sanderson 2005bsaiva officiants-libre
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ALEXIS SANDERSON
RELIGION AND THE STATE: S ´AIVA OFFICIANTS
IN THE TERRITORY OF THE KING’S
BRAHMANICAL CHAPLAIN
1. INTRODUCTION
The literature of the S ´aiva Mantram arga is dominated by the pre-
scription of the rituals through which the S ´ aivas initiated candi-
dates into their religious discipline (d ıks_
a), consecrated successors
to office (abhis_
ekah_
), installed images and other substrates of wor-ship ( pratis
_ t
_ h a), and performed the repeated services of worship
( y agah_
) and propitiation (mantras adhanam) required of all or cer-
tain classes among them.1 By studying this literature, which extends
1 I adopt Mantram arga (‘the Path of Mantras’) as the S ´ aivas’ term for what
Indologists have commonly called Tantric or Agamic S ´ aivism. It serves to differen-
tiate this S ´ aivism from that of the Atim arga, ‘‘the Path Beyond [the brahmanical
socio-religious order]’’, the earlier and contemporaneous S ´ aivism of the P as´u-
pata divisions, principally the P a~ nc arthikas, L akulas/K alamukhas and Soma-
siddh antins/K ap alikas. The Mantram arga comprises a number of related systems.
The principal among them and their principal surviving scriptures are (1) the Sid-
dh anta taught in the Nis´v asa, the Paus_
kara, the Sv ayambhuvas utrasam_
graha, the
Rauravas utrasam_
graha, the K alottaras, the Mata _ nga, the Kiran_
a, the Mr_
gendra, the
Par akhya, the Br_
hatk alottara, etc., (2) the V amas´aiva cult of Tumburu and his four
sisters taught in the V ın_
as´ikha, (3) the Daks_
in_
asaiva cult of Svacchandabhairava
taught in the Svacchanda, (4) the Y amala cult of Kap al ıs´a and Can_
d_ a K ap alin ı
taught in the Picumata ð=Brahmay amala), (5) the Trika cult of the goddesses Par a,
etc. taught in the Siddhayoges´var ımata, the Tantrasadbh ava, the M alin ıvijayottara,
etc., (6) the K al ıkula cult of K alasam_
kars_
an_ ı/K al ı taught in the Jayadrathay amala
and the scriptures of the Krama (K al ıkulapa~ ncas´ataka, K al ıkulakramasadbh ava,
etc.), (7) the cult of Kubjik a taught in the Kubjik amata, etc., (8) the cult of Tripura-
sundar ı taught in the Nity as_
o_ dasik arn
_ ava, etc., and (9) the cult of Amr
_ tes´vara and/
or Amr_
talaks_
m ı taught in the Netra.
Indo-Iranian Journal 47: 229–300, 2004.
DOI: 10.1007/s10783-005-2927-y
* Springer 2005
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from scriptural texts claiming the authority of divine revelation
through commentaries and treatises on these texts to manuals
( paddhatih_
) of both transregional and local reach, we can make out
a detailed picture of the procedures they advocated and through
comparative analysis arrive at some understanding of how these
model rituals changed over time, were adapted in different regions,
and were related to those of the similar systems of ritual seen in
the literatures of the P ancar atrika Vais_
n_
avas and the Mah ay ana-Bud-dhist Way of Mantras (mantranayah
_ , mantray anam).
But these sources are much less revealing about agency, social
milieu, and historical context. They do provide us with some gen-
eral rules of restriction and permission concerning which categoriesof person may or may not be initiated or officiate and concerning
the extent to which their mundane social status influences their sta-
tus in the community of co-initiates, and these rules are different in
the different S ´aiva systems, which reveals something of their charac-
ter and interrelation within the larger social world. But they provide
no data, and we are not likely to discover any from other sources,
that would enable us to judge, for example, what percentage of the
population in a given region and time was involved in the practice
or support of the religion, or how its followers and supporters were
distributed between castes, economic classes, age-groups, genders
and levels or type of involvement. In other words the texts tell uswhat was possible for various groups but not the extent to whichthese possibilities were put into practice. There is nothing here like
the evidence provided by the records of the government departments
that supervised the conduct of religion in China and Japan. The
kingdoms of South and Southeast Asia engaged in some such super-
vision and must have maintained the sort of records that would have
enabled us to address these questions. But they have not been pre-
served. All we have from that quarter are what happens to have sur-
vived and come to light of inscriptions on stone or copper plates
recording major grants or pious works. This is crucial information
for the historian of S ´aivism, as it is for students of all Indian reli-
gious traditions, and in some areas, such as that of the Khmers, itand archaeology provide the only evidence that we have. But at best
it instantiates or challenges the model of possibilities conveyed by
the prescriptive literature. It does not enable us to go beyond its
range into detailed social history. Nonetheless it is possible, I would
say necessary, to read the literature and inscriptions with the sort of questions in mind that a social historian would wish to ask.
230 ALEXIS SANDERSON
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In this perspective it seems to me that active initiates are likely to
have been few in number and to have been concentrated among,
though by no means confined to, brahmin men. Yet S ´aivism exerted
an influence on the religious life of the Indian world that far exceeds
what might be expected of such a minority, especially from one out-
side the mainstream of brahmanical observance. For there can be
no doubt that for several centuries after the sixth it was the princi-
pal faith of the e´lites in large parts of the Indian subcontinent and
in both mainland and insular Southeast Asia. Only Mah ay ana Bud-dhism was able to rival it during this period; and when it achieved
success in this rivalry, either equalling or excelling S ´aivism as the
beneficiary of patronage, it was in a form led by the Way of Man-tras, a system of ritual, meditation and observance in which Bud-
dhism had redesigned itself, if not in essence, then at least in style
and range of functions, on the model of its rival.
I attribute this success to three factors. The first is that though
the practice of the religion proper was restricted to the initiated,
they cultivated the support of a wider community of uninitiated,
lay devotees. An unpublished corpus of texts comprising principally
the S ´ ivadharma and the S ´ ivadharmottara, contains the observances
recommended to this laity, revealing that following the example of
the Buddhists the S ´aivas had propagated a lesser religion of merit-
gathering that centred on the support and veneration of the personsand institutions of the religion proper, promising that those whofollowed it would be rewarded in death by a period in the paradise
of S ´ iva (s´ivalokah_
, rudralokah_
) before returning to the world in the
most desirable of rebirths.2
The second is that the S ´aivism of the Mantram arga developed
in practice a thorough accommodation of the brahmanical religion
that it claimed to transcend, thus minimizing, even eliminating, the
offence it gave as a tradition whose scriptures, like those of the Bud-
dhists, were seen to be, and claimed to be, outside the corpus of the
Vedas. These S ´aivas were to accept that the brahmanical tradition
alone was valid in the domain it claimed for itself and that they
2 For further information on this corpus of texts and for evidence in it of inter-
action with the king and his court see Sanderson, forthcoming.
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were bound to follow its prescriptions and incorporate its rituals
beside their own wherever practicable.3
Similarly, where they established themselves at the many S ´aiva
temple sites that pre-existed them they did not attempt to reform
worship by restricting it to the narrow pantheon that they propiti-
ated as initiates. This they imposed on the worship of S ´ iva in the
Lin_ ga at the heart of these foundations; but they also took over,
preserved, and regulated in accordance with the expectations of the
uninitiated laity a much wider range of ancillary deities, deities thathave no place in the scriptures and ritual manuals of the Man-
tram arga other than in treatments of their installation and iconog-
raphy in this special context.4
The third and most vital factor is that the religion succeeded in
forging close links with the institution of kingship and thereby
with the principal source of patronage. I see four main elements
3 Transgressing the rules of the brahmanical socio-religious system, known to
the S ´ aivas as the mundane religion (laukiko dharmah_
), is forbidden in a much-
cited passage from the lost Saiddh antika Bh argavottara: iti varn_
as´ram ac ar an
manas api na la _ nghayet= yo yasminn asrame tis_
t_
han d ıks_
itah_
sivas asane/sa tasminn
eva sam_
tis_
t_
hec chivadharmam_
ca p alayet ‘So he should not transgress the practices
of his caste-class and order of life even in thought. He should remain in the order
in which he was when he was initiated into the S ´ aiva religion and [at the same
time] maintain the ordinances of S ´ iva’. It is cited at, e.g., Nares´varapar ıks_ aprak as´aad 3.76. See also Sarvaj ~ n anottara cited in Tantr alokaviveka ad 4.251ab, and
Mata _ ngap arames´vara, Cary ap ada 2.2–7b. That the S ´ aivas, at least those following
the Saiddh antika forms of observance, came to be widely accepted as co-religion-
ists in traditional brahmanical circles is evident from the report of the Kashmirian
philosopher Jayantabhat_
t_
a, a contemporary of king S ´ a_ nkaravarman (r. 883–902),
in Ny ayama~ njar ı vol. 1, p. 636, l.15–p. 637, l.4; p. 637, ll. 16–19; p. 638, ll. 12–13.
He defends the validity of the S ´ aiva scriptures and claims that his position is that
of the society of respectable Aryas (mah ajanah_
), which he defines as comprising all
who live within the system of the four caste-classes and orders of life in accor-
dance with the ordinances of the Veda. See also Sanderson, 1995, pp. 27–38.4 The principal of these ancillaries were Durg a Mahis
_ asuramardin ı , Um a,
Gan_
esa, Skanda, Vis_
n_
u, Brahm a, S urya, Laks_
m ı, Sarasvat ı, the Lokap alas, the
Grahas, the Mother goddesses (M at_
rs), and a number of non-Mantram argic S ´ iva
forms: (1) a simple single-faced S ´ iva with two or more arms, (2) Harihara or S ´ a_ nka-
ran ar ayan_
a, in which the left half of S ´ iva’s body is Vis_
n_
u, (3) Ardhan ar ıs´vara or
Gaur ısvara, inwhichthis half is his consort Um a, (4) the dancing Rudra, called vari-
ously Nr_
tyarudra, Nr_
ttes´vara, Nr_
tyes´vara, Nat_
es´vara, N at_
akesvara and N at_
yes´vara,
and (5) Um amahes´vara, also called Umes´a and Um arudra, in which Um a sits on
S ´ iva’s left thigh with his arm around her. Early sources that cover their iconography
are the Pratis_
t_
h atantras Devy amata, Mayasam_
graha, Pi _ ngal amata, and Mohac uro-
ttara, and the general scripture Kiran_
a (Pat_
ala 52). See Sanderson, 2005, pp. 435–440.
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here: (1) the occupying by S ´aiva officiants of the office of Royal
Preceptor (r ajaguruh_
) and in this position their giving S ´aiva initia-
tion (d ıks_
a) to the monarch followed by a specially modified version
of the S ´aiva consecration ritual (abhis_
ekah_
) as an empowerment to
rule beyond that conferred by the conventional brahmanical royal
consecration (r ajy abhis_
ekah_
); (2) the promoting by S ´aiva officiants
of the practice of displaying and legitimating a dynasty’s power by
their officiating in the founding of S ´aiva temples in which the new
S ´ivas that they enshrined bore as the individuating first half of theirnames that of the royal founder or, where complexes of royal S ´ iva
temples were established, those of the founder and any kin that he
might designate for this purpose; (3) the provision of a repertoire of protective, therapeutic and aggressive rites for the benefit of the
monarch and his kingdom; and (4) the development of S ´aiva rituals
and their applications to enable a specialized class of S ´aiva officiants
to encroach on the territory of the R ajapurohita, the brahmanical
expert in the rites of the Atharvaveda who served as the personal
priest of the king, warding off all manner of ills from him through
apotropaic rites, using sorcery to attack his enemies, fulfilling the
manifold duties of regular and occasional worship on his behalf,
and performing the funerary and other postmortuary rites when he
or other members of the royal family died.5
In a forthcoming monograph I have provided detailed evidenceof the first of these four factors.6 Here I consider the fourth, and,
by way of introduction, the third. For the two overlap. As we shall
see, a S ´aiva Guru acting in the role of a king’s personal chaplain
was expected, like his brahmanical counterpart, to perform rites to
protect the king and kingdom. But the two factors must be distin-
guished, since the performance of such rites was also commissioned
from independent S ´aiva Gurus acting outside this role.
2. STATE PROTECTION BY INDEPENDENT
S ´AIVA OFFICIANTS
An inscription of the fifth year of the reign of the Cola emperorR aj adhir aja II (r. 1163–79 or 1166–82) tells us that when an army
from Sri Lanka had invaded the mainland, removed the door of the
R ames´varam temple, obstructed the worship, and carried away all
5 See Sanderson, forthcoming, for textual sources requiring the royal chaplain to be an
Atharvavedin or expert in the apotropaic and other rites of the Atharvavedic tradition.6 Sanderson, forthcoming.
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the temple’s treasures, a certain Jn anas´iva, whose name shows him to
have been a Saiddh antika S ´aiva officiant, was engaged by the em-
peror to perform a ritual that would bring destruction on those
responsible for this desecration. According to the inscription the cere-
mony was continued for twenty-eight days and at its end the invad-
ing army was indeed defeated.7
Another example of a ritual performed by a S ´aiva officiant for
the good of the state is seen in a Sanskrit and Old Khmer inscrip-
tion of AD 1052 from Sdok Kak Thom. This reports that a certainHiran
_ yad ama was commissioned by Jayavarman II (r. 802– c. 835)
at the time of his founding of the unified kingdom of the Khmers
to perform a ritual of the V amas´aiva system that would guaranteethat unity and the kingdom’s independence from Jav a:8
man vr ahman_
a jmah_
hiran_
yad ama pr aj ~ na siddhi vidy a mok amvi jana-
pada pi vrah_
p ada parames´vara a~ njen thve vidhi leha le _ n kam pi kamvu-
jadesa neh_
ayatta ta jav a ley le _ n ac ti kamrate _ n phdai karom_
mv ay guh_ ta j a cakravartti vr ahman
_ a noh
_ thve vidhi toy vrah
_ vin as´ikha pratis
_ t_
ha
kamrate _ n jagat ta r aja vr ahman_
a noh_
paryyan vrah_
vin as´ikha nayottara
sam_
moha sirascheda sva _ n man svat ta mukha cu_ n pi sarsir pi paryann
ste _ n a~ n s´ivakaivalya nu gi
K. 235, Old Khmer text, ll. 71–74
Then a brahmin called Hiran
_
yad ama, who was learned in the Mantras
that bestow Siddhi, came from Janapada. The Venerable Parames´vara[Jayavarman II] requested him to perform a ritual so that this land of
7 ARE 20 of 1899 at Arpp akkam, a village eight miles SSE of K anc ı puram;
SII 4, no. 456; summary in Sastri (1984, p. 368). For a translation of the relevant
part see ARE 1899, paragraph 34.8 Cœdes thought (1968, p. 100) that this Jav a was the island of Java. But the iden-
tification is uncertain. Vickery proposes that it was Champa (Skt. camp a), the land of
the Chams to the east in Southern Vietnam, claiming that ‘‘ jav a/chvea/ has been used
in Khmer until modern times to designate the Cham’’ (1998, p. 29; see also pp. 387
and 405). Champa and the Chams are frequently mentioned in the inscriptions but
never under this name, and in modern Khmer, according to the Cham scholar Phoen
(1987, p. 78), the term cited refers not to the Chams but to Malays descended from
Muslim immigrants from the Indonesian archipelago and the Malay peninsula in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Khmer expression ‘‘cam jva’’ [i.e. cham chve´a]
refers, he reports, to the Muslim community in Cambodia in general as compris-
ing both Chams and these Malays. Guesdon (1930, s.v.) gives chve´a in the mean-
ing Java and by extension the Malay peninsula (‘‘malaisie’’). It is therefore more
probable that the independence to which the inscription refers was from a king-
dom in maritime Southeast Asia, probably that of the S ´ ailendras of S ´ r ıvijaya cen-
tred in southeastern Sumatra.
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the Kambujas would no longer be subject to Jav a and only one king
would rule over it with sovereign power. That brahmin performed the
ritual [for those ends] following the venerable Vin as´ikha9 and es-
tablished the [image of the] Kamrate_ n Jagat ta R aja. The brahmin
[then] taught the Vin as´ikha, the Nayottara, the Sam_
moha and the
S ´ iras´cheda. He recited them from beginning to end so that they could
be written down, and taught them to Ste _ n an S ´ ivakaivalya.
In none of these cases is it clear that the officiants engaged were
placing themselves beyond the domain of occasional rites for the
benefit of others by becoming priests tied to the service of the king
or the state.
Much material in the S ´aivas’ prescriptive literature is similarlyambiguous. For example, the Uttarabh aga of the Li _ ngapur an
_ a, which
in spite of its claim to be a Pur an_
a, is in large part a thinly-disguised
Paddhati text of the S ´ aiva Mantram arga, teaches in addition to the
rituals of Saiddh antika Li_ nga worship and installation (1) fire-sacri-
fices in which offerings are made to the Aghora aspect of S ´ iva
(in fact to the principal Daks_
in_
asaiva deity Svacchandabhairava,
though this is not made explicit in the text) for the benefit of the
king, to ward off danger from him and to restore his health,10 and
9 This is evidently the published V ın_
as´ikha, the only complete V amas´aiva
scripture to have reached us. The form Vin as´ikha in the Old Khmer text is con-
firmed by the Sanskrit (v. 28, cited below), where the metre requires the first syl-lable to be short. The error may be attributed to the passage of two and a half
centuries between the introduction of these texts and the inscription. There is no
reason to assume that the Sanskrit original continued to be studied alongside the
Paddhati based on it throughout this period.10 See especially Li _ ngapur an
_ a, Uttarabh aga, chapters 19–27 and 46–54. As a text
seeking acceptance as a Pur an_
a and thereby as a work within the corpus of Veda-
derived revelation, it disguises its properly S ´ aiva character by jettisoning such
distinctively S ´ aiva doctrines as that of the thirty-six reality-levels (tattv ani ). It is, I
surmise, in the same spirit that it has avoided identifying its Aghora as Svaccha-
ndabhairava, the deity of the Svacchandatantra. That this is the true identity of the
deity is apparent in chapter 26, which is devoted to the worship of Aghora in the Li _ nga
or, less desirably, on a Sthan_
d_
ila, as an alternative to the regular Saiddh antika S ´ iva
worship in the Li_ nga taught, with the necessary d ıks_
a and ritual of Li_ nga installa-
tion, in chapters 19–25 and 46–47. A royal fire-sacrifice to this deity is taught in 49
and a ritual for destroying the king’s enemies in which the worshipper visualizes
himself as the same is taught in 50. The true name of the deity is not used, no doubt
because of its strongly non-Vedic associations, but his visualization (dhy anam) in
26.15–21b reveals his identity since it is of the five-faced and eighteen-armed Sva-
cchandabhairava taught in Svacchanda 2.81c–97. All the hand-attributes are identi-
cal if, as I propose, we emend to mun_
d _
am_
the inappropriate dan_
d _
am_
seen in 26.19c of
the published text.
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(2) an elaborate S ´ akta S ´aiva procedure to guarantee that the king
will be victorious when he goes into battle.11 All this is very much
within the purview of the purposes of the rituals of the brahmanical
royal chaplain, but nothing in the text tells us whether the officiant
envisaged is a person acting in that role or an independent Guru
condescending to act for the benefit of the king in special circum-
stances, like Jn anas´iva in the reign of R aj adhir aja II or Hiran_
yad ama
in that of Jayavarman II.
3. THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF STATE PROTECTION
In the last of these cases we have a record of a single ritual per-formed for state-protection by a Guru who was not in the king’s
service. But this instance also shows how such rituals could becomeregularized by transference to priests who were in such service. For
the S ´ ivakaivalya to whom Hiran_
yadama taught these four texts, the
principal scriptures of the V ama division of the S ´aiva canon, was
Jayavarman II’s R ajapurohita.12 The king had him appointed to
perform the regular worship of the image, the Kamrate_ n Jagat ta
R aja (Skt. Devar aja), that Hiran_
yad ama had established after this
ritual as the focus of a cult to protect the state; and it was agreed
that the duty and right to worship before this image should be
passed down through ascetics in S ´ ivakaivalya’s matriline:25 jayavarmmamah ıbhr
_ to mahendr a-
vanibhr_
nm urdhakr_
t aspadasya s´ ast a
kavir aryavar a _ ngavandit a _ nghrih_ sivakaivalya iti prat ıtir as ıt
26 hiran_
yad amadvijapu _ ngavo ’gryadh ır
iv abjayonih_
karun_
ardra agatah_ ananyalabdh am
_ khalu siddhim adar at
prak asay am asa mah ıbhr_
tam_
prati
11 The large number of S ´ akta goddesses worshipped in the one thousand vases
for the ‘consecration for victory’ ( jay abhis_
ekah_
) taught in chapter 27 are drawn
from various parts of the Kaula Kubjik amata (14.77–79, 81–85, 87, 91; 15.6–7, 20,
22, 27, 30, 48; 9.3c–4, 5, 6; 10.120c–123, 124c–127; 21.16–20b; 22.16A, 1–9, 10–25–
end; 2.59; 14.75, 77–79, 81, 84–85, 87, 91, etc.). But the procedure also includes
Saiddh antika, Daks_
in_
a and Vaidika elements.12 The Sanskrit part of the inscription refers to S ´ ivakaivalya as the Guru and
Hotar of Jayavarman II (v. 25: jayavarmmamah ıbhr_
to . . . s ast a=kavir . . .
s´ivakaivalya iti ; v. 27bc: asmai/hotre). The Khmer refers to him as the Guru and
Purohita of the king (C ll. 61–62: ste _ n a~ n sivakaivalya ta a ji pr aj ~ na j a guru j a
purohita ta vrah_
p ada paramesvara).
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27 sa bh udharen_
anumato ’grajanm a
sas adhan am_
siddhim adiks_
ad asmai
hotre hitaik antamanah_
prasattim_ sam
_ bibhrate dh amavibr
_ m_
han aya
28 s´ astram_
s´iras´chedavin as´ikh akhyam_ sam
_ mohan am api nayottar akhyam
tat tumvuror vaktracatus_
kam asya
siddhyeva vipras samadars´ayat sah_
29 dvijas samuddhr_
tya sa s´ astras aram_ rahasyakaus´alyadhiy a sayatnah
_ siddh ır vvahant ıh_
kila devar aj a-
bhikhy am_
vidadhre bhuvanarddhivr_
ddhyai
30 sa bh udharendras sahavipravaryyastasmin vidhau dh amanidh anahetau
v ıt antar ayam_
bhuvanoday aya
niyojay am asa mun ısvaran tam
31 tanm atr_
vam_
s´e yatayas striyo v a
j at a + + + tra niyuktabh av ah_ tady ajak as syur na katha~ ncid anya
iti ks_
it ındradvijakalpan as ıt
. . .
61 samadhikadhis_
an_
as te s urivaryy as tad a tair
dharan_
ipatibhir abhyarn_
n_
arhan_
abhyarhan_
ıy ah_ nagaranihitasam
_ sth a devar ajasya n anye
sayamaniyamayatn ah_
pratyaha~ n cakrur arcc am
K. 235, 25–31, 61King Jayavarman, who had made his residence on the summit of Mount
Mahendra,13 had as his Guru a poet called S ´ ivakaivalya, whose feet had
been honoured by [contact with] the heads of [prostrating] Aryas. Hir-
an_
yad ama, an excellent brahmin, like Brahm a himself in his great wis-
dom, being moved by compassion came and with due respect revealed
to the king a Siddhi which no other had attained. To increase [the
king’s] splendour this brahmin, with the king’s permission, taught the
Siddhi and the means of achieving it to that offerer of the [king’s] sacri-
fices, [knowing that he was one] whose tranquil mind was devoted
entirely to [his monarch’s] welfare. The Brahman revealed to him as
though by means of [this] Siddhi the four faces of Tumburu that are the
[V ama scriptures] S ´ iras´cheda, Vin as´ikha, Sam_
moha and Nayottara, and
in order to increase the prosperity of the realm he carefully extracted the
essence of [those] texts through his mastery of the esoteric [teachings]
and [with it] established the Siddhis that bear the name Devar aja. Then
the king with [the support of ] this excellent Brahman appointed [S ´ iva-
kaivalya,] this lord among sages, to officiate in this ritual that is the
cause of the treasure of power, in order that the realm should prosper
without impediments. The king and the foremost of brahmins provided
13 Phnom Kulen.
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that ascetics or women born in the latter’s maternal lineage, and no oth-
ers under any circumstances, should be appointed to this . . . and per-
form its worship.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Excellent scholars of the highest intelligence, settled by these kings in
the capital because they wished to have them nearby to venerate them
as they deserved, they and they alone, performed the daily service of
the Devar aja, zealously maintaining the major and minor restraints
[of the ascetic’s discipline].
We see similar cases of regularization of rites of royal protection in
our evidence for the Buddhist Way of Mantras. The Rgya gar chos
’byu _ n, the Tibetan history of Indian Buddhism completed by T aran athain AD 1608, reports that in order to protect his dynasty, expand its rule,
and spread the Buddhist religion the P ala king Dharmap ala (r. c. 775–
812) had a fire-sacrifice performed regularly for many years by Tan-
tric officiants under the direction of his Guru Buddhaj~ n anap ada at
an overall cost of 902,000 tolas of silver.14
An inscription of the reign of Jayavarman V (r. c. 968– c. 1000/1)
reveals a similar arrangement in the Khmer court of Angkor. It tells
us that one K ırtipan_
d_
ita, a Mah ay anist scholar and adept of the
Buddhist Yogatantras, who had been adopted by the royal family as
their Guru, was frequently engaged by the king to perform apotro-
paic, restorative and aggressive Mantra rituals within the royal pal-
ace for the protection of his kingdom.15
4. S ´AIVA OFFICIANTS IN THE ROLE OF THE
R AJAPUROHITA
Even in the case of the hereditary Khmer priests of the Kamrate_ n
Jagat ta R aja there is no reason to think that they were R ajapuro-
hitas in the narrow sense of the term, that is to say, personal chap-
lains performing the whole repertoire of ritual duties, namely
14 For these reports see Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya (1970, pp. 274, 278–279).
At present one tola (Skt. tul a ) is approx. 11.7 grammes. By that standard the
expense said to have been incurred would have been that of 10,553.4 kg. of silver.15 K. 111, 36: r as
_ t_
raman_
d _
alaraks_
artham_
satkr_
ty ayu _ nkta yan nr_ pah
_ /*mandir abhyan-
tare (corr.: man_
d _
ir abhyantare Ep.) bh ıks_
n_
am_
s antipus_
t_ y adikarmmasu ‘In order to pro-
tect his realm the king bestowed honours on him and frequently engaged him within
the palace to perform rituals for the quelling of dangers, the restoration of health
and the rest’. The ‘rest’ I presume to be abhic arah_
, that is to say rituals for the harming
of enemies. For evidence that K ırtipan_
d_
ita was an adept of the Yogatantras see
Sanderson, 2005, p. 427, n. 284.
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(1) rituals to ward off dangers and ills of every kind from the king
and his kingdom (s antikam_
karma), some of them simple rites to
protect the king’s person to be performed at various times every
day, others much more elaborate ceremonies to be performed peri-
odically, (2) rituals to restore his health and vigour ( paus_
t_
ikam_ karma), (3) rituals to harm his enemies ( abhic arikam
_ karma), (4) the
regular and occasional rituals (nityam_
karma and naimittikam_
karma)
required of the king,16 (5) reparatory rites ( pr ayascitt ıyam_
karma),
and (6) postmortuary rites (aurdhvadehikam_
karma) when the king or
any other member of the royal family dies.17
4.1 The Netratantra
For unambiguous evidence of S ´aiva Gurus tied to the service of
kings in that sense we are forced to turn from inscriptions recording
events to a scriptural text regulating practice. This is the S ´aiva
Netratantra, a work of approximately 1,300 stanzas that sets out rit-
ual observances based on the propitiation of the deity Amr_
tes´vara
(/Amr_
tesa), also known as Amr_
tesabhairava, and/or his consort
Amr_
talaks_
m ı.18
It has come down to us in Kashmirian manuscripts with a learned
commentary written from the non-dualistic S ´aiva point of view bythe Kashmirian Ks
_
emar aja in the early part of the eleventh century
and it was published therewith on the basis of two of these manu-scripts in the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies in 1926 and 1939.19
16 The daily, periodic and occasional religious duties of the king and his per-
sonal chaplain are set out in the Atharvavedaparis_
t_
a. See also Vis_
n_
udharmottara 2,
Adhy ayas 5, 18–23, 132–144, 151–162, 176–177 (see n. 68 below for a listing of
the rituals covered); N ılamata 810–848; Adipur an_
a-Tithikr_
tya ll. 2618–3010;
Br_
hatsam_
hit a, Adhy ayas 42 (Indra festival) and 43 (N ır ajanas´ anti).17 For this classification see Atharvavedaparis´is
_ t_
a 3.1.10: yasy anyakulopayuktah_ purodh ah
_ s antikapaus
_ t_
ikapr ayas´citt ıy abhic arikanaimittikaurdhvadehik any atharvavi -
hit anikarm an_
i kury at.18 Amr
_ tes´vara is also known as Mr
_ tyun jaya/Mr
_ tyujit and as Netran atha. The Ais´a
form Amr_
t ıs´a (Amr_
t’ ıs´a) is also attested. The name Amr_
talaks_
m ı is found not in the
Netra itself, where she is simply S ´ r ı/Laks_
m ı, but in the ritual manuals based on that
text. Amr_
tesvara and Amr_
talaks_
m ı may be worshipped independently or as a pair.19 Hitherto the only substantial scholarly attention paid to this work as a whole
has been an account of its contents published by Brunner (1974). While generally
accurate that is a summary rather than an analysis and it is one that does not rec-
ognize what I identify as the distinctive and pervasive character of this text,
namely that it envisages atypical S ´ aiva officiants operating outside their traditional
territory in that of the king’s chaplain.
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Its high standing in Kashmir is indicated by the composition and
preservation of this commentary, by the fact that the cult of its dei-
ties, taught only in the Netratantra, is one of the two principal bases
of the S ´aivism of the Kashmirian ritual manuals in use until recent
times,20 by the survival of three previously unidentified images of
Amr_
tesvara and his consort Amr_
talaks_
m ı in the small corpus of
known non-Buddhist Kashmirian bronzes,21 and by the fact that a
20 The other is that of Svacchandabhairava taught in the Svacchandatantra. In the
Kashmirian S ´ aiva manuals of ritual the principal deities (mantracakram) are gener-
ally Svacchandabhairava (Sakalabhat_
t_ araka [=Aghora] and Nis
_ kalabhat
_ t_ araka)
with Aghoresvar ı and Amr_
tesvarabhairava with Amr_
talaks_
m ı at the centre of
the Y aga surrounded by the Bhairavas of the Svacchandatantra. See, e.g.,
Kal ad ıks_
avidhi ff. 25v8–30v8; Agnik aryapaddhati A f. 16r; and S ´ ivanirv an_
avidhi pp.
257, l.12–263, l. 11. The Kashmirian digest Nity adisam_
grahapaddhati , compiled by
R aj anaka Taks_
akavarta at an unknown time after the completion of the Somas´am-
bhupaddhati in AD 1095/6, that being the latest of the datable works cited by him,
distinguishes among the S ´ aiva initiates he is addressing between followers of the
Siddh anta, followers of the Netratantra, and followers of the Svacchandatantra.21 Two have been reproduced in Pal, 1975, plates 6 and 7. He assigns the first
to‘‘Kashmir or Afghanistan’’ and the tenth to eleventh century and the second to
‘‘Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh (?)’’ and the tenth century. The first has also been
published by Reedy, who assigns it to Kashmir and the same period (1997, K85).
A third found its way to a Buddhist temple in Ladakh and has been reproduced
in Snellgrove and Skorupski, 1977, vol. 2, p. 77, Fig. 66. These scholars were notaware of the identity of the image. Nonetheless, Pal, followed by Reedy, asserts
that it is ‘‘Um a-Mahes´vara’’, and Snellgrove and Skorupski that it is Vis_
n_
u with
Laks_
m ı.
According to the visualization-texts (dhy anam) of these deities (Netra 3.17-23b;
18.63–69), to which these three bronzes conform precisely, Amr_
tes´vara is crowned,
white, one-faced, three-eyed, and four-armed, sitting on a white lotus at the centre
of a lunar disc. In the proper right of his two inner hands he holds a vase of nec-
tar at his heart and a full moon held at head height in the left, the upper arm hor-
izontal and the forearm vertical. The outer right and left hands show the gestures
of generosity and protection. The latter is invisible behind Amr_
talaks_
m ı’s back in
the bronzes. Amr_
talaks_
m ı has the same appearance except that she carries the dis-
cus and the conch rather than the vase and moon in her inner right and left hands.
Her gesture of protection is visible in the bronzes. She sits in Amr_
tes´vara’s lap, on
his left thigh, and, in the bronzes is considerably smaller than her consort.
Among the other known non-Buddhist bronzes from Kashmir I am aware of
only two others that belong to the domain of the S ´ aiva Mantram arga. Both are
images of the K al ıkula’s goddess Siddhalaks_
m ı, identified in Sanderson (1990). No
bronze of the Siddh anta’s Sad asiva or the Daks_
in_
a’s Svacchanda has come to
light, though there are some modern paintings of the latter. The remaining non-
Buddhist bronzes are P ancar atrika images of Vis_
n_
u and images of S ´ iva and other
gods proper to the domain of regular brahmanical observance.
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visualization verse for these deities recited in the S ´aiva rituals22 was
given pride of place in the non-S ´ aiva fire-sacrifice of the Kashmirian
brahmins, being recited before pouring the oblations that accompany
the recitation of the S ´ atarudriya of the K at_
haka Yajurveda, the first in
a series of five Vedic hymns to Rudra (the rudrapa~ ncakam).23
The Netratantra was not limited in its distribution and influence
to Kashmir. We have a Nepalese manuscript of the text from the
beginning of the thirteenth century;24 we have manuscripts in the
same region of two texts, one of the early thirteenth century and
the other probably so, that set out the procedures of its initiation cer-
emony and of the regular postinitiatory worship of its deities; and
the inclusion of their worship in larger ritual contexts in the anony-mous manuals in Newari and Sanskrit used by the Tantric officiants
of the Kathmandu valley shows that the cult became and remained
an integral part of Newar S ´ aivism. Thus in the autumnal Navar atra
ceremonies Amr_
tesabhairava and his retinue are the deities of the
vase-worship (kalas´ap uj a) at the beginning of the installation of the
royal sword (khad _
gasth apanavidhih_
) on the eighth day (mah as_
t_
am ı ).25
The Nepalese texts that set out the procedures for initiation andsubsequent regular worship reveal that the cult was practised in the
royal family. The text on initiation, the Amr_
tesvarad ıks_
avidhi , envis-
ages no initiand but the king, since when it turns to the duties of
the initiand on the day after the ceremony it requires him to returnto the Guru in a full military parade accompanied by his minis-
22 See, e.g., S ´ ivanirvan_
avidhi p. 261: devam_
sudh akalas´asomakaram_
trinetram_
pa-
dm asanam_
ca varad abhayadam_
sus´ubhram/sa _ nkh abhay abjavarabh us_
itay a ca devy a v a-
me ’ _ nkitam_
s´amanabha _ ngaharam_
nam ami ‘I prostrate myself to the god who frees
us from the torture of death, three-eyed, perfectly white, holding a vase of nectar
and the moon, [showing the gestures of] bestowing boons and protection, seated
on a lotus, marked on his left by the goddess adorned with a conch, [the gesture
of ] protection, a lotus and [the gesture of ] bestowing boons’.23 See Vedakalpadruma pp. 15–16.24 NAK MS 1-285: ‘Amr
_ tes´atantram’. In the colophons of this manuscript the
work is referred to as the Mr_
tyujidamr_
t ıs´avidh ana. In Kashmirian sources it is also
known as the Mr_
tyu~ njaya or Mr_
tyujit, often with the honorific -bhat_
t_
araka; see,
e.g., Ks_
emar aja, S ´ ivas utravimars´in ı ad 1.1, 1.13, 1.19, 3.16, etc. In citations of the
Netra below this manuscript will be referred to as N and the Kashmirian edition
as Ed. For the date of the manuscript see n. 28 below.25 Navar atrap uj a f. 2r4–v8.
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ters.26 Its author, Vis´ves´vara,27 may well be the person of that name
reported by the scribe of our Nepalese manuscript of the Netratantra
as having commissioned the copying, which was completed in Febru-
ary/March of AD 1220.28 If so, then Vis´ves´vara may have produced his
treatise in the context of initiation given to the Nepalese kings Arimalla
(b. 1153, r. 1200/01–1216) and/or his son Abhayamalla (b. 1183, r.
1216–1255).29 Be that as it may, it is certain that the latter received this
initiation, since it was he who, at some time before his accession, com-
posed our Nepalese ritual manual on the regular postiniatory worship.30
The fact that evidence of the text and its traditions is known from
Kashmir and Nepal does not, of course, reveal its provenance; and
in general one would not expect to be able to determine that fromthe text itself, since such works tend to lack the references to locat-
able realities that allow us to draw conclusions of this kind. TheNetratantra, however, is exceptional in this respect. I propose that it
contains evidence sufficient to justify the conclusion that it was
26 For this reference to the newly initiated king’s procession in full military
parade see Sanderson, forthcoming.27 Amr
_ tes´varad ıks
_ avidhi f. 19r1: bhairavasy amr
_ t ıs´asya d ıks
_ at_
ippan_
akam_
sphut_
am/
vis´ves´varen_
a racitam_
sajjan as´ carcayantv idam.28 Amr
_ tes´atantra f. 89v4–5: sam aptam idam
_ mr
_ tyujidamr
_ t ıs´avidh anam
_ sam
_ p urn
_ am
iti s´ubham: sam
_
vat 320 caitra sudi 9 sanidine ++ vis´ves´varalikh apitam idam
_
pusta-
kam_ : pam_ d _ itak ırttidharalikhitam_ may a. That this text is Nepalese is not certain, butit is probable. The account of initiation is supplemented by a passage on the S ´ akta
vedhad ıks_
a incorporated from the Kubjik amata, a text of central importance in the
S ´ akta-S ´ aiva tradition of the Newars (f. 16r11–v1110.83–92b, 94, 96–98 and 100–107).29 For these dates see Petech (1958, pp. 76 and 82).30 See Amr
_ tes´varap uj a f. 7v2–3: sr ıdev abhayamallena sad ac aryopades´in a=sr ımr
_ tyu-
~ njayadevasya nityap uj avidhih_
kr_
tah._
ity amr_
tes´varap ujanam_
sam aptam (see also Petech,
1958, p. 89, citing its palm-leaf exemplar NAK MS 1–1365.5); Amr_
tes´varap uj a f. 1v5–6
(v. 2): p ıy us_
asindhulahar ıs´atasiktapadmamadhye sphurattuhinaras´mimar ıcis´ubhram=natv a mahesam amalam
_ kamal asah ayam abhyarcanam
_ vitanute ’bhayamalladevah
_ .
NAK MS 1–1365.5 was copied on June 8, 1216 just before the end of the reign of Abha-
yamalla’s father Arimalla (Petech, 1958, p. 84). Other relevant Nepalese manu-
scripts are Amr_
tes´varap uj agnik aryavidh ana, Amr_
tas uryap uj avidhi with drawings of the
deities, ‘P uj ak an_
d _
a’, which contains inter alia an Amr_
tabhairav arcanavidhi penned in
AD 1277/8, an Amr_
t ıs´abhairavabhat_
t_
arak ahnikavidhi , and an Amr_
tas ury arcanavidhi .
Amr_
tas urya is Amr_
tes´vara in the form of the Sun God, the worship of this ectype
being prescribed before that of the deity proper, as was standard procedure in the
Siddh anta, whose Paddhatis prescribe a cult of S ´ ivas urya before that of S ´ iva. There
is no such preliminary in the Netra itself. The icon of Amr_
tas urya created for this pur-
pose was the three-faced, eight-armed variant of the Sun God holding the weapons of
the eight Lokap alas taught (13.21c–25b) in the section of that text devoted to the ico-
nography of various non-S ´ aiva deities, one of three forms of that God taught there.
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indeed produced in one of the two places in which we see evidence
of its presence, namely Kashmir, and that it was composed there be-
tween c. 700 and c. 850, probably towards the end of that period.31
With the exception of an insertion of 95 verses seen in the Nepalese
manuscript32 the only major difference between the transmissions of theNetratantra in that and the Kashmirian manuscripts is that the deviations
from strictly grammatical Sanskrit that abound in the early S ´ aiva scrip-
tures are much fewer in the latter, most of whose divergent readings are
best explained as the result of rephrasing to remove such anomalies. In thecitations that follow I have therefore privileged the readings of the Nepa-
lese manuscript (N) as evidence of an earlier state of the Kashmirian text.33
31 My reasons for proposing this provenance and date are set out in the Appendix.32 This insertion (ff. 47r1–53r2) is placed after 18.3 of the published edition. The
Nepalese manuscript treats this as the remainder of the 18th chapter (18.4–99). It
then gives the whole of the edition’s chapter 18, so repeating 18.1–3, as its chapter
19, and so on to the end, so that it has 23 chapters rather than the edition’s 22. The
subject-matter of the additional verses is hostile visualization rituals and fire-sacrifices
in which the deity takes the form of Mah abhairava. It has drawn on the Svacchanda:
18.62c–68b9.62–67; 18.69–71a9.71–73a; 18.72ab9.76ab; 18.73–786.72c–78b;
18.79–85a6.85c–91c; 18.85b–876.92–94; and 19.92–95a6.68c–71c.33 Particularly notable among the Ais´a usages accepted in my edition of the pas-
sages cited below is the use of genitives, instrumentals, locatives and ablatives/datives
plural side by side in a single construction without difference of meaning: e.g. pis acais
c apy anekasah_ =brahmaraks
_ agrah adibhyah
_ kot
_ is´o yadi mudrit ah
_ 2.14bcd; nr
_ p an
_ am
_ nr_ papatn ın am
_ tatsut an am
_ dvij adis
_ u 15.20cd; nr
_ patau tatsut an am
_ 18.112ab; duh
_ sva-
pnair m atar ıs_
u ca 19.98d; gos_
u br ahman_
araks_
artham atmanah_
svajanes_
u ca 19.104ab;
s aly adis_
u ca sasyes_
u phalam ulodakena ca=durbhiks_
avy adhik aryes_
u utp atais´ c apy
anuttamaih_
19.108. This licence surely reflects the development of the case endings in
Middle Indo-Aryan as witnessed in the Apabhram_
s´a stage, in which the locative and
instrumental plural have merged, as have the dative, genitive and ablative plural (Ta-
gare 1987, pp. 141–150). Other typical features of the MIA-influenced register of San-
skrit seen here are the extended stems of m atr ıbhir 2.13c, m atar ıs_
u 19.98d, d _
avy a 2.13d,
bh ubhr_
t an am_
12.7d, aris_
t_
acihnit atm ano (nom. sg.; conj.; cf. Picumata f. 238v [52.15a]:
s adhakas tu mah atm ano) 19.107a, and pas´aves_
u (conj.; cf. Picumata f. 224r [46.34b]:
pasav an am_
) 19.120c; the contracted stems of s´reyam in 19.105a and digv asam in
13.10c; -eta for -ayeta in the optative in abhimantreta 19.90c, 19.117d, and 19.119a;
the dispensability of final t=d revealed in ks_
ipe ’nale (18.118b) for ks_
iped anale; the loss
of declension in the numerals (catuh_
for catv arah_
in 18.121a); the neuter plural siddh ıni
in 18.79c and 19.115c; so for sa in 16.113c; the non-causative base in the pseudo-causa-
tive abhis_
i ~ ncayet in 19.109d; and ’yeta for -ayeta in p ujyeta in 19.104c. Untypical is the
use of pratis_
t_
h apyah_
in an active sense governing an object in the accusative in the
phrase pratis_
t_
h apyah_
. . . guruh_
. . . bh ıs_
an_
am_
r upam ‘the Guru should install the fright-
ening [Bhairava] form’ in 18.119–120. For the term Aisa (‘uttered by God’) in this con-
text see the references in Sanderson, 2002, n. 27. For the reader’s convenience I have
retained the chapter and verse numbers of the published edition (Ed.).
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4.2 The Netratantra’s S ´ aiva Officiant
Now the S ´aiva officiant in our Netratantra has very much the charac-
ter of a personal chaplain to the king. He is presented as the per-
former of rites for the protection and prosperity of all members of
society, but this wider constituency is generally mentioned only after
the text has specified the king, his wives and their children, who arethe principal intended beneficiaries and in many cases the only ones.
After various preliminaries the text introduces its subject as follows:
2.13 bh utayaks_
agrahonm adas akin ıyogin ıgan_
aih_ bhagin ırudram atr ıbhir d
_
avy ad
_
amarik adibhih
_ 14 r upik abhir apasm araih_
pis acais´ c apy anekasah_ brahmaraks
_ agrah adibhyah
_ kot
_ is´o yadi mudrit ah
_ 15 apamr_
tyubhir akr ant ah_
k alap as´air jigh am_
sit ah_ r aj ano r ajatanay a r ajapatnyo hy anekas´ah
_ 16 vipr adipr an_
in_
ah_
sarve sarvados_
abhay ardit ah_ yena vai smr
_ tam atren
_ a mucyante tad brav ımi te
13c m atr ıbhir corr. : m atr ıbhi N : m atr adi Ed. : 13d d _
avy ad _
amarik adibhih_ N : d
_ av ıd
_ amarik adibhih
_ Ed. 14b anekas´ah
_ Ed. : anekas´aih
_ N 14c
raks_
agrah adibhyah_
N : raks_
ograh adyais´ ca Ed. 15b jigh am_
sit ah_
Ed. :
jigh am_
sat a N
I shall tell you that [Mantra] by whose mere remembrance [the Guru]
can free kings, their wives and children, and [indeed] all creatures begin-
ning with learned brahmins, if they have been dominated by any of thecountless hordes of [possessing spirits:] Bh utas, Yaks
_ as, Unm adas, S ´ a-
kin ıs, Yogin ıs, Bhagin ıs, Rudram atars, D_
av ıs, D_
amar ıs, R upik as, Ap-
asm aras, Pis´ acas, Brahmaraks_
as, Grahas and the like, if they have been
attacked by Apamr_
tyus, if they are in danger of falling victim to the
snares of Death, or are suffering from the danger of any ill.
From this point until the end of the sixth of the work’s twenty-two
chapters we are told the Mantra, its worship, the ceremony of initia-
tion to that worship and then a number of procedures for its applica-
tion. The benefits specified are the restoring of physical vitality
( pus_
t_
ih_
) (3.77), longevity ( p urn_
am ayuh_
) (3.78), wealth (sr ıh_
) (3.78),
rule (r ajyam) (3.79), good health (3.79), rescuing the dying fromdeath (mr_
ty utt aran_
am) (6.9–11b), the warding off of all ills
(mah as antih_
) (6.11c–13b) and the banishing of fevers ( jvaran as´ah_
)(6.15cd). The last half of the sixth chapter sets out a procedure for
the protection of the king (r ajaraks_
avidh anam). A Yantra, that is to
say a diagram on birch bark inscribed with the Mantra and the name
of the beneficiary, is worshipped; a fire-sacrifice is performed; and
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the king is consecrated from a vase into which the Mantra has been
infused. The ceremony is to destroy the pride of his enemies when he
goes into battle, to free him from all illnesses, and to bestow on him
the highest sovereignty.34
Chapters 7 and 8 outline subtler, meditational practices, but the
context is unchanged, as it is in chapters 9 to 14, which teach that
the Mantra is absolutely universal in its range and can therefore be
used in conjunction with any deity and its retinue, not merely with
Amr_
tesvara as visualized in the cult proper. So we are given the
appropriate substitute deity-visualizations for the four main divi-
sions of the S ´ aiva Mantram arga, namely the Siddh anta, the V ama,
the Daks_
in_
a and the Kaula, and then, beyond S ´aivism, for the cultsof Vis
_ n_
u, the Sun, S ´ iva in the lay context, Brahm a, the Buddha,
Skanda, K ama, the Moon, Gan_
es´a, the Lokap alas, ‘‘and all other
deities’’. The context, though mostly only implicit in this long sec-
tion, surfaces in the chapter on the Kaula modification. There we
are told that the eight Mothers (who form the circuit of Amr_
tes´vara
in this case) must be worshipped with abundant offerings to bring
about the warding off of ills (s antih_
), but with exceptional lavish-
ness when the beneficiary is the king, because it is by their favour
that he will enjoy untroubled rule:
12.6 pa _ nktisth a v a yajed dev ıh
_
sarv abh ıs
_
t
_
aphalaprad ah
_ sarves_
am_
caiva s´ antyartham_
pr an_
in am_
bh utim icchat a7 bh uriy agena yas
_ t_
avy a yath ak am anur upatah_ vi ses
_ en_
a tu yas_
t_
avy a bh ubhr_
t an am_
tu dais´ikaih_ 8 as am eva pras adena r ajyam
_ nihatakan
_ t_
akam
bhu~ njate sarvar aj anah_
subhag a hy avan ıtale
6c sarves_
am_
caiva N : sarves_
am eva Ed. 7b yath ak am anur upatah_
Ed. :
yath akarm anur upatah_
N 7c vis´es_
en_
a tu N : vis´es_
ad devi Ed. 7d bh u-
bhr_
t an am_
tu N : bh ubhr_
t am api Ed.
Alternatively [the officiant] should worship these goddesses that
bestow all the benefits one desires in a row [rather than a circle], in
order to bring about the warding off of ills from all, desiring the pros-
perity of [all] creatures. O Goddess, officiants should make lavish
34 Netra 6.35c–50, beginning r ajaraks_
avidh anam_
tu *bh ubhr_
t an am_
(conj. [cf. 12.7d
below]: bh ubhr_
t ama N: bh ubhr_
t am_
tu Ed.) prak asayet=sam_
gr amak ale varadam_
ri -
pudarp apaham_
bhavet; 6.40: sarvama _ ngalaghos_
e_ na s´irasi hy abhis
_ ecayet=sa mucyeta
na *sam_
deho (N [Aisa sandhi] : sam_
dehah_
Ed.) sarvavy adhiprap ıd _
itah_
; 6.46d:*bh ubhr
_ to (N : bh ubhr
_ t am
_ Ed.) r ajyam uttamam.
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offerings to them in accordance with the benefit desired, but especially
on behalf of kings. [For] if a kingdom is free of enemies and fortunate
kings enjoy [their sovereignty] on earth, it is by their favour. 35
In the 15th chapter the text returns to the detail of protecting the royal
household (r ajaraks_
a), and this theme continues in the chapters that
follow. The Yantra taught in the 17th will bestow victory on kings
who are under attack from beyond their borders and should be used at
all times to protect the king’s wives, his sons, brahmins and others.36
Chapter 18 teaches the procedures for the worship of S ´ r ı
(Amr_
talaks_
m ı) without her consort. We are told:
sam_
gr amak ale dhy atavy a khad _
gapatralat asthit a
18.86 jayam_
prayacchate’vasyam_
ripudarp apah a bhavet
sam_
gr am agre sad a y ajy a parar as_
t_
rajig ıs_
un_
a
87 avasyam_
jayam apnoti devadevy ah_
pras adatah_
86a prayacchate ’vasyam_
N : prayacchate tasya Ed. 86d parar as_
t_
raji -
g ıs_
un_
a Ed. : ripudarp apah a bhavet N (dittography of 86b)
The Supreme Goddess should be visualized on the blade of the [king’s]
sword at the time of battle. She bestows certain victory, crushing the
pride of his enemies. A king who desires to conquer another kingdom
should always sponsor her worship before the battle. By her favour he
is bound to win.37
The long 19th chapter details procedures for countering possession
by various classes of being. Here the Guru’s role is portrayed almost
exclusively as that of priest to the royal family. He is told that he
may use his knowledge to help his own family and pupils but other-
wise he is to do these rites only for the king, his queens and their
children. And there is a further restriction that emphasizes his tie to
35 According to Kalhan_
a Circles of the Mothers (m atr_
cakr an_
i ) were set-up at the
passes leading into the kingdom of Kashmir, no doubt as the guardians of the realm.
R ajataran_ gin_
ı 1.122: dv ar adis_
u pradeses_
u prabh avogr an_ y udagray a= ıs anadevy a
tatpatny a m atr_
cakr a _ ni cakrire ‘ Is anadev ı, the wife of this [Jalauka, son of As´oka],
set-up Circles of the Mothers, terrible in their power, at the passes and other places’.36 17.5c–7: sarvas´ antipradam
_ cakram
_ pus
_ t_
isaubh agyad ayakam= ayurv ıryapradam_
* pun_
yam_
(N : caiva Ed.) jvararogavin as´anam= parar as_
t_
ravibh ıt an am_
nr_
p an_
am_
vija-
y avaham=r ajastr ın_
am_
*sut an am_
ca (N : tatsut an am_
Ed.) vipr ad ın am_
ca sarvasah_ =
raks_
a hy es_
a prakartavy a sarvopadrava*n as´an ı (N : n as´in ı Ed.)37 A ritual for the empowering of the sword with the Mantra of K al ı before the
king goes into battle is part of the repertoire of the Paippal ada Atharvavedin
R ajapurohitas of Orissa seen in the Paippal adavas adis_
at_
karmapaddhati , pp. 71–72
( A _ ngirase K alik amantravidh anam).
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them: he may exorcise his own family and pupils only if they are
devout, whereas he is obliged to exorcise the royal family regardless
of their personal qualities, for the king, we are told, is the head of
all the religious orders of life (sarv asramagurutv at).38
The chapter continues with services of protection that the offici-
ant is to render to the king during the course of each day:
mukhe praks_
alite nityam_
tilakam_
s´vetacandanam
19.89 sapt abhimantritam_
k aryam_
dos_
anivr_
ttaye tad a
sn anak ale tath a k aryam_
tilakam_
svetabhasman a
sam alabhanapus_
pam_
v a t amb ulam_
v abhimantritam
90 d ıyate yasya tasyaiva na him_
sant ıha him_
sak ah_
88d tilakam_
s´vetacandanam_
N : tilakah_
s´vetabhasman a Ed. 89a sapt a-
bhimantritam_
k aryam_
N : sapt abhimantritah_
k aryo Ed. 89b dos_
anivr_
-
ttaye tad a N : m atr_
dos_
anivr_
ttaye Ed. 89cd This line is in N only.39
89e sam alabhana N : sam alambhana Ed. 89f t amb ulam_
v abhimantritam
N : t amb ulen abhimantritam Ed. 90a tasyaiva Ed. : tasyeha N
Whenever the [king’s] face has been washed [the officiant] should give
[him] a forehead mark of white sandal paste that has been empowered
by reciting [the Mantra of Amr_
tes´vara] over it seven times, in order to
prevent assaults [by the Mothers40] at that time. He should also give
[him] a forehead mark of white ash at the time of bathing. Harmful
[spirits] will not attack [that king] to whom he gives betel or a flower
with fragrant powder.
38 19.86 bhakt an am_
svasut an am_
ca svad ar an_
am_
*tu (N : ca Ed.) k arayet=svasi -
s_ y a _ n am
_ *tu (N : ca Ed.) bhakt an am
_ n anyath a tu prayojayet/87 sarv a sramagurutv ac
ca bhupat ın am_
ca sarvad a=tatsut an am_
ca patn ın am_
*kartavyam_
tu hit arthin a (N : ka-
rtavyo hitam icchat a Ed.) ‘He may do it for his sons, wife and his pupils only if they
are devoted [to S ´ iva]. Otherwise he must not employ [this procedure]. [But] if he
desires the welfare [of all] he must always do it for kings, for the king is the head
of all the orders, and likewise for the king’s sons and wives’. For this reference to
the king as the patron (- guruh_
) of the orders ( as´rama-), of the caste-classes (varn_
a-)
and of both (varn_
as´rama-) cf. Kath asarits agara 12.6.85 (varn_
as´ramaguruh_
) and the
sources cited in Sanderson, forthcoming, especially Brahmasambhu’s Paddhati
Naimittikakarm anusam_
dh ana, in which it is said that the purpose of the S ´ aiva modi-
fication of the royal consecration following the S ´ aiva initiation of the king is to quali-
fy him to hold office as the patron of the caste-classes and orders (f. 74v1 [4.118]:
varn_
n_
an am asram an_
a~ n ca gurubh av aya bh upateh_ = yo bhis
_ ekavidhih
_ sopi procyate
d ıks_
it atmanah_
).39 N shows that the text seen in the edition has been corrupted by an eyeskip
from the s´veta of s´vetacandanam in 88b to the sveta of svetabhasman a in 89d. That
19.89 has three lines here is simply because I have kept the numeration of the edi-
tion for the reader’s convenience.40 That the assaults prevented are those of the Mothers is conveyed by the read-
ing m atr_
dos_
anivr_
ttaye of the Kashmirian edition.
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He must infuse the Mantra of Amr_
tes´vara into the king’s food be-
fore he eats and protect him with a visualization:
bhojanam_
c abhimantreta mantren_
anena mantravit
19.91 ubhayoh_
candrayor madhye bhu~ nj ano ’mr_
tam as´nute
sarvavy adhivinirmuktas tis_
t_
hate nr_
patih_
ks_
itau
90c c abhimantreta Ed. : c abhimantryaiva N 91a candrayoh_
N : p ars´va-
yoh_
Ed.41
The Master of Mantras should empower [the king’s] food by reciting
this Mantra upon it. If the king eats between two [visualized] moon
discs he consumes the nectar of immortality42 and lives [long] on
earth, free of all disease.
He is also to use his art to protect the king’s person before he
begins his daily training in the arts of war:43
19.92 atha kr ıd _
anak ales_
u gaj as´vasahites_
u ca
astrakr ıd _
asu sarv asu raks_
artham_
kalas´am_
yajet
93 kr ıd _
artham_
vijay artham_
ca raks_
artham_
him_
sak adis_
u
yasm ad dus_
t_
as´ ca bahavo jigh am_
santi nr_
pes_
u ca
92b gaj as´vasahites_
u em. : gaj as´vamahis_
es_
u N : gaj as´vasahitasya Ed.
93a ca Ed. : tu N 93d nr_
pes_
u ca N : nr_
p adikam Ed.
41 N’s reading candrayoh_
has more attack. It is also supported by Ks_
emar aja ad
loc.: anena mantren_
a proktadr_
s a sam_
put_ ık arayukty a dhy ato ’bhimantritas candrad -
vayamadhyasthitam_
bhojanam_
bhu~ nj ano ’mr_
tam as´nute ’mr_
tatvam eti nr_
patih_
‘If the
king is empowered with this Mantra while visualized enclosed by it on either side in
the manner already taught and eats [his] food between two moons [likewise visual-
ized on either side of it] he obtains ambrosia, i.e. becomes immortal’.42 Literally ‘‘he obtains ambrosia’’. The point of the visualization is that the
moon is the embodiment of nectar (amr_
tam), as is Amr_
tesvara, who is visualized
at the centre of a lunar disc, holding in two of his hands a vase of nectar and a
lunar disc. See n. 21 above.43 Such activities are prescribed as part of a king’s daily routine, after he has at-
tended to affairs of state, heard petitions and the like, in Vis_
n_
udharmottara 2.151.31–
32b: mantram_
kr_
tv a tatah_
kury ad vy ay amam_
pr_
thiv ıpatih_ =rathe n age tathaiv as´ve
khad _
ge dhanus_
i c apy atha=anyes_
u caiva sastres_
u niyuddhes_
u tatah_
param ‘When the
king has dealt with affairs of state he should exercise, by riding a chariot, an elephant
and a horse, then in training bouts with sword, bow and other weapons’. Cf. 2.65.3d–
4b concerning the training of the crown prince: dhanurvedam_
ca siks_
ayet=rathe ’sve;ku~ njare caiva vy ay amam
_ k arayetsad a ‘[The king] should teach him the art of archery
and make him regularly exert himself in riding his chariot, his horse and his elephant’.
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Moreover, whenever [the king] engages in sport with elephants and
horses44 or takes part in contests with weapons [his officiant] should
perform the vase-worship [of Amr_
tesvara] in order to protect [him.
Indeed he should do so whether the king is riding and fighting] for
recreation or for victory [in battle], in order to guard him against the
harmful ones. For many are the evil [spirits] that seek to harm kings.
And he is to perform a ritual for protection in the king’s sleeping
quarters when he retires for the night:
tatah_
suptasya nr_
pater nidr akalasam arcayet
19.95 raupyam aus_
adhisam_
yuktam_
candan agurucarcitam
ks_ ıren
_ odakap urn
_ am
_ v a yajen mr
_ tyujitam
_ param
96 sarvas´vetopac aren_ a pus_ padh up arghap ayasaih_ agre sthit a mah anidr a jagatsam_
mohak arin_
ı
97 sukh artham_
nr_
pate r atrau j ırn_
artham_
bhojan adike
arabdh a devadevena aj ~ n a datteti bh avayet
98 tato r atrim_
samagr am_
tu tis_
t_
hate nidray a saha
yaks_
araks_
ah_ pis ac adyair duh
_ svapnair m atar ıs
_ u ca
99 bhayaih_
sam_
tr asaduh_
khais tu muktas tis_
t_
hed yath asukham
lokap ales_
u s astres_
u raks_
artham_
nr_
pasam_
nidhau
100 p ujanam_
c arghapus_ p adyaih
_ kalas´e p ujite sati
yasyaivam_
satatam_
kury aj j ~ n anav an daisikottamah_ 101 p urvoktam
_ sarvam apnoti pr aheti bhagav a~ n s´ivah
_ 94cd nr
_ pater nidr akalasam arcayet N : nr
_ pate raks
_ artham
_ kalas´am
_ yajet
Ed. 95a raupyam aus_
adhi N : raupyam_
caus_
adhi Ed. 95b carcitam N :
lepitam Ed. 95c ks_ ıren_ odakap urn_ am_ v a conj. : ks_ ıras codakap urn_ n_ am_ v aN : ks
_ ıren
_ a c ambhas a p urn
_ am
_ Ed. 96c agre Ed. : gram
_ the N 97d
aj ~ n a datteti N : aj ~ n am_
dattveti Ed. 98b tis_
t_
hate N : tis_
t_
hed vai Ed. 98d
duh_
svapnair Ed. : dusvapne N m atar ıs_
u ca N : m atr_
sambhavaih_
Ed.
99a bhayaih_
sam_
tr asa N : bhayais tattr asa Ed.
Then he should worship a sleep-vase [to be set-up] for the king when
he sleeps. It should be silver, contain the [various protective] herbs, be
smeared with sandal-paste and aloe-powder, and be filled with milk or
water. [In it] he should worship the supreme Mr_
tyujit [Amr_
tes´vara]
with all his offerings white, with flowers, incense, guest-water and rice
boiled with milk and sugar. [If the Lord has been worshipped in this
way45] [the Goddess] Mah anidr a (‘Great Sleep’) who deludes all the
world will be present [before the king]. [The officiant] should imagine
44 Literally ‘‘on occasions of sport that are accompanied by elephants and
horses’’. The reading of N adds buffaloes (mahis_
es_
u) after the horses where I con-
jecture sahitesu ‘‘accompanied’’. But this is surely a corruption since buffaloes are
inappropriate to the context. Ed.’s reading sahitasya supports the emendation. It
was no doubt substituted for sahites_
u to improve the sense, since it is more natural
to describe the king than the occasions as accompanied by these animals.45 Ks
_ emar aja introducing 96c–97: ittham
_ bhagavaty arcite.
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king and his kingdom. This part of the text begins with the rule that
he must undertake the worship of Amr_
tes´vara on all such occasions:
nimittes_
u ca sarves_
u amr_
tes´am_
yajet sad a
19.102 k amar up ı bhaved yasm at sarvak am an av apnuy at
101d yajet sad a N : yajeta ca Ed. 102a k amar up ı N : k amar upam_
Ed.
bhaved conj. : yajed B : sad a Ed.
Since [Amr_
tes´vara] can take on any form at will [the officiant] should
always worship him on any festal day.48 [In this way] he will secure all
that he desires.
After this general rule the text sets out how he is to proceed in a
particular case. This is the royal festival of Indra’s pole (indro-tsavah_
, indradhvajotsavah_
) to be celebrated on the twelfth day of
the bright fortnight of the month Bh adrapada (July/August).
The procedures of the brahmanical prototype are described in
the Kashmirian Vis_
n_
udharmottara, Khan_
d_
a 2, chapter 155.49 Ac-
cording to that account the rites start on the first day of the light
fortnight of Bh adrapada. First the king worships Indra and his
consort S ´ ac ı on Pat_
as.50 Then the pole is prepared by felling an
appropriate tree and fetched from the forest on a cart drawn by
48 I understand nimittam, literally ‘an occasion requiring’ [special worship], to
refer here to all days that occasion a naimittikam_
karma in the sense of a calendrical-
ly fixed recurrent non-daily act of special worship (vi ses_
ap uj a). Cf. Y aj ~ navalkyasmr_
ti
1.203ab: d atavyam pratyaham p atre nimittes_
u vi ses_
atah_
. That this is the sense is
apparent from the specific occasions that exemplify this rule in the verses 19.102c ff.49 For evidence that the Vis
_ n_
udharmottara originated in Kashmir or its neigh-
bourhood see the Appendix.50 A Pat
_ a (Skt. pat
_ ah
_ ) is a tanka (Tibetan tha _ n ka), a painting of a deity or deities
on burnished cotton cloth to which several layers of a gesso have been applied;
Pi _ ngal amata (f. 27v4–6 [5.2–5]): bhogamoks_
aprasiddhyartham_
pat_
am_
k arp asikam_ varam=*kesaj ady anyath a (conj. : kosaj ady anyath a Cod.) devi vipar ıt adis adhane= pre-
tavastr adikam_
slaks_
n_
am_
*sadasam_
(corr.: sadasam_
Cod.) dvistriks_
alitam=khalitam_ pin
_ d _
itam_
mr_
dyam_
sa _ nkh adyena susobhane=tintad _
ıb ıja sam_
gr_
hya susvinnam_
p ıs_
ayed
budhah_
=tasyordhvam_
kharparam_
pis_
t_
v a *caik ıkr_
tv a (corr. : cek ıkr_
tv a Cod.) tu marda-
yet=svacchodakena c alod _
ya tena vastram_
pralepayet=vajralepah_
smr_
to hy es_
a punah_ punah
_ sam acaret. When a Pat
_ a is not in worship its painted surface should be con-
cealed by a layer of cloth; see op. cit. f. 29r3 (5.45c–46b): vastrair acch adayen nityam_ sarvacitres
_ u yatnatah
_ = p uj adhy anajapak ale udgh at
_ ya vidhim acaret. Tibetan practice
indicates that it was stitched on to the upper edge of the Pat_
a’s cloth border and
rolled up and secured with ties at the time of worship.
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cows or by men. On the eighth the king enters the city followed by
the citizens carrying fruits and wearing their best clothes. The capi-
tal must be decorated with banners and flags, the royal highway
sprinkled, and the children adorned. It must be full of actors and
dancers, and its deities, both public and domestic, must be wor-
shipped to the accompaniment of loud music. The pole is placed on
the ground prepared for it facing east, covered with fine cloths, and
worshipped until the twelfth. On the eleventh the king has fasted
and held a vigil with his chaplain, his astrologer, and all the citi-
zens. Dramatic spectacles must be staged all over the city during
the night and the king must worship Indra with dance and song.
On the twelfth he bathes his head and has the pole raised. He wor-ships the pole and the Pat
_ as of Indra and S ´ac ı with various Balis
and by means of the honouring of brahmins. The chaplain per-
forms a fire-sacrifice with the Mantras of Indra and Vis_
n_
u and wor-
ships Indra with dance and song. The king honours brahmins with
gifts of money, particularly his chaplain and astrologer. On the fifth
day of the festival the pole is dismissed. After offering reverence to
it in the presence of his army he has it born away by elephants and
disposed of with the two Pat_
as into a river. The citizens celebrate
by playing in the water.51
Now the Netratantra tells us that on this occasion the S ´ aiva offi-
ciant is to worship not Indra but Amr_ tes´vara as Indra: praj an am
_ raks
_ an
_ arth aya s al ın am
_ sasyasampade
19.103 sutapatn ıs_
u raks_
artham atmano r as_
t_
ravr_
ddhaye
indrar upam_
yajet tatra vijay artham_
nr_
pasya ca
102d sasyasampade N : c api sam_
pade Ed. 103c indrar upam_
Ed. :
indrar up ı N
For the protection of the [king’s] subjects, for abundant crops of rice
[and other] grains, for the protection of his [king’s] sons and wives,
for the prosperity of the kingdom and the king’s victory [in war] he
should worship [Amr_
tesvara] on that [day]52 in the likeness of Indra
(indrar upam).
51 For detailed accounts of this festival see also (1) Br_
hatsam_
hit a, Adhy aya 42,
following Garga, and (2) Atharvavedapari sis_
t_
a 19a (indramahotsavah_
). In the sec-
ond Khan_
d_
a of the Vis_
n_
udharmottara Adhy ayas 154–157 are devoted to it.
Adhy aya 154 is introductory. 155 covers the procedures. 156 deals with overcom-
ing the dire consequences for the king and citizens if the pole falls or is damaged
in some way. Adhy aya 157 gives the text of the Mantra of Praise ( stavamantrah_
)
that the king must recite when the Indra pole is being raised.52 Ks
_ emar aja ad 103c: tatreti naimittike indradine.
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Since the text has just stated that Amr_
tes´vara can take on any form I
infer a rule that on all calendrical occasions on which the worship of a
certain deity was required, the S ´aiva officiant was to worship Amr_
tes´-
vara (and/or Amr_
talaks_
m ı) as that deity. This is certainly how Ks_
e-
mar aja understands the matter. He explains that when the text says in
19.102a that Amr_
tes´vara is able to take on any form at will (k ama-
r upam in his version) it means that he ‘‘assumes the form of whichever
is the deity of the special occasion in question (tattannaimitti -
kadevat ak aram)’’. In other words the officiant’s cult is always that of Amr
_ tesvara (and/or Amr
_ talaks
_ m ı), unchanging in its essence, since
that resides in the Mantras, but it can be inflected to take on the form
of any other cult as required, by substituting the form and other exter-nals of the appropriate deity with or without his or her consort.53
I propose that this inference provides the key to understanding why
the text did not restrict itself to the icons of Amr_
tes´vara and Amr_
ta-
laks_
m ı but after setting out the cult of Amr_
tes´vara in chapters 2 to 8
devoted chapters 9 to 13 to his visualization first as the deities of the
four specific S ´aiva divisions (Siddh anta, V ama, Daks_
in_ a and Kaula)
and then, in chapter 13, as the principal deities beyond the boundaries
of the Mantram arga, including the non- Agamic, lay forms of S ´ iva him-
self.54 For these deities outside the five S ´ aiva systems of the text (the
four and the uninflected cult of Amr_
tesvara) are evidently those of
brahmanical calendrical worship, among whom S ´
iva himself is num-bered. I therefore interpret the absolute universality of Amr_
tes´vara,
53 I propose that if the deity were male then Amr_
tesvara alone would be in-
voked; if female, then Amr_
talaks_
m ı; and if accompanied by a female consort, as
in the case of Indra and S ´ ac ı in the Indra festival of the Vis_
n_
udharmottara, then
Amr_
tes´vara and Amr_
talaks_
m ı. Evidence that Amr_
talaks_
m ı was invoked when the
worship of a goddess was required will be presented in due course in the case of
the worship of the royal sword.54 These are the four-armed form of S ´ iva (13.29–30) cited in the Appendix as
relevant to the date of the text, the multi-armed dancing form (=Nr_
tyarudra,
Nr_
tyesvara, etc.) (n at_ yastham
_ 19.31ab), Ardhan ar ıs´vara/Gaur ısvara (um ardha-
dh arin_
am_
19.31c), Harihara (vis_
n_
u-r-ev ardhadh arin_
am_
19.31d), S ´ iva and P arvat ı at
their wedding (viv ahastham_
) 19.32a) (19.32a), and S ´ iva and P arvat ı side by side (?)
(sam ıpastham_
18.32b, = Um amahesvara?). Cf. n. 4 above.
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much vaunted in the text,55 not as an expression of ontological tran-
scendence, though the liberationist S ´aiva learning of the non-dualists
could overcode it in that sense,56 but as a device to enable the officiant
to penetrate the territory of brahmanical observance, shadowing the
rites of the brahmanical royal chaplain at every step or subsuming them
within his office. For the Kashmirian Adipur an_
a-Tithikr_
tya requires the
king to offer worship, that is to say, to have worship performed by his
chaplain, for the whole range of brahmanical deities on the days in the
lunar month that are sacred to them.57
It might be urged against this interpretation that the Netratantra
includes the Buddha among the forms that may be assumed by
Amr_
tes´vara. For the Buddha is evidently not a brahmanical deity.That objection might hold for other areas of the Indian world but
not for Kashmir. For in its account of the local religious calendar
the Kashmirian N ılamatapur an_
a requires the worship of the Bud-
dha in celebration of the days of his birth and Nirv an_
a during the
3 days of the moon’s passing from Pus_
ya to Magh a in the bright
half of Vais´ akha.58 Moreover, the Netratantra refers to the Buddha
at the end of its description of his iconic form as ‘‘bestowing the
reward of liberation upon women’’.59 This suggests that the wor-
ship of [Amr_
tes´vara as] the Buddha was a duty that the S ´aiva offi-
ciant was required to perform for the special benefit of the women
of the palace. Patronage of Buddhism in Kashmir was not providedby royal women alone, but in the political history of the kingdomcompleted by the poet-historian Kalhan
_ a in AD 1148/9 they do
figure conspicuously in this role in his account of events immedi-
ately before and during the K arkot_
a dynasty (c. 626–855/6), the
55 Netra 9.17 b: *sarvas adh aran_
o hy es_
a (N : sarv as t a + + + + hy es_
a Ed.);
13.44: sarvas adh aran_
o devah_
sarvasiddhiphalapradah_
/sarves am eva *varn an am_
(N :
mantr an am_
Ed.) j ıvabh uto yatah smrtah; 13.46ab: vikalpo naiva kartavyah sarva-
s adh arano yatah; 14.8ab: s adh arano mantran athah sarves am eva v acakah; 16.23c–24:
dvait advaitavimisre v ap ısto vai siddhido bhavet= yasm at sarvagato devah visvar upo
manir yath a=s adhakasyecchay a cestah siddhido bhavati dhruvam; and 19.82cd: sarva-
tantre
su s am anyo m
rtyujit praka
t ık
rta
h.
56 See, e.g., Ksemar aja ad 6.8cd ( param_
sarv atmakam_
caiva moksadam_
mrtyu-
jid bhavet): mah as am anyamantrav ıryar upatv an mrtyujinn athasyettham_
nirdes´ah. sa-
rv atmakam_
param advayam:57 Adipur an
_ a-Tithikr
_ tya ll. 2828–2843.
58 N ılamata 689–695.59 Netra 13.36cd: * dhy atv a hy evam
_ prap ujyeta (N : evam
_ dhy atah
_ p ujitas´ ca Ed.)
str ın_
am_
moks_
aphalapradah_
‘He who bestows the reward of liberation on women
should be visualized in this way and then worshipped’.
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period towards whose end I hold the Netratantra to have been
composed.60
Immediately after instructing the officiant to worship Amr_
tes´vara as
Indra on the occasion of the pole festival the Netratantra goes on to rule
that on the Great Ninth (Mah anavam ı), the ninth day of the bright
half of the next month, Asvayuja (August/September), he should
make lavish offerings to the deity and worship the king’s weapons:
19:104 gos_
u br ahman_
araks_
artham atmanah_
svajanes_
u ca
mah anavamy am_
p ujyeta bh uriy agena vesmani
105 p urvoktas´reyam apnoti ayur arogyasam_
padah_ astray agam
_ prayatnena kartavyam
_ siddhihetutah
_ 106 astrasiddhim av apnoti prayokt a phalam as´nute104a gos
_ u br ahman
_ a conj. : gobh ubr ahman
_ a N : gobr ahman
_ es_
u Ed.61
105a p urvoktas´reyam apnoti N : p urvoktam_
samav apnoti Ed. 105b
sam_
padah_
N : sam_
padam Ed. 105cd astray agam_
prayatnena kartavyam_ siddhihetutah
_ N : astray agah
_ prakartavyah
_ prayatn at siddhihetave Ed.
106b prayokt a Ed. : prayukt a N
On the Great Ninth he should worship [Amr_
tes´vara] with lavish offer-
ings in his home for the protection of cows, the land, brahmins, himself
and his household. He will attain the above-mentioned benefits, long
60 Amr_
taprabh a, queen of Meghav ahana, probably early in the sixth century,
constructed the monastery Amr_
tabhavana for foreign Buddhist monks (R ajatara _ ngin_
ı
3.9); his wife Y uk adev ı competed with her fellow-wives by founding a splendid Bud-
dhist monastery at Nad_ avana (3.11); Indradev ı, another wife of this king, foundedthe monastery Indradev ıbhavana and a St upa (3.13); many other monasteries were
built in their names by Kh adan a, Samm a and other wives of his (3.14). Amr_
ta-
prabh a, wife of Ran_
aditya-Tunj ına III (probably in the late sixth century), installed a
Buddha statue in a monastery built by Bhinn a, another of Meghav ahana’s wives
(3.464). Ana_ ngalekh a, wife of Durlabhavardhana (r. c. 626–662), founded the monas-
tery Ana_ ngabhavana (4.3) and Prak as´adev ı, wife of Candr ap ıd_
a (r. c. 712–720/1),
the monastery Prak as´ik avih ara (4.79). Support for Buddhism within Kashmirian
royalty appears from the R ajatara _ ngin_
ı to have reached its highest point during
the reign of Lalit aditya (c. 725–761/2). The king himself, though personally a
Bh agavata, founded several Buddhist monasteries and St upas and installed Bud-
dha images (4.188, 4.200, 4.203–04, 4.210), as did his Central-Asian chief minister
Ca_ nkun_
a (Chin. jiangjun ‘General’) (4.211, 4.215, 4.262). There is no evidence of
royal support for Buddhism after this reign in the R ajatara _ ngin_
ı. It records no
Buddhist foundations or installations for the period of the Utpala dynasty (855/
6–980/1) and thereafter only one, the construction of a monastery by Bhadre-
svara, the chief minister of Sam_
gr amar aja (r. 1003–1028) (7.121).61 The conjecture gives an irregular syntax; but it is one seen repeatedly in the
Nepalese manuscript of this text, and it agrees with the sense of Ed.’s reading.
That is readily explained as an attempt to remove this anomaly and N’s gobh u as
a scribal error prompted by common usage in contexts of donation, as here in
gobh uhiran_
yavastr adyaih_
(16.112c).
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life, good health and wealth. He should perform the ceremony of wor-
shipping the weapons [on that day62] with special care in order to bring
about Siddhi. He will indeed accomplish their Siddhi, and he who com-
missions [the ceremony] will achieve [victory in battle as his] reward.
Ks_
emar aja interprets the attaining of the Siddhi of the weapons to
be their transformation into weapons with celestial power (divy ani )
and the person who commissions the ceremony to be ‘‘the king or
the like’’ (r aj adih_
). ‘‘The like’’, I propose, are others with troops
under their command, such as provincial governors (man_
d _
alesah_
).63
Since the purpose of the ritual is that they should be victorious in
battle, the weapons can only be theirs.
The deity of this autumnal festival, which marked the beginning of the season of military campaigns and did indeed include a ceremony in
which the royal weapons and insignia were worshipped, is the martial
goddess Bhadrak al ı. According to the Vis_
n_
udharmottara’s account of
this festival64 the king should have a pavilion for the worship of Bha-
drak al ı (bhadrak al ıgr_
ham) constructed on the northeast side of his cap-
ital. He should worship her there on a painted Pat_
a on the ninth day
of the bright half of the month after worshipping the weapons, armour,
parasol, banner and all the other royal insignia (r ajali _ ng ani ) on the
previous day.65 The N ılamatapur an_
a tells us that the weapons are to
be worshipped in a shrine of Durg a during the preceding night.66
No doubt when Amr_ tes´vara was made to take on this form, orindeed that of any other goddess in the calendar, he did so in his
62 Ks_
emar aja ad 105cd: mah anavamy am eva.63 Ks
_ emar aja ad 106ab: divy any astr an
_ i mantraprabh av at sam
_ p adayati : r aj adis ca
vijayam apnot ıty aha: prayokt a p urvoktay ajayit a ‘Through the power of the Mantra [of
Amr_
tes´vara] he makes the weapons celestial. He now states that the king or other [com-
mander] achieves victory in the words ‘‘He who commissions will achieve [his] reward’’.
‘‘He who commissions’’ is the person who has the aforesaid sacrifice performed’.64 Vis
_ n_
udharmottara 2.158.1–8.65 Vis
_ n_
udharmottara 2.158.4: tatraiv ayudhavarm adyam_
chattram_
ketum_
ca p ujayet=r ajali _ ng ani sarv an
_ i tath astr an
_ i ca p ujayet. The same is seen in Agnipur an
_ a 268.13–14:
bhadrak al ı m_
pat_
e likhya p ujayed asvine jaye=s´uklapaks_
e tath as_
t_
amy am ayudham_
k ar-
mukam_
dhvajam=chatram_
ca r ajali _ ng ani s´astr adyam_
kusum adibhih_
.66 N ılamata 780–782. This practice of worshipping the royal weapons and other
insignia during the Navar atra festival was not restricted to Kashmir. See, e.g.,
Sivapriyananda (1995), plates 55–58, 91–92, and 96 for photographs of the royal
swords, the royal crown and fly-whisk installed for worship beside the image of
C amun_
d_
es´var ı, the lineage goddess of the Mah ar ajas of Mysore, in their royal pal-
ace during the Navar atra festival that culminates on this ninth; and Tod (1920,
p. 683) for the worship of the royal sword, shield and spear on Mah anavam ı in
the royal palace in Udaipur.
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female aspect, through his consort Amr_
talaks_
m ı. This would have
prevented an awkward clash of genders. But it is suggested indepen-
dently by the ruling seen above that it is Amr_
talaks_
m ı that is to be
worshipped in the king’s sword. For the underlying identity of the
deity of that weapon is indeed Bhadrak al ı. The worship of Bhad-
rak al ı on the king’s sword before he goes to war is treated at some
length in a text attributed to the A _ ngirasakalpa of the Atharvavedins’
ancillary literature and included in the Orissan Paippal adavas´ adi -
s_
at_
karmapaddhati , a work that sets out a large number of rites that
should or may be performed by chaplains for their royal patrons.67
That the Netratantra should mention only these two calendrical
ceremonies, the Indra festival and the worship of the royal weapons[and Bhadrak al ı] on the Great Ninth (Mah anavam ı), is in keeping
with the proposition that the officiant in this text is one who is
working in the territory of the king’s personal chaplain, since these
two are the principal festivals that engage the king. That can be seen
from the fact that in the detailed account of the king’s ritual obliga-
tions in the Vis_
n_
udharmottara they are the only calendrically fixed
annual ceremonies with a marked civic dimension apart from the
Vais_
n_
ava festivals that mark the four months of Vis_
n_
u’s sleep.68
After prescribing the worship of Bhadrak al ı and the royal weapons
and insignia on the Great Ninth the Vis_
n_
udharmottara goes on to
67 See Paippal adavas adis_ at_ karmapaddhati pp. 105–113. I am very grateful to Dr.Arlo Griffiths of the University of Groningen for sending me first a copy of this
publication, of which, according to its Sanskrit title page, he was the promoter
( prots ahakah_
), and then an electronic text of the same.68 The Vis
_ n_
udharmottara briefly lists the king’s periodic ritual duties ( nityakarma)
in 2.152.1–7. They are (1) a monthly ritual bath when the moon is in the asterism
under which he was born ( janmanaks_
atrasn anam) and (2) another when it is in the
asterism Pus_
ya ( pus_
yasn anam), (3) worship of S urya (the Sun) and Candra (the Moon)
on the days on which the sun moves from one zodiacal sign into the next, (4) the wor-
ship of a planet (Graha) when it has been eclipsed by the Sun, (5) worship to be offered
on the day of the heliacal rising of the star Agastya (Canopus) (agastyap uj a), (6) the
worship of Vis_
n_
u during the 4 months mentioned, (7) an annual Ghr_
takambala-
Kot_
ihoma, a fire-sacrifice requiring a number of priests working simultaneously over
many days to make 10 million oblations timed to end at the end of the 4 months of
Vis_
n_
u’s sleep followed by a ritual in which the king is covered with a blanket (kamba-
lam) and then first has melted butter ( ghr_
tam) poured over him from eight, twenty-
eight or one hundred and eight vases, and then, after the blanket has been removed, is
bathed with consecrated water, (8) a ritual for Rudra (rudrap uj a) at the end of each
regnal year, and (9–10) the celebration of these two public festivals. Chapters 153–158
then cover the major topics in detail. Chapter 153 deals with the worship of Vis_
n_
u
during the 4 months, chapters 154–157 with Indra’s pole festival and chapter 158 with
the worship of Bhadrak al ı and the royal weapons on Mah anavam ı.
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another ceremony to be performed at this time. This is the lustration
(n ır ajanas antih_
) of the king’s soldiers, horses and elephants, which, we
are told, should be done for their welfare, but also for the greater pros-
perity of the kingdom and the destruction of its enemies.69 A section col-
ophon after N ılamata 780–82 confirms the association of this ceremony
with the Great Ninth by identifying that day as n ır ajananavam ı ‘the lus-
tration ninth’. The section requires that the weapons be worshipped in
the temple of Durg a during the night of the eighth and that the lustra-
tion take place on the next day according to the procedure of the Atha-
rvaveda, that is to say, the Veda of the king’s personal chaplain. The
lustration of the king’s horses and elephants is indeed scheduled for this
day in the section on the annual royal ceremonies to be performed bythe king’s domestic chaplain in the Atharvavedaparisis
_ t
_ a.70
In the Netratantra too a lustration ceremony is taken up immedi-
ately after its treatment of the rites of the Great Ninth, though here
it is a lustration of the king himself. Moreover there is no statement
that it is to be performed during the autumnal festival. The only ex-
plicit instruction is that it is to be adopted when there is some ill to
ward off such as a life-threatening illness of the king or other mem-
ber of the royal family:71
yad a mr_
tyuvas aghr atah_
k alena kalito nr_
pah_ 19:107 aris
_ t
_ acihnit atm ano des´am
_ v a tatsut adayah
_ br ahman_
adis_
u sarves_
u paurajanapades_
u ca
69 This is taught in Vis_
n_
udharmottara 2.159.1–47 and the ascribed benefits are
declared there in 46–47: s antir n ır ajan akhyeyam_
kartavy a vasudh adhipaih_ =ks
_ emy a
vr_
ddhikar ı r ama naraku~ njarav ajin am = 47 dhany a yasasy a ripun asan ı ca sukh avah a
s antir anuttam a ca=k ary a nr_ pai r as
_ t
_ ravivr
_ ddhihetoh
_ sarvaprayatnena bhr
_ guprav ıra.
70 Atharvavedaparis´is_
t_
a 17.1.1–8, 18.1.1–18.3.12, and 18b.2.1–9 (18b.2.1: mah ana-
vamy am_
hastyas´vad ıks_
a ‘the lustration of the [king’s] elephants and horses is on
the Great Ninth’). The 6th-century Br_
hatsam_
hit a of Var ahamihira says in the
chapter devoted to this ceremony (n ır ajanas antih_
) that it should take place on
the twelth, eighth or fifteenth day of the bright half of K artika or, as here, during
[the bright half of] As´vayuja (43.2). K at_
hakagr_
hyas utra 57.1 rules that one should
honour horses and all transports on the full moon day of As´vayuja: as´vayujy am
asv an mahayanti sarv an_
i ca v ahan ani ; and Adityadars´ana ad loc. explains ‘all trans-
ports’ as as elephants, mules, buffaloes, camels and the like’: sarv an_
i ca v ahan ani :hastyas´vataramahis
_ akharos
_ t
_ r ad ıni ca.
71 We see a lustration prescribed both on the ninth of As´vayuja and as a special
rite to be performed when the need arises in Arthas astra 2.30.51: n ı r ajan am as´vayuje
k arayen navame ’hani = y atr ad av avas ane v a vy adhau v a s antike ratah_
‘Devoted to
rites for the warding off of ills [the superintendent of the king’s horses] should have a
lustration ceremony performed [by the Purohita not only] on the 9th day of As´va-
yuja, [but also] at the beginning or end of a military expedition or in time of sickness’.
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undertake the ceremonies of lustration (n ır ajanam) so that kings and their
kingdoms may prosper. After worshipping as before he should do an
Abhis_
eka [by sprinkling with water] from the [consecrated] vase. When the
asterism and degree are auspicious he should give this Abhis_
eka to the king
in an isolated place to the accompaniment of cries of ‘‘Victory!’’, ‘‘Meritori-
ous Day!’’,73 auspicious [chanting of ] the Vedas, and [the eulogies of ]
bards.74 He should [then] offer into the fire a large quantity of mustard
seeds.75 Beloved, he should offer them into the sacrificial fire with the pro-
cedure of lustration, indicating the beneficiary’s name,76 with angry mind.
The officiant, determined to accomplish this protection, should [then] asper-
ge [and sacrifice] numerous goats to gratify the hostile spirits and the horde
[of Mothers, Yogin ıs and the rest77]. If when he has determined the auspi-
cious moment following the instruction of the [royal] astrologer or by cal-
culating the degree [of the zodiac] the officiant goes out [of the capital
accompanied by the king78] to the north, the northeast, or the west, he
will bestow all supernatural benefits [on him]. Then, O Goddess, fol-
lowing the procedure taught above he should perform the Siddhi-
73 The text refers here to the brahmanical practice of pun_ y ahav acanam, the
uttering of the word pun_ y aham ‘meritorious day’ thrice at the beginning of any rite
to promote its success (ma _ ngalam).74 For these auspicious, apotropaic accompaniments at the time of Abhis
_ eka cf.,
e.g., Br_
hatsam_
hit a 47.49 concerning the king’s Pus_
yasn ana: vandijanapauravipra-
praghus_
t_
apun_ y ahavedanirghos
_ aih
_ =samr
_ da _ ngas´ankhat uryair ma_ ngalasabdair hat anis
_ -
t_
ah_
; and N ılamata 824 concerning the brahmanical consecration of the king: sn anak ale
ca kartavyam
_
mahat kalakalam
_
tath a=v aditras´a _ nkhapu
_
ny ahas utavandijanaih
_
saha. The
same applies in the Abhis_ eka of an initiate; see, e.g., Bhojadeva, Siddh antas arapaddhati f. 34r4–v2: bhadr asanam
_ vinyasya tasmin sis
_ yam
_ vinyasya sa_ nkhat uryav ın
_ aven
_ usvasti -
pun_ y ahavedadhvanibhih
_ kr
_ tama _ ngalam
_ . . . abhis
_ ecayet.
75 Mustard seeds, also called sars_
apah_
and raks_
oghnah_
, are believed to have the
power to fend off evil. See Netra 15.7–11.76 Ks
_ emaraja ad loc.: amukasya n ır ajanam astu sv ah a ity atra prayogah
_ ‘The for-
mulation here is ‘‘May there be lustration of ‘[name]’, SV AH A’’ ’. For ‘[name]’ (amu-
ka-) the officiant is to substitute the name of the king and, of course, to precede
this formulation with the Base-Mantra (m ulamantrah_
) of Amr_
tes´vara. The expletive
SV AH A is the closure ( j atih_
) required when making a regular oblation into the fire,
taking the place of the NAMAH_
at the end of other offerings. Thus for King S ´ a_ nka-
ravarman, for example, the Mantra to be uttered with each oblation would be:
OM_
JUM_
SAH_
S ´R IS ´AN_ KARAVARMAN_
O N IR AJANAM ASTU SV AH A.77 The most natural understanding of the expression bh utasa _ nghah
_
is as a Tatpu-
rus_
a meaning ‘the horde of hostile spirits’. Ks_
emar aja, however, no doubt with rit-
ual procedure in mind, takes it as a singular Dvanda meaning ‘hostile spirits and
the horde’ specifying the latter as that of the Mothers, Yogin ıs and others
(bh ut ani ca sam_
ghas ceti sam asah_ : sa m
_ gho m atr
_ yoginy adigan
_ ah
_ ).
78 That the officiant goes out with the king is a detail added by Ks_
emar aja ad
loc.: vijay abhimukhena r aj ~ n a saha niry atah_
‘gone forth with the king intent on vic-
tory’. The sense is that the king and his chaplain enact the king’s matching forth
to war after lustration.
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bestowing ritual of [Amr_
tesvara’s] worship in the [S ´ anti] temple79
for seven days, together with lavish offerings into the sacrificial fire.
He [for whom this sacrifice is performed80] will achieve permanent
great wealth, sovereignty or whatever else he may desire. The king
will be contented and attain the Siddhis of both earth and sky.81
Then, O Goddess, it is said that he has received the highest lustra-
tion, that which bestows all benefits. The aforesaid evils cease to exist.
Of this, O Goddess, there is no doubt.
There is no reference here to the lustration of the king’s soldiers,
horses and elephants, as there is in the Vis_
n_
udharmottara, but the
Netratantra follows its lustration of the king with instruction in the
means by which the S ´aiva officiant should protect the king’s cattle,horses, elephants, goats and other livestock:
19:117 gos_
u madhye yajed yasm at sad a vardhati gokulam
sind uram_
gairikam_
v api abhimantreta mantravit
118 yoktavyam_
gos_
u raks_
artham_
sr_
_ ngordhve sarvados_
ajit
as´v an am_
raks_
an_
arth aya p urvoktavidhin a yajet
79 The Netra says only that the ritual should take place gr_
he ‘in the house’ or
‘in the temple’. Ks_
emar aja understands this to mean r aj ~ no gr_
he, i.e., ‘in the royal
palace’. I conjecture that the unspecified gr_
ham is the temple known as the
s antigr
_
ham, the temple for the performance of S ´ anti rituals to protect the king
and the kingdom. This does not necessarily contradict Ks_ emar aja’s opinion,which might be expected to be well-informed on such a point. For according to
the S ´aiva Pratis_
t_
h atantras this temple could be built in the northeast quarter of
the royal palace or of the residence of [his] S ´ aiva Guru. See Mayasam_
graha f.
33v (5.188abc): atha bh ubhr_
nniv aso ’tra kury ad vedhasi tad gr_
ham ais anye
s antigr_
ham_
; Pi _ ngal amata f. 74v4 (10.151ab) (concerning the cumbakagr_
ham ‘the
residence of the Guru’): b ahye ny asam_
punar devi tatrese s antikam_
gr_
ham.80 This is Ks
_ emar aja’s interpretation ad loc.: yadartham
_ caivam ijyate ‘‘asy acal a
mah alaks_
m ı . . .’’.81 The same language is used in 18.79 to describe the benefits that accrue to
someone who has received Abhis_
eka from a vase of water in which [Am_
r_
ta]
laks_
m ı has been installed and worshipped, except that to Siddhis of earth and
sky that passage adds those of heaven: tasy acal a mah alaks_
m ı r ajyam_
v a yad
abh ıpsitam=bhaum antariks_
a *siddh ıni (N : siddhim_
ca Ed.) divy am_
*caivai svar ım_ (Ed. : caives´var ı N) subh am
_ . I have not encounted the notion of the Siddhis of
these realms elsewhere in the literature and Ks_
emar aja offers no explanation on
either of its two occurrences in this text. Elsewhere the adjectives bhaumah_
,
antariks_
ah_ =antariks
_ agah
_ and divyah
_ occur together with reference to phenomena
that portend calamities (utp at ah_
) (e.g. Atharvavedapari sis_
t_
a 2.2.3: divy antariks_
a-
bhaum an am utp at an am; Br_
hatsam_
hit a 47.53ab) or to hostile spirits (e.g. Svacchanda
3.20). The sense is probably that the king gains power over these phenomena in the
sense that he is immunized against their influence.
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119 abhimantreta kalas´am_
s´iras tes_
am_
prad apayet
siddh arthakam_
japitv a tu kan_
t_
he k aryam_
tu m urdhani
120 sarvados_
avinirmukt an gaj am_
s´ caiva tu raks_
ati
ajes_
u pas´aves_
v evam_
raks_
am_
sarvatra k arayet
121 sarvapr an_
is_
u raks_
artham_
yoktavyam_
nr_
pateh_
sad a
mah as antir bhavet tes_
am_
durbhiks_
am_
nas´yate sad a
117b vardhati N : vardheta Ed. 117c gairikam_
Ed. : gaurikam_
N 117d
abhimantreta N : abhimantryaiva Ed. 118a yoktavyam_
N : yojayed Ed.
118c asv an am_
raks_
an_
arth aya N : as´v an am api raks_
artham_
Ed. 119a abhi-
mantreta N : abhimantryaiva Ed. 119b s´iras tes_
am_
prad apayet N :
m urdhni tes_
am_
prap ataye Ed. 119c siddh arthakam_
japitv a tu N : si -
ddh artho mantrajaptas tu Ed. 119d k aryam_
tu N : k aryo ’tha Ed. 120b
caiva tu N : caiva ca Ed. 120c ajes_
u pas´aves_
v evam_
conj. (Aisa): ajes_
u
pasavo hy evam_
N : aj adis_
u pas´us_
v evam_
Ed. 120d sarvatra N : sarves_
u
Ed. 121b yoktavyam_
N : yoktavyo Ed. 121d nas´yate sad a N : na-
s´yati ks_
an_
at Ed.
The officiant should worship [Amr_
tesvara] in the midst of the [king’s]
cows, since [by this means] his herd will constantly increase. He
should empower vermilion powder or red chalk with the Mantra and
apply it to the tips of their horns to protect them, for it will overcome
all evils. To protect the [king’s] horses he should offer the cult in the
manner stated above, empower with the Mantra a vase [filled with
water] and pour it[s contents] on their heads. He should empower
mustard seeds by repeating the Mantra over them and then place
them on their necks and heads. [Mantra-empowered mustard seeds82]
also protect the [king’s] elephants, [so that they become] free of all
evils. He should do the same rite of protection for the [king’s] goatsand [all his other] domestic animals.83 He should employ his Mantra
at all times for the protection of all the king’s living creatures. They
will benefit from a general warding off of ills (mah as antih_
). Famine
will cease forever.
The Netratantra also requires its S ´ aiva officiant to perform the wor-
ship of Amr_
tesvara as a S ´ anti ritual whenever the realm
(man_
d _
alam) is affected by an earthquake, the falling of a meteor
(ulk ap atah_
), a drought, excessive rains, a swarm of mice or other
pests, phenomena such as the untimely appearance of flowers, the
destruction or splitting of an image of a god, fevers, [illnesses
82 I follow Ks_
emar aja in taking these mustard seeds (siddh artho mantritah_
) to
be the subject here.83 I take the causative k arayet here in the non-causative sense, a licence com-
monly seen in such scriptural texts. See, e.g., Svacchanda 423c–4: tato ghr_
tena
sam_
pl avya abhim anam_
tu k arayet=aham eva param_
tattvam_
par aparavibh agatah_ =
tattvam ekam_
hi sarvatra n anyam_
bh avam_
tu k arayet.
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Finally, as is the case with the brahmanical royal chaplain, the
functions of the S ´ aiva officiant prescribed by the Netratantra do
not end with the king’s life. If he or any of the princes dies the offi-
ciant should perform a special form of postmortuary initiation
known as the Rescue of the Dead (mr_
toddh arad ıks_
a). He may offer
worship to Amr_
tes´vara at the time of the cremation itself, installing
an image of [Amr_
tesvara as] Bhairava in the cremation ground
where the body has been burned; and he should perform the subse-
quent S ´r addha rites:
18:112 . . . nr_
patau tatsut an am_
. . .
. . .
mr_
tasyoddharan_
arth aya d ıks_
artham_
paramesvarah_ 116 yas
_ t
_ avyah
_ p urvavad devo vis´es
_ at tatra c akr
_ tih
_ kartavy a r ajat avas´yam_
sadr_
s ı dv adas a _ ngul a
117 k ary a v a gomayair devi kusair v a sn anas´odhit a
d ıks_
aiva tatra sam_
sk arah_
vy apty a yatrastham anayet
118 an_
um_
ca yojayet tasmin p urn_
ahuty a ks_
ipe ’nale
yojany a s´ivatattve tu tatah_
s ayojyat am_
labhet
119 sr addhe sam_
p ujayed devam antyes_
t_
av athav a yajet
pratis_
t_
h apyas tath a devi dagdhapin_
d _
e s´mas anake
120 p urvoktadravyasambh arair p urvoktavidhin a guruh_ p urvoktam
_ bh ıs
_ an
_ am
_ r upam
_ s´aktidvayasamanvitam
121 catus´ c as_
t_
au thav a devi p urvadhy an avalokit ah_ p urvoktam
_
phalam apnoti ity aj ~ n a p arames´var ı
112d tatsut an am_
N : tatsutes_
u Ed. 115c mr_
tasyoddhara_ n arth aya N :
mr_
tes_
uddhara_ n arth aya Ed. 115d parames´varah
_ Ed. : parames´varam N
116a yas_
t_
avyah_
p urvavad devo Ed. : yas_
t_
avyam_
p urva deves´am_
N 116b
vi ses_
at Ed. : vis´es_
as N 116c r ajat avas´yam_
em. (= reading rejected by
Ks_
emar aja ad loc.: r ajatetety apap at_
hah_
) : rajat avas´yam_
N : rajas ava-
s´yam_
Ed. 117a gomayair (conj.) : gopaye N : gomay ad Ed. 117d
yatrastham anayet conj. : yavastham anayet Ed. : yatra samam_
nayet N
118a a_ num
_ ca yojayet tasmim
_ N : a _ n um
_ s´ ca yojayet tasy am
_ Ed. 118b
ks_
ipe’nale N (Ais´a for ks_
iped anale) : saha ks_
ipet Ed. 118d s ayojyat am_ labhet N : s ayujyabh ag bhavet Ed. 119ab devam antyes
_ t
_ av athav a Ed. :
devam_
mam_
tes_
t_
itveti v a N 119c pratis_
t_
h apyas N : pratis_
t_
h apyam_
Ed. 120a
p urvokta N : p urvoktair Ed. 120b p urvoktavidhin a guruh_
N : gurun_
a
pr agvidh anatah
_
Ed. 121a catus´ c as
_
t
_
au thav a N : catasro ’s
_
t
_
av atho Ed.
121b dhy an avalokit ah_
Ed. : dhy an avalokitam_ N 121c p urvoktam_ N : p urvokta Ed.
To accomplish the initiation to rescue the dead for . . . the king or [any
of] the princes . . .86 he should worship the Supreme Lord as above but
86 The passages omitted list other classes of dead who should receive this form
of initiation.
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with the difference that he must fashion a silver simulacrum [of the
deceased] twelve A _ ngulas [approx. 21 cm] in length. Alternatively it
may be made with cowdung or blades of Kus´a grass. 87 He should purify
it with a bath. He should then perform the ceremony of initiation upon
it.88 By [meditating on himself as S ´ iva] pervading [the universe]
(vy apty a) he should bring back the soul [of the deceased from] wherever
87 The option that the simulacrum should be made of silver is that of a reading
r ajat a rejected by Ks_
emar aja. I have retained it because it is supported by N
(rajat a). Ks_
emar aja explains his preferred reading rajas a ‘with powder’ as meaning
‘with rice-flour’ (s alic urn_
ena), but that is not supported by other accounts of this
ritual. In his treatment Abhinavagupta gives an open list of materials that may be
used to make these simulacra, mentioning cow-dung, blades of Kus´a/Darbha grass
(Poa cynosuroides), fruit (Tantr aloka 21.22d–23a, 33, 35, 40, 43) and ‘such things
as the nutmeg (Myristica fragrans)’ (21.36ab: j at ıphal adi yad kim_
cit tena v a
dehakalpan a). The Kashmirian Br_
hatk alottara, borrowing from the P a~ ncar atrika
Jay akhyasam_
hit a, matches the Netra in saying that the simulacrum should be
twelve A _ ngulas in length, but differs in saying that it should be made with all its
limbs by shaping it out of white earth mixed with the five products of the cow and
water, or out of the wood of the trees Pal as´a (Butea frondosa) or As´vattha (Ficus
religiosa), or with a spray of flowers ( pallavah
_
) (B f. 195v4–5): tatah
_
svetamr
_
d alod
_
ya
pa~ ncagavyena c ambhas a=dv adas a _ ngulam atram_ tu m urttim_ kury at *tad akr_ tim (em. :tad akr
_ ttim
_ Cod.)= ap ada*c ulik antam
_ (corr. : c ulik atam
_ Cod.) ca *sarv a _ ng avaya-
v anvit am (em. : sarv avayav anvitam_
Cod.)/ pal as asvatthajenaiva d aru_ n a * pallavena
(em. : canavena Cod.) v a. The Nepalese manuscript of the Jay akhyasam_
hit a adds a
third wood as an option, but the reading is evidently corrupt: * tatah_
(em. : tatada-
ta Cod.) s´vetamr_
d alod _ ya pa~ ncagavyena c ambhas a=dv adas a _ ngulam atr ım
_ tu m urttim
_ *kury at (corr. : kury a Cod.) tad akr_
tim= ap ad ac c ulik ant a~ n ca sarvv a _ ng avayav a-
nvit am=* pal as as´vatthayd arbhyotthad arun_
a (conj. : pal asos´vatthad arbhotth ad arun_
a
Cod.) * pallavena (em. : pavaluvena) v a (f. 81r3–4). The Jay akhyasam_
hit a published
on the basis of south-Indian manuscripts makes this third wood that of the birch
(Baetula bhojapatra) (24.86cd): pal as as´vathavalkotthad arun_
a). In the same tradition
is the simulacrum made of Ficus leaves and flowers known as a pus_ pali _ nga that is
animated with the soul of the deceased by the S ´ aiva officiant in the Balinese postcre-
mation ritual of the purification of the soul (mukur, nyekah, neles, etc.); see Hobart
et al. (1996, pp. 125–6); and Stuart-Fox (2002, pp. 92–3); also the yogic ensouling of
the ‘flower-body’ ( pus_ pasar ıra) in the S ´ aiva-Bauddha postcremation rites of the
Javanese queen of Majapahit described in the Old Javanese Des´awarn_
ana (64.5, 67.2
[Robson, 1995, pp. 71 and 74]).88 Literally ‘initiation alone’ (d ıks
_ aiva). Ks
_ emar aja takes the point of the restric-
tive particle eva to be that in this case there is no need for the preliminary rites
known as adhiv asah_
that normally take place during the day before the initiation
proper.
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it may be and place it in that [simulacrum]. 89 As he makes the Full
Oblation [after completing the oblations that eliminate the possibility of
reincarnation on any level of the universe] he should cast [the simula-
crum] into the fire while [raising the soul through his own central
energy-channel and then] uniting it with the level of S ´ iva. By this means
89 Neither the reading of N ( yatra samam_
nayet) nor that of Ed. ( yavastham
anayet) makes good sense. N’s reading might be a corruption of yatra s´amam_
na-
yet, confusion of the graphs sa and sa occurring so pervasively in manuscripts
copied by Newar scribes that it is arduous to record it. We could then take this
and the next quarter verse to mean ‘he should place ( yojayet) the soul [of the
deceased] (an_
um) into that (tatra) into which ( yatra) he should bring it to rest
(s´amam_
nayet)’, understanding the site of the placing to be the reality-level to
which the soul is to be raised through initiation and bringing it to rest to mean
causing it to be one with that level. But at least two problems obtrude. The first is
that the phrase s´amam_
nayet, though common, always denotes elimination (as of
diseases or poison in the medical literature) or dissolution, as when a Yogin medi-
tates on a lower reality-level being withdrawn into the one above it; see, e.g.,
Jay akhyasam_
hit a 16.263d (ks_
m akhyam_
tattvam_
s´amam_
nayet) and Laks_
m ıtantra
35.8d and 53.7b (aham_
k are samam_
nayet), and 53.8b (m ul avyakte samam_
nayet).
This is not the natural idiom for the uniting of the soul with a reality-level. The
second problem is that the interpretation leads to pleonasm: the action of fusing
the soul will be mentioned again in 118c and as fusion with the reality-level of S ´ iva
( yojany a s´ivatattve tu). I turn therefore to the reading yavastham anayet in Ed. This I
propose is an error, probably of the compositor of the Devan agar ı edition rather thanthe Kashmirian scribes, for yatrastham anayet, tra and va being graphs that are
more readily confused in Devan agar ı than in S ´ arad a. That Ks_
emar aja had this in
his text of the Netra is not certain, since he does not gloss it directly, confirming
only anayet with an ıya in his introduction to the next quarter verse. But I propose
that he does so indirectly in the eleven-line citation from the Ham_
sap arames´vara
that he gives in his comment on vy apty a. For that describes the Great Net pro-
cedure (mah aj alaprayogah_
) by means of which the officiant is to catch the soul of
the deceased in whatever other state of incarnation it resides and place it in the
heart [of the simulacrum] uttering the seed-syllable [of M ay a (HR IM_
)] and the soul’s
name: yatra srot antare sthitam/ gr_
h ıtv a tat prayoge_ na mah aj alena yuktitah
_ = gr
_ h ıtam
_ *hr_
daye (em. : hr_
dayam_
Ed.) sth apyam_
b ıj abhikhy asamanvitam. I propose that for
Ks_
emar aja the point of this part of citation was that it clarified the meaning of
yatrastham in the Netra.
The yogic procedure for catching the soul through visualization and the recita-
tion of the seed-syllable HR IM_
(m ay ab ıjam) is described by Abhinavagupta in
Tantr aloka 21.25–26 and by the passage cited from the Ham_
sap arames´vara. The
officiant is to meditate on himself as S ´ iva pervading the universe, exhale, inhale,
hold his breath, raise the vital power through the central channel to the point
twelve finger-breadths above his head, and then visualize this power moving out
through all the worlds to find the soul. He should utter the syllable HR IM_
and take
hold of that soul, visualizing it as resembling a drop of water.
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it will attain union [with S ´ iva].90 He should [also] worship S ´ iva [for the
deceased] in the S ´ r addha ceremonies. Optionally he may do this wor-
ship during the cremation ceremony itself. [In the latter case], O god-
dess, the Guru should install an image of the frightening [Bhairava]
form taught above91 attended by two S ´ aktis92 in the cremation
ground where the body was burned, employing the various offerings
already mentioned and the aforesaid rites. Alternatively, O goddess,
there may be four or eight [attendant S ´ aktis] contemplated with the
visualizations already taught.93
90 This kind of S ´ aiva initiation was a conspicuous feature of Kashmirian life if
we may judge from satirical references to its practice in the eleventh-century works
of Ks_
emendra (Des´opades´a 8.50: mr_
takoddh are; Narmam al a 3.43: mr_
toddh ara-
d ıks_
a). Moreover, it may have been distinctive of that region. For the only prescrip-
tions of the practice known to me from S ´ aiva sources other than the Netra and
Tantr aloka are also Kashmirian: (1) S_
at_
ka 3 of the Jayadrathay amala (f. 156r1–v6
in the Catuscatv arim_
s´atid ıks_
apat_
ala in the Ghoraghoratar acakra)—its second and
third lines have been cited in this context without attribution by Jayaratha ad
Tantr aloka 21.6–9b — and (2) the Antes_
t_
imr_
toddh arapat_
ala of the Br_
hatk alottara
(B ff. 195r3–197r1, a section of that eclectic text borrowed with superficial adjust-
ments from the P ancar atrika Jay akhyasam
_
hit a 24.76–105b.
Commenting on this passage of the Netra Ks_ emar aja refers to a non-Yogic alter-native method for catching the soul of the deceased. A circular diagram is drawn
with OM_
(n adah_
) at the centre and the syllables of the syllabary drawn in six cir-
cuits around it. The S ´ ivanirv an_
avidhi , which gives the text of the S ´ aiva cremation
ritual followed in Kashmir, illustrates this diagram and gives the full ritual proce-
dure, Mantras, and deities. The last are M ay adev ı, who is to be worshipped in a
dish full of offerings placed on a lamp that rests at the centre of the diagram on
top of OM_
HAM_
SAH_
followed by the name of the soul to be drawn in, and the
eight Ks_
etrap alas, who are to be worshipped around the periphery (pp. 242–246).91 The reference is to the five-faced, ten-armed black Bhairava taught in 10.1–6b
as the form assumed by Amr_
tes´vara in the Daks_
in_
a division. See also Tantr aloka
26.7–8, commenting on such public installations.92 According to Ks
_ emar aja ad loc. the two S ´ aktis of the Bhairava to be installed at
the place of cremation are ‘the full-bodied and the emaciated’ (s´aktidvayam_ kr
_ s´asth ulam). These, I propose, are the last two of the eight Mothers, C amun
_ d_
a
and Yoges´var ı, since they are so described in the Kashmirian Br_
hatk alottara A f.
251r2: atip urn_
n_
a tu c amun_
d _
a khad _ gak adyasamudyat a=sav ar ud
_ h a nr
_ tyam an a s´avasrag-
d amaman_
d _
it a=sus_
k a yoges´var ı k ary a; and f. 251r3–4: evam_
vidh a tu yoges ı sir al a
vikr_
t anan a.93 The four are Siddh a, Rakt a, S ´ us
_ k a and Utpalahast a, and the eight are these
together with their four companions (D ut ıs): K al ı, Kar al ı, Mah ak al ı and Bha-
drak al ı. Their visualizations are given in Netra 10.17–37a.
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The Netratantra, then, has shown us S ´aiva officiants active in almost
all the areas of observance assigned by the Atharvavedic tradition
to the brahmanical royal chaplain: rituals for the protection of the
king, from rites attending his bathing, eating, exercise and sleep to
daily and periodic sacrifices, rituals for his invigoration and victory,
rituals of regular worship on the king’s behalf, including the great
public ceremonies of the Indra and Bhadrak al ı festivals, and rituals
for the king’s benefit after his death. Only the incidental function of
performing reparatory rites ( pr ayas´citt ıyam_
karma) receives no atten-tion here.94
Nor is the text backward in urging that the officiant’s services
should be lavishly rewarded. In the fifteenth chapter we read:
nr_
p an_
am_
nr_
papatn ın am_
tatsut an am_
dvij adis_
u
15:21 ac aryah_
kurute yas tu sarv anugrahak arakah_ mantraj ~ nah
_ s adhako v atha sa p ujyah
_ sarvath a prabhuh
_ 22 sam_
m anair asamair nityam_
d anair vividhavistaraih_
22a asamair conj. : asanair N: vividhair Ed:95
Any Ac arya or S adhaka compassionate to all and possessing mastery
over this Mantra who does these rites of protection for kings, their
wives, their children, brahmins and the rest, should be constantly ven-
erated with unequalled marks of distinction and with gifts both vari-
ous and abundant.
and in the sixteenth: gobh uhiran
_ yavastr adyaih
_ key urakat
_ ak adibhih
_ 16:113 p ujyo ’sau paray a bhakty a s antipus_
t_ yor vises
_ atah
_ yasm an mantramayo so vai sivah_
s aks_
at tu dai sikah_ 114 tena p ujitam atre
_ na sarve siddhiphalaprad ah
_ bhavanty avitatham_
bhadre satyam etan na sam_
sayah_ 115 anyath a siddhih anih
_ sy at kr
_ tam
_ caiva nirarthakam
112c vastr adyaih_
Ed. : vastr an_
i N 113b s´ antipus_
t_ yor conj: : s´ antipus
_ t_ y a
Ed. : s antipus_
t_
ir N 113c so vai N : vai sa Ed: 114d satyam etan na sam_
-
s´ayah_
N : satyam_
me n anr_
tam_
vacah_
Ed:
That [officiant] should be honoured with the greatest devotion with
gifts of cows, land, gold, cloth and the like, with armlets, bracelets
and other [ornaments], particularly when he performs rites to ward off
ills or restore to health. For the Guru embodies the Mantra[-deities]. He is
94 For the six areas of the royal chaplain’s Atharvanic rituals see n. 17 above.95 This emendation is supported by a parallel in 19.135ab: d anap ujanasam
_ -
m anair asamaih_
p ujyate yad a.
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S ´ iva made manifest. My beloved, if one honours him, then for that alone
all [the Mantra-deities] will certainly bestow the success of the Siddhi [one
desires]. This is the truth. There is no doubt. Otherwise the Siddhi will be
lost and one’s effort will be in vain.
and in the 19th chapter, after the passage cited above (19.139–
134b) in which we are told that the permanent residence of such an
officiant in a kingdom will render it immune to all conceivable
calamities:
sa p ujyah_
sarvajant un am_
bh upat ın am_
ca sarvad a
19:135 d anap ujanasam_
m anair asamaih_
p ujyate yadi
tena p ujitam atren
_
a sarve mantr as´ ca p ujit ah
_ 136 bhavanti sukhad as tatra
All men should honour that [officiant], and kings should do so con-
stantly. When they have honoured him with unparallelled gifts, dem-
onstrations of respect, and marks of distinction, then by this alone
they will have honoured all the Mantra[-deities], who will reward them
with happiness in that [realm].
All this is very much in the style that had been adopted in the brah-
manical context to promote the interests of the king’s personal
chaplain, as can readily be seen from the following passage of Atharvavedapari sis
_ t
_ a 4:
4:6:1 yasya r aj ~ no janapade atharv a s antip aragah
_ nivasasty api tadr as_
t_
ram_
vardhate nirupadravam2 yasya r aj ~ no janapade sa n asti vividhair bhayaih
_ p ıd _ yate tasya tad r as
_ t_
ram_
pa _ nke gaur iva majjati
3 tasm ad r aj a vi ses_
en_
a atharv an_
am_
jitendriyam
d anasam_
m anasatk arair nityam_
samabhip ujayet
1c tadr as_
t_
ram_
corr: : tad r as_
t_
ram_
Ed:
The kingdom of that king in whose realm dwells an Atharvavedic
master of the rites for warding off ills will prosper, free of all calami-
ties. The kingdom of that king in whose realm he is not present is
oppressed by diverse dangers. It sinks like a cow in the mud. There-
fore to that Atharvan [chaplain] whose senses are controlled the king
should show exceptional honour at all times, by means of gifts, marks
of distinction, and demonstrations of respect.
I take the ‘marks of distinction’ (sam_
m anam) to which this passageand its S ´ aiva parallels refer to be those insignia that served to dis-
tinguish high dignitaries in the court culture of South and South-
east Asia, attributes such as palanquins, white parasols and
fly-whisks with golden handles, which would be displayed whenever
such persons appeared in public. The term is used in this sense in the
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Khmer inscriptions, a corpus rich in records of such honours;96 and
we may compare Atharvavedaparis´is_
t_
a 3.1.17:
hastyas´vam_
naray anam_
divyam abharan_
am_
atapatram_
hiran_
yam_ ks
_ itigodhanadh anyaratn adikam
_ ca gurave dady at
[The king] should give his chaplain an elephant and a horse, a palan-
quin, the finest ornaments for his person, a gold[-handled] parasol,
and [valuables] such as lands, cows, coin, grain and jewels.
Such insignia were calibrated as to status. The Vis_
n_
udharmottara
(2.13.7–9b) specifies that the pole of the king’s parasol should be
six cubits (ca. 2.6 metres) in length, those of the royal chaplain,
royal astrologer and head of the army (sen apatih_ ) five, and those of the chief queen (mahis
_ ı) and the crown prince ( yuvar ajah
_ ) four and
a half. It seems highly probable that the S ´ aiva officiant would have
expected no less than is promised to the royal chaplain in this pas-
sage, thereby aspiring to recognition as a dignitary second in rank
only to the monarch himself.
5. CONCLUSION
In depicting S ´ aiva officiants in the role of the traditional royal chap-
lain, the Netratantra indicates the existence of a new class of S ´ aiva
specialists envisaged nowhere else in the corpus of the surviving
96 See K. 762, 6: svasv aminaf pras ad at sa ca r ajasabh adhipatyakr_
tan am a sauvarn_
a-
kalas´akara_ nkasit atapatr adisanm anah_
[ f = Upadhm an ıya] ‘who had received the title
R ajasabh adhipati by the king’s favour and been honoured with the golden vase, the
[golden] cup, the white parasol and other [insignia]’; K. 809, 43, concerning Indravar-
man’s S ´ aiva officiant S ´ ivasoma: þ i þþþþ yasya r ajena sr ındravarmman_
a*sita
(conj. : + + Ep.) chatraprad an adisanm ananam ak arayat ‘he caused him to be hon-
oured by King Indravarman with such marks of distinction as the white parasol’; K.
725, 20: * atapatr adisanm anair (conj.: þþþ tra d ıpanm anair Ed.) asakr_
t tena
satkr_
tah_
‘Honoured by him more than once with such marks of distinction as the par-
asol’. That the sanm anam=sanm ananam of the Khmer inscriptions is used in the same
meaning as sam_
m anam=sam_
m ananam here is evident from parallels in which it is
linked, as in the Netra and Atharvavedaparis´is_
t_
a, with d anam, p ujanam (/satk arah_
)
and synonyms; see K. 436, 17: p uj aprad anasanm ana; and K. 81 A 22: visrambha-
d anasanm anaih_
yogyo yaf paryyatr_ pyata. For the golden-handled parasol see, e.g.,
Pi _ ngal amata f. 75r1 (10.159a): hemada_ nd
_ am
_ sitam
_ chattram
_ . The granting of such a
parasol by the king is frequently mentioned in the Khmer inscriptions; see, e.g., K.
273, 29 , K. 289 C, 54, and K. 323, 80, in the last of which those with this honour
(hemadan_
d _
atapatrin_
ah_
) are assessed as a distinct class for the purpose of fines.
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S ´ aiva scriptures.97 But what was the nature of this encroach-
ment? Several scenarios are conceivable.
We might imagine that the officiant of this text had taken the
place of the brahmanical chaplain altogether or that he coexisted
with him, providing the monarch with parallel S ´ aiva observances to
double the chaplain’s. In the latter case the S ´ aiva officiant might
have matched all or only some of the chaplain’s activities. It is also
possible that the encroachment of the S ´ aiva officiant led to a
retrenchment of the brahmanical chaplain’s activites, leaving somedomains in the hands of the S ´ aiva officiant alone.
In the absence of independent historical evidence – as yet I know
of none – it is impossible to determine exactly the situation underly-ing the textual regulation. But I find the first scenario the least plausi-
ble, since the dominant tendency in Indian religion has been one of
accumulation rather than substitution. Furthermore, though theNetratantra shows us the officiant at work in nearly all the areas
assigned to the chaplain it does not match every one of his activities
in each. Thus in the area of daily activities we see a close match only
in the rituals of protecting the king while he sleeps. There is no men-
tion, for example, of the early-morning routine of giving the kinghis garments, ornaments, and perfume, annointing his eyes with col-
lyrium, and then ritually bestowing on him his horse, his elephant,
his palanquin, his sword and other royal insignia.98
Similarly, in thecase of the major periodic ceremonies, the Netratantra covers the In-
dra festival and the autumnal festival of the Goddess, but does not
mention the great biannual and annual fire-sacrifices of one hundred
97 It may be objected that the Netratantra is a prescriptive text and that it is there-
fore illegitimate to infer practice from it, since a prescription may be an exhortation
that neither reflects nor brings that about. This is true in principle, but the probabil-
ity that the Netratantra was the blueprint for an institution that never existed is
extremely remote. It is surely much more probable that its purpose, like that of the
S ´ aiva scriptures in general, was to authorize and regulate an already existent tradi-
tion of practice that hitherto lacked adequate scriptural sanction. The principal
defect of such materials is not fantasy but schematization. The greater the range of
practice that they seek to bring within their scope the greater their tendency to avoid
the level of detail that characterizes actual implementation, since in this way they
can avoid contradicting the specifics of current variants and instead provide a matrix
of prescription within which all these variants can comfortably be accommodated.98 These activities are set out in Atharvavedaparis´is
_ t
_ a 4.1.1–24.
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thousand and ten million oblations (laks_
ahomah_
and kot_
ihomah_
) that
are among the brahmanical chaplain’s principal periodic duties.99
One might dismiss these discrepancies by saying that the Netratantra
gives only some examples of the officiant’s obligations rather than a
full account. But that would be plausible only if we had some further
reason to suppose that this was so. The alternative would be to sup-
pose that the reason why rituals such as these fire-sacrifices were not
taken over by the S ´ aiva officiant is that they were no part of the
chaplain’s duties. But that is improbable, since they are included inthe accounts of the rituals to be performed for the king by his chap-
lain in the N ılamatapur an
_
a and Adipur an
_
a-Tithikr
_
tya, both texts con-
cerned with Kashmirian practice. The evidence tends therefore to theconclusion that the brahmanical chaplain retained areas in which he
alone operated.
At the same time it is possible that there were areas of retrench-
ment. For while rituals such as those of the two great festivals of
Indra and Bhadrak al ı might have been carried out by both the brah-
manical chaplain and the S ´ aiva officiant working simultaneously, even
side by side, it is harder to imagine such co-ordination in the case of
the intimate domestic rituals to prepare the king’s bed-chamber for
his sleep. Here perhaps the S ´ aiva rite had ousted the brahmanical.
Whether this new institution was present beyond Kashmir I am
unable at present to determine. The existence of an early Nepalesemanuscript of the Netratantra, of a manual based on this text for the
daily cult of Amr_
tes´vara and Amr_
talaks_
m ı attributed to the Malla
99 The procedure for these two sacrifices is taught in Atharvavedaparis´is_
t_
a 30,
30b, and 3. Vis_
n_
udharmottara 2.152.6 requires the Kot_
ihoma annually: sam_
vatsar at
kot_
ihomam_
kury ac ca ghr_
takambalam (2.161 is devoted to this procedure [ ghr_
ta-
kambalakot_
ihomah_
/ ghr_
takambalas´ antih_
’]). The Adipur an_
a-Tithikr_
tyav requires two
Laks_
ahomas each year and one Kot_
ihoma (ll. 2801–2803): dvau laks_
ahomau kur-
v ıta tath a sam_
vatsaram_
prati =ekam_
tu [ko]t_
ihomam_
tu yatn at sarv abhayapradam=atharvavedavidhin a *sammantrya (em : sammantryam
_ Ed.) ca [pu]rohitaih
_ . The
N ılamata probably required the same (813): sam_
vatsarasy atha * k aryau laks_
ahomau
(conj.: k aryo laks_
ahomo Ed.) mah ıks_
it a=kot_
ihomas tath a k arya eka eva dvijottama=tayor vidh anam
_ vij ~ neyam
_ kalpes
_ v atharvan
_ es_
u ca. Perhaps these references to the
Atharvanic procedures are to Atharvavedaparis´is_
t_
a 30a, 30b, and 31. For references
to Laks_
ahomas and Kot_
ihomas performed for the Khmer and Nepalese monarchs
see Sanderson, forthcoming.
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king Abhayamalla, of a manual for royal initiation into this cult,
and of other textual evidence of the integration of the worship of
Amr_
tes´vara and Amr_
talaks_
m ı into the larger framework of Newar
S ´ akta S ´ aivism only shows that this tradition took root there in the
manner of any other S ´ aiva system, that is to say, as a form of initia-
tion and regular worship. It is of course possible that S ´ aiva officiants
in the royal palaces of the Kathmandu valley were serving their kings
in the manner envisaged in the Netratantra, but the mere presence of
a manuscript of that text is not sufficient to prove this, since to befollowing a tradition of initiation and worship based on the
Netratantra would be enough to motivate its copying. If evidence
were to come to light that the cult of Amr_
tes´vara and Amr_
talaks_
m ıdid extend in Nepal beyond the shared essentials of initiation and
worship to include encroachment into the territory of the brahmani-
cal royal chaplain— and this possibility cannot be excluded since
many Nepalese liturgical texts in Newari and Sanskrit remain to be
studied—then it would be probable that it was established in yet
other regions of the subcontinent, at least in the North and East.
APPENDIX
THE PROVENANCE AND DATE OF THE NETRATANTRA
I have asserted above that the Netratantra was composed in Kashmir and at some time
between about AD 700 and 850, probably towards the end of that period. Here I set
forth the considerations that have led me to these conclusions. In the course of doing
so I shall bring forward evidence of the provenance of certain other scriptural texts,
notably the Jayadrathay amala, the Br_
hatk alottara, and the Vis_
n_
udharmottara.
THE ATTRIBUTES IN SAD AS ´ IVA’S HANDS
Evidence of the Netratantra’s provenance is found in its information on the iconic
forms under which S ´ iva and other deities should be visualized. In 9.17–25 it pre-
scribes the image of Sad asiva, the five-faced and ten-armed form under which
S ´
iva is worshipped in the Siddh anta and under which Amr_ tes´vara should be visu-alized when it is necessary to worship him in that context. Sad asiva is nearly
always five-faced and ten-armed in our sources. But there is variety in the prescrip-
tion of the objects and gestures to be exhibited by the ten hands. Now the Netra-
tantra shows a strongly distinct tradition in this regard:
tris ulam utpalam_
b an_
am aks_
as utram_
ca mudgaram
9.22 daks_
in_
es_
u kares_
v evam_
v ames_
v evam atah_
param
khet_
ak adars´ac apam_
ca m atulu _ ngam_
kaman_
d _
alum
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21d ca mudgaram_
N : samudgaram Ed. 22b v ames_
v evam atah_
param N :
v ames_
u s´r_
n_
v atah_
param Ed. 22c khet_
ak adars´ac apam_
ca conj. : khet_
ak adars_
a-
c apogram_
N : sphet_
ak adars´ac apam_
ca Ed.
In the right hands are a trident, a blue lotus, an arrow, a rosary and a cudgel.
Next [those] in the left hands, as follows: a shield, a mirror, a bow, a citron
and an ascetic’s water-vessel.
This tradition I have seen elsewhere only in the Vis_
n_
udharmottara:
3.44.18 das´ab ahus tath a k aryo devadevo mahes´varah_ aks
_ am al am
_ tris ulam
_ ca s´aram
_ dan
_ d _
am athotpalam
19 tasya daks_
in_
ahastes_
u kartavy an_
i mah abhuja
v ames_
u m atulu _ ngam_
ca c ap adarsau kama_ nd
_ alum
20 tath a carma ca kartavyam_ devadevasya s´ ulinah_ 18d s´aram
_ em. : s´ara Ed.
And Mahesvara, the God of the Gods, should be made ten-armed. O great-
armed [hero], one should place a rosary, a trident, an arrow, a cudgel and a
blue lotus in his right hands. In the left hands of the Trident-wielder, the God
of the Gods, one should place a citron, a bow, a mirror, an ascetic’s water-
vessel, and a shield.100
100 The same attributes are taught in 3.48.9–16 with the information that the
ten are five pairs, one held by each of the five deities said here to be fused in the
five-faced Sad asiva image (3.48.3–8): Mah adeva facing forward (the rosary and
ascetic’s water-vessel), Sad as´iva above (the bow and the arrow), Bhairava looking
to the right (the cudgel and citron), Nandin at the rear (the shield and trident),and the goddess Um a looking left (the mirror and blue lotus). Addorsed images of
S ´ iva with the lateral faces of Um a, Bhairava/Mah ak ala and Nandin behind are a
feature of local Kashmirian tradition as seen in material evidence of the sixth to
seventh centuries. We have examples in stone from the S ´ iva temple at Fattegarh
(Siudmak 1994, pl. 39a,b) and the S ´ ailaputr ı temple in Wushku r village (Hus_
ka-
pura) (Siudmak 1994, pl. 40a,b), and a related bronze (Pal 1975, pl. 4a,b). The tra-
dition is also represented in Kashmirian praise of the holy site of Bh utes´vara, also
called Nandiks_
etra, located below Mount Harmokh. See Nandiks_
etram ah atmya
f. 14r1–4 (vv.165–168): s´arvanandimah ak aladev ıvadanaman_
d _
itam=bh utes´varam_
bh u-
tapatim_
dr_
s_
t_
v a martyo vimucyate= pascime vadane v ıra mama vatsyasi yat sahe=bh utes´varah
_ sarvabh utah
_ sut ırth antargato vibhuh
_ =sr ıkan
_ t
_ hah
_ p urvavadane mah ak alo-
’tha daks_
in_
e= pascime nandirudras tu dev ı saumye pratis_
t_
hit a=bh utesvarasya devasya
nandiks_
etramah aphalam=dr_
s´yante vadanes_
v ete dev ınandimah asiv ah_
‘Mortals are lib-
erated by seeing Bh utesvara, the Lord of Creatures, adorned with the faces of
S ´ arva [=S ´ iva], Nandin, Mah ak ala and the Goddess. I allow, O hero, that you
should reside in my face at the rear. Bh utesvara, [though he] is all things, the
all-pervading Lord, resides within [this holy place] Sut ırtha. S ´ r ıkan_
t_
ha [=S ´ iva]
is established in his east-facing face, Mah ak ala in the south-facing, Nandirudra
in the west-facing [at the rear] and the Goddess in the north-facing. In the faces
of the god Bh utes´vara one beholds as the great reward of the Nandiks_
etra these
[four]: the Goddess, Nandin, Mah a[k ala] and S ´ iva’; cf. N ılamata 1119c–1120.
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and the S ´ arv avat ara (f. 8v14–15):
s ulotpales_
udan_
d _
aks_
as utrakodan_
d _
adh arin_
e
kaman_
d _
alukarasph araphaladarpan_
ap a_ naye
[Obeisance] to [him] who carries a trident, a blue lotus, an arrow, a cudgel, a
rosary and a bow, whose hands hold an ascetic’s water-vessel, a shield, a fruit,
and a mirror.
The S ´ arv avat ara can only have been written in Kashmir, since its subject matter is
restricted to the glorification of S ´ aiva sacred sites in that region, most of which
have no place on the pan-Indian pilgrimage map.101
That the Vis_
n_
udharmottara was written in Kashmir or a neighbouring region
follows from a number of factors. (1) There is a strong correlation between the
T ırthas invoked in the Vis_
n_
udharmottara’s Mantra for the Royal Consecration
(r ajy abhis_
ekamantrah_
) taught in chapter 22 of its second Khan_
d_
a and those sacred
sites, mostly Kashmirian, mentioned in the local N ılamata. (2) There is close agree-
ment between chapter 35 of the second Khan_
d_
a (str ıdevat ap ujananir upan_
am) and
the religious calendar of Kashmir taught in the N ılamata. (3) Where the Vis_
n_
u-
dharmottara prescribes domestic Vaidika rites it adheres to the distinctive proce-
dures of the K at_
hakagr_
hyas utra, also called Laug aks_
igr_
hyas utra, the authority
followed for these rituals by the brahmins of Kashmir. Thus its Vais´vadeva deities
(2.92.3–15) are those of the Kashmirian brahmins as prescribed in K at_
hakagr_
hya-
s utra 4.14.1–20.102 The same applies to the S ´ r addha rituals, as can be seen by com-
paring Vis_
n_
udharmottara 1.140.8–43 with Laug aks_
igr_
hyas utramantrabh as_ ya, vol. 2,
pp. 332–363. (4) It fuses the old Kashmirian iconography of the S ´ iva image, with its
secondary faces of Um a, Bhairava and Nandin,103 with the pan-Indic tradition of
the S ´ aiva Mantram arga, which equates the five faces of Sad as´iva with the five Vedic
Brahmamantras (3.48.1–6). And (5) The principal Vis_ n_ u form in its prescription of the images of deities is the four-faced Vaikun
_ t_ ha, in which the forward-facing
101 Among the sacred places of Kashmir praised in this text are Mah adevagiri
and S ´ r ıdv aragiri, the mountain-ridge along the east side of the D_
al lake, with its
various T ırthas, notably Jyes_
t_
hesvara and Tripuresvara at Tripar and Suresvar ı
near Isha_ ba
_ r.
102 For the Kashmirian Vaisvadeva ritual see K as´m ırikakarmak an_
d _
apaddhati f.
192v and the S ´ aivavais´vadevavidhi .103 See n. 100 above.
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anthropomorphic face is flanked by the faces of Var aha and Narasim_
ha, with the
face of the sage Kapila at the rear (3.44.9c–13, 3.85.42c–45). This is the principal
Kashmirian Vis_
n_
u image and it is seldom seen elsewhere.
The inference that the Netratantra’s prescription of the hand-attributes of Sad a-
siva is that of a Kashmirian tradition outside the Saiddh antika mainstream is
strengthened by two further items of evidence. The first is that this type of Sad as
iva has left a trace in no Saiddh antika scripture other than the Br_
hatk alottara. That
teaches a close variant of the hand-attributes seen in the Netratantra — it differs
only in that a sword (khad _
gah_
) takes the place of the cudgel (dan_
d _
ah_
) in one of the
hands104 —and it contains other indications that it was redacted in Kashmir or
under Kashmirian influence, notably the imprint of the non-dualistic S ´ akta S ´ aiva
doctrine and terminology seen in the Spandak arik a, a seminal work of that tradi-
tion composed in Kashmir towards the end of the ninth century.105
The second is that we have another variant of the Netratantra’s Sad as´iva inthe Kashmirian liturgical tradition. This is the image of Bahur upabhairava, who is
worshipped with his consort M ay adev ı in the Kashmirian S ´ aiva cremation ritual
(s´ivanirv an_
avidhih_
). In the hands of this variant a sword takes the place of the blue
lotus (n ılotpalam) and the gesture of bestowing boons (varadamudr a) that of the
mace ( gad a).106
104 Br_
hatk alottara B f. 17r5–6: n ılan ırajan ar acakhad _
g aks_
avalay abhayam=satris u-
lam_
harasyoktam_
*daks_
in_
e (em. : daks_
in_
a Cod.) pa~ nca b ahavah_ =b ıjap uram
_ dhanus
carma varada~ n ca kaman_
d _
alum_ =v ame tu devadevasya b ahavah
_ pa~ nca k ırtit ah
_ .
105 For this imprint see Sanderson 2001, pp. 17–18, n. 19. As further evidence
of the Br_
hatk alottara’s Kashmirian origin one may cite its knowledge of the pair-
ing (to be discussed below) of the two sets of four goddesses associated in Kashmi-
rian tradition with the V ama and Daks_
in_
a divisions of the S ´ aiva scriptures. Also
consistent with this origin is its use of the term kh arkhodah_
, to be discussed below,
and its dependence on the P ancar atrika scripture Jay akhyasam_
hit a demonstrated in
Sanderson, 2001, pp. 38–41. That that scripture was produced in Kashmir is highly
probable, though not certain.106 See S ´ ivanirv an
_ avidhi p. 235, l.8–p. 246, l.8 (mun
_ d _
ay agah_
and m ay aj alap uj a). For
the visualization see p. 237, ll. 1–4: sitam_
tryaks_
am_
pa~ ncavaktram_
das´ab ahum_ sas´aktikam=s ul aks
_ as utres
_ ukhad
_ gavarair daks
_ akarair vr
_ tam=m atulu _ ngadhanus´carma-
kumbhadarpan_
av amakaih_
. The names of the two deities are revealed in their Mantras:
9-M_ ½¼H-S-KS
_ -M-L-V-R-Y UM
_ BAHUR UPABHAIRAV AYA SVADH A NAMA
_ H (p. 237,
l. 4) and HR IM_
M AY ADEVYAI SVADH A NAMAH_
(p. 237, l. 9). They are worshipped
surrounded by the eight Mothers and the eight Bhairavas (p. 237, l. 9 – p. 238, l. 7).
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THE GODDESSES SIDDH A, RAKT A, S ´ US_
K A
AND UTPAL A
In chapters 10 and 11 the Netratantra teaches substitutes for the standard icon of
Amr_
tesvara to be adopted when the officiant has reason to adapt this Mantra-
deity to the context of the V ama and Daks_
in_
a S ´ aiva systems. In these cases
Amr_
tesvara should be visualized as Tumburu and Bhairava respectively, those
being the presiding deities of those systems, and he should be worshipped sur-
rounded by the retinues of S ´ aktis proper to those two. These, to mention only
the primary circuit of goddesses, are four in each case: Jay a, Vijay a, Ajit a and
Apar ajit a in the V ama (11.12–18) and Siddh a, Rakt a, S ´ us_
k a and Utpalahast a
(10.17c–34) in the Daks_
in_
a. The first set of goddesses is given as the inner reti-
nue of the V ama’s Tumburu in all accounts of this cult, and these come fromwidely separated areas of the Indic world: Kashmir, Gilgit, Nepal, Kerala, Ta-
milnadu, Cambodia and Bali. But the second set’s association with the Daks_
in_
a’s
Bhairava, indeed the second set itself, is far less well attested, in spite of the far
greater abundance of the textual materials that have survived from this division.
Now the only other texts known to me in which these four goddesses, or variants of
them, are mentioned are Kashmirian: Jayaratha’s commentary on Abhinavagupta’s
Tantr aloka, the Anandes´varap uj a, the Br_
hatk alottara, the Moks_
op aya, and the
Jayadrathay amala.
Where the Kashmirian Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975–1025) says that in the Kaula
worship of the Trika the deities that surround the central triad of the Goddesses
may be twelve, sixteen, four, or indeed whatever set one prefers, 107 his compatriot
Jayaratha (fl. c. 1250) comments: ‘‘The four here are either those beginning with
Siddh a or those beginning with Jay a’’;108 and where Abhinavagupta describes
wine as ‘‘Mah abhairava fully radiant with the four S ´ aktis’’,109 Jayaratha com-
ments that the four to which he refers are ‘‘the set of four beginning with Siddh a’’,
‘‘for’’, he adds, ‘‘these are white, red, yellow and black in colour’’.110 The Anandes´ -
107 Tantr aloka 29:51 : antar dv adas´akam_
p ujyam_
tato ’s_
t_
as_
t_
akam eva ca=catus_
kam_ v a yatheccham
_ v a k a sam
_ khy a kila rasmis
_ u. The sequel reveals that the expression
as_
t_
as_
t_
akam is to be taken as a Dvandva compound meaning ‘eight-and-eight’,
referring to the eight Kaula Mothers with their eight Bhairavas.108 Tantr alokaviveka ad 29.51c: catus
_ kam iti siddh adi jay adi v a.
109 Tantr aloka 37.42d: s´akticatus_
t_
ayojjvalam alam_
madyam_
mah abhairavam.110 Tantr alokaviveka ad 37.42d: s´akt ıti siddh adicatus
_ kam (em.: siddh acatus
_ kam
Ed.). tad dhi sitaraktap ıtakr_
s_
n_
avarn_
am. The colours were no doubt thought to be
significant as those of four varieties of wine.
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varap uj a has this same set of four worshipped as the retinue of Anandes´varabhair-
ava and his consort Sur adev ı, the deities of wine.111
The Br_
hatk alottara covers the four goddesses beginning with Jay a and the four
beginning with Siddh a, without associating them with Tumburu and Bhairava or
the V ama and Daks_
in_
a divisions, in a chapter devoted to the iconography of
images of the Mothers.112
The Moks_
op aya identifies the four beginning with Siddh a as those that sur-
round Bhairava in the Daks_
in_
a division (daks_
in_
asrotah_
), pairs them with the four
surrounding Tumburu in the V ama division (v amasrotah_
), and asserts that these
eight are the foremost of all the Mother goddesses. 113
In the Jayadrathay amala the two sets of four form the sixty-first and sixty-
second cycles of the eighty-one cycles of the goddess R avin_ ı that occupy ever
higher centres along the axis of the worshipper’s body in the fourth of the four
divisions of six thousand stanzas (S_
at_ kas) that comprise that text. The first set, in
the order S ´ us_
k a, Siddh a, Utpal a and Rakt a, is said there to comprise the S ´ aktis of
111 Anandes´varap uj a f. 59[2]r4–6: bh an_ d _ atale: ha-sa-ra-ks_ a-ma-la-va- ya- um_ ana-ndes´varabhairav aya vaus
_ at
_ : sa-ha-ra-ks
_ a-ma-la-va- ya- um
_ sur adevyai vaus
_ at
_ : om
_ * si -
ddh ayai (conj.: siddh arth ayai Cod.) vaus_
at_ : evam
_ sus
_ k ayai vau. rakt ayai : utpal ayai .
Cf. in a prescription for the worship of Anandes´vara after the completion of the
fire-sacrifice Agnik aryapaddhati B f. 130r10: bh an_
d _
e devyas catasro.112 The chapter, called m atr
_ bhairavavartan a in its colophon, unnumbered in the
manuscripts, is the seventy-seventh by my count. The section on the two sets of
four is as follows (Br_
hatk alottara A f. 252r2–4; B f. 219r4–219v2):27 caturbhuj a
caturvaktr a jay a kundendusannibh a=is_
ukodan_
d _
asam_
yukt a pretasth a nr_
tyatatpar a=28 evam
_ tu vijay a k ary a rakt abh asvoparisthit a/evam
_ jayant ı b ıbhats a s urya*bh ımo-
paristhit a (conj.: bh ımaparisthit a AB)/29 * megha (conj.: moha AB) sth a * cotpal ak ar a
(A: cotpat ak ar a B) nr_
tyant ı kr_
s_
n_
avarcas a (A: kr_
s_
n_
avarcas ı B)=apar ajit a pra-
kartavy a n an atody anuvartin ı=30 pretasth a (A: pratasth a B) caiva nirm am_
s a siddh a
kundendusannibh a=khad _ gacarma * dhar ı (A: dhur a B) dev ı ks
_ urik amun
_ d _
abh us_
it a=31
evam_
rakt a kim_
tu *rakt a (A: bhukt am_
B) s´us_
k am_
*k al ım_
(conj.: k antim_
) tu
k arayet=*utpalaprabhavadan a (conj: utpalaprabh avadan a A: utpalaprabhav ad at a B)
utpal a _ ngotpalasthit a.113 The relevant passage of this unpublished part of the Moks
_ op aya has been
edited in Hanneder, 1998a, p. 69: jay a ca vijay a caiva jayant ı c apar ajit a=v amasro-
togat a et as tumburum_
rudram as´rit ah_ =siddh a s´us
_ k a ca rakt a ca utpal a ceti devat ah
_ /
sroto daks_
in_
am asritya bhairavam_
rudram as´rit ah_ =sarv as am eva m at r
_ n_
am as_
t_
av e-
t as tu n ayik ah_
.
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the Lord of the Daks_
in_
a (daks_
in_
es´varah_
), and the second set, in the order Jay a, Vi-
jay a, Apar ajit a and Jayant ı, that of the Lord of the V ama (v amav ıres´vares anah_
).114
The four beginning with Siddh a appear again in that S ´ at_ ka as the first of a series of
32 S ´ aktis comprising the sequence called ‘With-Support’ (s alambakramah_
) in a vari-
ant of the Krama system of the K al ıkula.115
In the second S ´at_ ka they (but with Rakt a under the name C amun
_ d a) are the
first four of the twelve Mothers that form the retinue of K al ı Catuscakresvar ı
‘Ruler of the [Three] Cycles of Four’. The other eight are the four beginning with
Jay a, followed by V am a, Jyes_
t_ h a, Raudr ı and Bhadrak al ı.116
That Jayaratha’s commentary on the Tantr aloka is Kashmirian requires no
demonstration. The Anandes ´varap uj a is part of the corpus of Kashmirian ritual
texts, and the form of worship it teaches is a regular ancillary element in the Kash-
mirian S ´ aiva ritual of initiation.117 The Kashmirian origin of the Br
_
hatk alottara has
114 Jayadrathay amala, S_
at_
ka 4, f. 91v7–92r: v amadaks_
in_
ac ar abhy am_
kalitau cakra-
*n ayakau ðconj: : n ayike Cod.)/ yau pam_
cadh a sures ani tatra s a sphurit a yad a=tad a
vyakt avyaktatar a sr_
s_
t_
isam_
h ara*k arik a (corr.: k arak a Cod.)/karam_
kin_
ı mah araudr a
daks_
in_
es´vara *sam_
yut a (conj.: s am_
pratam Cod.)/s´us_
k asiddhotpal arakt aras´min atham_ param
_ mahat=tatrodgatam
_ k alan aya jagaty asmin car acare=v amav ıres´vares anam
_ jay a
ca vijay a tath a=apar ajita jayam_
t ı s a cety evam_
pam_
cakam_
smr_
tam_
=atra *sr_
s_
t_
ivat ı
(em.: siddhivat ı Cod.) dev ı prodit a paramesvar ı=sam_
h ara*dh amni (em.: dh astri Cod.)
y a k al ı s a vyakt a p urvvacakratah_
=evam_
c aradvaye k al ı sr_
s_
t_
isam_
h arak arin_
ı.115 Jayadrathay amala, S
_
at
_
ka 4, f. 202r2–6: s alambam evam ay ati * vyaktim
_
(em.:
vyaktih_ Cod.) suravar arcite=atra rasmisam uhasya vibh agam_ sr_ n_ u s am_ pratam=si -ddh a rakt a susus
_ k any a utpal a parik ırttit a=k al ı ca k alar atr ı ca k ala*dh ar a(em.: dh are
Cod.) kales´var ı=sim_
havaktr a ca m arj ar ı us_
t_
r a k ap alin ı tath a=khara*r up avir up a ðem: :
rup a ca virup a Cod.) ca mes_
ar up a mahorag a=rakt aks_
ı raktav as a ca lam_
bakarn_
n_
ı tat
haiva ca= pr_
thodar ı tv ekanetr a lokan ath a bhayam_
kar ı=ul ukavadan a c any a *kolavaktr a
(conj.: k alavaktr a Cod.) ca khim_
khin ı= karam_
k a bhadrak al ı ca tathaiv any a mah a-
bal a=bharud _
a hy at_
t_
ah as a ca r aks_
as ı hy asur ı tath a=et a eva smr_
t a rasmyo *dvidh a-
s_
t_
as_
t_
akabhedatah_
(conj.: dr_
s_
t_
v aj ~ n as_
t_
akabhedatah_
Cod.)=kulavidy ap urvvayukt a svan a-
makr_
ta*madhyak ah_
(conj.: madhyag ah_
Cod.)/* p ad ant ah_
(conj.: pad arth a Cod.)
p ujan ıy as t ah_
samyak*s alambasiddhid ah_
(em.: pr alam_
basiddhid ah_
Cod.) sphuracca-
krakram anta*sth ah_
(corr.: sth a Cod.) svasth ane * pravijr_
mbhit ah_
(corr.: prajijr_
m_
bhitah_ Cod.)= praks
_ ın
_ abh ava*vr
_ ndaugh ah
_ (corr.: vr
_ m_
daugh a Cod.) sarvv ah ar ah_
sulampat_
ah_
/
iti jayadrathay amale s alam_
bacakrakramavidhibhedah_
.116 Jayadrathay amala, S
_ at
_ ka 2, f. 12r8–9 (3.45–47b): tatrasth am
_ p ujayen mantr ı
antak antakar ım_
par am=dv adas are tatas cakre sam_
p ujy a m atarottam ah_
=c amun_
d _
a ca
tath a sus_
k a siddh a caivotpal a tath a= jay a ca vijay a caiva jayant ı c apar ajit a=v am a
jyes_
t_
h a tath a raudr ı bhadrak al ı gan_
ambik a.117 See Kal ad ıks
_ avidhi f. 58r9–10, in the context of the concluding of the rites of
the first day (adhiv asadinam): kr_
tv a ca vais´vadev anandes´varabhairavap uj adi br ahma-
n_
ap ujanam_
ca kr_
tv a; f. 235r16–v3, in the context of the closing rites of the last day
of the initiation: tatah_
pr_
thaksthale anandes´varabhairavap uj am_
taduktavidhin a kr_
tv a
ks_
etrap al am_
s c agrelikhitaks_
etrap alapaddhatikramen_
a sam_
p ujya.
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been argued above. That the Moks_
op aya was composed in Kashmir has been estab-
lished by Jurgen Hanneder, who has also tied the time of its composition to a
few years immediately after the reign of the Kashmirian king Yasaskara (r. AD 939–
948).118
As for the provenance of the Jayadrathay amala, we must distinguish between
the first S:at_ ka of six thousand verses and the eighteen thousand verses of the
remaining three. The first was originally an independent whole. It presents itself as
such, predicts no sequel, and is distinct from the other S: at_
kas, which are closely
related to each other in style, terminology and concepts.119 In the first I see noth-
ing that enables us to fix the region of its composition. But the rest of the later
text shows clear signs of Kashmirian origin. In the second S:at_
ka the only sign I
see is the collocation of these two sets of four S ´ aktis. But in both S:at_ kas 3 and 4
there is further evidence.
When the fourth S:at_ ka sets out the procedures and rituals that must accom-
pany the copying of a manuscript of the Jayadrathay amala it assumes that the
copying will be done on sheets of birch bark (bh urjapatr an_
i ).120 This was the stan-
dard writing material only in Kashmir and adjacent areas of the northwest.
The third S:at_ ka contains a chapter devoted to the use of the Mantra of the
goddess Ghoraghoratar a in order to gain access to the subterranean paradises of
P at ala ( p at alasiddhih_
). It lists seventeen sites where there are S ´ r ımukhas, special
apertures in the earth (bilam) through which this feat can be achieved. The first
seven are at sites of pan-Indian fame: Pray aga, Gay a, S ´ r ısaila, Man_
d_
ales´vara,
Hariscandra, the Narmad a river, and the K alin jara mountain. The last ten are
118 Hanneder, 2003, pp. 40–52.119 Sanderson, 2002, p. 2 and n. 13.120 Jayadrathay amala; S:at
_ ka 4, f. 208v4: bh urjapatr an
_ i c amam
_ trya kr
_ takautu-
kamam_
galah_ =likhed varn
_ ani ‘Having empowered the leaves of birch-bark with the
Mantra and tied a protective thread about his wrist he should trace the letters’.
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said to be at S ´ ulabheda, Vijaya, Var aha, Jyes_
t_ ha, the Uttaram anasa [lake], near
Tu_ ngasv amin, on Mah adevagiri, at P atram ula, Padmasaras, and Mah am a-
y uraka.121 Two of these ten, Mah am ay uraka and Tu_ ngasv amin, are unknown to
me, but the remaining eight can be identified as sacred sites within Kashmir. S ´ u-
labheda, also known as S ´ ulagh ata, is the spring of the N aga N ıla (n ılakun_
d _
am),
the source of the river Vitast a/Vyath/Jhelum, so named because S ´ iva is believed
to have split open the earth (-bheda) here by striking it (-gh ata) with his trident
(S ´ ula-) so that the river could emerge from the underworld;122 Vijaya is Vija-
yaks_
etra on the right bank of the Vitast a, the site of the temple of S ´ iva Vijayes´-
121 Jayadrathay amala, S:at_
ka 3, f. 162r4–7 (in Ghoratar as adhana; P at alasi -
ddhipat_
ala): evam_
bilavibh agam_
sy ad deses_
v adhun a mucyate= pray age ca gay ay am_
ca
sr ısaile man_
d _
ales´vare=*haris´candre (em. : haris´cam_
dra Cod.) narmad ay am_
tath a
k ali ~ njare girau=kas´m ır ay am_
s ulabhedam_
*toyap urn_
am_
(conj. : rotap urn_
n_
a Cod.) bilo-
ttamam_
=vijaye ca var ahe ca jyes_
t_
he cottaram anase=tu _ ngasv amisam ıpe tu mah adevagi -
rau tath a= p atram ule padmasare mah am ay urake tath a=evam adis_
u deses_
u sr ımukh as te
prak ırtit ah_
. The term s´r ımukham, here masculine, denotes the superior among such
apertures. Ibid. f. 162r4–5: uttamam_
sr ımukham_
j ~ neyam_
bahugarbhapur acitam=ma-
dhyamam
_
bilasam
_
j ~ nam
_
sy ad antah
_
purasatair yutam=s am anyam
_
vivaram
_
proktam
_ siddhadravyas´at avr_
tam.122 N ılamata 1302, 1389; Haracaritacint aman
_ i 12.16c–17, referring to it as ‘‘the
supreme aperture’’ (bilam uttamam): *n ılakun_
d _
am_
(em. : n ılakan_
t_
ham_
Ed.) vitast a-
khyam_
s ulagh atam iti tribhih_ =*abhidh anaih
_ (em. : abhidh anam
_ Ed.) prasiddham
_ tad
ady api bilam uttamam; Vijayes´varam ah atmya f. 11v4–6: s´ ulena bhittv a p at alam_
tasm at
sth anavar ac chubh at=uddhr_
t a s anad ı pun_ y a paramabrahmac arin
_ ı=var ahatanay a devi
muktid a sarvajantus_
u=s ulabheda iti khy atam_
tat t ırtham_
parvat agrimam; Stein, 1961,
vol. 2, p. 411. It is located near V ern ag.
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vara, recognized beyond the Kashmir valley as the principal S ´ iva of the region;123
Var aha (Var ahaks_
etra/Var ahat ırtha) is the site of the shrine of Vis_
n_
u Adivar aha
just above the gorge through which the Vitast a leaves the valley;124 Jyes_
t_ ha is the
site of S ´ iva Jyes_
t_ hesvara adjoining that of Siva Bh utesvara (Butish er), a major
Kashmirian pilgrimage site below the Harmo kh glaciers;125 Uttaram anasa is the
Gan_ gabal lake at the foot of those glaciers;126 Mah adevagiri is the mountain
peak of that name located in the ridge that separates the valleys of the Sindhu
123 See R ajatara _ ngin_ ı 1.38; Skandapur an
_ a, N agarakhan
_ d _
a (6), Adhy aya 109 (list-
ing the names of the S ´ ivas at each of 68 S ´ ivat ırthas throughout the subcontinent),
13a: vijayam_
caiva k as´m ıre; N ılamata 1056, 1303; Haracaritacint aman_
i , chapter 10;
Tantr aloka 37.39cd; Kath asarits agara 39.36; 51.48; 66.5; Des´opades´a 4.28; Stein,
1961, vol. 2, pp. 463–464. This is the eponymous S ´ iva of the modern town of
V ejabr oru (Vijayabhat_ t_ araka). The view that this is the pre-eminent Li _ nga of S ´ iva
in Kashmir is also expressed in the Vijayes´varam ah atmya (f. 2r3: kas´m ıraman_
d _
ale
pun_ ye vijaye li _ ngam uttamam), which also claims pan-Indian pre-eminence for the
site by saying that of all the S ´ ivaks_
etras of the subcontinent (Kum ar ıdv ıpa), the five
sets of eight and the sixty-eight—for these see Sanderson, 2005, nn. 199–203 and207–209—four are supreme: Avimukta (in Benares), Mah ak ala (in Ujjain), Varis
_ t_
ha
(in Is_
t_ ak apatha/Is
_ t_
ik apatha?), and Vijayes´vara (f. 2r15–v8): ye ca pa~ nc as_
t_
ak a guhy a
ye v as_
t_
as_
as_
t_
isa _ nkhay a=sth an as susobhan a hr_
dy ah_
sarvak amaphalaprad ah_ = jant un am
_ bh avayukt an am_
bhogad a muktid as sad a=tes_
am_
madhy an mah adevi proktam_
ks_
etraca-
tus_
t_
ayam=avimuktam_
mah ak alam_
varis_
t_
ham_
vijayes´varam= agneyaman_
d _
al antasstham_ kum ar ıdv ıpam as´ritam=bharatasya tu madhye sya catv aro vasthit a iha=mah as´mas a-
nasam_
j ~ n as ca sth an a ete prakalpit ah_ =tes
_ am
_ vibh agam
_ vaks
_ y ami yath akramam anu-
ttamam=avimuktah_
sthitah_
p urve mah ak alo tha daks_
in_
e=*varis_
t_
hah_
(corr. : varis_
t_
ah_ Cod.) pas´cime bh age tasy ante vijayesvarah
_ .
124 See R ajatara _ ngin_
ı 6.206; 7.1310; N ılamata 1158–59; Haracaritacint aman_
i
12.43; Kath asarits agara 39.37 (v ar aham_
ks_
etram_
); Stein, 1961, I, p. 251, n. on
6.186. This is the source of the name of the surrounding town of Warahmul/
B ar am ula (Var aham ula).125 R ajatara _ ngin
_ ı 1.113; Nandiks
_ etram ah atmya of the S ´ arv avat ara, ff. 12r7–15r1
(vv. 142–175); N ılamata 1032, 1111–1136 (Bh utes´varam ah atmya); Kath asarits agara
39.36 (Nandiks_
etra); 51.48 (Nandiks_
etra); Stein, 1961, II, pp. 407–408.126 See N ılamata 899, 960, 1124–30; Haracaritacint aman
_ i 4.87ff.; Kath asarits agara
39.38; Jayantabhat_
t_
a, Ny ayama~ njar ı, vol. 2, p. 376, l.14; Moks_
op aya, Vair agya-
prakaran_
a 1.2.36b; the Northern recension after Mah abh arata 13.26.56 (on K alo-
daka, Nandikun_
d_
a, Uttaram anasa and the image of Nand ısvara [at Bh utes´vara/
Jyes_
t_
hes´vara]); K urmap ur an_
a 2.36.41c–42b; Stein, 1961, vol. 1, p. 111, n. on 3.448.
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and the Arrah;127 Padmasaras is the great lake at the northern end of the valley
now known as the W olur;128 and P atram ula can only be the T ırtha of the N aga
P atra that the N ılamata places on the course of the Vitast a between its conflu-
ence with the Sindhu and its entry into the W olur Lake.129 The site appears
under the name P atram ula in the Kashmirian pilgrimage text Vitast am ah atmya,
which tells us that it is here that the Greater Gan_ g a (Mah agan_ g a) emerged into
the world from the subterranean paradise and that it is here that the demon
Gay asura disappeared into that underworld when pursued and struck by Vis_
n_
u
with his mace.130
Two of these sites, Vijaya and Uttaram anasa, were famous outside Kashmir,131
but others, such as P atram ula, are registered only in local tradition. It is therefore
very unlikely that this is the work of any but a Kashmirian addressing a Kashmirian
readership.
Since, therefore, the only sources other than the Netratantra that know the setof the four goddesses Siddh a, Rakt a, S ´ us
_ k a and Utpal a are Kashmirian, and since
there is an abundance of non-Kashmirian sources in which their absence is signifi-
cant, it is highly probable that the Netratantra too is a work of this region.
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF VIS_
N_
U
Further support for this conclusion is provided by the text’s iconography of Vis_
n_
u
and Brahm a. Of its forms of the former the first is one-faced and four-armed,
holding the conch, discus, mace and lotus (13.2–4). The second (13.5–9) is a three-
faced version of the four-faced Vaikun_
t_ ha, with a central anthropomorphic head
flanked by those of the Boar (Var aha) and the Man-Lion (Narasim
_
ha), sur-
rounded by the goddesses Laks_
m ı, K ırti, Jay a, and M ay a, and accompanied by
his consort Laks_
m ı (13.5–9). The third (13.10–13b) is a naked, ithyphallic, eight-
127 See N ılamata 1337; Haracaritacint aman_
i 10.258; S ´ arv avat ara ff. 3–5 (Adhy aya
3); Kath asarits agara 51.48; S ´ ivas utravimars´in ı, p. 1; Stein, 1961, vol. 2, p. 422.128 N ılamata 985–997, 1351, 1353; R ajatara_ ngi _ n ı 4.592–617; Stein, 1961, vol. 2,
pp. 423–24. It is more usually called Mah apadmasaras (‘the lake of the [N aga]
Mah apadma’), but we see Padmasaras in R ajatara _ ngin
_
ı 8.2421.129 N ılamata 1349–50.130 Vitast am ah atmya (assigned to the Bhr
_ _ ng ıs´asam
_ hit a, a traditional locus of attri-
bution for Kashmirian Puranic materials), A f. 25r9–11: anvadh avac ca tad raks_
o
devadevo jan ardanah_ = gaday a c api tam
_ jaghne raks
_ asam
_ bhagav an harih
_ =anvadravat
punas tam_
ca * y avad (conj. : t avad Cod.) vai p atram ulakam=tatraiva raks_
ah_
p at alam_ pradadr ava mahes´vari =tatrodbh ut a mah aga _ ng a p at al aj jagad ısvari =tatra sn atv a *nare
(conj. : naro Cod.) devi muktibhukt ı na sam_
s´ayah_
.131 See nn. 123 and 126 above.
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armed child riding a ram, playing with women, and attended by four naked god-
desses, Karp ur ı, Candan ı, Kast ur ı, and Ku_ nkum ı.132
Judging from surviving stone and bronze sculptures we see that the first and the
second were the standard forms of Vis_
n_
u in Kashmir133 and that the second is
found almost only there, becoming four-faced from about the middle of the ninth
century through the addition of an addorsed head of the sage Kapila.134 Ks_
emar aja
identifies this form and its four attendant goddesses as following the prescription of
the P a~ ncar atrika Jay akhyasam_
hit a, and he is right to have done so, except that this
text teaches the four-faced form with those goddesses. The Netratantra’s image re-
flects Kashmirian practice prior to the addition of the Kapila face.135
132 Netra 13.10–13b: athav as_
t_
abhujam_
devam_
p ıtavarn_
am_
sus´obhanam=mes_
opa-
risthitam_
*devi (Ed. : devam_
N) *digv asam urdhvali _ nginam (corr. : digv asam_
m urdhva-
lim_
ginam_
N: digvastram_
cordhvali _ nginam Ed.)/11 sr_
_ ngam_
vas_
t_
abhya caikena *vy a
khy anodyatap an_
ikam (conj. : coy anodyatap an_
ikam N: cey arodyatap an_
ikam Ed.)=b alar upam
_ yajen nityam
_ *kr ıd
_ am anam
_ hi yos
_ it am
_ (N: kr ıd
_ antam
_ yos
_ it am
_ gan
_ aih
_ Ed.)/12 caturdiks_
u sthit a devyo*digv as as tu ðN: digambara Ed.) manoram ah_ =ka-
rp ur ı candan ı caiva kast ur ı ku_ nkum ı tath a= 13 *tadr upadh arin_
ır dev ır (conj. : tadr u-
padhar ari _ n ım
_
dev ım
_
N : tadr upadh arik a devyo Ed.) icch asiddhiphala * prad ah
_
(Ed. :
prad a N).133 For instances of the first see Pal, 1975, pl. 10 (9th century) and Siudmak
1994, pl. 31 (c. 500–550), pl. 34 (c. 550–600), pl. 38 (c. 525–550), pl. 50 (c. 600–
625), pl. 52 (c. 575–600), pl. 55 (early 7th century), pl. 58 (c. 525–550), pl. 60 (c.
600–625), pl. 72 (c. 675–700), pl. 123 (c. 825–850) For instances of the second see
Pal, 1975, pl. 9 (three-faced, c. 800), pl. 12a,b (four-faced, 11th century), pl. 84a,b,c
(from neighbouring Chamba, four-faced, 9th century), and Siudmak, 1994, pl. 118
(three-faced, c. 700–725), pl. 120 (three-faced, c. 775–800), pl. 121 (three-faced, c.
775–800), pl. 122 (three-faced, c. 825–850), pl. 124 (four-faced, c. 850), pls. 140–143
(all four-faced, c. 850–55, Avantisv amin temple), pls. 155–56 (both c. 875–900), pl.
170 (c. 1000–1025), Huntington, 1985, fig. 17.19 (c. 12th century).134 Siudmak, 1994.135 Netroddyota after 13.8c–9: evam
_ sr ıjay asam
_ hit adr
_ s
_ t_
yoktv a. Ks_
emar aja’s Jay a-
sam_
hit a is evidently the Jay akhyasam_
hit a. The Kashmirian Bh agavatotpala refers
to the work as Jay a in his Spandaprad ıpik a, p. 91 ( proktam_
hi s´r ıjay ay am. The
citation that this introduces is Jay akhyasam_
hit a 10.69). The visualization of the
four-faced Vaikun_
t_
ha, the central deity of that scripture, is prescribed in 6.73–76.
It is highly improbable that Ks_
emar aja knew this text in an earlier redaction in
which the image had only three faces as in the Netra. For the text does not merely
teach a four-faced image. It teaches a system of rites in which the distinction
between the three subsidiary faces of Narasim_
ha, Var aha and Kapila, each with
its own Mantra, is central.
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emerges in her terrible, universal aspect [as K alasam_
kars_
an_ ı137]. Evidently this is
the true nature that S ´ iva had forgotten. The Yogin ıs restore P arvat ı; a second
S ´ akti of Vis_
n_
u (in addition to S ´ iv ad ut ı) comes forth to serve her; her two defenders,
the first, Vis_
n_
u, now identified more specifically as Sam_
kars_
an_
a, sing a hymn of
praise to the terrible Goddess; and she rewards them by granting them the honour
of residing on her person as ear-pendants.138
Two features beyond the mere fact of the inclusion of this myth in the Haraca-
ritacint aman_
i point to its Kashmirian character. The first is the reference to the
Goddess’s having rewarded Sam_
kars_
an_
a and Narasim_
ha by adopting them as her
ear-pendants, evidently an aetiological explanation of a detail of her iconography.
This detail I have encountered only in manifestations of K alasam_
kars_
an_ ı taught
in the Kashmirian part of the Jayadrathay amala.139
137 She is not so named directly in this text. But in v. 59 we learn that at the
close of these events S ´ iva worshipped her in the midst of the Mothers, offering up
Time (k alah_ Þ as the sacrificial victim
_ : p ujit a m atr
_ madhye s a kruddh a dev ı kap alin a=
upah ar ıkr_
tastatra pasuh_
k alas ca duh_
sahah_
. This element of the myth is surely
intended as a semantic analysis of the name K alasam_
kars_
an_ ı ‘Withdrawer of Time’.
138
Haracaritacint aman_ i 31.48–58: tatas t ah_ ks_ obhit as t abhy am_ yoginyo bhayak a-tar ah
_ =asmaran sv am
_ sa ev antah
_ s´aran
_ am
_ bh avan abal at=49 tadbh avan abal at * svasva
(conj : svam_
svam_
Ed.) prakat_
ıkr_
ta*vigrah ah_
(em. : vigrahamÞ=ath avir asan yuga-
pad brahm an_ y ady as´ ca devat ah
_ =50 par as t ah
_ s_
od _
as´o devyah_
pran_
amya paramesva-
ram=astuvann a~ njal ır baddhv a vicitraih_
p avanaih_
stavaih_ =51 stut ır vidh ayavidhin a
bh uyo ’py et a ath avadan=*stutav ıryo (conj.: stutiv ıryam_
Ed.) nijam_
v ıryam_
smara
deva nir akulah_ =52 iti stute yogin ıbhir mah adeve samudyayau=d arit asy a siv ad ut ı yogi -
n ıbhaks_
an_
odyat a=53 athodabh ut par a v an_
ı smara rudra nij am_
tanum=katham_
s´ivo-
citam_
r upam_
vismr_
tam_
te vimr_
s´yat am=54 tay a gir a mah adevo nijam_
sasm ara
vigraham=udyayau ca par a s´aktir adbhut ak arar upin_
ı=55 ghor a sahasracaran_
a bhak-
s_
ayant ı car acaram=brahm an_
d _
akot_
ır nirmathya pibant ı bh uri son_
itam=56 tat ks_
an_
e
yogin ıvargo n ıtap urv am_
him adrij am= punar utp aday am asa *svayogena bhay anvit ah_ (em.: svayogen abhay anvit ah
_ Ed.)/57 udyayau vais
_ n_
av ı saktir apar a sevitum_
ca
t am=sim
_
hasam
_
kars
_
an
_
abhy am
_
ca par a saktis tad a stut a=58 bhakty a viracitastotr a
dev ı varayati sma tau=svadh ama dehe karn_
abhy am_
bh us_
an_
artham adhatta ca.139 See Jayadrathay amala, S
_ at_
ka 2, f. 82r7 (visualization of J ıvak al ı): nr_
sim_
hasam-_ kars
_ an
_ akarn
_ alambin ı; S
_ at
_ ka 2, f. 85v8 (visualization of Ardhamun
_ d_
a/Mahes´ anak a-
l ı): v amakarn_
e pralam_
bantam_
sam_
kars_
an_
am avasthitam=daks_
in_
e narasim_
ham_
sy ad ;
S_
at_
ka 2, f. 99v5 (visualization of V ıryak al ı): sphurannr_
sim_
ha*sam_
kars_ ’n_
apr a-
lambas´rutis´obhit am (conj.: sam_
karn_
apr alam_
bhas´obhin am Cod.); S_
at_
ka 3, f. 92r4
(visualization of Matacakresvar ı): sa _ nkars_
an_
amah asim_
ha*s´ava(em. : sarva Cod.)
karn_
avalam_
bin ım.
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The second is that I see no trace outside Kashmir of this novel myth
of extraction, sacrifice and restoration, while in Kashmir itself it appears in
a number sources concerned with local traditions. The Adipur an_
a-Tithikr_
tya
gives it in the context of Um acaturth ı, the festival of the goddess Um a
on the fourth day of the light half of M agha (December/January).140 The
scripture D utid _
amara,141 the Sures´var ım ah atmya of the S ´ arv avat ara,142 the
140 Adipur an_
a-Tithikr_
tya, ll. 2145, 2147: um acaturthy am_
m aghe tu sukl ay am_
yogi -
n ıgan_
aih_ = pr ag bhaks
_ ayitv a *sr
_ s_
t a (Cod.: sr_
s_
t_
v a conj. Ed.) ca bh uyah_
sv a _ ng am_
-
sajair gan
_
aih
_
(I have dropped l. 2146 as a misplaced double of l. 2152) ‘On the bright
fourth sacred to Um a in the month of M agha the hordes of Yogin ıs first devouredher and then re-created her with Gan
_ as that were partial incarnations of their own
bodies’.141 D utid
_ amara f. 71v11–12 (vv. 15–17 of this section): mayi nr
_ tyati dev ıti
tatra cchidram_
prakalpitam=m atr_
bhih_
tv apahr_
tya tv am_
dev ıcakre nivedit a/ 16 bha-
ks_
it a yogin ıbhis ca tato hr_
s_
t_
as tu devat ah_ =nr
_ tyanti ca may a s ardham
_ y avad eva
dinadvayam=tatas samast a visr ant a hr_
di tvam_
cintit a may a=na pasy ami ca devi
tv am_
vismayam_
paramam_
gatah_
‘O Goddess, by dancing there [in the cremation
ground] I made myself vulnerable to [their] entry. [So] the Mothers extracted you
[from your hiding place within me] and offered you up to the Cakra of the Goddess.
The Yogin ıs devoured you. Then the deities were delighted and danced with me for
the next two days. Then they all ceased and I thought of you [, believing that you
were still hidden] in my heart, and when I could not see you there I was greatly
astonished’. Bhairava in his rage smashes the Cakra of the sacrifice. The terrified
Yogin ıs propitiate him with offerings and finally restore the dismembered Goddess
to him whole (tatas samagradev ıbhis sam_
dhit a paramesvar ı 30ab). He is delighted
and founds the S ´ ivar atri festival to commemorate these events.142 S ´ arv avat ara f. 12: *dadur (em.: dadhur Cod.) dh up aya preyastv at karn
_ a-
mburuhakot_
ar at=t am akr_
s_
ya svasakty a vai prahars_
otphullalocan ah_
‘With eyes wide
with joy [the Yogin ıs] extracted her [P arvat ı ] from [her hiding-place in] the inte-
rior of his lotus-like ear and offered her up [to Bhairava] out of their love for him,
as the sacramental fumigant [prepared from her flesh]’.
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Haran agavarn_
ana143 of the Vitast am ah atmya, and Jayaratha’s commentary on
the Tantr aloka144 give versions of it in the context of the S ´ ivar atri festival as
celebrated in Kashmir during the last five days of the dark half of Ph algu_ na
(January/February).
143 Vitast am ah atmya A f. 4r12 ff.: gav am_
kot_
isahasrasya d anapun_
yam_
labhen
narah_ = yah
_ sn ati ca vitast ay am
_ harat ırthasya sa _ ngame= yogin ın am
_ gan
_ air yatra y age
vai *s´aivar atrike (em. : s´ivar atrike A : s avar atrike B)=v arun_
y a saha devesi dev ım
* alabhya (A : ar adhya B) vai pur a= p ujayitv a bhairav aya *balir datto (em. : balim_
datto
B : balim_
dattv a A) mah atmane=*tad (B : tam_
A) dr_
s_
t_
v a devadevesah_
param_
ks_
obham
*av apa sah_
(B: ag at punah_
A) =
dr_
s_
t_
v a ks_
obham_
*mahes ani (B: param_
devi A)
bhairavasya mah atmanah_ = yogin ın am
_ gan
_ ah
_ s ıghram
_ pal ayanaparo ’bhavat=s ulam
utth apya bhagav an yogin ın am_
gan_
am_
tad a= pal ayanaparam_
dr_
s_
t_
v a ’nvadh avat
svagan_
air vr_
tah_ =dr
_ s_
t_
v a tath anudh avantam_
bhairavam_
yogin ıgan_
ah_ =m ın ıbh uy apatad
devi vitast ay a jale tatah_ =bhagav an api tatraiv anvapatad balibhir vr
_ tah
_ (The next three
lines added in the margin of B:)= aj ~ n apayat tad a devo gan_
am_
s c urn_
ayateti ca=m ın ıbh ut a yogin ıs ca s ulena gan
_ asattam ah
_ =evam astv iti te sarve gan
_ as tam
_ yogin ı-
gan_
am=m ın ıbh utam_
tad a s ulais´ c urn_
ay am asur ayudhaih_ =kuntaih
_ prah arito * hy atra
(conj. : yatra AB) yogin ıgan_
a uttamah_ =tasm at kunt ıprah aro ’yam
_ gr amo para-
map avanah_ =s ulaprotas tad a devi yogin ın am
_ gan
_ o mah an= punar dev ım
_ samutth apya
dars´ay am asa bhairavam=dr_
s_
t_
v a dev ım_
tad a devah_
punar utth apit am_
pur a= jag ama
paramam_
hars_
am_
samutphullavilocanah_
‘A man wins the merit of giving ten thou-
sand million cows who bathes at the confluence of the Harat ırtha and the Vitast a
where of old the bands of Yogin ıs during the worship on the occasion of S ´ ivar atri
sacrificed the Goddess together with wine and after worshipping great-souled Bhai-rava gave [her] to him as the Bali offering. But when the God of Gods saw that he
became extremely agitated. Seeing his agitation, O Great Goddess, the band of
Yogin ıs quickly tried to escape. When he saw this the Lord raised his trident and ran
after them surrounded by his Gan_
as. O Goddess, when the band of Yogin ıs saw this
they turned into fish and dived into the waters of the Vitast a. The Lord dived in after
them accompanied by his mighty [Gan_
as]. He then ordered the Gan_
as to use their
tridents to pierce them and they did so. This most sanctifying settlement of Kunt ı-
prah ara has its name because it was here that the supreme band of Yogin ıs was
attacked [!-prah ara] with pikes [!Kunt ı-]. Then, O goddess, once the great band
of Yogin ıs had been impaled on the tridents they restored the Goddess and showed
her to Bhairava. When he saw before him the Goddess restored he became extremely
happy, his eyes wide [with joy].’144 Tantr alokaviveka ad 28.7 (vipatprat ık ara
_ h pramodo ’dbhutadarsana
_ m yogi -
n ımelaka_ h ‘the countering of a disaster, rejoicing, seeing a marvel, mingling with
the Yogin ıs’) concerning S ´ ivar atri: vipada_ h svas´aktyapah ar adir up ay a
_ h. pramodo h a-
ritasya punarl abh adin a: adbhutasya visvak_ sobh ade
_ h: anena ca vipatprat ık ar adin a ca-
tu_ s_ tayena s´ivar atrisa
_ mj ~ nakam api naimittika
_ m sa
_ mg
_ rh ıtam ‘ ‘‘. . . of a disaster’’, e.
g. the removal of one’s S ´ akti. ‘‘Rejoicing’’, e.g. as a result of getting back what
had been taken away. ‘‘A marvel’’, e.g. when the whole world shakes. By [men-
tioning] these four beginning with the countering of a disaster he means to include
the occasional ceremony known as S ´ ivar atri’.
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THE ICONOGRAPHY OF BRAHM A
The significant features of the Netratantra’s image of Brahm a (13.33–34b) are that
it is four-faced and four-armed, with an ascetic’s staff, a rosary, an ascetic’s water-
vessel, and the gesture of protection as its hand-attributes, and that it is accompa-
nied by personifications of the four Vedas, two standing on either side of it.145
This combination of hand-attributes is found only in the Netratantra, other S ´ aiva
sources that teach four-armed Brahm as having only two or three of the four,146
and the distinctive presence of the personified Vedas is a detail found in no other
145 Netra 13:33–34b : lambak urca_ h sutej as ca ha
_ ms ar u
_ dhas´ caturbhuja
_ h=dan
_ _ d ak
_ sa-
s utrahastas ca *kaman_ _
dalvabhayaprada_ h (N: kaman
_ _ dalvabhaye dadhat Ed.)=vedais
caturbhir sa_ myukta
_ h sarvasiddhiphalaprada
_ h. Ks
_ emar aja explains ad loc. that the
four Vedas are embodied and standing beside Brahm a: vedair iti s ak arai _ h p ars´va-
sthai _ h.
146 The images as prescribed in early S ´ aiva Pratis_
t_
h atantras, scriptures concerned
only with the consecration of images and related matters, are four-armed but the
hand-attributes are different. The Devy amata (f. 69r4–v1) has the rosary and water-
vessel but the two sacrificial ladles (sruk and sruva
_
h) rather than the gesture and
ascetic’s staff. The Pi _ ngal amata (f. 23r4–6) and Mohac urottara (f. 8r6–8) have only
three of the Netra’s four hand-attributes: the rosary, the ascetic’s water-vessel, and
the staff. Instead of the fourth, the gesture of protection, the latter prescribes ‘‘ba-
rhis grass, butter, etc.’’ (barhir ajy adikam). The former mentions only the first three.
The general scripture Kira_ na mentions the rosary and water-vessel and perhaps the
staff but not the fourth attribute (Pat_
ala 52: brahmar upa_ m prakartavya
_ m catu-
rvaktra_ m caturbhujam=sak urca pi _ nganetra sy aj ja
_ t a *ytrya
_ ms´ay [for da
_ m
_ da?] kama-
_ n
_ dalum=s ak
_ sas utra vratastha
_ m tu ha
_ msaga
_ m v abjaga
_ m tu v a).
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S ´ aiva authority known to me. Now this unusual iconography corresponds exactly
with that of the surviving Kashmirian images of this god. 147
LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE
Further evidence of the Netratantra’s origin in Kashmir is its use of the term
kh arkhodah_
(/kh arkhodakah_
),148 which according to the commentator Ks_
emar aja
denotes a supernatural device employed by an enemy for such effects as killing or
expulsion.149
147 I am aware of four such Kashmirian images: (1) a late seventh-century bronze
in the Museum fur Indische Kunst, Berlin (Pal, 1975, pl. 3.): four-armed with the
Netra’s hand-attributes, attended by four small figures rightly identified by Pal as the
four Vedas, but single-faced; (2) a black stone Brahm a in the Ganapathy ara temple in
Srinagar dedicated to Sultan Sikandar (r. 1389–1413) (I thank Dr. John Siudmak for
sending me a photograph of this image): four-faced and four-armed with the same hand-
attributes, attended by four small figures, two on each side, their heads lower than
Brahm a’s knees; (3) a Brahm a in a relief of Brahm a, S ´ iva and Vis_
n_
u a t N adih e l:
four-faced (three represented), four-armed (only the staff can be made out), with
four diminutive attendants (Siudmak 1993, p. 638, pl. 50.1 and p. 640, assigning it
to the classical K arkot
_
a style of the eighth and first half of the ninth century);
and (4) an image in a private collection assigned to the late seventh or earlyeighth century (Siudmak 1993, p. 640–42, pl. 50.3; 1994, pl. 125). This is very
similar to the Berlin bronze. The outer right holds a staff (dan_ _
da_ h) and the inner
left shows the abhayamudr a. The other two arms are lost. It has been broken off
across the thighs but we still have the heads and necks of two small figures on
the right. These are evidently two of the four Vedas (Siudmak 1993, p. 640).148 Netra 18.4ab: paraprayukt a nas´yanti * k
_ rty akh arkhodak ani cað N : k
_ rty akh ark-
hodak adaya_ h Ed.) ‘Kr
_ ty as, Kh arkhodakas and the like employed [against a person]
are destroyed’; 18.88b: k_ rty akh arkhodap ı
_ dita
_ h ‘tormented by a Kr
_ ty a or a
Kh arkhoda’; 19.132bcd, 134a: kh arkhod as tasya v a grah a_ h=s akinyo vividh a yak
_ s a
_ h
pis ac a r ak_ sas as tath a= . . . sarvam
_ na prabhavet tatra ‘Kh arkhodas, Planets, S ´ akin ıs,
the various kinds of Yaks_
a, Pis´ aca and R aks_
asa, . . . none of these can have power
over him in that [country]’.149 Netroddyota ad 19.132b: kh arkhod a
_ h paraprayukt a yantr a
_ h; and ad 18.4b:
m_ rty ucc a
_ tan adik
_ rd yantram
_ kh arkhoda
_ h. A yantram/ yantra
_ h is a Mantra-inscribed
diagram written in various colours and with various inks on cloth, birchbark, the
hides of various animals and the like, wrapped up and then employed in various
ways (by being worn as an amulet, by being buried in a cremation ground, and so
on) for purposes such as warding off ills, harming an enemy, or forcing a person
to submit to the user’s will. Cf. Ks_
emar aja’s definition of a yantracakram as a ser-
ies of Mantras written in a particular spatial arrangement (ad 20.59c): yantra-
cakram_
vis´i _ s_ tasam
_ nives´alikhito mantrasam uha
_ h.
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The word, which is of Iranian origin,150 appears in Sanskrit sources in a
number of variants; and these form two categories according to whether the r
precedes the second consonant, as in the Netratantra, or the third. The latter
position is the original, since it is that which we see in the Iranian source as evi-
denced by Avestan kaxvar a- (m.), kaxvar ei ı- (f.) denoting a kind of malevo-
lent spirit, probably associated with sorcery.151 This is the source of the forms
khakkhorda-, khahkhorda-, kh akkhorda- and khakhorda- seen in early northwest-
ern and Central-Asian Sanskrit sources152 and in the G andh ar ı (Kroraina Pra-
krit) of the Kharos_
t_ h ı documents of the third century AD from Niya in
Xinjiang,153 and of the k akhorda- that appears in Mah ay ana-Buddhist works.154
Over against these we have the form kh arkhoda- seen in the Netratantra and a
variant kh arkhot_
a, in which the r has migrated from the final to the second con-
sonant. It is only in this form that the word occurs in non-Buddhist sources;
and I have found it outside the Netratantra only in works that were composed
or redacted by Kashmirians. We see it in the R ajatara _ ngin_
ı of Kalhan_
a,155 in the
Kashmirian part of the Jayadrathay amala156 and the related Tridasad _
amara,157
150 Burrow (1935, p. 780).151 Bartholomae (1961), s.v., pointing to the fact that the Armenian loan-word
kaxard means ‘sorcerer, wizard’. These beings, male and female, are mentioned in
Yasna 61 of the Avesta among the creatures of the ‘‘hostile spirit’’ Angra Mainyu
(Pahl. Ahriman).152 See Hoernle (1892, pp. 356, 368–69); Hoernle (1893, p. 25).153 Burrow (1935, pp. 780–81) concerning the punishment khakhordastriyana ‘of
witches’ and khakhordi stri ‘a witch’, reading rda for rna in the light of the Iranian
source word.154 See, e.g., Amoghap as´akalpar aja f. 3v: k akhordacchedan ı sastren
_ a; f. 48v:
k akhordacchedana . . . k akhord a vinasyanti ; Suvarn_
abh asottamas utra p.3, l.2: k akho-
rdad arun_
agrahe; p. 107, l. 8: sarvak akhordavet ad a_ h; Bhai
_ sajyagurus utra, pp. 13–14:
k akhordavet al anuprayogena j ıvit antar ayam_
sar ıravin as´am_
v a kartuk am a_ h; Mah am a-
y ur ı p. 57: k_ rty akarman
_ ak akhordakiran
_ a-.
155 R ajatara_ ngin_
ı 4.94: khy ata_ h kh arkhodavidyay a=ni
_ hsam
_ bhrama
_ h stambhayitum
_ deva divyakriy am alam; 5.239: kh arkhodavedinam=r amadev ahvayam_
bandhum abhic a-
ram ak arayat.156 Jayadrathay amala, S:a
_ tka 3, f. 70v6 (9.41c–42b): evam
_ vidh am
_ yantran as´e k
_ rty a-
kh arkhodamardane=cintayet parames´ an ım abhic arupramardane; f. 72r5 (10.2ab): para-
mantragr asakaram_
k_ rty akh arkhodagha
_ t_ tanam; S:a
_ tka 4, f. 3v5 (2.49ab): k
_ rty a*
kh arkhodadalan ı (em. : kh akhodalan ı Cod.); f. 7v6 (2.74ab): k_ rty akh arkhodav-
ighnaugham_
bandhan ad dhvam_
sayi _ syati ; f. 14v7 (2.235a): k
_ rty akh arkhodadaman ı;
f. 16v6 (2.297ab): bh utavet aladaman ı k_ rty akh arkhodamardan ı.
157 Tridas´ ad amara-Pratya _ ngir akalpa f. 11v5: mantrav adas tu *kh arkhodam_
(conj.:
kh arkhoda Cod.) *vi _ sam
_ (corr.: vi
_ sa Cod.) sth avara* ja _ ngamam (corr.: ja _ ngama
Cod.) = garajvar adayo devi anye ne_ s am anekasa
_ h= paraprayukt a nasyanti (cf. Netra
18.4ab: paraprayukt a nasyanti k_ rty akh arkhodak adaya
_ h). Since the subject-matter
and language of this text is closely allied to that of the Kashmirian part of the
Jayadrathay amala, it is not improbable that it too was Kashmirian in origin or
redacted from Kashmirian materials.
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in the Br_
hatk alottara,158 in the exorcistic Ga_ nes am al amantra of the Kashmirian
manual of S ´ aiva initiation,159 in a Kashmirian Ga_ nes´astotra attributed to the
Adipur a_ na.160 and, as kh arkhot
_ a-, in the Haracaritacint ama
_ ni of R aj anaka Jaya-
dratha.161 Moreover it is only in Kashmiri that the word has survived into the
New Indo-Aryan languages.162
158 B_ rhatk alottara B f. 118v4–5 (Pavitr arohan
_ apa
_ tala): sarvavighn ani nasyanti
grah a vai vy adhayas tath a=vin ayakopagh at as ca *k_ rty akh arkhodak adaya
_ h (em. :
k_ rtyakh akhodak adaya
_ h Cod.)
159 Kal ad ık_ s avidhi f. 3r6–9: OM HUM H UM NAMAH KSETR ADHIPATAYE SARV ARTHASID-
DHID AYA SARVADUH KHAPRAsAMAN AYA EHY EHI BHAGAVAN SARVAKH ARKHOD AN STA-
MBHAYA 2 HRIM H UM G AM NAMAH SV AH A iti ga_ nes´am al amantra
_ h.
160 Ga_ nes´astotra v. 51, 53a: etat stotra
_ m pavitra
_ m tu ma _ ngala
_ m p apan asa-
nam=s´astra*kh arkhoda(em. : kharkhoda Ed.)vet alayak_ sarak
_ sobhay apaham=. . . tri -
sam_
dhyam_
ya_ h pa
_ thet ‘He who at the three junctures of the day recites this hymn,
purifying, auspicious, that destroys [all] sins, that removes the danger of weapons,
Kh arkhodas, Vet alas, Yak
_
sas and Rak
_
sases . . .’. That this hymn is Kashmirian is
made probable by its being assigned to the Adipur a_ na, since that is one of the mostcommon loci of attribution for Kashmirian compositions seeking scriptural status.
It is made certain by two facts: (1) it refers repeatedly to Bh ıma[sv amin], the prin-
cipal Ga_ nes´a of Kashmir (v. 10: bh ımam
_ . . . kas´m ırav asam; v. 17: sat ısaraniv asinam;
v. 36: kas´m ıre bh ımar upin_
am) – Bh ımasv amin’s temple is in Srinagar near the foot
of H araparvat (S ´ arik aparvata, Pradyumnagiri) (see Stein 1961, vol. 2, p. 446) –
and (2) it mentions that Ga_ nesa is seated upon two [couchant] lions (v. 4:
hariyugalanivi _ s_ tam
_ ; v. 21: sim
_ hayug asana
_ h), which is a distinctive feature of Ka-
shmirian Ga_ nes´a images (see Siudmak 1994, plates 73, 157 and 158; Reedy 1997,
K68, K86, K87, K89; Pal 2003, pl. 57 [‘‘Chamba, 10th century’’]).161 Haracaritacint ama
_ ni 2.125: k
_ rty akh arkho
_ tavet al a ye. There are also vari-
ants in Mah ay ana-Buddhist sources in which k a takes the place of the initial kh a:
k arkhoda- in a manuscript of the Aryat ar an am a_ s_ tottaras´ataka, v. 49:
_ d akinyo-
st arak ah_
pret ah_
*skandonm ad a (conj.: skandom ad a Cod.) mah agrah a_ h= ch ay apa-
sm arak as´ caiva * yak_ sa(conj. : tak
_ sa Cod.)k arkhodak adayah
_ ; and k arkho
_ ta- in the
edition of the Ma~ njus´r ım ulakalpa, p. 539, l. 8: sarvak arkho_ t as´ chinn a bhavanti .
162 See Kashmiri khokhu, khakha-bo_ tu, kh okha-bo
_ tu and kh okha-mo
_ tu ‘bogey, bug-
bear, hobgoblin, ogre’ in Grierson 1915, p. 395b. The Kashmirian scholar who pre-
pared the slips for these words used by Grierson, either Pa_ n
_ dit Govinda Kaula or
Pa_ n
_ dit Mukunda R ama S ´ astr ı, gave Sanskrit kh arkhodah
_ as the meaning of these
terms. Turner (1966, p. 201, s .v. kharkh oda) records no derivatives in any other
NIA language.
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I conclude from this iconographical and linguistic evidence that it is highly
improbable that the Netratantra was composed anywhere other than Kashmir.
THE DATE
As for the date of its composition, I have proposed above that the approximate
outer limits are AD 700 and 850. The posterior limit is established by the fact that
the text teaches the Vaikun_
t_
ha form of Vis_
n_
u without the face of Kapila at the rear.
It is therefore unlikely to have been composed later than the middle of the ninth cen-
tury, since it was from that time that the four-faced form replaced the three-faced in
Kashmirian images.163
The prior limit cannot be placed before the end of the formative period of
Kashmirian iconography, that is to say, the late seventh century. For it is onlyafter that time that the Brahm a icon taught in the Netratantra is seen in the stone
and bronze images of the region.
However, the iconography of the four-armed form of S ´ iva taught in 13.29–30
makes it probable that the work was composed towards the end of this period, c.
800–850. The hands’ attributes are the trident paired with the gesture of protec-
tion, and the citron paired with the rosary.164 The pairing of the citron and the
rosary is seen outside Kashmir from an early date.165 But in Kashmir we see the
163 See nn. 133–134 above.164 Netra 13.30: caturbhujam
_ mah atm anam
_ s ul abhayasamanvitam=m atulu _ ngadha-
ram_
devam ak_ sas utradharam
_ prabhum.
165 We see it in a fifth-century Li _ nga with a bust of a three-headed S ´ iva, which, Si-
udmak proposes, (1994, pl. 43) is from the cave known in Pashtu as Kashmir Smast
(‘the cave to Kashmir’), located 25 km north of Shahbazgarhi on a mountain top
between the Peshawar valley and Buner: the left hand holds the citron and the right
the rosary. The same two were probably in the front hands of the famous three-
faced ‘‘Mahesam urti’’ of the late sixth century in the S ´ iva cave at Elephanta. The cit-
ron is clear in the left hand and though the rosary is not visible in the damaged right
hand of the posture, which is raised with out-turned palm, suggests its presence.
They are also seen in the two front hands of the three-faced bust of Mahes´vara in
the inner sanctum ( garbhag_ rham) of the S ´ iva temple constructed in AD 637 at Ku-
suma in the S ´ irohi district of SW Rajasthan (Meister, 1988, pp. 208–214; pl. 437);
and a citron is held in the lower left hand of a six-armed, three-faced Mahes´vara
carved in the centre of the wooden door frame of the Uttares´vara temple at Ter in
the Osmanabad District of Maharashtra (early 7th century?). The lower and middle
right hands are lost, but a rosary may well have been in the former. The other three
surviving hands hold a cobra (upper right), a lotus (middle left), and a mace sur-
mounted by a Li_ nga (upper right) (cf. Collins, 1988, p. 117).
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ascetic’s water-vessel rather than the fruit in the early centuries.166 The citron
appears in our Kashmirian images only from the ninth century.167
ABBREVIATIONS
166 This we see in Gandharan S ´ iva images of the fourth and fifth centuries (Si-
udmak, 1994, plates 41–43 and 59) and in a number of Kashmirian images whose
hand-attributes have survived: (1) the Fattegarh three-headed Mahesvara of the
fifth to sixth centuries (Siudmak, 1994, pl. 39a,b ); and (2–3) two three-headed
Mahes´varas from P andr~ et_ han of the latter half of the seventh century (Siudmak,
1994, plates 85–86). This iconography continued after the introduction of the
other, since we see it in a grey chlorite four-armed S ´ iva and P arvat ı group now in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art (no. 1989.362) that is probably of the first half
of the ninth century (Siudmak, 1994, pl. 117).167 We see this in (1) the S ´ iva with consort in the Kashmirian ‘brahmanical
triad’ (Pal, 1975, pl. 2: ‘9–10th century’): S ´ iva is seated on Vr_
s_ a (his bull) with
P arvat ı on his left thigh and holds the rosary and citron in his inner right and left
hands. In his outer right he holds a trident, and in outer left a snake; (2) the two-
armed single-faced S ´ iva of a Kashmirian ekamukhali _ ngam (Pal, 1975, pl. 5: ‘8–9th cen-
tury’) (= Reedy, K55); (3) a Kashmirian grey chlorite group of c. 850 (Siudmak,
1994, pl. 116; Pal, 2003, pl. 67 [but dated 750–800]); and (4) the ‘S ´ iva-P arvat ı’ image-
set in the Gaur ıs´a_ nkara temple in Chamba (Pal, 1975, pl. 85: ‘10th century’).
ARE Annual Report on ½South Indian Epigraphy. Archaeological Survey
of India, 1887
BL Bodleian Library, Oxford
BORI Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune
Cod. The reading of the manuscript
conj. My conjectural emendationcorr. My correction
Ed. The reading of the published edition
em. My emendation
Ep. The reported reading of an inscription
K Khmer inscription, numbered as in Cœdes, 1966
KSTS Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies
N The reading of the Nepalese Amr_
tes´atantra manuscript
NAK National Archives of Nepal, Kathmandu
NGMPP Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project
SII South Indian Inscriptions. Archaeological Survey of India, 1980–
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168 Citations of Netra above give only the chapter and verse numbers of this
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