Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 8): Bhairava, Śakti, and the First Gleam of Māyā

 

Bhairava and Devi united

Bhairavanātha alone is the deity in the primary sense

ata eva mukhyato bhairavanāthasyaiva devatvam iṣyate
tacchakter eva bhagavatyā devīrūpatā

“Therefore, in the primary sense, deity belongs only to Bhairavanātha; and the state of being Devī belongs only to the Blessed Goddess as his power.”

This line can seem perplexing if read against the earlier statement:

paraiva ca saṃvit devī ityucyate — “That very Parā is called consciousness, Devī.”

There, Abhinavagupta named the absolute from the side of luminous self-awareness and manifesting power. Here, he names that same absolute from the side of sovereign lordship: Bhairavanātha. So the doctrine has not changed. The perspective has shifted.

That is why the second half of the sentence is decisive. The Goddess is not being pushed aside by Bhairava, nor turned into a secondary figure standing outside him. Her devīrūpatā belongs to her precisely as his śakti. In other words, the Devī who was earlier identified with Parā-consciousness is now being understood more explicitly as the very power of Bhairava.

So the two statements belong together:

• Parā is consciousness, Devī
• Bhairava is the primary deity, and Devī is his own power

These are not rival claims. They are two ways of articulating one nondual reality. When the emphasis falls on self-luminous consciousness in its expressive and manifesting aspect, Abhinava says Devī. When the emphasis falls on sovereign all-pervasive lordship, he says Bhairava.

That is why this is not a downgrade of Devī. It is a refusal to separate Bhairava and Śakti into two independent absolutes. The primary divine reality is one. Called from the side of lordship, it is Bhairava. Called from the side of conscious self-manifesting power, it is Devī.

And Abhinava has already given the key that protects us from misunderstanding this:
na hi śaktiḥ śivāt bhedam āmarśayet — “Śakti does not apprehend any difference from Śiva.”
So Bhairava and Śakti are not two competing ultimates, but two inseparable faces of one reality. If one wants a simple image, they are like two sides of the same coin — distinguishable in expression, but not separable in being.

The very word “deva” points to play, conquest, activity, shining, praise, and movement

yaduktam —

divu krīḍāvijigīṣāvyavahāradyutistutigatiṣu

“As has been said: the verbal root div carries the senses of play, conquest, activity, shining, praise, and movement.”

Abhinavagupta now supports the claim philologically.

He is showing that the word deva itself is not empty. It arises from a root whose semantic field already contains the traits he has been unfolding in Bhairava.

That matters, because the list is not random.

krīḍā — play: the free, non-compelled unfolding we have already seen.

vijigīṣā — will to conquer: the victorious surge by which the supreme does not remain a mute beyond, but overtakes manifestation.

vyavahāra — activity, operative engagement: the whole field of cognition, memory, doubt, certainty, and relation.

dyuti — shining: manifestation, illumination, the very appearing of things.

stuti — praise: the movement by which beings, entered by his light, turn back toward the source.

gati — movement, going, attainment: dynamic extension, not frozen transcendence.

When Abhinava says that only Bhairavanātha is deity in the primary sense, he is not introducing an arbitrary title. He is saying that the full meaning carried by the very word deva reaches its complete truth only there.

And this also explains why other divine names can still function meaningfully later. They may participate in one or another aspect of this field. But here Abhinava is defining the center from which all those derivative uses become possible.

So this brief grammatical citation is doing real philosophical work. “Deva” is not merely “a god.” It names a reality that plays, shines, acts, conquers, moves, and draws praise. In other words, it names exactly the kind of sovereign, all-pervasive power Abhinava has been describing.

Other deities are called “deities” only by partial participation

tathā ca evaṃvidha-mukhya-pāramaiśvarya-maya-devatvāṃśāṃśikānugrahāt viṣṇuviriñcyādiṣu ... devatāvyavahāraḥ

with the supporting verses:

evaṃ tāttveśvare varge līne sṛṣṭau punaḥ pare |
tatsādhakāḥ śiveṣṭā vā tatsthānam adhiśerate ||

brāhmī nāma parasyaiva śaktis tāṃ yatra pātayan |
sa brahmā viṣṇurudrāyā vaiṣṇavyāder ataḥ kramāt ||

“And thus, because of a partial bestowal of a fraction of this primary deityhood made of supreme lordship, the usage ‘deity’ applies to Viṣṇu, Brahmā, and the others.”

Supporting verses:

“When creation is reabsorbed into the higher order of the lords of the tattvas, those who have accomplished that state, or those favored by Śiva, come to preside over that place.”

“Brāhmī is in fact the power of the Supreme alone; where one is invested with that, he is Brahmā. Likewise, through Vaiṣṇavī, Rudrāṇī, and the rest, in due order.”

Now Abhinavagupta makes the hierarchy explicit.

If Bhairavanātha alone is deity in the primary sense, then what about Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Rudra, and the rest? His answer is precise: the word deity applies to them only by partial participation in that primary divine sovereignty.

That is the force of aṃśāṃśikānugraha. Not full independent deityhood, but a bestowed share, even a share of a share, of the supreme lordly power.

This is important because Abhinava is not denying their reality or function. He is relocating them. They are not parallel absolutes. They are derivative stations, empowered roles, modes in which the one sovereign power is distributed for specific functions.

The supporting verses make that even clearer. These divine offices are not self-originating essences. They are positions presided over by those who have attained them, or by those favored by Śiva. And the powers associated with them — Brāhmī, Vaiṣṇavī, and so on — are not independent ultimate realities either. They are powers of the Supreme itself, invested in particular functions.

So the point is not sectarian dismissal. It is metaphysical ordering.

Abhinava is saying: many divine forms may truly operate, many names may truly function, but none of them stands outside or alongside the primary sovereignty of Bhairava. Their divinity is real, but derivative.

That is why this section matters. It prevents the earlier claim from being softened into mere poetic preference. No — Abhinava means it strictly. There is one primary divine center, and other deities are intelligible only as delegated manifestations of that power.

So the field of gods is not abolished. It is gathered into one source.

Paśyantī and Madhyamā recognize themselves as Parā-vāk filled with divinity

evaṃ bhagavatī paśyantī madhyamā ca svātmānameva yadā vimṛśati

aham eva parāvāgdevatāmayī evam avocam iti

“Thus, when the Blessed Paśyantī and Madhyamā reflect upon their own Self alone, [they recognize:] ‘I alone am Parā-vāk, filled with divinity; thus have I spoken.’”

Now the passage becomes more inward again.

Paśyantī and Madhyamā are no longer being described only from outside as stages in manifestation. They are given a kind of first-person self-recognition. They reflect on their own Self alone and recognize: aham eva parāvāk-devatā-mayī — “I alone am Parā-vāk, saturated with divinity.”

That matters because Abhinava is not presenting these levels as inert layers in a diagram. They are forms of living self-awareness. The unfolding of speech is itself reflective, luminous, and divine from within.

The phrase devatāmayī is important. It does not merely mean “related to deity” in a weak sense. It means pervaded by, composed of, filled with divinity. So even at these stages where differentiation has begun, the inward recognition is still not: “I am a lower level now, separated from the source.” It is: “I myself am that Parā-vāk in divine form.”

The source has not been left behind. Even in the first stirrings of articulated manifestation, the deeper identity remains present enough to be recognized.

The added phrase evam avocatam iti also has bite. “Thus have I spoken.” It ties the whole thing back to speech, but now speech is self-aware speech, not merely emitted sound. What is being said emerges from self-recognition.

So Abhinava is sharpening a crucial point: the descent into differentiation is not yet spiritual amnesia. Paśyantī and Madhyamā still know themselves from within as forms of the divine speech-power itself.

With the first appearance of “this,” Māyā begins to gleam

tadā tena rūpeṇa ullasanmāyārambhatayā

with the gloss:

iyaṃ dvayī hi idantābhāsalakṣaṇā ato māyārambhaṇam ity arthaḥ

“Then, in that very form, there is the gleaming beginning of Māyā.”

Gloss:

“For this pair is characterized by the appearance of idantā; therefore this means the commencement of Māyā.”

Abhinavagupta is not saying that the moment Paśyantī and Madhyamā appear, some evil illusion suddenly invades reality. That would be far too crude. What he says is more exact: Māyā begins where idantā begins to appear — where “this”-ness starts to gleam forth.

These two stages are marked by idantābhāsa: the dawning appearance of “this.” Until now, the center was still more compactly gathered in aham. But once the field of “this” begins to emerge, the first opening of objectivity is already there. That opening is what he calls the beginning of Māyā.

So Māyā here does not yet mean total delusion. It means the beginning of differentiated appearance, the first spread by which consciousness no longer remains only in pure self-gathered “I,” but starts to stand out to itself as “this” as well.

That is why the word ārambha matters. It is a beginning, an onset, not yet the fully developed realm of hard separation. The fracture is not complete. But the direction is clear.

Like the instant a reflection first appears in a mirror, there is already a subtle duality — not full confusion yet, but the beginning of a relation between seer and seen. So too here: the arising of “this” is the first shimmer of a world that can later harden into difference.

So Abhinava is being very precise. Māyā does not begin only at the coarse level of external illusion. It begins much earlier, with the very first appearance of objectivity. The moment “this” glimmers forth, the arc of Māyā has already opened.

She takes the Parā-ground itself as objective being

svātmāpekṣatayā tanmāyīyabhedānusārāt tāmeva parābhuvaṃ svātmamayīṃ bhūtatvena abhimanvānā

with the gloss:

sāmānyabhūtakālatvena

“Relative to her own Self, and in accordance with the differentiations belonging to that Māyā, she takes that very Parā-ground — though made of her own Self — as objective being.”

Gloss:

“In the mode of general objecthood and temporality.”

This is where the shift becomes more concrete.

Abhinavagupta says that, following the differentiations that belong to Māyā, she takes that very Parā-ground itself, which is still svātmamayī — made of her own Self — as bhūtatvena, in the mode of thinghood or objective being.

That matters because the point is not yet that consciousness encounters some alien world outside itself. The point is subtler and more radical: consciousness begins to treat its own ground as though it were objective.

This is the real pressure of the line. Māyā does not begin by producing a second substance. It begins by altering the mode in which the one reality is held. What is one’s own Self starts to stand forth under the aspect of “something.”

The gloss sharpens this further: sāmānyabhūtakālatvena — in the mode of general objectivity and temporality. So this is not only thinghood, but thinghood as entering the order of temporalized manifestation. What was inwardly self-luminous begins to be taken as though it were available in the mode of an object-world.

That is why this line matters so much. The first alienation is not from Self to non-Self in an absolute sense. It is from Self to Self-as-object.

So Abhinava is tracing the birth of objectivity with real precision. The world is not introduced as something utterly other. The Parā-ground itself is now being assumed under the form of objective being. That is how Māyā deepens: not by creating a second reality, but by changing the mode of manifestation of the one reality.

Beyond the route of inner and outer expression, she is called parokṣa

bhedāvabhāsaprāṇanāntarbahiṣkaraṇapathavyativartinītvāt parokṣatayā

with the gloss:

akṣebhyo yat paraṃ tat parokṣam iti parokṣalakṣaṇam

“Because she transcends the pathway of the vitalizing of differentiated appearance into inner and outer expression, she is in the mode of the indirect.”

Gloss:

“That which is beyond the senses is called parokṣa — this is the definition of parokṣa.”

Abhinavagupta now explains why this level is called parokṣa. Usually the word means something like indirect, not immediately present to the senses, not openly available. Here he gives it a very precise grounding: it is beyond the route by which differentiated appearance gets carried into inward and outward expression.

That matters because the point is not merely “hidden” in a vague mystical sense. It is not accessible along the ordinary pathway by which difference becomes fully animated, interiorized, externalized, and spread into the traffic of experience.

The phrase is dense, but the movement is clear. Once bhedāvabhāsa — the appearance of difference — begins, it can be further driven along a path: inwardly organized, outwardly expressed, vitalized into the ordinary world of cognition and manifestation. But this level still exceeds that route. Therefore it is parokṣa.

The gloss makes it simpler: what is beyond the akṣas, beyond the senses, is called parokṣa. So this is not yet the realm of openly sensory givenness. It is already moving toward differentiation, but it has not descended into full sensory disclosure.

That gives the line its force. The level being described is neither pure undifferentiated transcendence nor fully externalized objectivity. It is already involved in the dawning of difference, yet it still remains beyond the coarse channels of sensory and expressive manifestation.

So Abhinava is marking a threshold. Something has begun — Māyā has started, idantā has begun to glimmer — but the process has not yet reached the outer road. It is still subtle enough to be called parokṣa, beyond the senses, beyond the ordinary route of manifestation.