Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 12): Grace, Supreme Relation, and the Life-Breath of the Śāstra

 

Śiva and Śakti in one life-breath

The power of grace never sets in any knower

evaṃ ca anugrahaśaktiḥ satataṃ sarvapramātṛṣu anastamitaiva

“And so the power of grace is indeed constantly unsetting in all knowers.”

Abhinavagupta is not speaking of grace here as a rare divine intervention, granted to a few at special moments. He says anugraha-śakti is satatam — constant — and anastamitā — never set, never gone down — in all knowers.

That matters because it completely changes the scale of the teaching. Grace is not an exception added from outside ordinary consciousness. It is already at work wherever there is a pramātṛ, a knower at all.

And the reason is already prepared by the previous discussion: every knower becomes capable of activity only by entering consciousness itself. So if every act of knowing already depends on entry into saṃvid, then grace is not something foreign to cognition. It is built into the very fact that consciousness lights and carries experience.

So this line is both tender and severe.

Tender, because it means the deepest support is never absent.

Severe, because it removes the ego’s favorite drama that truth is far away and withheld. Abhinava is saying: the very capacity by which you know, act, relate, seek, and misunderstand is already sustained by the unsetting power of grace.

That does not mean everyone recognizes it. Recognition is another matter. But the presence of grace is not waiting for recognition in order to begin. It is already operative.

So the point is not sentimental. It is ontological. Consciousness would not function as living awareness at all unless anugraha-śakti were already there, unsetting, within every knower.

The supreme relation is the one life-breath of the Ṣaḍardhaśāstra

saiṣa ṣaḍardhasāraśāstraikaprāṇaḥ para eva saṃbandhaḥ

“And this is the supreme relation alone, the single life-breath of the scripture called the Ṣaḍardhasāra.”

Now Abhinavagupta names the inner pulse of the text itself.

Here Ṣaḍardhaśāstra refers to the Parātrīśikā, understood as the scripture of six-and-a-half verses. So when he says ṣaḍardhasāraśāstraikaprāṇaḥ, he means that this para-saṃbandha, the supreme relation, is the one life-breath, the inner soul, of this very scripture.

That matters because he is not presenting para-saṃbandha as one doctrine among many. He is saying: this is the living essence of the whole text. Whatever else the scripture unfolds — mantra, speech, Devī, Bhairava, manifestation, grace, transmission — its core pulse is this supreme nondual relation.

And now the previous line about grace becomes even more important. Since anugraha-śakti never sets in any knower, this ever-present descent or operation of grace is precisely what makes para-saṃbandha the life of the scripture. The text lives because it is rooted in that unbroken connective reality.

So the force of the phrase is very concentrated:

• ṣaḍardhaśāstra — this scripture, the Parātrīśikā
• eka-prāṇaḥ — its one life-breath, single inner pulse
• para-saṃbandhaḥ — the supreme nondual relation, grounded in grace

So Abhinava is saying something very strong: the Parātrīśikā is alive from within by this one thing alone — the supreme relation of consciousness to itself, never broken, never absent, active as grace in every knower.

Even the scent of difference has melted away here

atra ca aikātmyasyaiva bhedagandhasyāpi vigalanāt
sarvasarvātmatālakṣaṇapūrṇatvāt para eva saṃbandha iti

“And here, because even the very scent of difference has melted away in identity itself, and because there is fullness characterized by the all being the Self of all, this is called precisely the supreme relation.”

Now Abhinavagupta explains why this relation is called para.

It is not merely because it is lofty, sacred, or closer to the top of a hierarchy. It is para because even the bheda-gandha — the very scent, the faint trace, the lingering odor of difference — has dissolved.

He does not say only that gross duality is absent. He says even the subtle after-smell of separation has melted away.

That matters because many forms of spirituality remove coarse difference while keeping fine difference alive:
God and soul,
guru and disciple,
Śiva and Śakti,
speaker and hearer,
revealer and revealed.

Abhinava is saying: here, even that residue has gone.

And then he makes the positive side explicit: sarva-sarvātmatā-lakṣaṇa-pūrṇatva — fullness marked by the fact that all is the Self of all. Not one thing swallowing the rest into blank homogeneity, but all things being non-other than the same Self.

So this is why the relation is “supreme.” It is the relation in which relation as separation has been outlived, yet without falling into dead featurelessness. The whole field remains, but as nondual fullness.

That is why para-saṃbandha is such a subtle phrase. It is still called relation only because language requires some bridge-word. But in truth it names the point where relation has become identity without remainder.

In the Anuttara, all other relations are taught as resolved into the one supreme unity

atra anuttare saṃbandhāntarāṇāṃ mahadantarāla-divyādivyādīnām uktopadeśena paraikamayatvāt

“Here, in the Anuttara, the other kinds of relation — those with great interval, the divine, the divine-human, and the rest — are taught as having become one with the supreme.”

Now Abhinavagupta widens the claim.

He has already said that this is the para-saṃbandha, supreme relation because even the faint scent of difference has melted away. Now he adds: within Anuttara, all the other relations he has mentioned — however graded, however spaced, however mediated — are ultimately taught as resolving into that one supreme unity.

That matters because it stops the hierarchy from hardening.

The earlier relations are not being denied. They are real as stages, modes, or pedagogical arrangements. There can be distance, transmission, divinity, mixed divine-human mediation, guru-disciple structure. All that belongs to the unfolding. But none of it is final.

In Anuttara, they do not stand side by side as permanent compartments. They are recollected into one taste.

So the point is not:
“lower relations are false, higher relation alone is true.”

It is:
all relational structures have their truth, but their truth is completed only when they are seen as expressions of the one para-saṃbandha.

That is why this line matters. It protects the teaching from two opposite mistakes:

• flattening everything too early and ignoring the real gradations of manifestation and transmission
• absolutizing the gradations and forgetting their resolution in the nondual summit

Abhinava allows both the steps and the dissolution of the steps.

So Anuttara here is the place where all mediated relations lose their separative force and are understood as modes of one supreme connectedness that was always already there.

The Lord is eternally intent on emission in his own Śakti

tad uktaṃ trikahṛdaye

nityaṃ visargaparamaḥ svaśaktau parameśvaraḥ |
anugrahātmā sraṣṭā ca saṃhartā cāniyantritaḥ ||

“As it is said in the Trikahṛdaya:

‘The Supreme Lord is eternally intent on emission in his own Śakti; as grace itself, he is the creator and the destroyer, unrestricted.’”

This verse gathers the whole movement into a single pulse.

Parameśvara is not presented as static transcendence. He is nityaṃ visargaparamaḥ — eternally intent on emission, outpouring, release — and that too in his own Śakti. So manifestation is not something added from outside, nor a fall into otherness. It is the Lord’s own movement in and through his own power.

That matters because it ties together several lines we have already followed:

• Devī as the predominance of śakti in emergence
• Bhairava as the marvel of reabsorption
• grace as unsetting in all knowers
• śāstra as the unfolding of mantra-power
• all relations as resolving into the supreme relation

Now the verse says it cleanly: the Lord is both sraṣṭā and saṃhartā — creator and destroyer — and the key word holding this together is anugrahātmā. Grace is not a side function. It is the very character of this whole movement.

Creation and destruction are not being described as two opposite cosmic jobs assigned to a deity. They are modes of the same gracious freedom of consciousness in relation to its own Śakti.

And aniyantritaḥ matters too — unrestricted, unbound. The Lord is not compelled into emission or reabsorption by anything external. This is sovereign movement.

So the verse gives the whole passage a living center:
the supreme is not a frozen absolute above manifestation,
but the unrestricted Lord whose own Śakti is the field of emission,
grace,
creation,
and withdrawal.

“Intent on emission” means fixed in the one “aham” as creator; by reversal, destroyer

visargaparama iti tadekalagnaḥ aham iti sraṣṭṭarūpaḥ

tadvaiparītyena saṃhartṛrūpaḥ

“‘Intent on emission’ means fixed on that alone, in the mode ‘aham,’ as creator; and by the reverse of that, in the form of the destroyer.”

This gloss ties the verse directly back to the earlier Devī–Bhairava polarity.

Visargaparama does not just mean “concerned with emanation” in a vague cosmological way. It means consciousness is fixed in that one point — tadeka-lagnaḥ — and that point is aham. Creation is not the production of an external world by a distant god. It is the self-affirming surge of the “I” into expressive unfolding.

That matters because it keeps even creation from becoming object-centered. The root remains aham, not “this.” The world comes later as the spread of that self-expressive force.

And then Abhinava adds: tad-vaiparītyena — by the reverse of that — there is the form of the destroyer. So reabsorption is not a second unrelated act. It is the counter-movement of the same consciousness: what surged outward is gathered back.

This is exactly the structure he had already sketched:

• with the predominance of śakti in the self-apprehension of creation, the fitting recognition is Devī
• with the predominance of śaktimat in reabsorptive immersion, the marvel is Bhairava

Now the gloss gives the same truth in a tighter form. Emission is the aham-surge of manifestation. Reabsorption is its reversal.

So the point is not merely cosmological sequence. It is the pulsation of the one consciousness. It expands and gathers, creates and withdraws, but in both directions the center is the same.

This line prevents “creation” and “destruction” from becoming mythic jobs assigned to separate gods. They are two gestures of one unrestricted consciousness in relation to its own power.