, by His grace – by what other means can they know
themselves at this time (of Release)?
(b) The eye which is enabled to see cannot see itself or the soul which enables it to see.
The soul which is enabled to see cannot see itself (or God). God is in the soul hidden like
a thief. See Him there.
2. When the various colors which are non-real are seen to be non-real, what thus arises is
rightly understood to be Knowledge itself.4
(a) When the non-real is rejected, will not the Primal One, the Absolute,5 who is without
gunas, without impurity, who is eternal bliss, supreme, come and appear as boundless
wonder and never-failing knowledge?
(b) When that which is known objectively has been recognized as non-real, understand
that that which then is rightly known is the real. Thou who hast been knowing (in union
with the non-real) art not the real. If thou unitest with the Divine Essence,6 by that union
the non-real will be completely removed from thee.
(c) When the soul sees that what it sees is not (the real) and abandons it as non-real, and
searches and sees the Lord in itself, then it rids itself of the defect7 with which it has been
1
Lit. Pasa, here used for the world composed of the evolutes of Maya.
2
Presumably in the Agamas.
3
Vak and Manas, synonyms for Pasa-jnana and Pasu-jnana; vide Sutra VI.2.
4
Jnana-svarupa, that very Consciousness which is Absolute Reality.
5
Lit. tani, the only one, the unique.
15
6
Daiva.
7
Una, viz. Pasa.
associated from of old, even as poison is removed by the excellent Garuda-meditation.
3. Now repeat the Five Letters after the manner prescribed.

For, although for these souls Knowledge has shone forth, they tend to turn their former
Ignorance, like a caterpillar which has fed on neem.
(a) If the soul knows by the Five Letters that it belongs to Hara; if in the heart it worships
Him by them; if in the navel it offers oblation by them; if between the eyebrows it
meditates; then in that meditation god will appear and the soul will become His servant.
(b) If the soul sees Siva in its own consciousness as one sees Rahu in the moon and the
sun, He will appear as the enlightener, just as fire appears when sticks are rubbed
together. The soul, like iron in the fire, becomes His servant. Recite the Five Letters.
(c) If thou examinest (the lotus-heart) the Tattavas form its stalk, the Vidyā-tattvas its
blossoms; the sixty-four Kalās of the Tattvas, Īśvara, and Sadāśiva form its stamens,
Śakti-tattva1 its ovary. Therein is Śiva-tattva.2 On it the foot of Śiva rests. Worship.
TENTH SUTRA
When the soul, having become one (with the Lord), even as the Lord is one with the soul,
abides in the Lord’s service, powerful Karma and Mala3 and Maya pass away.
1. As (in the fettered state) Paramēśvara is one with these souls, in like manner (in the
freed state) they must be one with Him:
for it is when the soul is one with Him that it puts away the self-conceit which speaks of
‘I’ and ‘mine’, and reaches the Sacred Feet.4
1
Viz. Bindu.
2
Viz. Nada.
3
Viz. Anava.
4
Viz. becomes conscious of inseparable union with God.
(a) To those who think in terms of ‘I’ and ‘he’, there is the conscious soul; and so the
Lord does not appear as Himself but as the soul. Those who say not ‘I’ but ‘He’, the Lord
brings to His Feet,1 and He appears as Himself to them.
2. It is necessary to abide unfailingly in His service;

for if the soul does nothing except by His grace, Ignorance and Karma cannot enter.
(a) If the soul realizes that the sense-organs are not it, nor in its control, and that the
objects of sense-perception are not it, and that it is dependent upon Hara, then for those in
such service of the Lord, in whatever body they may be, works do not exist,2 and previous
works3 also (cease) in the presence of the Giver.
(b) It is the duty of a master to protect those who depend on him. So though the Lord
protects those who depend on Him, there is no partiality in Him. He makes His servants
who depend on Him one with Himself;4 and to others He gives their works,5 just as He
gives the previous works6 that belong to them.
16
(c) Like the odor of asafoetida which lingers in a vessel, previous works7 and Māyā8 may
be stirred up for the spiritually enlightened. But the future consequences of works and
Māyā do not continue, for, being one with real, the soul knows its support.
(d) Like those great ascetics whom fire cannot burn, like the horseman who (unshaken)
rides a swift horse, the spiritually enlightened, who study (to avoid entanglement with the
senses)
1
Viz. brings to the consciousness of inseparable union with Himself.
2
The karmic principle is inoperative.
3
Viz. Prarabdha, ‘that which has begun’, the present experience of the consequences of previous works. This experience does not
create the necessity of rebirth wherein to experience Agamya, the future consequences of present works.
4
And therefore free from the necessity of experiencing the future consequences of present works.
5
Viz. Agamya, vide note 3 above.
6
Viz. Prarabdha, vide note 3 above.
7
Viz. Prarabdha.
8
Viz. the evolutes of Maya, the body, & c., and all finite experiences.
and know the Feet of Hara, though they perceive by the senses, will not on that account
abandon what they have won.
(e) If the spiritually enlightened, who are real non-real, see by the grace of the Real, there
is no attachment to Pāśa. So those who are in union with the Real are not involved in the
non-real, which cannot function there, even as darkness (cannot remain) in the presence
of fiercely blazing light.
ELEVENTH SUTRA
Like the soul which makes the seeing eye to see-in order that the soul may see, the Lord
sees, and makes the soul to see. Therefore in unforgetting love the soul reaches the feet of
Hara.1
1. He also knows that which is known by souls:

for these souls without Him of themselves know nothing.
(a) Because the soul perceives the objects of the five senses standing in union with the
respective sense-organ, it does not perceive all five at once, but perceives them one by
one. But He who is One2 perceives all things simultaneously.
(b) When the soul, becoming one with God, experiences His grace,3 God is Bliss and
Perfect Loveliness (to the soul), and is also one with it. Therefore will He not know
through the soul that which the knower knows?
2. When the soul unforgetting praises God with devotion, it reaches His Sacred Feet:
For God in inseparable union with souls causes the fruit of what they do, to form.
(a) Though the sun be there, it is dark except for those with sight. Even so God is
invisible to those bound by Pāśa. From those who know Him with love, God removes
Pāśa by His grace. They are like the (mature) lotus which the sun causes to open.
(b) As the moon dispels lingering darkness, Hara, who in
1
Vide Sutra X. I, p. 24 above.
2
Viz. unchanging.
3
Lit. knows His two feet.
17
His love dwells (with souls), dispels Impurity. Like a magnet which attracts and controls
iron, He is unwearied and unchanged.
(c) If it be said that having perished the soul becomes one with the Lord-because it has
perished it cannot become one with Him. If it be said that without perishing it becomes
one with Him- it cannot become one with Him. Like salt uniting with water, the soul,
having destroyed its Impurity, unites with the feet of the Lord and becomes His servant.
There is then no attraction (of the soul to Impurity).
(d) Just as the radiance of the sun rising in cloud is at first obscured, and when the clouds
pass away shines everywhere, so the radiant knowledge of the soul hidden in Impurity
first has experience of the world,1 and then having dispelled Impurity it attains the grace
(of God).
TWELFTH SUTRA
When, having washed away the Impurity which prevents it reaching the sustaining Feet
that are like the red lotus-flower, and having joined the company of those who love the
Lord, the soul is rid of delusion,2 it worships as Hara Himself the habit of those who
abound in devotion, and His shrines.
1. Put away the Impurities, Ānava, Māyā, and Kārmya:

for they do not give Knowledge but Ignorance.
(a) This Kārmya, which is associated with good and evil deeds, and Māyā, which is seen
(in the Tattvas) from earth to (Aśuddha) Māyā, and Ānava which produces Ignorance-
these three Impurities are not proper for the spiritually enlightened. Leave them.
2. Associate with Śiva’s devotees:

for those who are not, cause Ignorance.3
1
Viz. has sense-conditioned knowledge.
2
Mal, synonym for mayakkam, ajnana, here used for sense-conditioned knowledge as not knowledge of the real. Vide Sutra VII, p.
20, n. I.
3
Ajnana, see previous note.
(a) When the spiritually enlightened sever their association with the unworthy, who make
them forget their true nature and fall into the Impurities, in the company of devotees they
become infatuated (with love of God) and know with Divine Knowledge. Then works
cannot touch them.
3. Worship the sacred habit of Śiva’s devotees, and the shrines of Śiva, regarding them as
the Supreme Lord:1
for in those places He is visible, in other places He is not.
(a) In order that men may know Him the Lord gives His devotees His form, and they
know Him and are in Him. So He is visible in His devotees who know Him, as ghee is
visible in curds, but in those who are involved in Pāsā He is not visible.
(b) The Lord is one with the visible form,2 and not one with it, just as the spark of fire is
one with and different from the wood. (To those who do not know it as Him) He is there
18
by means of a mantra known to them; but to ascetics who know it as Him, will He not
appear as it?
4. Worship in these places:

for as the soul, which is one with nerves, sinews, &c., is also other than they, so also that
Supreme Soul.
(a) For the enlightened He is not other than the world, He is not one with the world. He is
not both other than and one with the world. But because the relation is non-duality, which
includes all these three, all things are His form. Nevertheless, thou who knowest the truth
of non-duality, worship in love.
(b) The non-real arises because of works. Therefore unless works are removed,
Knowledge cannot arise. When in order to remove works (the freed souls) seek and
worship (those who have) Knowledge, Knowledge arises. Therefore worship (them) in
love.
(c) To forget Him who helped him to know himself and made him like Himself is not a
sin which can be removed. Though He makes him like Himself, the soul which was a
servant
1
Paramesvara.
2
Viz. the linga.
remains a servant. Therefore the worship of God is strength (to the soul).
(d) O thou who hast learnt the Siddhānta that thou art Śiva,1 souls with one and with two
Impurities become Śiva, where there is no rebirth, (the former) by the appearance of God
in their consciousness, (the latter) by sight and speech. Those with three Impurities attain
it through this treatise, taught by a human2 guru.
1
Viz. Pure Divine Consciousness.
2 Lit. belonging to this world.
19
EXPOSITORY NOTES
This exposition is based upon the interpretation of the Śiva-ñāna-bōdham by the

eighteenth-century commentator Śiva-ñāna-yōgi. The abbreviation Ś indicated that the
passage thus introduced is a paraphrase by him of Meykandar’s text. The paragraph
numbers refer to the Sūtras, adhikaranas, and udāharanas; e.g. I. 2. a. signifies the first
Sūtra, the second adhikarana, the first udāharana.
FIRST SUTRA
Ś. The world which is perceived in manifold forms, male, female, and neuter, undergoes
the three processes of production, maintenance, and dissolution; therefore it is an entity
which has been produced by someone. It is produced because of Sahaja Mala, the innate
impurity, Ānava, for the purpose of removing it. When the world is produced, it is
produced from the God who was the cause of its dissolution. Therefore not the other
deities, but the God who performs the operation of dissolution, is the Supreme God, the
Primal Cause of the world. So say those who have studied the canons of truth (alavai =
pramāna).
I. I. The world is not everlasting, as the Lōkāyatas and mīmāmsakas maintain. The
argument is based upn sense perception, the only evidence admitted in the Lōkāyata
system; production and dissolution, no less than maintenance, are visible facts.
I. I. a. The udāharna meets the Lōkāyata’s criticism that, though production and
dissolution are seen in the world, the world itself as a whole is not seen to be subject to
these processes. The point of the udāharna is that in the course of nature every species of
being is seen to be subject to production, maintenance, and dissolution, and that from the
perceived fact that a time comes to every species for its dissolution a one whole, it is a
reasonable inference that at some time the world itself as a whole will be dissolved.
I. 2. The argument is threefold. First, in refutation of the Buddhist contention that there
is no necessity to assume the existence of an efficient cause for the world, because the
world does not really exist, it is argued that that which does not really exist, as for
example, the horn of a hare, is never evolved, never comes into being; but the world is
evolved, therefore it does exist, and there is need to assume the existence of an efficient
cause for it.
Secondly, in refutation of the Sānkhya denial of an efficient cause for the world because
the world does relly exist and evolves from and dissolves into its material substratum, it
is argued that without an efficient cause such evolution is impossible; pots cannot emerge
from the clay without a potter.
Thirdly, against the Pañcarātrins and other non-Śaiva sects who hold Visnu or Brahmā
to be the efficient cause, it is argued that as the world dissolves into the Agent of
dissolution, it is from Him that it will evolve when it is evolved again; for a thing evolves
out of that into which it dissolves.
20
I. 2. a. In this udāharana there are four points, three to meet Buddhist criticism, and one
against the Pancaratrins.
First, in answer to the Buddhist criticism that if the world really exists there is no need
for it to be evolved, it is contended that it must evolve because it has dissolved.
Secondly, to the Buddhist questions why, having been dissolved, the world should be
again evolved rather than pass away, and why, if it must evolve again, it was not made
eternal, it is answered that the processes of dissolution and evolution are for the purpose
of ‘maturing’ Karma and Ānava, in other words, for the purpose of enabling the souls of
men to pursue the cysle of rebirth, and thereby to complete the process in which by
divine grace they will be freed from Karma as the principle determining the successive
experiences of the soul in the cycle of rebirth, and from Ānava, the darkness which
covers the soul until it is illumined by the light of the knowledge of God.
Thirdly, to the further question why it is said that the world which dissolved is again
evolved rather than that the former world passed away and another appeared, it is
contended that what evolves is that which dissolved and not another.
Fourthly, in reply to the Pañcarātra argument that, according to the Siddhānta principle
that effects dissolve into their material causes, the world dissolves into Vāsudēva, whose
form is Mūla-prakrti, the material cause of the world, it is argued that not all the tattvas,
evolutes of Māyā, could dissolve in Mūla-prakrti, but only those which succeed Mūla-
prakrti in the evolutionary process.
I. 2. b. The Sānkhya maintains that even if the world had an efficient cause, the world
would not dissolve into it but into its material cause, Māyā; and that as Māyā causes that
which has dissolved into it to evolve again out of it according to the principle of
avinābhāva (inseparability), there is no need of a deity. The point of the udāharana is
that, just as the seed cannot send up a shoot unless the moisture of the earth in which it
lies enables if to do so, Māyā cannot evolve the world unless Śakti, the power of God, on
which it rests, enables it to do so. So God is the efficient cause of the evolution of the
world, whereby every soul receives a material form and condition of life in accordance
with the principle of Karma.
I. 2. c. Although God is the efficient cause of the world-process, He is Himself

transcendent and immutable, not involved in or affected by the process.
Ś. Although Time is by us differentiated into past, present, and future and in it all things
happen, yet it is itself not subject to change. Similarly God is unchanging. He evolves the
world by volition, not by action; and in the same manner maintains and dissolves it.
Therefore God, untouched by Impurity, is not limited by any bond; even as the mind is
not restricted when reading by the words and meaning of which it is conscious; or as one
on waking and remembering a dream is not involved in it.
I. 3. The Anēkēśvara-vādins argue that, although what has dissolved can evolve only out
of that into which it dissolved, yet the world is so complicated a structure that it must
have many creators. Against this contention, it is maintained that the Agent of dissolution
is the Supreme God and only Efficient Cause of the world, on the ground that all souls,
including those dēvas, or souls not associated with bodies composed of the grosser
evolutes of Māyā, whom the Anekesvara-vadins regard as creators, have only sense-
21
conditioned knowledge, and are dependent upon Him whose knowledge is not sense-
conditioned.
SECOND SŪTRA
Ś. God is one with souls by association, as soul with body; He is different from the souls
by nature, as sun and eye; He is in union with souls,being the soul of the soul, as the
consciousness of the soul unites with the eye’s seeing. He is in implicit union with His
Cit-śakti, His Ājñā, so that souls may experience rebirths through their ‘twofold works’,
the consequences of their works being attached to souls by Cit-śakti.
II. I. The Ēkātma-vādins hold that God and soul are one, as gold and the golden jewel; the
followers of Madhva hold that God and soul are different, as darkness and light; the
Pañcarātrins hold that God and soul are one and different, as word and meaning. But the
relation of God and soul is a synthesis of these three; it is abhēda, bhēda, and
bhēdābhēda. This relation is termed advaita. But what does advaita mean? It is
maintained that the word advaita, ‘not two’, denies, not that two exist, but that the two are
distinct. Ś. ‘Because, if you say that advaita means that there is one and no other, since
what is one would not hink of itself as one, it follows that that which so thinks of itself is
other than one.’ In other words, it is not an undifferentiated whole.
II. I. a. In this verse, the oneness of God and soul is likened to the oneness of soul and
body. The soul identifies itself with the living organism; but soul is soul and body is
body. The soul can be one with the body, but the body cannot become soul. Similarly
God is one with the soul; but God is God and soul is soul. God can be one with soul, but
soul cannot become God.
II. I. b. This verse describes the otherness of God and soul.

Ś. When the Vēda says ‘One’, the meaning is that reality is one; there can be no other
reaity. That means that the Lord, the Divine Being, is one; there cannot be two Lords.
You who say ‘one’, not understanding this meaning, understand that you are soul, paśu,
different from that Divine Being. If you say, ‘The Lord is sentient spirit, Iam sentient
spirit, therefore why am I called soul, paśu?’, the answer is that you are in the fetter,
pāśa. If ypu say, ‘If that is so, and you make this distinction, what is the meaning of the
Vedic text, “If Brahma is not, there is nothing”?’ the answer is that the Veda means that
if Brahma is not, there is nothing, in the sense that if the vowel ‘a’ is not, the letters
cannot be.
II. I. c. This verse illustrates the union, the bhēdābhēda relationship, of God and soul.
II. I. d. The relationship of God and soul I not any one of these three relations to the
exclusion of the other two, but is all three, oneness, otherness, and implicit union.
Ś. As the sand which is put with melted wax is in inseparable union with the wax, so God
is in inseparable union with souls. Therefore God is one with the world of souls, other
22
than it, and in union with it. If you say, ‘Perhaps even souls are of that nature, as
Vāmadēva Muni and otherwise say, “I have become the world”, and as in Sarva-
jñānōttara it is said of souls, “I am all; I am not all; I am in union with all”.’ The answer
is that when I am free of all fetters, God enters into me by my meditation ‘He is I’, and
appears in inseparable union with me. So in the freed state I become one who can say, ‘I
am the whole world’. Because it refers to the freed state, it cannot be said that souls are of
the same nature as God.
II. 2. The Parināma-vādins hold that God evolves the world without instrumental or other
causes, as the employment of such would be derogatory to his independence and
omnipotence. The Siddhāntist position is that Śakti, the power of God, is the efficient
cause, Māyā being the material, and Karma the instrumental cause. In accordance with
Karma, the principle of action and reaction, the Divine Śakti causes an evolution of the
world, a rebirth of souls in which each is given an experience which exactly corresponds
to its previous actions.
II. 2. a. God causes the soul to experience the consequences of its previous works; the
karmic principle cannot operate independently of the will o God. The opening phrase of
this verse, ‘that which is’, refers to sañcita, one of the three aspects or phases of Karma.
Karma may be viewed as an ‘accumulation’ of works, sañcita, an ‘accumulation’ of seed
waiting to fructify into finite experiences of pleasure and pain. It may also be viewed as
‘effects already begun’, prārabdha, an experience of mingled joy and sorrow, the
fruitage, not of the whole of the soul’s store of works, but of those which are ready for
fruition. Thirdly, it may be viewed as āgāmya, ‘that which has to come’, the activity
which adds to the store of works whose effects must be experienced in future births. As
the activity without which prarabdha would be impossible, it is called the instrumental
cause of prārabdha. It is prārabdha viewed as adding to sañcita.
II. 2. b. This udāharana meets the criticism that though Karma, being material (jada),
cannot of itself attach itself to souls, souls, neing conscious spirit (cit), can know their
own Karma and can themselves take it to themselves without any divine assistance. The
point of the analogy of the magnet is that the magnet cannot attract the iron unless
someone places the iron near to it. The soul likewise cannot take its proper karmic
experience to itself without the assistance of God, in this fettered state where souls, being
involved in Mala, are devoid of true knowledge.
II. 2. c. If, as the Siddhanta holds, the association of soul with Mala, the threefold
impurity consisting of Ānava, Karma, and Māyā, is from eternity, then it might be argued
that no divine action is required to effect karmic experience for souls. This udāharana
draws analogies for this eternal association from the husk on the grain and the verdigris
on the copper came into existence. But it proceeds with another analogy, the sun’s action
in opening and closing the lotus-flower, to illustrate the need of divine intervention to
make these impurities evolve and perform their respective functions.
II. 3. It is the soul that is subject to the process of rebirth. For evolution or rebirth is
possible only for that which undergoes evolution and dissolution in a continuous cycle, in
23
other words, for that which exists eternally. This condition the soul satisfies; but the
material body does not, for, being composed of the evolutes of Māyā, it is not an eternal
reality. This argument is directed against the Krīdā-brahmavādins. But if the hētu (middle
term) is translated ‘that which is subject to evolution and dissolution’, the argument is
against the Śivādvaita contention that it is Śiva, or against the Sānkhya contention that it
is Buddhi, which is reborn; the point being that neither Śiva not Buddhi is subject to this
cycle.
II. 3. a. This verse explains the soul’s experience of rebirth.

Ś. When this body of eyes and ears and other organs perishes, the ‘subtle body’, which
does not perish from the time of the world’s evolution to its dissolution, appears as a
bhūta-sāra-śarira, a body of elemental essences, or ‘subtle body’. In this body the soul
passes through and experiences either heaven or hell. Just as we forget in dreams the
things seen in the waking state, so the soul forgets how the body perished, how when the
‘subtle body’ appeared it passed with it through heaven or hell, what it experienced there,
and so forth. Desire impels the soul to the form of rebirth which karmic fruit ripening at
the time of the former body’s death indicated; so on account of the consequences of the
‘twofold works’ which still remain to be experienced, the soul in the form of the ‘subtle
body’ passes into the womb appropriate to that form of rebirth.
II. 3. b. This verse is directed against the view that what happens to the soul after the
death of the body is not rebirth, but something analogous to the merging of the air in a
vessel with the outer air when the vessel is broken.
II. 4. God is not identical with Śakti, as the Naiyāyikas say; nor other than Śakti, as the
Mimāmsakas say; but is in implicit union with it, the union of substance and quality,
samavāya. This relationship is sometimes called tādātmya, and so this Śakti is known as
Tādātmya-śakti. The ground for the belief that God is in implicit union with Śakti is that
God is omnipresent, in inseparable union with souls everywhere; which would be
impossible if He were not in implicit union with Śakti.
II. 4. a. This udāharana develops the argument.

Ś. If, as already proved, God is omnipresent, He cannot be one; for one thing is in one
place and is not omnipresent. If it be said, ‘Then, if that is so, we will hold that He is a
duality’, (the answer is that) then He cannot be omnipresent, for to be present in all things
without difference is impossible for Him who has differences in himself. If it be said, ‘If
His omnipresence makes it impossible for Him to be either a unity or a duality, we will
hold that He is not omnipresent’ (the answer is that) this is impossible, because nothing
anywhere can exist without Him, even as letters cannot exist without the vowel ‘a’. If it
be asked what alternative remains, (the answer is that) the omnipresent God is a unity of
Śiva and Śakti by reason of their implicit union as substance and quality, like sun and
sunlight.
If it be said, ‘Then if that is so, because we hold that souls, paśu, and the fetters, pāśa, are
omnipresent, they also like God are in implicit union with their respective Śaktis as
substance and quality, and consequently are equal to God’, (the answer is that) in
24
comparison with the omnipresence, the all comprehensive reality, of God, the fetters and
souls are not omnipresent, comprehensive, but are comprehended (vyāpya) in the all-
comprehensiveness of God. Therefore the fetters are subordinate to God, and we are
souls are His servants.
THIRD SUTRA
III. The soul exists, and is not to be identified with the material body, the sense-organs,
the ‘subtle body’, ‘vital air’, Brahma, or the sum-total of material organs.
III. I. The argument against those who, like the Mādhyamikas, would deny the existence
of soul, resembles Descartes’ Cogito, ergo sum.
III. I. a. Ś. There is a knower who, having first become one with the body, sense-organs,
&c., rejects each of them, saying ‘This is not I’; and which thereafter functions in the
form of the Sūksma Pañcāksara. If this knower is also rejected as ‘not I’, there will be a
knower which makes this rejection, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore understand that
that knower in the form of the Sūksma Pañcāksara is you.
If it be said, ‘Since the existence of the products of Māyā and of Absolute Spirit,
Śiva, was established in the previous Sūtras, it is reasonable to say that they will have this
knowledge, and therefore there is no regressus ad infinitum’, (the answer is that) Māyā,
on which you rely, comprises earth and the other material evolutes; associated with you
in this time of bondage, it helps you to know, just as spectacles help the eye to see; but it
is itself devoid of knowledge, just as spectacles are devoid of sight. Therefore you are not
Māyā.
You who thus have knowledge by the help of Māyā are not the Lord, who is beyond
that kind of knowledge.
You are different from them both.
The Pañcāksara is the symbol of spiritual reality. To speak of the soul as in the form
of the Pañcāksara signifies that it exists independently of, and is not to be identified
with, the evolutes of Māyā.
III. 2. In refutation of the argument that the body is the soul because the knower is never
found apart from the body, and also because the body is often referred to as ‘I’, as for
example in the phrase ‘I grew big’, it is maintained that in such phrases as ‘my hand’,
‘my leg’, the pronominal adjective expresses not identity but difference, as of possessor
and possession, just as in the phrase, ‘my house’, and ‘my wife’.
III. 3. In refutation of the contention that the five sense-organs are the soul, on two
grounds, first that as they perceive the five sensations they are not impercipient matter
(jada), like the body; and secondly that we say, not ‘my ear hears’, but ‘I hear’, it is
argued that, while each sense perceives only one kind of sensation, the soul is that which
by means of the five sense-organs is conscious of all forms of sensation.
III. 3. a. This udāharana meets a further development of the Indriyātma-vadin’s

argument, viz. that each sense perceives only one form of sensation, but each sense is a
25
soul, and the unity of consciousness through several sensations, such as finds expression
in the statement ‘I saw the pot and touched it”, is due to the union of the several sense-
organs in one body. In reply to this, a further argument against the identification of the
soul with a sense-organ is put forward; the eye sees, but it does not know that it sees.
There is something which not only is aware of all the forms of sensation but also is
conscious of the sense-organs functioning; that something is the soul.
Ś. Each sense-organ in the body perceives one kind of sensation and no other. They
perceive when caused to function by Sūksma Pañcāksara. It is evident that there is a
consciousness of this functioning of the senses – a knowledge that the eye is seeing, the
ear hearing, and so on. So to the question whether there is or is not something which has
this knowledge, if it is said that there is not, then this knowledge could not exist; if it is
said that there is, then that which has this knowledge is the soul, yourself.
If it be asked, What is wrong in saying that it is the senses themselves that have this
knowledge of the functioning of the senses, (the answer is that) these organs only
perceive their respective sensations; they cannot be conscious of themselves functioning
in this way. You who are conscious of yourself as knowing through these organs and who
gather the fruit of their working are different from them. Understand that.
III. 4. The contention of the Sūksma-dēhātma-vādins is that the soul, which is distinct
from the senses, is the sūksma śarīra, the ‘subtle body’ composed, not of the gross
elements, but of the subtle elements, the five tanmātras, śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, and
gandha, together with Manas, Buddhi, and Ahamkāra; and that the ‘subtle body’ does not
itself operate externally, but through the senses, which it activates from within.
The five phases of consciousness occur in successive dissociation from the evolutes of
Māyā. Thus the dream-state of consciousness occurs when only the above-mentioned
eight evolutes are functioning. The argument against the Sūksma-dēhātma-vādins is that
the fact that there is a knowledge in the waking state of what has been experienced during
the suppression of the senses in the dream-state proves the existence of soul, which is not
the ‘subtle body’. For if that which knows in the waking state what occurred in the
dream-state were the ‘subtle body’, it would be conscious of the dreams in the same way
in the waking state as in the dream-state; but the waking consciousness of dreams is not
the same as the dream-consciousness of dreams; it is a knowledge of dream as dream.
III. 4.a. The soul is not the ‘subtle body’, but that principle of consciousness which
sometimes through the material body, the instrument of waking consciousness, and
sometimes discarding some of the evolutes of Māyā, operates through the remaining
evolutes which constitute the ‘subtle body’, the instrument of dream-consciousness.
III. 5. Against the contention that Prāna-vāyu, ‘vital air’ or organ of respiration, is the
soul because Prāna-vāyu functions not, like the ‘subtle body’, only in the waking and
dream states, but also in the state of deep sleep (susupti) and in turya, the fourth state, the
argument is that there is something which by suppressing and releasing the senses causes
respectively the absence and the presence of sensation and activity in the body; and that
this something, the soul, is not the same as Prāna-vayu, for the functioning of Prāna-
vāyu is a common factor in the state of deep sleep and in the waking state, and therefore
it cannot be the cause of that which differentiates these states, namely, the suppression of
26
the senses in the one and their release in the other, causing respectively the absence and
the presence of sensation and activity in the body.
III 5. a. Prāna-vāyu functions in the body while the senses are suppressed and there is no
bodily sensation or activity; but if the soul is active in the body, there is sensation and
activity. So the soul and Prāna-vāyu are not one and the same.
III. 6. Against the Ēkātma-vādins’ contention that, as Brahma also has times of ignorance
in which He does not know except by means of the tattvas, evolutes of Māyā, there is no
need to postulate the existence of soul other than Brahma, the argument is that, even if
the Ēkātma-vādins were right about Brahma’s times of ignorance, there would still be
reason to believe that Brahma is not soul, for the soul, unlike Brahma, knows its own true
nature only through the Vēdas and Āgamas and the instruction of a guru.
Śiva-ñana-yōgi’s interpretation directs the argument against the Vijñānātma-vādins.
S. The soul is first without knowledge in the Kēvala state, namely, Turyātita, the state
‘beyond the fourth’, without the assistance of any sense-organ; and later it acquires
knowledge through the material organs, Kalāand the other tattvas. This does not agree
with the nature of Brahma, who is conscious spirit, in whose perfect knowledge there is
no process of acquiring and forgetting. Therefore the soul is different from Brahma.
III. 6. a. This udāharana develops the argument that Brahma is not the soul, the soul
being that centre of consciousness which, unlike Brahma, has only imperfect knowledge,
learning one thing and forgetting another, seeing one thing and losing sight of another.
III. 7. This Sautrāntika and Vaibhāsika schools of Buddhism hold that the whole material
organism, consisting of the body, sense-organs, &c., is the soul, on the ground that when
any of the organism’s consistent parts is absent there is no knowledge, and when all are
present there is knowledge. The Siddhantist contention is that in the body, which is
composed of the evolutes of Māyā, there is soul, which is not to be identified with the
material organism, because the evolutes of Māyā each have a different name.
Siva-nana-yogi elaborates this hētu so as to meet the Buddhist argument that Citta and
its five subdivisions, rūpa, vēdana, kurippu, bhāvanā, and vijñāna, are not evolutes of
Māyā.
Ś. For the products of Māyā which you take to be the five subdivisions of Citta and not
evolutes of Māyā are not called soul, and have each a different name.
III. 7. a. This udāharana meets the criticism that, though they have different names
individually, yet as a whole they are called soul. The material organism is different from
the soul, even as lamplight is different from eyesight.
FOURTH SUTRA
The fourth, fifth, and sixth Sutras discuss, respectively, the nature (laksana) of the three
entities Paśu, Pāśa, and Pati, the existence of which it has been the purpose of the first
three Sutras to prove.
27
IV. Ś. The soul is not one of the inner faculties, Manas, Buddhi, Ahamkāra, and Citta.
But just as a king transacts his business in conjunction with ministers who assist him by
their counsel, because he has not precise knowledge himself, so the soul, devoid of
knowledge because of ‘innate impurity’, is associated with the inner faculties, which
assist it with their counsel, so that it may have reasoned knowledge. For though the
tattvas, kala, &c., which are like a covering for the soul, give it a general consciousness,
it does not acquire reasoned knowledge through them. When in union with these
faculties, the soul experiences the five states of consciousness.
IV. I. The soul is not one of the inner faculties, despite the fact that they are commonly
called soul.
S. These inner faculties, compared with the organs subordinate to them (viz. the sense-
organs), are conscious spirit, but in respect to themselves they are not. But the soul is
conscious spirit even in respect to itself. Therefore it is not one of them.
IV. I. a. This udāharana elaborates the contention that, though the inner faculties are
conscious of the data of the senses, they are not conscious of themselves.
S. The consciousness of Manas and the other inner faculties is of external objects
presented by the five senses. The consciousness of the soul is of that which appears in
Buddhi, which is superior to Manas. Like waves which rising in the sea reach the shore,
these two forms of knowledge appear one after the other in the soul. Therefore just as
Manas and the other inner faculties are different from the senses, the soul is different
from those faculties.
IV. I. b. The soul’s relation to the inner faculties, which have each their special function
in the intellectual process, is comparable to the relation of Time to sun and moon, which
also have their special function in measuring day and month. Time in association with
these bodies makes these divisions of time, yet it is not identical with these bodies. So the
soul, though it is associated with the inner faculties, is not identical with them.
IV. I. c and d. These udāharanas give fanciful expression to the point that the inner
faculties (Antah-karanas), being evolutes of the material principle, Aśuddha Māyā, need
to be energized by the spiritual. The symbol of spiritual reality is the Sūksma Pañcāksara,
or Pranava, the several constituents of which are associated with their respective forms
of the Divine Being.
IV. 2. The reason why the soul must be associated with antah-karanas is that the soul is
unconscious through Ānava, Pāśa, the bond from which the soul must be freed by divine
grace, consists of Ānava, Karma, and Māyā. Of these the first is held to be associated
with soul from eternity, and is therefore called sahaja mala, impurity ‘born together with’
the soul; the other two are called āgantuka mala, impurities ‘subsequently’ attached to
souls, though themselves existing like Ānava from eternity.
IV. 2. a. Ānava is the obscurer and Māyā the enlightener of the soul with empirical
knowledge. The union of Ānava and the soul is compared to that of firewood and fire.
28
The spark of fire which friction may produce is concealed in the wood, one with it. Even
so the soul, the spark of consciousness, is concealed in the darkness of Ānava, one with
that darkness, but continuing to exist.
IV. 3. The soul experiences five states of consciousness, waking (jāgrat), dreaming
(svapna), deep sleep (susupti), ‘fourth’ (turya), and ‘beyond the fourth’ (turyātita); the
reason being, as paraphrased by Śiva-ñāna-yōgi, that ‘the soul hidden in impurity is
formless, that is to say, it is in tattva-form; therefore because of the diversity of states of
consciousness which occur according to the particular tattvas that function, the soul has
five states’. The soul until it is released by divine grace is hidden in Ānava. It exists, but
it is formless. It appears not in its own form but in the form of the tattvas, those evolutes
of Māyā which compose the bodily form, the senses, and the inner faculties with which
the soul is associated.
IV. 3. a. This udāharana describes the soul’s location, and the tattvas which function, in
each of th five states.
Ś. In the forehead, the region of the waking state, the twenty-five organs, together with
the ten organs of sense and action, function. In the throat, the region of dream, the soul
leaves those ten organs, and the other twenty-five organs function. In the heart, the region
of deep sleep, the soul leaves twenty-two of them, and the two organs mentioned below,
together with Citta, function. In the navel, the region of the fourth state, the soul leaves
Citta, and Prāna-vāyu, with Purusa-tattva, functions. In the mūlādhāra, the region of the
state beyond the fourth, where there are no organs, Purusa only remains.
IV. 3. b. After the Purusa, leaving the forehead position, has passed downwards,
experiencing each of the states, and reached the mūlādhāra, it passes upwards again in
the same manner and reaches the stimulating condition of waking state. There it
experiences the waking form of each of the five stats. In that forehead position it knows
objects through the respective organs, and immediately abandons them. In the ‘pure’
(śuddha) condition described hereafter there are similarly five states.
FIFTH SUTRA
This Sūtra is concerned with the nature of Pāśa and the soul’s experience in association
with Pāśa, or, more precisely, with one of its constituents, Māyā, in the form of the
evolutes of Māyā, the sense-organs, &c.
V. Ś. Though the sense-organs perceive their respective objects by the help of the soul,
they cannot perceive either themselves, which perceive in this way, or the soul, which
dwells in them and stimulates them. Similarly, though souls know and experience the
fruit of works, in the two series of five states, by the help of the Cit-śakti of the Primal
One, who assists them in their knowing, they cannot know either themselves or the divine
grace that dwells in them and stimulates them.
Just as the attraction of the iron is due simply to the presence of the magnet, so this
experience of souls is due simply to the presence of the Primal One who dwells in them
29
not by action but by volition. So the Primal One does not, through the soul’s experience,
Himself experience change.
V. I. In contrast to the Sānkhya view that, as the Purusa or soul is free from any bond,
like a water-drop on a lotus leaf, it is Buddhi-tattva that in the presence of Purusa knows
by means of the sense-organs, the Siddhantist position is that the five senses are capable
of perceiving only when the soul operates, as the principle of consciousness, in union
with them.
V. I. a. This udāharana adds the further point that the senses cannot perceive the soul, and
that the soul cannot perceive without the senses.
Ś. Just as a king in his presence-chamber rules his kingdom, making those who work
under him perform their respective duties by his authority, so the soul in the forehead
position makes the five senses perceive their respective objects. Therefore just as those
authorized by the king cannot pass beyond their authorized duty, the five senses can
perceive their objects, but cannot know the soul. If it be said, ‘If that is so, then, though
the five senses cannot perceive without the soul, it may be that the soul can perceive
without the senses’ (the answer is that), just as the king and his ministers are mutually
indispensable to each other in the work of government, so the soul and the senses are
mutually necessary to each other in perceiving anything.
V. 2. The Īśvarāvikāra-vādins contend that the soul, being conscious spirit, does not
require the help of God to know, and that the argument from analogy with the senses is
improper, the soul being spiritual and the senses material. The Siddhāntist reply is that
the opinion that the soul needs divine help is not based on any analogy with the senses,
but on the fact that Pāśa-jñāna, the knowledge which comes to the soul through its
association with the senses, &c., evolved from Māyā, does not comprehend the soul
itself.
V. 2. a. This udāharana deals with a further objection that, if the soul is empowered to
know by the indwelling of God, just as the senses are made to function by the soul, then
the pleasure and pain felt by the soul will affect God, just as the effects of the functioning
of the senses affect the soul. The point of the udāharana is that the senses function for the
sake of the soul, and the character of their experience is not controlled by anything in
themselves, whereas the soul with God as its enlightener knows and experiences
according to its previous works. God does not participate in this experience, because in
His presence the non-real is non-existent.
V. 2. b. This udāharana illustrates the relation in which the soul stands to God when it is
caused by Him to know, in other words, to undergo a finite conscious experience. It is
neither identical with God nor other than God, but in union with Him like starlight in the
sunlight.
V. 2. c. This udāharana deals with an objection from the Īśvarāvikāra-vādins that, as

there is variety in the soul’s experience, there must be variety in the way it is caused, and
this would lead to the conclusion that God is subject to change. The Siddhantist
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contention is that the absoluteness of God is untouched by change or variableness,

because His contact with the finite is through Śakti.
S. The mercy which puts away the soul’s paśu-tva and reveals its śiva-tva exists
eternally with God. It is not an entity different from Him, but is His Śakti. Because mercy
and He are quality and substance, that Grace and He cannot exist one without the other.
For the spiritually enlightened, God is essentially one (in tādātmya) with His grace, even
as the sun is essentially one with its light. Therefore God, who is self-dependent, is
unchanging, and everything is done by the mere volition of His Śakti.
Paśu-tva is the soul’s nature as involved in pāśa, a finite experience in association
with the evolutes of Māyā. Śiva-tva is its nature when illumined by God’s grace with the
knowledge of its advaita relationship with Absolute Spiritual Reality.
SIXTH SUTRA
VI. This Sūtra defines the nature of pati.

Ś. If God, who helps souls to know, were of a nature which can be known by sense-
perception and inference, He would be non-real, something perishable like the world,
which is known by these means. If He were of a nature which cannot be known by any
means, He would be non-existent, like the horn of a hare, which cannot be known.
Therefore God is Absolute Spiritual Reality, neither known nor unknown in these ways,
but unknowable in one way (viz. by sense-conditioned knowledge), and knowable in
another (viz. by Divine knowledge). So say the learned, established in True Knowledge.
VI. I. According to the Naiyāyika system, God can be known by perception and
inference; according to the Sānkhya system, as everything is real, that which is knowable
by those means is real. The Siddhantist position is that everything knowable by such
sense-conditioned knowledge is non-real. The hētu for this proposition is paraphrased by
Śiva-ñāna-yōgi in two ways. First, to meet the further Naiyāyika criticism that the world
is the object of and the cause of the knowledge that it exists, and therefore is not non-real.
Ś. ‘For the objects of sense-perception are by reason of excess of Rajas the objects of
and cause of the knowledge that they exist; and by reason of excess of Tamas are objects
of and cause of the knowledge that they do not exist. Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva are the
three constituents of Mūla-prakrti, the unmanifest primordial cause of the material world.
The world is in evolution, maintenance, and dissolution according as Rajas, Sattva, or
Tamas is in excess. So the meaning of the above paraphrase is that the objects of sense-
conditioned knowledge are objects of and cause of the knowledge that they exist, when
the world is in the evolved state; but of the opposite, when the world is in the state of
dissolution.
Secondly, to meet the Sankhya criticism that to say that the world is non-real because
it is known by sense-perception is a contradiction of the Satkarya-vada canon that what
produces effects is real.
Ś. The objects of sense-perception in their form as ‘effect’ are material and therefore
perceptible. But when they suddenly disappear, then in their form as ‘cause’ they are
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subtle and therefore imperceptible. So in contrast to the world in its causal form, in which
it is imperceptible, it is right to call the world in its form as effect non-real.
VI. I. a. This udāharana first addresses the adherent of the Nyāya, and then the adherent
of the Sānkhya, school. Śiva-ñāna-yōgi paraphrases the second part thus: ‘If you whose
system is not opposed to the Siddhanta will consider how to express the non-realty of the
world which appears and disappears, the best analogies are a writing written on water, or
a dream, or a mirage.’
VI. 2. The Māyā-vādins contend that God, being neither non-real and so knowable, nor
non-existent and so unknowable, is indefinable. According to the Siddhānta, God, though
beyond sense-perception and the sense-conditioned knowledge of the soul, is
comprehensible. The ground for this belief is, according to Śiva-ñāna-yōgi’s paraphrase,
‘Because for the definable, perceived by the senses and known by the soul’s sense-
conditioned knowledge (literally, by Vāk and Manas), there is no need to be known by
the “means” (sādhana) mentioned later; and for the indefinable, which cannot be known
in any way, there is no possibility of being known by that “means” (sādhana)’.
VI. 2. a. The Māyā-vādins hold that Paramārtha (transcendental) Brahma is differentiated

through ignorance (avidyā) into ‘knower’ and ‘known’, and can then be known by the
help of sādhana’ but when ignoranc is removed, this differentiation ceases, and then
Paramārtha Brahma is not ‘known’ in any way, either as real or non-real, but is pure
consciousness (kēvala-jñāna); therefore it is not right to say that Brahma is
comprehensible.
This udāharana meets this criticism. Ś. If you say that Paramārtha Brahma is (in the
freed state) neither real nor non-real as conceived in the phenomenal world then think and
say what means-of-knowing (pramāna) there is that such a being exists. If you say that
there is a means (pramāna), then Brahma becomes a ‘known’ – a pramēya or jñēya- (and
therefore non-real). If, anticipating this conclusion, you say that there is no means, (then
Brahma is non-existent). If he who has understood the nature of the Real examines the
question (he sees that, as was stated in the previous adhikarana), both that which is
knowable by perception and inference or by authority of scripture, and that which is non-
existent, unknowable by any method, are non-real.
Therefore the True Being which is called the Real in the Chāndōgya and other
Upanisads, and is not known by the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge, is not the non-
existent that you say, but the grace of Śiva, which is said in the Śaiva Upanisads and
Āgamas to be comprehensible only in the experience of inseparable union with God.
VI. 2. b. This udāharana meets a criticism of the first clause of the hētu in this
adhikarana. The fact that something is known by one means does not preclude its being
known by another; therefore, so the Naiyāyikas contend the fact that God is known by
mystical experience does not preclude His being known by sense-conditioned knowledge.
This udāharana denies that God can be known by sense-conditioned knowledge.
Ś. All the organs which know by your help are non-real, as already shown. Being
non-real (asat), they are also non-conscious (acit). Therefore none among them can know
the One, the Primal Being. And you also who know by their means cannot know Him. If
32
you were to find Him, He would be an object, different from you like things known by
means of the senses.
It is by the Primal Being, that is, by the enlightening grace of Śiva, that he who has
seen the Truth knows Him., and his knowledge is essentially one with that enlightening
Grace. Therefore he does not know the Peerless One, the Primal Being, as an object other
than himself as he knows other things.
VI. 2. c. The adherents of the Yōga system argue that to say, as in the previous
udāharana, that the soul ‘knows God by God’ is to commit the fallacy of Ātmāśraya; for
it is impossible for the soul to know God by God unless He is knowable. They contend
that God, who is beyond the reach of sense-conditioned knowledge, is known by
meditation as prescribed in their system This udāharana examines this claim.
Ś. If you say that the meditation which you mean is like other forms of meditation, a
meditation by means of mind and the other organs, then its object is non-real, because
known by sense-conditioned knowledge.
If you say that the meditation is one without the help of organs, and so surpassing a
meditation with them, then, since when the organs are put away the state beyond the
fourth occurs in which there is no way of knowing anything, your meditation is vain.
If you say that the meditation is of a kind that cannot be described, being neither with
nor without organs, the object of such meditation is non-entity.
If you say that it is meditation on a subject that is beyond meditation as if it were
within reach of meditation, it is vain.
If you say, then, ‘that which is beyond meditation altogether is non-entity’ (the
answer is that) that which is meditated on by the help of His grace, all other forms of
meditation being put aside, is the Divine Being. It is not non-entity merely because it is
beyond the meditation which you mention.
VI. 2. d. The Śivasama-vādins hold that when the soul is freed from its condition as Paśu,
its paśu-tva, in other words, when it is freed from association with Ānava, it possesses the
eight attributes of Śiva, including perfect knowledge; and so in the freed state the soul’s
knowledge, ātma-jñāna, is not sense-conditioned knowledge, paśu-jñāna, but is like
Śiva’s knowledge; and by this knowledge the soul knows God.
This udāharana is directed against that doctrine.
Ś. First, since the relation of God and the soul is called ‘non-duality’ in the Śaiva
Āgamas, God is not an object distinct from the soul, such that the soul might know Him
by its own knowledge. Secondly, since God and the soul are not equal, the soul being
‘gross’ and God ‘subtle’, present in the soul’s knowing, He cannot be known by the
soul’s knowledge even in the freed state. For these two reasons the soul’s knowledge
cannot know God, who is the soul of the soul helping the soul to know, not can it reveal
Him to the soul; just as the eye cannot see the soul – though the soul enables it to see –
because the soul is within it, in union with it.
VI. 2. e. If in the freed state the soul is thus one with God, how is it possible for there to
be knower and a known, as affirmed in the second udāharana? This udāharana deals
with this question of the Śivādvaita and Śuddha Śaivas.
33
Ś. You agree that Absolute Spiritual Reality is a known, jñēya; so it is not non-entity
to be spoken of indefinitely as ‘That’, as by the Māyā-vādins, who hold it to be
incomprehensible, unknowable. So even in the freed state there is not only a known but
also a knower, jñātar, who knows that there is something other than itself, and which is
beyond the knowledge of the senses and the sense-conditioned knowledge of the soul.
If you say, ‘Then, if that is so, unity cannot be attained’ (the answer is that) God is not an
object, something other than the soul, to be known like a material thing. He pervades the
soul’s knowledge, not manifest as other than it, even as salt in water. So the soul which
thus knows with a knowledge that transcends its sense-conditioned knowledge is one
with Absolute Spirit.
SEVENTH SUTRA
This and the next two Sūtra are concerned with Sādhana, ‘the means of attainment’. The
purpose of this Sūtra is to determine which of the three entities, Pati, Paśu, and Pāśa, is
competent to undergo the discipline of attainment. It proceeds by inquiring which of them
is competent to know both the real and the non-real.
VII. Ś. Because in the presence of Absolute Spiritual Reality, which is beyond the senses
and sense-conditioned knowledge, everything non-real in non-existent, Absolute Spiritual
Reality does not know the non-real world. Because the non-real world is unconscious
matter, it does not know Absolute Spiritual Reality. By process of elimination, therefore,
as there is something that knows both the real and the non-real, it must be the soul, which
being neither real nor non-real is non-real real.
VII. I. The statement in the Sūtra that in the presence of the Real everything non-real is
non-existent, śūnya, is interpreted as not denying its empirical existence, but as asserting
that it does not appear in the presence of God, whose knowledge is not empirical.
Ś. The non-real world known by sense-conditioned knowledge does not appear in the
presence of Absolute Spiritual Reality, which knows without such knowledge; for sense-
meditated knowledge does not arise in the presence of intuitive knowledge.
VII. I. a. The point of the udāharana is that the fact that God has not such sense-
conditioned knowledge does not detract from the perfection of His knowledge, because it
is not that there is something for Him to know – objectively as other than Himself –
which He does not know.
Ś. As God is in union with Paśu and Pāśa, which are pervaded (vyāpya) by Him,
there is for Him, there is for Him nothing to be known by sense-conditioned knowledge
(objectively). Therefore if God were to know the non-real, He would know it
immediately (being Himself one with it); not by sense-conditioned knowledge
(objectively), as something other than Himself, as we do. Just as darkness cannot appear
in the presence of the sun, the inglorious world cannot appear in the presence of the
Primal One.
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VII. 2. Though the Real does not know the non-real, the organs, which are part of the
non-real world, in this fettered state know the non-real in the presence of the lamp of the
soul, which itself experiences no change; similarly in the freed state, as faculties of
Absolute Spirit, they know Absolute Spiritual Reality. In the presence of the soul there is
light on the object on which its reflected light falls. So say the Śiva-sankrānta-vādins. But
the Śiddhāntist position is that the non-real has no knowledge; and the hētu for this thesis
is, as paraphrased by Śiva-ñāna-yōgi- For there is no knowledge in the non-real if it is
examined discriminately (savikalpa), without any doubt (sandēha), or misapprehension
(viparīta), though when it is considered superficially (nirvikalpa) it appears as if it had
knowledge.
VII. 2. a. The appearance of knowledge in the non-real is illusory, like that of water in a mirage.
VII. 3. The Śivādvaitists hold that as the soul is of the nature of Absolute Spiritual
Reality, the real knows the non-real; the Śiva-sankrānta-vādins hold that, as the soul has
no distinctive nature of its own, the non-real knows the real.
The Siddhāntist position is that that which knows both the real and the non-real is the
soul, which is neither. In place of the usual hētu there is a paraphrase which gives the full
meaning of the grammatical form of the word ‘both’ as including the instrumental and
locative as well as accusative. S. That which knows both the real and the non-real, that
which knows through being helped to know (by the real and the non-real), that which has
conscious experience in conjunction with both the real and the non-real, is the soul,
which is neither real nor non-real, but real non-real.
VII. 3. a. This udāharana supports the contention that the soul knows both the real and
the non-real, and is neither.
Ś. The soul which examines the subtlest scriptures knows the real and the non-real;
therefore it is neither of them, but different from both. That being so, does the soul, which
knows these two, know its own nature? If we say it does, then it would not be right to say
it knows the two, but the three. If we say it does not, we should be wrong, for that which
is not known is non-existent. What then? The nature of the soul is such that it does not
manifest itself as the real or the non-real, and does not resemble either; but though it does
not manifest itself thus, it is not non-existent. The soul is in the real or the non-real,
according as it depends on the one or the other, just as the scent is in the flower – the
scent which does not manifest itself (as a flower), but yet is not on that account non-
existent Therefore the soul does not know itself separately, like the real and the non-real,
but knows itself by knowing them.
VII. 3. b. This udāharana supports the contention that the fact that the soul knows through
being aided thereto, proves that it is neither real nor non-real.
Ś. When you have not the help of organs to give you knowledge, you are unable to
know what a thing is and are ignorant. When you have their help – which is a medicine
dispelling ignorance as food dispels hunger – your ignorance is removed, and you are
clear what a thing is. You who change thus from ignorance to knowledge have not, like
Absolute Spiritual Reality, the power to know.
If you say, ‘That being so, it seems I am non-real’ (the answer is that) when you have
the help of the organ you are able to know and experience the consequences of previous
35
works; but Pāśa, the non-real, different from you, is incapable of such experience.
Therefore you are not, like Pāśa, non-real.
VII. 3. c. This udāharana meets the possible criticism as regards the soul’s being in
conjunction with the real and the non-real, that God would be involved in the soul’s
ignorance.
Ś. That Ignorance (sense-conditioned knowledge), described in the previous
udāharana, cannot exist in the presence of Absolute Spirit, which is True Knowledge,
just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of the sun. Therefore that ignorance does not
exist in the presence of the sun. Therefore that ignorance does not exist in Absolute
Spirit, but it attached itself to souls there being souls fit for it, at the time when Absolute
Spirit came into being. Understand that it is like the salt that affects, not the ocean-space,
but the water that occupies that space.
EIGHTH SUTRA
This Sutra discusses what is the best sādhana, how it is acquired, and what is attained by
it.
VIII. Ś. By reason of the soul’s virtue in previous births, God, who has been immanent in
the soul, making it know, now vouchsafing to take the form of a guru, initiates the soul in
the Śaiva mysteries, saying, ‘O thou son of a king, fallen among savages, the senses, and
brought up by them, thou hast been ignorant of thy true greatness and hast wandered in
ignorance. Then as soon as that knowledge is received, the soul, leaving the savages and
uniting inseparably with God, attains His Sacred Feet.
VIII. I. The sādhana is knowledge, jñāna. This sādhana jñāna is knowledge of the real,
meyaññāna; it is described by Śiva-ñāna-yōgi as ‘knowledge through Śiva-knowledge
imparted by a guru’. It is given to those who have performed tapas in previous births,
tapas consisting not of austerities, but of caryā, kriyā, and yōga, the first three of the four
degrees of Śiva worship. They are not the sādhana, but they lead to it.
VIII. I. a. The purpose of this udāharana is to show how these three forms of worship
lead to the fourth, jñāna.
Ś. Those who have performed caryā, kriyā, and yōga attain the heavenly states of
sālōkya, sāmīpya, and sārūpya respectively, and experience the joys that are there, the
fruits of these forms of worship.
That, being born again into the world, they may experience, and so put away the last
desire which arose from the fate which was determining the next deed at the time when
the former body died, they appear again in a high caste suited for the performance of
religious practices. By performing what still remains to be performed of them, they cut
off worldly desire so that it cannot bear fruit, and obtain knowledge of the real. So say, in
their wisdom, these who have studied and understood the scriptures on Release.
VIII. I. b. This udāharana deals with the contention of Kumārila Bhatt’s Mīmāmsā that
knowledge of the real comes from sacrificial practice, not from caryā, kriyā, and yōga.
36
Ś. When the student of the Dharma-śāstras finds sacrifices, &c., enjoined as virtuous
practices, he finds them described along with the fruits obtained through them. The joy
which is the fruit of such practices is like the joy which comes of food to the man, having
hungered and eaten, will hunger again. Therefore virtuous practices and the reverse are
similar to each other, like fetters of gold and fetters of silver, in that they both keep the
soul in bondage and hinder its approach to knowledge.
When the two, which are thus seen to resemble each other, are made to balance each
other by caryā, kriyā, and yōga, which do not perish like them in the moment when their
fruit is experienced, but grow more and more, the soul on account of that development of
caryā, kriyā, and yōga seeks and finds the Guru and obtains knowledge.
The point of this udāharana is that the practice of Vedic rites is enjoined with a view
to the blessings to be obtained thereby. Thus it does not quench desire, but rather
stimulates it, and so keeps the soul in the bondage of samsāra. It is a fetter no less than
the practice of evil. The peculiar benefit of the practice of caryā, and other forms of Śiva-
worship is that they secure the balance of good and evil works (iruvinai-oppu), that
condition of the soul in which it regards both alike without emotion, neither performing
virtue for the sake of reward, nor eschewing evil for fear of its consequences; and thus
they lead the soul to knowledge which is the sādhana, the way of attaining release.
VIII. 2. This knowledge for which the soul is prepared by caryā, kriyā, and yōga is
imparted by God, not, as the Sānkhya and Nyāya systems hold, by ordinary human
agency, as in the case of the arts and sciences.
Ś. ‘By the fulfillment of caryā, kriyā, and yōga, the ripening of Impurity and the
descent of Śakti are produced. Seeing this readiness of the soul, God who till now has
been helping the soul to know, immanent within it, graciously appears as a guru and
instructs the soul.’
Mala-paripāka, the maturing or ripening of Impurity, signifies the removal of
Impurity from the soul, as of a ripe fruit from the tree. Śakti-nipāta is understood either as
the descent of Grace upon the soul, the occupation of the soul by Grace causing it to be
evacuated by Impurity, or as the subjection of the soul with a view to union with God. On
the interpretation, Śakti has its usual meaning, the gracious power of God; on the latter
interpretation, it is taken as signifying ‘soul’.
The hētu for this thesis has in view the criticism that God cannot assume a perishable
body consisiting of evolutes of Māyā, and that therefore, even if He comes in the form of
a guru, He only dwells (adhisthāna) in him in the same way in which He dwells in
everything, being omnipresent. The Siddhanta position is that God is present in the guru
by possession (āvēśa).
Ś. For He is not concealed in the guru and different from him, as ghee is concealed in
milk; He is manifest there, as ghee is visible in curds.
The udāharanas deal with the way in which God reveals Himself to souls- to the
Vijñānākalas, souls associated with only one form of Impurity, Anava; to the
Pralayākalas, souls with two Impurities, Anava and Karma; and to the Sakalas, souls
involved in all three Impurities, Anava, Karma, and Maya.
VIII. 2. a. Ś. To the Vijñānākalas God Himself gives True Knowledge, being Himself
within them, the light (of all their seeing). To the Pralayākalas He gives this knowledge
37
by instruction, revealing Himself as a guru in His own form as Śiva, four-armed, three-
eyed, black-throated, and performing His three functions. To ignorant Sakalas he gives
this knowledge hiding Himself as a guru whose form is like their own. Understand.
VIII. 2. b. Ś. Understand that all souls know when God helps them to know, not all in the
same way, but according to their condition. The Pralayākalas and the Sakalas, who learn
by receiving instruction from God, whose knowledge is not derived from another, need
respectively the word of instruction given directly by God as guru in human form. The
Vijñānākalas do not need this instruction; they have within themselves from God the
knowledge which brings release.
VIII. 2. c. The point of this verse is that God’s coming as a guru is in the case of Sakalas
not merely a figure of speech, but as much an actual fact as in the case of souls in the
other classes.
Ś. O scholar blest with knowledge, a woman’s milk and tears, the visible forms that
reveal her invisible love, are not manifest before she sees her babe; then are they seen.
Similarly He is without visible form in souls, like the shadow of water in water. Who
then would know Him if He did not reveal Himself, appearing in the form of a guru?
VIII. 3. The Śiva-sankrānta-vādins hold that it is not necessary for God to come as a guru,
because the five senses, which as organs of the soul give knowledge of the objects of
sense, the non-real, can as organs of Śiva give true knowledge, knowledge of the real.
Śiva-ñāna-yōgi’s paraphrase of the hētu makes the Siddhāntist argument clear. The soul,
confused by the five senses, does not know itself; through the senses it does not obtain
knowledge of the real, ‘for just as the many colors in a crystal, overpowering the color of
the crystal itself, display only themselves, so the five senses, obscuring the soul’s true
nature, reveal to the soul only their objects.
VIII. 3. a. The purpose of the udāharana is to meet the criticism that the senses, thus
obtruding themselves, would obscure the teaching imparted to the soul by God as a guru.
Ś. The soul is first aware of its phenomenal nature, which is to display as itself the
organs with which it is associated, just as the phenomenal nature of the crystal is to
display as itself the many colors with which it is associated. Then the soul, coming to
realize that the various organs which constitute its phenomenal nature are different from
it, just as it understands that the colors are different from the crystal, discovers its own
essential nature in this rejection of the phenomenal nature as false. This causes absolute
Spiritual Reality, different from the sense-organs, which are non-real; to be manifest in
the soul; and thus the soul becomes the servant of that Absolute Spiritual reality.
VIII. 4. The Bhēda-vāda-śaivas hold that when the soul thus realizes its own true nature,
that is all; the sense-organs having been discarded, no further action is possible, and so
the soul does not become the servant of God, Absolute Spiritual Reality. The Siddhantist
position is that as a fall to earth follows rope, so the soul’s realization of devoted
dependence on God, the Real, follows immediately upon its recognition that it is
essentially different from the sense-organs, and its rejection of them and all the non-real
world as non-real. To abandon dependence upon the non-real and to attain dependence
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upon the real are but two aspects of the same act. So no functioning of the sense-organs is
needed for this dependence upon God, therefore it is possible, though they have been
discarded.
VIII. 4. a. This experience is final; the soul, having thus put aside the sense-organs, does
not resume them, as it does after discarding them in the Kēvala, that is, the Turyātīta
state.
VIII. 4. b. This verse deals with the contention of the Śivā-dvaita-śaivas that it does not
matter whether, when souls have come to see all things as Absolute Spirit, they unite with
sense-organs or not.
The Siddhāntist position is that, though the Divine Intelligence is at work in both the
soul’s divinely imparted knowledge and its sense-conditioned knowledge, that fact does
not make the two of equal worth.
Ś. If not only the soul’s (divinely imparted) knowledge but also its sense-conditioned
knowledge were Absolute Spirit, there would be no superiority in the former, and there
would be no need to leave the Sakala state, wherein the senses function, and reach the
Sacred Feet. Therefore, as there would be none who would seek the Sacred Feet, it would
have to be concluded that the words, ‘Deliverance which is the soul’s leaving Pāśa and
attaining the Lord’, and texts in the Vēdas and Āgamas of similar meaning, are wrong.
But if it be said that God has no connexion with sense-knowledge, He would not be Lord
there, and this would be derogatory to His Godhead.
If you ask, ‘What then is the nature of sense-knowledge?’, (the answer is that),
although sense-conditioned knowledge, like the soul’s (divinely imparted) knowledge, is
Absolute Spirit by reason of His union with it, yet the two are not equal. Although the
soul is in all the five senses alike, four of them perceive only those of their respective
objects, which come to them where those of their respective objects, which come to them
where they are; they cannot pass outwards and perceive their objects everywhere. But the
eye, passing everywhere, by its light sees even an object which is at a distance. (So,
though God is in union with both forms of knowledge, they are not equal worth.) You
may appreciate the superiority of the eye over the other organs when eyesight, having
been temporarily lost, is regained. (Similarly the superiority of the soul’s knowledge
imparted by divine grace, over the sense-conditioned knowledge of the soul will be
appreciated when that knowledge is received by the soul.)
VIII. 4.c. This udāharana emphasizes the point that the soul which has received the
knowledge imparted by divine grace will not return to union with the senses. It explains
what the possible cause of such return is and how it may be abolished.
Ś. O scholar who hast received the great word of the Siddhānta which teaches that
thou art not possessed of limited knowledge like the sense-organs, the Sakala soul which
has put away the knowledge which comes through the five senses and has attained the
Sacred Feet of the Lord, like the river-water which escapes and flows away and merges
itself in the billowy ocean, will not leave those Sacred Feet by gain uniting with the
sense-organs. The weed on the water, driven back by the splash of a stone, spreads again
when left undisturbed. Similarly Ānava, Karma, and Māyā, removed by the soul’s
attainment of the Sacred Feet, may return of the lingering taint of Impurity. But if so, the
39
soul does not by reason of this lingering taint return to the sense-organs; it rids itself of
Ānava, Karma, and Māyā by meditating, with the means described hereafter, on the Lord
who does not forsake the soul even in its forgetfulness.
NINTH SŪTRA
IX. This Sūtra defines the manner in which the knowledge of God vouchsafed by His
grace is experienced, and how that, experience is preserved.
Ś. By the knowledge imparted by divine grace, the soul finds in its own consciousness
God, who cannot be known by the soul’s imperfect knowledge nor by sense-perception.
By this grace-given knowledge the soul knows that Pāśa, from earth to Nāda, passes
way, being like the ever-changing, swiftly passing mirage. When, knowing this, the soul
separates itself from Pāśa, that divine knowledge arises as a cool shelter from the heat of
the misery of birth. In order that, when the soul has separated itself from Pasa and
obtained knowledge, the vision of the known may endure unfailingly, the Śri Pañcāksara
is recited according to rule.
IX. I. The Śiva-sama-vāda-śaivas hold that, although God is not knowable by pāśa-jñāna,
He is knowable by paśu-jñāna. The Siddhāntist position is that God is knowable only by
divine knowledge, spiritual illumination, ñānakkan.
IX. I. a. This verse supports the theorem by showing how the form of the soul’s
knowledge, which surpasses its sense-conditioned knowledge, arises. The argument is
that the soul’s knowledge of its own true nature, as in advaita union with God, is the
result of God’s gracious revelation of Himself; it cannot therefore be the means of
knowing God.
Ś. In the soul’s discovery that, thought it seeks itself, saying ‘Am I veins or nerves or
bones or fat or phlegm?’, it does not find itself, it discovers that there must be a form of
knowledge which reveals what the soul is. By this divinely imparted knowledge, which
appears when the soul is thus searching, souls know God and themselves as those who
know Him; how else can they know themselves in the freed state?
IX. I. b. This verse emphasizes the point that there is no other way for the soul to know
itself and God except by this divinely imparted knowledge.
Ś. The eye which sees an object, being helped to see it by the soul, cannot see itself.
Nor can it see the soul, which stands as its Lord, enabling it to see. Similarly, the soul
which examines the constituents of the body and discovers that it is not they, being
enabled to do so by God hidden within it, cannot know itself. Nor can it know God who
thus enables it.
As God is hidden in that knowledge like a thief, search for Him there and know Him
clearly.
IX. 2. This theorem defines the way in which spiritual illumination comes.
Śiva-ñāna-yōgi comments, ‘As in other theorems, so in this, the thesis and the reason
may be separately stated, thus: When the non-real world is seen to be non-real, that which
40
then appears is Knowledge itself (the real); just as when the various colors which are
different from the crystal are seen to be different from it and are rejected, that which then
becomes visible is the crystal itself.’
IX. 2. a. Against the contention of the Māyā-vādins that when the non-real world is
known to be non-real, that which then appears cannot be anything but nonentity, this
verse supports the theorem that what appears is Knowledge itself, the Divine reality.
Ś. He is not known, as the Impure World is, in the form of the gunas; nor as the
Mixed World is, in the form of effects of Ānava and Karma; nor as is the Pure World
which transcends Ānava and Karma, in the form of transitory Bliss.
He is superior to soul, being not like souls, which are known according to their
phenomenal condition in association with the three forms of the world.
Since He transcends worlds and souls, God is the Absolute, not known as though He
was of their nature. When the non-real, the tattvas, ākāśa, &c., is seen to be non-real and
is rejected, He at first appears as non-existent because He transcends the soul’s sense-
conditioned knowledge. But afterwards will He not appear as the Light within the light,
abiding in inseparable union with that knowledge of the soul which transcends its sense-
conditioned knowledge?
IX. 2. b. This verse further supports the theorem that what arises when the non-real is
recognized to be non-real is Knowledge itself, Divine Reality.
Ś. When the world which is known by the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge has
been taken part by part, as described in the previous udāharana, and rejected as non-real,
what is that which is known at the end? It is the real, different from the non-real.
Understand that.
If you say, ‘That being so, the real which appears then, different from the non-real, is
the soul’ (the answer is that) you who have been knowing by means of sense-organs, in
union with the non-real up till now, are not the real which thus appears, different from the
non-real.
If you say, ‘that being so, perhaps this sense-conditioned knowledge will never leave
me’, (the answer is that) if you who have been knowing by means of sense-organs, in
dependence on the non-real, discard the non-real and in dependence on the real unite with
the real which appeared as that which exists at the end, by that very union your
phenomenal nature, namely, your sense-conditioned knowledge, will leave you.
IX. 2. c. This udāharana describes how the soul, which in its recognition of the non-
reality of the non-reality of the non-real finds God, rids itself of its phenomenal nature
and becomes inseparably one with Him.
Ś. When the soul rejects the world known by sense-conditioned knowledge as non-
real, having examined it part by part, and in the knowledge which has thus rejected the
world discovers God, whose knowledge is not sense-conditioned, and meditates upon
Him with the meditation ‘He is I’, then the soul puts off its phenomenal nature, with
which it has been united from eternity, by the help of God, who through that meditation is
manifest in inseparable union with the soul.
In this the soul is like a man who overcomes the effect of poison by the power of the
divine Garuda, who appears in the glorious Garuda-meditation.
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IX. 3. Though when Pāśa is removed, Knowledge, Divine Reality, is revealed as a cool
shade, something is still needed for the cleansing of the soul.
Ś. After the soul has discovered God by the spiritual illumination which comes as a
cool shade when Pāśa has been put away, it is necessary to pronounce the Śri
Pañcāksara according to rule; for the caterpillar which has fed on the neem-tree, though
it has left it and fed on sugar-cane, returns to it by force of habit. Similarly souls which
have discarded the non-real world, seeing that it is non-real, and which have thus attained
Knowledge and enjoyed the vision of God, he Known, turn again to their former sense-
conditioned knowledge because of the lingering taint of impurity. Therefore understand
that to eradicate that taint this recitation of the Śri Pañcaksara is necessary.
The udāharanas present the recitation of the Śri Pañcaksara as the means whereby
the lingering taint of impurity can be prevented from distracting the soul from the Divine
Vision and immersing it again in the world of sense.
IX. 3. a. The first describes recitation of the Śri Pañcaksara as a fulfillment of the
external ritual of worship, and as a way of confirming the soul’s experience of union with
Absolute Spiritual Reality.
S. Understand by recitation of the Sri Pancaksara that the soul belongs to Hara.
Corresponding to the external form of worship, inwardly take the heart, the navel, and the
centre of the brow to represent the places of worship, of sacrificial fire, and of meditation
respectively. In your lotus-heart by that symbol worship the Lord in His sacred form
composed of those five letters, with gifts of eight flowers, namely, respect for life,
restraint of the senses, patience, grace, knowledge, truth, penance, and love. In the navel,
the place of sacrifice, by that sacred mantra raise the sacred fire and into it pour the ghee
which is the nectar got from the seat of the Bindu by means of the spoons which are the
passages of the nostrils. In the centre of the brow, the seat of the Bindu, meditate ‘He is
I’, giving to the three syllables Śi, vā, and ya the meanings of Tat, tvam, and asi
respectively. If you do so, God will be manifest to you in that meditation; and you, the
meditator, will become His servant by meditating on yourself and God as the dependent
and the self-dependent.
IX. 3. b. This udāharana describes how the soul that meditates on His symbol discovers
God, and the experience that ensues.
Ś. Of the nine planets, Rāhu and Kētu are not seen as the others are, moving in the
sky, but only in the moon and sun at time of eclipse. Similarly, of the three entities Pati,
the Lord, does not like Pāśa appear objectively to the soul’s knowledge as other than
Paśu, the soul. When, having set Him in its lotus-heart in meditation on the Five Letters,
the soul sees Him, He appears there even as fire appears in the wood when the friction-
stick is revolved, and is seen as knowledge in knowledge (the inner principle of the soul’s
consciousness). Then the soul loses its self-dependence and becomes the servant of God,
just as iron in the fire (loses its hardness and blackness, becoming like the fire). Therefore
recite the Śri Pañcaksara according to rule.
IX. 3. c. The point of this udāharana is that, although God transcends the world, He can
be worshipped in the heart. The heart is called the ‘lotus-heart’, because it is the
42
dwelling-place of God. A fanciful comparison is drawn between the several parts of a

lotus and the various tattvas that compose the world, the lotus-heart being thus
represented as a microcosm.
Ś. If you examine the nature of the lotus-heart, the twenty-four tattvas, from earth to
Mūla-prakrti, form its stalk. The seven Vidyā-tattvas and Śuddha-vidyā are its eight
petals. The sixty-four Kalās of the two tattvas, Īśvara and Sadāśiva, are its stamens. The
Śakti-tattva (Bindu) is its ovary, below the stamens. The Śiva-tattva (Nāda) is the fifty-
one seeds which are found in the ovary. In this lotus-heart the Śakti of Śiva abides,
having as its seat the thirty-six tattvas. Understand this and worship through the Śri
Pañcaksara.
TENTH SUTRA
The last three Sūtras are concerned with Payam, the ‘fruit’ of Sādhana. It is twofold, the
removal of Pāśa and the attainment of Śiva. The former is the effect of the purification of
the soul, described in the ninth Sūtra, which occurs when by recitation of the Śri
Pañcaksara the soul rejects the world known by the soul’s sense-conditioned knowledge,
and destroys its attachment to it.
X. This Sūtra explains how the removal of Pāśa is brought about; in other words, how the
soul is released from the three-fold Impurity that has affected it from eternity.
Ś. In the fettered state, though God in union with the soul know, He is one with the
soul in such a way that He is not seen to be other than the soul, and so the soul thinks that
it itself, knows. Similarly, in the freed state, though the soul in union with God knows, it
is one with God in such a way that it does not regard itself as other than God, and abides
unfailingly in His service. This being so, powerful Karma together with Ānava, and Māyā
pass away so that they are not.
X. I. This adhikarana deals with the removal of Ānava. The Śivasama-vāda-śaivas

contend that to know God is sufficient for the attainment of release. The argument of the
Siddhanta is that it is necessary not merely to know but to be one with God, because it is
only when the soul is one with God that it puts away that self-conceit (śerukku, here
signifying Ānava) from which arises the delusive consciousness of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, as
though the soul were not one with God, and so attains release.
X. I. a. The udāharana deals with the question why the differentiation of soul and God as
the knower and the known is called ‘delusive’. The answer is that, as God is the principle
of consciousness within the soul, the light of the soul’s seeing, He cannot be known as an
object of the soul’s knowledge.
Ś. When in those who differentiate the knower and the known as ‘I’ and ‘He’ – as in
those who think that only the ‘I’ exists and not the ‘He’ – such thought arises in the soul,
God being one with the soul’s consciousness cannot thus be known as ‘He’ (viz. the
object of such thought). But those who know that the ‘I’ cannot be known apart from
God, and that God is all – them God, who is all, causes to lose themselves in His all –
pervading grace.
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X. 2. This adhikarana is concerned with the removal of Karma and Māyā. The Śuddha-
śaivas contend that, as there is no way, while the body lasts, of getting rid of the karmic
consequences of former works, and of the activity which is the instrumental cause of such
experience, these two, Karma and Māyā, form an insuperable obstacle to union with God.
Ś. It is necessary for the soul to abide unfailingly in service of God, for if the soul
thus does nothing as of itself but all by His grace, Ignorance and Karma cannot arise to
prevent the soul’s union with God.
Śiva-ñāna-yōgi interprets Ignorance, Ajñāna, as the delusive knowledge which is the
effect of Māyā, not as Ānava, on the ground that the question of the removal of Ānava
has already been discussed in the previous adhikarana.
X. 2. a. This udāharana deals with the objection that for the jivan-mukta, the released but
still embodied soul, there is prārabdha which must be experienced, and also āgāmya
being formed thereby; in other words, that the jivan-mukta, so long as he is in the body,
undergoes an experience which is the effect of former deeds or of such them as are ripe
for fruition, and that in working through this experience he creates the necessity of a
further experience which is similarly determined by the karmic principle of action and
reaction.
Ś. The sense-organs which are the means for experiencing prārabdha and for laying
up āgāmya are products of Māyā; they are not ourselves. They function in dependence on
God, not on us. The external objects which are necessary for the functioning of the
organs are, like the organs, products of Māyā; they are not ourselves. And their
functioning is in dependence on God, not on us. We also, who in union with sense-organs
and objects experience prārabdha and lay up āgāmya, are incapable of knowledge unless
God makes us know, and of action unless He makes us act. So we are not self-dependent,
but dependent on God.
If, knowing the nature of Pāśa and soul to be such as here described, souls see that all
they do by the action of His grace, they are in dependence on Him. Whatever deeds those
who are in this state do in the body, those deeds do not form a fetter for them. And
prārabdha, which brings with it agamya, as they are essentially one, in the presence of
God who attaches it to souls, passes away as an experience of the body (not affecting the
soul).
X. 2. b. This udāharana deals with the objection that, if God, in the case of the jivan-
mukta prevents experience from creating the necessity of further experience in another
birth, and He does not do in other cases, He is cotravening the principle of divine justice.
The different treatment is due not to any partiality in God, but to the difference in the
souls concerned.
X. 2. c. This udāharana explains further how it is that the jivan-mukta experiences

prārabdha, and how it is that prārabdha does not create further āgāmya.
Ś. In a pot that smells of the asafoetida that was in it, the odour continues to linger,
though faintly. Similarly in those who know and serve God, should desire arise through
force of habit, prārabdha and the products of Māyā, viz. the body, &c., will arise like a
faint odour. But agamya, the consequences of prārabdha, does not get a firm hold as a
seed for the future, and does not mature, but perishes with the products of Maya. Agamya
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does not come to fruition because the soul looks to the Lord, its Support, who does not let
it fall away. He does not let the soul fall, though by reason of the lingering taint it might
do so because the soul is one with Absolute Spiritual Reality.
X. 2. d. This udāharana explains how those who thus know and serve God can continue
to ‘know their Support’ when prarabdha and the products of Māyā arise; in other words,
when they enter an earthly experience.
Ś. Just as those who through ascetic practices have won the power not to be burned by
fire do not lose their power though they even lie down in fire; just as those who have
studied horsemanship and learnt to ride swift horses; so it is with those who, studying
how to avoid the entanglement of the five senses, have the power to know the sacred feet
of the Lord, their Support. Even though they experience the five kinds of sensation
because of the occurrence of prārabdha and the products of Māyā, they do not by so
doing lose that power or become entangled in the ‘fetters’.
X. 2. e. This udāharana is concerned with the question how the soul can retain the power
to abide at the Sacred Feet of the Lord even when it enters into sensuous experience.
Ś. If he who knows his nature to be real and non-real because he is real and non-real
according to that on which he depends, exercises the sense of sight by the grace of God
who is real, not seeing anything except by that grace, then the non-real Pāśa cannot
attract him by its pleasures. For the non-real cannot operate in the presence of the real,
just as darkness cannot remain before a fiercely blazing light. Therefore those who are
united with God are not in bondage to the non-real, the senses.
ELEVENTH SUTRA
XI. This Sūtra is concerned with the second element in the twofold fruit attained through
Sādhana, namely, the attainment of Śiva. The Siddhanta does not accept the view that in
the freed state there is no thought, desire, or action - in which case the freed state would
be a state of non-existence like the Buddhist Ālaya-vijñāna, consciousness devoid of
content. This Sutra describes how in the freed state the soul through its union with God
knows and feels and acts; and so defines the nature of the final goal or resting-place
(nisthā) of the soul, the attainment of Śiva, Divine Blessedness.
Ś. The soul in union with the eye causes it to see, the nature of the eye being to see
when it is caused to see; and the soul itself sees. Similarly God in union with the soul
causes it to know, the nature of the soul being to know when it is caused to know; and
God Himself knows. Therefore, by love, in which the soul never forgets but firmly
maintains its union with God, it attains the experience of divine bliss, the Sacred Feet of
God.
XI. I. God not only helps the soul to know but Himself knows that which the soul knows.
Śiva-ñāna-yōgi interprets the hētu so as to meet the criticism that the comparison of the
relation of God and soul to that of soul and eye is illogical, since the eye is impercipient
matter and the effects of its seeing concern not it but the soul, whereas the soul is not
impercipient matter, and, the effects of its knowing concern it and not God. His
45
paraphrase compares the relation of the soul and God not to the relation of eye and soul,
but to that of eye and light.
Ś. The eye cannot see an object unless an illuminating light uniting with the light of
the eye falls also upon the object. Similarly souls, whose nature it is to know when helped
to know, cannot know unless God’s knowledge unites with theirs, and, passing with it to
the object, unites with it also. Alone they cannot perceive or know anything. Therefore
God must be in union with the soul and know, so that the soul may perceive and know.
XI. I. a. This udāharana deals with the contention that if God in union with souls knows
that which souls know, there is no difference between God and the soul in respect of
knowledge.
Ś. It is the nature of the soul, uniting separately with each of the five senses – taste,
sight, touch, sound, and smell – to perceive what is perceptible thereby. So the soul does
not perceive all the five sensations together, but separately. Absolute Spirit, ever the same
without variableness, not like the soul varying according to that with which it unites,
knows all the perceptions of all souls simultaneously.
XI. I. b. This udāharana is concerned with a criticism of the statement that God knows
which the soul knows, to the effect that when applied to the freed state it involves a
logical fallacy, the fallacy of Ātmāśraya (argument in a circle); for what the soul knows
in the freed state is God, and as the soul’s knowledge of God is dependent upon God’
knowledge of Himself dependent upon the soul’s knowledge of Him.
Ś. When the soul, which, in dependence upon God, becomes one with Him, ever the
same without variableness, experiences His grace, God becomes for that soul Beauty of
exceeding bliss; and He is inseparably one with the soul in that experience of the soul.
Therefore, in union with the soul in that experience, will He not know Himself, the object
which the knower knows?
XI. 2. This adhikarana is concerned with the nature of the soul’s nistha, its final goal and
resting-place. It is called the attainment of Siva, Absolute Spiritual Reality, or, more
figuratively, ‘the attainment of the Sacred Feet of Hara’. It is the experience of Divine
Blessedness in oneness with God.
Ś. For God in inseparable union with souls knows what they do; and if it is much, He
causes the fitting fruit (the experience of Divine Blessedness in oneness with God) to
come at once, but if it is less, He causes the fruit to come later.
XI. 2. a. This udāharana meets the criticism that if ‘the attainment of the sacred feet’
were possible before the body is laid aside, it would be visible to others near by, just as
the sunlight if visible to one is visible to others near him.
Ś. Though the sun is the same for all, it is as the darkness of night to all except those
who have sight. Similarly, though God is the same everywhere, He is hidden by Impurity
from all except the muktas, the freed who have put away Impurity.
If it be said that, because the jivan-muktas have a body and so are bound by the
Fetter, there is no difference between them and others, (the answer is that) it is only the
mature lotus, though it is in company with others immature, that the sun causes to
blossom. Similarly it is only for those who, though they are in the body like other, are
46
ready-who with loving devotion know God and never forget Him-that God causes
knowledge to blossom, removing the Fetter by gracious revelation of Himself. Therefore
even in the body the jivan-muktas are not bound by the Fetter.
XI. 2. b. This udāharana is concerned with the contention that ‘the blossoming of
knowledge’ and the ‘the removal of the fetter’ for the jivan-muktas who know God with
loving devotion are not possible except hereafter in the final state of release. Śiva-ñāna-
yōgi’s paraphrase brings out the point that release from the Fetter is a gradual process.
Ś. The waxing moon day by day gradually dispels the darkness that clouds the eye.
Similarly God, who from eternity is with the soul in His great and gracious purpose to
make the soul one with Himself, dispels the power of Impurity in the soul step by step
according to the readiness of the soul, until the process is complete.
Like the magnet which attracts and masters the iron, God experiences no weariness in
the process of gradually impressing that power of His upon the soul while He drives out
Impurity, and of thus drawing the soul to Himself and mastering it. Because He does it
without weariness, He is not subject to change. Like the magnet, He does it simply by His
presence.
XI. 2. c. This udāharana meets the criticism of the Pāsāna-vādins that Ānava, being
related to the soul as quality to substance, lasts as long as the soul, and cannot be
removed as though it were something different from the soul. The argument is in the form
of arthāpatti, an assumption to account for a fact which is otherwise unaccountable. In
this case the assumption is that the soul’s association with Ānava is terminated, such
termination being the only way of accounting for the soul’s attainment of Śiva.
Ś. In answer to the question whether, when the soul attains the Sacred Feet of Hara, it
becomes one with Him after first perishing or without first perishing--if it is said that
after having perished it becomes one with Him, as the soul has perished, oneness is
impossible; on the other hand, if it is said that without perishing it becomes one with
Him, as the soul, having not perished, forms (through the presence of Ānava) a duality
with Him, oneness is impossible. Therefore the conclusion, reached by arthāpatti, is (that
this union is possible only by the soul’s ridding itself of Ānava). Just as salt when it loses
its hardness becomes one with the water, so the soul, after ridding itself of its innate
Impurity, becomes one with the Sacred Feet of hara and becomes His servant. Because
the soul as His servant does nothing of itself, it is not again caught in the Fetter.
XI. 2. d. This udāharana supports the view that, though the soul passes through the three
conditions, Kēvala, Sakala, and Śuddha, it is not affected thereby in its own nature.
Ś. The sun in the early morning is hidden in banks of cloud. Then, when the colud is
dissipated at one spot, the sun appears there with restricted light. Later, when the cloud is
completely driven away by a strong wind, the sun appears as light shining everywhere.
Similarly the soul in the Kēvala state has its consciousness hidden in Impurity from
eternity. Then with the sense-organs limited knowledge arrises and perceives the five
sensations. Then after the complete removal of Impurity by the grace of God, unlimited
knowledge arises and the soul attains the Sacred Feet and is purified.
47
TWELFTH SUTRA
XII. While the freed soul is still in the body, its thought and desire and activity will
continue to be directed to the empirical world. This Sūtra explains to what they are
directed, and shows how God, who is beyond sense and the soul’s sense-conditioned
knowledge, is worshipped under visible forms as though He were not.
Ś. The jivan-mukta washes away with the water of knowledge the dirt of the three
Impurities whose nature it is to cause him to forget God and to prevent him attaining His
sustaining feet which are like the open flower of the red lotus. He joins the company of
those who have True Knowledge and unforgetting love, and puts away the delusive
knowledge which is caused by Impurity. So he lives worshipping as God Himself the
persons of those with unforgetting love, and their sacred emblems, and also the temples
of Śiva.
XII. I. Jivan-muktas are enjoined to put away the three Impurities, Ānava, Māyā, and
Kārmya.
The hētu for this injunction is named to meet the criticism that the removal of the
Impurities has already been accomplished, since in the tenth Sūtra it is said, ‘Powerful
Karma, together with Ānava and Māyā, passes away.’ Śiva-ñāna-yōgi renders the hētu as
follows:
For even into those who have gained True Knowledge and have attained the Sacred
Feet, these Impurities enter somehow, and overpowering True Knowledge cause the old
delusive knowledge to gain ascendancy.
XII. 2. To make freedom from the Impurities a permanent condition, jivan-muktas must
associate with Śiva’s devotees, not because they prefer the society of some persons to
that of others, for all desire and aversion have been transcended, but because those who
have not won release bring them again into touch with Ajñāna, viz. sense-conditioned
knowledge, as not knowing the real.
XII. 2. a. Ś. Those who do not love God cause the jivan-muktas to lose their spiritual
illumination, whereby they hold fast and never forget their advaita relation to God, and
leading them in an evil way cause them to fall into the pit of rebirth, which is effected by
the Impurities, and to suffer misery. In order to sever this long connexion with those who
do not love God, the jivan-muktas must be great lovers in the company of Śiva’s
devotees, who remove their forgetfulness, assist them in True Knowledge, lift them from
the pit of rebirth, lead them in a good way, and make them blessed. Thus they become
themselves true devotees who, with True Knowledge which depends on love, hold fast
that advaita relation with God. Then prārabdha, which causes all sorrows and creates the
connexion with those who do not love God, cannot affect them.
XII. 3. To make this association with Śiva’s devotees permanent, jivan-muktas must
worship the sacred emblems worn by them, and the temples of Siva, looking upon them
as God Himself; for though God is everywhere, there He is visible as ghee in curds,
whereas in other places He is invisible as ghee in milk.
48
XII. 3. a. This udāharana explains how God is visible in the sacred habit of His devotees.
Ś. In order that those in the world may know Him, God, who is beyond sense-
perception and sense-conditioned knowledge, gives His devotees His sacred form,
namely, His sacred emblems of ashes and beads; He makes them know Him by
meditation on the mystic symbol of oneness with Him; and then He pervades with His
pervasive presence those who have known Him by that symbol. Therefore, in those who
have come thus to know Him without that symbol (through His pervasive presence), He
is visible as ghee in curds; but in those who are bound in the Fetter He is invisible, as
ghee in milk.
XII. 3. b. This udāharana is concerned with the criticism that as the fixed inanimate
forms, such as the linga, have not, like the moving living forms, the devotees, knowledge
of God, He is not visible in them except when mantras are used. The point of the
udāharana is that God is one with these inanimate forms just as fire is in a piece of wood.
But for those who do not understand that He is there, a mantra may be necessary to make
Him visible to them, just as a friction-stick is necessary to reveal the spark hidden in the
wood.
XII. 4. Though the analysis of the Sūtra is complete in these three adhikaranas, a fourth is
added, the purpose of which is to emphasize the necessity of worship enjoined in the third
adhikarana. Śiva-ñāna-yōgi interprets the hētu for the injunction to worship as follows:
The soul is one with the constituents of the body, nerves, bones,sinews, &c.; but those
who carefully examine the question whether the soul is nerves, bones, &c., see that it is
not any of them, but is different from them. Similarly God, who is the soul of the soul, is
one withal things animate and inanimate by mingling, but He is different from them by
nature. So the worship which arises when He is seen to be one with all things will not
arise when He is seen to be different. Therefore it is necessary to cause this worship to
arise even when He is seen to be different. So it is put as a command, ‘Worship in these
places’.
XII. 4. a. This udāharana answers the question why, if God is one with all things,
worship should be limited to these two objects, the persons of the devotees and the
shrines of Śiva.
Ś. Those who have learnt how God is related to all things know that this relation is
not like that of eye and un, the difference of two mutually exclusive entities, a this and a
that; nor like that of body and soul, an identity in which there is only a that, nor an
inseparable union like that of quality and sunstance, in which there is a ‘this’ which is
‘that’; but that it is a relation which embraces all these three, non-duality, like the relation
of the soul’s knowledge and the eye’s sight. So all things are His form, but you who have
learnt truth of Advaita must worship there of all places where love grows.
XII. 4. b. When the world which is like the fleeting colors of the crystal is seen to be non-
real and is rejected as such, then Divine Knowledge appears and makes the truth of non-
duality known. Why then is worship necessary? The point of this udāharana is that
worship is necessary to maintain this knowledge because prarabdha constitutes a danger
to it which can only be removed by worship.
49
Ś. As long as prārabdha which is in the body affects the soul, desires and aversions
arise thereby; and because of them all the tattvas, from earth to Māyā, evolve and through
them delusive knowledge arises. Even when these non-realities are rejected as non-real
they return and dominate the soul. Therefore unless prārabdha, which is the cause of all
this, is completely removed, True Knowledge cannot subdue the non-real and triumph.
Prārabdha passes away when in order to remove it you seek and worship those who have
True Knowledge; then True Knowledge triumphs. Therefore you should worship
devotees with love.
XII. 4. c. This udāharana deals with the question whether this worship may sometimes be
neglected, just as sacrifices are because the particular blessing is not needed at the time.
Ś. To the soul which lies in darkness, unable to know God, He makes His nature
known. If the soul thereafter forgets the gracious service of God in making it in its
littleness like Himself in His greatness, it is not a fault which can be forgiven, like the
fault of forgetting Him through ignorance before His grace was received. And although
God thus makes the soul like Himself, yet the soul which up till now has been a servant
with no independence, to whom the grace of God is indispensable, remains a servant still.
Therefore the worship of that Great One who has made the soul to be like Himself is a
source of strength to the soul.
XII. 4. d. This last udāharana tells who need the Śiva-ñāna-bōdham, which teaches the
Way of Knowledge contained in the Śaiva Āgamas.
Ś. O scholar of the Siddhānta, the truth of the Vēdānta, you who are now called
Absolute Spirit, having put off your nature as soul in that God has made you like
Himself, for those with one and two Impurities, the Vijñānākalas and Pralayākalas, their
nature as soul, the cause of birth, is removed and their nature as Absolute Spirit becomes
manifest, through God revealing Himself directly to the former in their consciousness,
and appearing as a Divine Guru to the latter, by sight and touch and word. Bit for those
with three Impurities, the Sakalas, this is brought about by this scripture, Śiva-ñāna-
bōdham, taught by a human teacher.
TRANSLATION OF THE SANSKRIT SUTRAS
1. Because the world exists in forms male, female, and neuter, it is seen as an effect;
therefore there must be an Agent. He after having dissolved it creates it; therefore Hara1 is
Lord2.
2. Although the Agent is other (than souls), He is not other by reason of pervasion3.
Through the Power4 which is inseparably associated5 with Him, He causes samsāra6 for
human beings in conformity with their deeds.
3. There exists a subtle essence7 in the body; because there is something which is ‘not
this or that’8; because of the excess of ‘mine-ness’; because of the awakening and the
stopping9 of the eye;10 because of the absence of enjoyment (of the senses) in sleep;
because there is an agent of perception in perception.
50
4. Although the soul11 is different from the inner organ12, it is associated with it like a
king with his counselors, and must exist in the five states, with the function of its own
seeing obstructed by impurity13.
5. The eyes14 perceive the objects of human sense, not of themselves (but by the soul).
He (the soul) knows by (the help of) Śambhu15. If (one should say) Śiva is then subject to
change, (the answer would be) nay, He draws him as magnet the iron.
6. If He were the imperceptible16, He would be non-existent17. If He were the

perceptible, He would be insentient matter18. Therefore the wise understand that the form
of Sambhu is knowable because it is different from this.
7. In the presence of the Conscious19, there is no Non-conscious20. Yet they are twai, but
do not know each other. The knower of the world21 and of Śiva is his (the knower’s) soul,
which is different from both.
8. When the blest (soul), after having dwelt together with the hunters, the senses, is
instructed by a guru, ‘Thou knowest not thyself’, then after having given up these
(senses), being not other (than Śiva), he reaches His feet.
9. Through spiritual vision22 having seen Īśa23 in the soul, and having abandoned the
mirage of the (senses) activity24 and having grasped the shadow of Śiva’s feet, the sage
should meditate upon the Five Letters.
10. (So) the perfected one who has attained union25 with Śiva, being dependent upon
Him, has His activity;26 and being untouched by impurity27 and Māyā and the like, has His
experience.28
11. The soul makes the eyes see; and Śiva is the maker of (the soul’s) seeing. Therefore
one should pay great devotion to Him who is the helper of the soul.
12. For the sake of release, having approached the righteous, one should offer devotion to
their habit and to the dwelling-place of Śiva; and thus understand the settled doctrines of
Śaivism in the Śiva-jñāna-bōdha.
1
Hara, from root hr, the Dissolver.
2
Prabhu, Primal Source.
3
Vyāpti.
4
Ājñā.
5
Samavēta.
6
Or Samsrti.
7
Anu.
8
Nēti.
9
Or the awakening of the stopping.
10
Eye, used for all the senses.
11
Ātmā.
12
Antahkarana.
13
Mala.
14
Used for all the senses.
15
The Beneficient One, a synonym for Siva.
16
Adrśya.
17
Lit. He would have the nature of asat.
18
Jada. Or, ‘must be conceived as different from this’.
51
19
Cit.
20
Acit.
21
Prapañca.
22
Cit drśyā.
23
Ruler, Lord, a name of Śiva.
24
Vrtti, functioning.
25
Aikyam.
26
Svavrtti.
27
Mala.
28
Sva-anubhūti.
52

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ŚIVA-ÑĀNA-BŌDHAM

Translated from the Tamil

THE LATE GORDON MATTHEWS M.A., B.Litt.

JAMES G. FORLONG FUND

Śiva-ñāna-bōdham is a Tamil manual of Śaiva religious doctrine by Meykanda Dēvar and

2. God’s relation to souls is advaita, non-duality; this relation is understood as a synthesis

6. What is knowable by Pāśa-jñāna, sense-perception, and by Paśu-jñāna, the soul’s

9. It is not by pāśa-jñāna, nor by paśu-jñāna, in other words, not by sense-perception nor

2. (The world exists ;)

3. These souls are continually dying and being born:

1. Saying the soul is not implies that there is soul.

2. Saying ‘my body’ implies that there is soul.

3. Because there is knowledge of the five senses, there is soul.

5. Because there is no feeling or activity in sleep, there is soul.

7. In the body composed of products of Māyā, there is soul:

1 Vide Sutra I. IV. 3, p. 15.

2 The soul is without knowledge because of Innate Impurity:

1. The five senses perceive by the help of the soul:

2. The soul knows3 by the help of the Primal One:

If He is knowable, He is non-real;2 if He is unknowable, He is non-existent.3 Therefore the

1. In the presence of the real the non-real does not appear:

3. That which knows both is the soul which is neither.

1. These souls obtain knowledge by austerities previously performed:

2. The Primal One Himself teaches these souls as a guru:

3. These souls, confused9 by the five senses, do not know themselves:

1. See the Primal One by spiritual illumination:

associated from of old, even as poison is removed by the excellent Garuda-meditation.

3. Now repeat the Five Letters after the manner prescribed.

2. It is necessary to abide unfailingly in His service;

1. He also knows that which is known by souls:

1. Put away the Impurities, Ānava, Māyā, and Kārmya:

2. Associate with Śiva’s devotees:

4. Worship in these places:

This exposition is based upon the interpretation of the Śiva-ñāna-bōdham by the

I. 2. c. Although God is the efficient cause of the world-process, He is Himself

II. I. b. This verse describes the otherness of God and soul.

II. 3. a. This verse explains the soul’s experience of rebirth.

II. 4. a. This udāharana develops the argument.

III. 3. a. This udāharana meets a further development of the Indriyātma-vadin’s

V. 2. c. This udāharana deals with an objection from the Īśvarāvikāra-vādins that, as

contention is that the absoluteness of God is untouched by change or variableness,

VI. This Sūtra defines the nature of pati.

VI. 2. a. The Māyā-vādins hold that Paramārtha (transcendental) Brahma is differentiated

dwelling-place of God. A fanciful comparison is drawn between the several parts of a

X. I. This adhikarana deals with the removal of Ānava. The Śivasama-vāda-śaivas

X. 2. c. This udāharana explains further how it is that the jivan-mukta experiences

TRANSLATION OF THE SANSKRIT SUTRAS

6. If He were the imperceptible16, He would be non-existent17. If He were the

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