Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 21): The Delusion of Hierarchy and the Threefold Śakti

 

Parā, Parāparā, Aparā

Further and further “higherness” within the self itself

evam eva
narātmanaḥ śāktam uttaraṃ tato ’pi śāmbhavaṃ tathā teṣv api
bhūta-tattvātma-mantreśvara-śakty-ādi-bhedena svātmany eva uttarottaratvam

“In just this way, beyond the human self is the Śākta as higher, and beyond that the Śāmbhava; and even within these, through distinctions such as bhūta, tattva, self, mantreśvara, śakti, and so on, there is a further and further higherness — all within one’s own Self.”

Abhinava begins by naming yet another form of the same tendency: the multiplication of inner hierarchies.

First the human level, then the Śākta, then the Śāmbhava, and then still finer differentiations within these. The important thing is not the exact inventory yet. The important thing is the pattern: uttarottaratva — more and more higherness, one level beyond another, one superiority nested inside another.

And he says something very striking: all this unfolds svātmany eva — within one’s own Self.

That matters because the hierarchy is no longer being projected only onto an outer cosmos. It is interiorized. The ladder has moved inside. That makes it more sophisticated, but not yet free.

This is exactly the kind of thing Abhinava keeps exposing: the mind can preserve the logic of transcendence even after it has become subtle and inward. It stops saying merely “heaven above earth” and starts saying “Śākta above nara, Śāmbhava above Śākta, then still subtler gradations beyond that.” The structure is refined, but the habit is the same.

So this opening is not yet the final critique. It is the setup. He is showing how pervasive this higher/lower imagination is. It can organize spiritual anthropology, ontology, yogic states, initiatory identity — all of it. And it can do so within the Self itself, which is precisely why it becomes dangerous: interiorization can masquerade as realization.

That is the first pressure-point here:
the hierarchy has become inward,
but inward hierarchy is still hierarchy.

So the line means:
even when the gradation is entirely mapped within one’s own being,
the logic of “higher and higher” is still operating —
and Abhinava is about to question whether that logic can truly have the last word.

He has treated all this elsewhere — but refuses it here

tad etat śrīpūrvapañcikāyāṃ
mayaiva vistarato nirṇītam iha anupayogāt granthagauravāt ca na vitatya uktam

“And this has been examined by me in detail in the venerable Pūrvapañcikā; here, because it is not useful and would make the text too heavy, it has not been expounded at length.”

This is a very important sentence, because it prevents a wrong reading of the passage.

Abhinava is explicitly saying: I know these graded structures well. I have treated them elsewhere in detail. I am not ignorant of them, nor casually dismissing them because I cannot handle them. He is refusing them here, for two reasons: they are not useful for the present purpose, and expanding them would burden the text.

That matters a lot.

And yes — the Pūrvapañcikā is generally understood to have been Abhinava’s commentary on the Pūrvatantra, usually identified with the Mālinīvijaya Tantra, and it is treated by scholars as a lost or non-extant work today.

So the paradox is real at first sight:

• here he dissects graded higherness with precision;
• elsewhere he evidently expounded such structures in detail;
• so is he contradicting himself?

Brutally honest: no, not if one reads him with discipline.

The contradiction appears only if we assume that every map Abhinava uses is being offered as the final metaphysical truth in the same register.

But he is more subtle than that.

Sometimes he speaks in the register of:

• manifestation,
• contemplative reversal,
• pedagogical sequencing,
• yogic orientation,
• tantric architecture.

And there graded accounts are fully usable. He can describe levels, states, śaktis, loci, unfoldings, reabsorptions. He is perfectly capable of doing that, and he clearly did so elsewhere.

But here he is speaking from the side of Anuttara itself. From that side, those same graded structures cannot be allowed to rule. Why? Because once higher/lower sequencing is taken as the final account of the Real, it becomes exactly what he is now dissecting: a dualizing spell.

So the point is not:
“those maps are false everywhere.”

The point is:
“those maps become false when absolutized.”

That is the whole reconciliation.

You could put it this way:

In the Pūrvapañcikā, Abhinava could afford to unfold graded structures as part of tantric doctrine and contemplative architecture. Here, in the Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa, he is guarding a more radical point: no graded schema may claim final authority over Anuttara.

That is not contradiction. It is control of register.

And this actually makes Abhinava stronger, not weaker. A weaker thinker uses one model everywhere. Abhinava does not. He knows when a ladder is useful, and he knows when the ladder itself must be kicked away.

So the sentence has two functions:

1. Authorial honesty — “I have treated this elsewhere; I am not skipping it out of ignorance.”
2. Methodological discipline — “I am not expanding it here, because here it would weigh down and mislead the text.”

That second point is crucial. He does not say merely “for brevity.” He says anupayogāt — because it is not useful here. That is sharp. He is implying that in this context, too much graded exposition would not just be long. It would be spiritually off-target.

So the paradox resolves like this:

Elsewhere: hierarchy can function as map.
Here: hierarchy is being denied the right to define the Real.

Higher/lower duality is itself the delusion

tat īdṛśam auttarādharya-dvaita-saṃmohādhāyi uttaratvaṃ tathā
vipra-rājanya-vaiśya-śūdrāntyajāti-vibhāga-mayam ūnādhikatvaṃ yatra na syāt

“Such ‘higherness,’ which sustains the delusion of the duality of higher and lower — and likewise the more-and-less structure made of the divisions of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, and antyaja — where that does not exist…”

Now he says it openly.

The problem is not only that the mind arranges many levels. The problem is that this arrangement generates auttarādharya-dvaita-saṃmoha — the delusion of duality in the form of higher and lower.

That is a strong phrase. Not just hierarchy. Not just difference. Delusion. Because once higher and lower harden into spiritually serious reality, consciousness becomes trapped in comparison as such. One thing is above, another below. One person more pure, another less. One state exalted, another inferior. One caste superior, another degraded. This is not harmless classification. It becomes an entire metaphysics of separation.

And then Abhinava does something severe and excellent: he extends the critique straight into social hierarchy.

Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, antyaja — the same logic of more and less, higher and lower, pure and impure. He is not merely talking about subtle yoga at this point. He is showing that the same poisoned structure can organize society, identity, and dignity itself.

That matters a lot. Because it proves he is not only dissecting inward mystical ladders. He is dissecting the form of thought that enthrones ranking. Spiritual, ontological, social — same disease.

And this is exactly why the previous references to Śākta, Śāmbhava, waking, dream, turiya, and so on had to be handled carefully. Such distinctions may exist as descriptions. But the moment they become fuel for the delusion of higher/lower duality, they cease to be innocent.

So the force of the line is the following:

not every distinction is false,
but the intoxication with superiority and inferiority is.

And in this passage Abhinava is not being diplomatic about it. He is showing that Anuttara is not merely above the ladder. It is where the whole prestige of the ladder loses its power.

Here “uttara” leans toward inner reality, not ranking

bhāvaprādhānyam uttaraśabdasya

“Here the word uttara has the predominance of the sense of bhāva.”

After rejecting higher/lower duality, Abhinava immediately shifts the register of the word.

That is important. He does not leave uttara trapped in the sense of superiority, comparison, or rank. Here its weight falls on bhāva — inner reality, living essence, felt being, what is inwardly primary.

So the word is being loosened from the comparative ladder.

This matters because otherwise the whole passage could sound purely negative: as if Abhinava were only dismantling hierarchies without indicating a subtler use of the term. But he is doing something more precise. He is saying, in effect, that uttara need not mean “higher than something else.” It can point instead toward what is more inwardly real, more essential, more rooted in living consciousness.

That is a very different movement.

Not:
this above that.

But:
that whose weight lies in the real.

So this small phrase marks a turn. The word is being rescued from ranking and drawn toward essence. That prepares the shift into the discussion of śaktis that follows.

Paśyantī and the other śaktis are another field in which “uttara” is used

uttarāḥ paśyantyādyāḥ śaktayaḥ aghorādyāḥ parādyāḥ

“The śaktis beginning with Paśyantī are called ‘uttarāḥ’; likewise those beginning with Aghorā, and those beginning with Parā.”

Now Abhinava gives another use of the word.

Uttara is not functioning only in debates about higher and lower. It also appears in established doctrinal groupings — Paśyantī and the other powers, Aghorā and the related powers, Parā and the rest. In other words, the term already lives inside tantric language in a more technical way.

That matters because it keeps the discussion from becoming too abstract. The word has real doctrinal use. It belongs to living systems of śakti-classification.

At the same time, this line still belongs to the previous turn. Since Abhinava has just shifted the emphasis from ranking to bhāva, he is now preparing to show how these śaktis are to be understood without falling back into the simple logic of superiority.

So the point here is not yet to unfold the triads in detail. It is to mark the field: uttara belongs to the language of śakti itself.

That prepares the deeper clarification that follows, where Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā will not simply be treated as a ladder, but as distinct modes of one power.

Parā, Parāparā, Aparā — three modes of one śakti

parādisvarūpam yathā anyatra — yayā idaṃ śivādidharaṇyantam
avikalpasaṃvinmātratayā vibharti ca paśyati ca bhāsayati ca parameśvaraḥ sā asya parāśaktiḥ |
yayā darpaṇahastyādivat bhedābhedābhyāṃ sā parāparā |
yayā parasparaviviktatayā bhedena sā aparā |

“And the nature of Parā and the rest is as taught elsewhere: that power by which the Supreme Lord bears, sees, and illumines this whole universe, from Śiva down to earth, as nothing but non-conceptual consciousness — that is his Parā-śakti. That by which it appears in both difference and non-difference, like a mirror, a hand, and the like — that is Parāparā. That by which it appears as mutually distinct, in differentiation — that is Aparā.”

Now the triad is stated clearly.

Parā is the power in which the whole range from Śiva to earth is held, seen, and illumined as avikalpa-saṃvin-mātra — nothing but non-conceptual consciousness. This is not yet a world of separated items. The whole is present, but present in undivided awareness.

Then comes Parāparā. Here difference has begun, but not as clean separation. The phrase bhedābhedābhyām is the key: difference and non-difference together. Manifestation has articulated itself, yet not so far that unity is lost. That is why this middle term matters so much. It is neither pure undivided holding nor full fragmentation.

Then Aparā: the same reality appears as paraspara-viviktatayā, mutually distinct, clearly differentiated. Here the world stands forth in articulated multiplicity.

So this is not a simple ladder of better and worse. It is a triadic unfolding of one power under different modes of manifestation.

That is important for the whole movement of the passage. Abhinava has just criticized the delusion of higher/lower fixation. If we read this triad crudely, we would immediately reintroduce the same problem: Parā on top, Aparā at the bottom, finished. But that would be too rough. His actual point is subtler. These are three ways the one śakti functions and appears.

So the force of the passage is not:
first an inferior reality, then a better one, then the best.

It is:
the one power can hold all in undivided consciousness,
show it in difference-within-unity,
or let it stand as differentiated manifestation.

That is much cleaner.

The power that gathers all three back into itself is also supreme

etat tritayaṃ yayā ātmani kroḍīkāreṇa anusaṃdhānātmanā grasate
sāpi paraiva kālakarṣiṇī-śabdāntara-nirdiṣṭā iti

“That power by which this triad is swallowed back into the Self, by gathering it into one’s own embrace, in the form of re-collection — that too is indeed Parā herself, elsewhere designated by the name Kālakarṣiṇī.”

After Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā are laid out, Abhinava does not leave them standing as a fixed three-level scheme. He immediately speaks of the power that grasps them back, gathers them into the Self, and swallows them in re-collection.

That matters a lot. Without this line, the triad could still be read too statically, as a neat doctrinal arrangement. But here the movement is completed: the same power that unfolds as the three also gathers the three back into itself.

The word kroḍīkāra is beautiful and exact — taking into one’s lap, drawing into one’s embrace, gathering inward. And anusaṃdhāna is not mere mechanical re-absorption. It is re-linking, re-collection, living reconnection. So this is not destruction of manifestation in a crude sense. It is the recovery of its unity in the Self.

And the strongest touch is the end: sāpi paraiva — that too is Parā herself. Even this re-gathering power is not something secondary. It is still the supreme power. The name Kālakarṣiṇī gives it a more dynamic, drawing, absorptive accent, but the reality is the same.

So the line quietly prevents another mistake. One might think:
Parā is the pure state,
Parāparā the mixed state,
Aparā the lower state,
and then perhaps some fourth force comes in from outside to rescue them.
No. The same supreme śakti is present throughout — in holding, in differentiation, and in re-gathering.