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| Ardhanareshwara |
Calling it Śakti in the feminine serves to deny any real separation from the Lord
śaktiśabdena ca vyaktivyapadeśaḥ
parameśvarācchaktimato bhedābhāvapratipādanameva prayojanamiti |] parameśvarī
śaktiḥ | yaduktam
śaktayo'sya jagat kṛtsnaṃ śaktimāṃstu maheśvaraḥ |
iti | tataḥ strīliṅgena nirdeśaḥ
“And by the word śakti, the designation of distinct manifestation has as its sole purpose the demonstration that there is no difference between the possessor of power and the Supreme Lord. Thus: the Supreme Power. As it has been said:
‘His powers are this entire universe, but the possessor of powers is Maheśvara.’
Therefore there is designation in the feminine.”
Abhinava is being careful here about language itself.
He says the use of the word Śakti, and even the use of a distinct designation, does not serve to establish a real split between Śakti and Śaktimān, Power and the Possessor of Power. Its purpose is the opposite: to make clear that there is no real difference between them.
That is why the feminine form matters here. It is not a grammatical accident, and not the introduction of a second independent principle standing beside the Lord. It is a way of speaking that lets manifestation, dynamism, and expressive power be named without breaking non-duality.
The cited line says it cleanly: the whole universe is his powers, but Maheśvara is the possessor of those powers. Abhinava does not mean two separately existing things by that. He means that distinction in speech is being used without granting ontological separation.
So this is a good warning for reading Tantric language more generally. When the tradition speaks in paired forms — Śiva and Śakti, Lord and Power — the point is not always to introduce dualism. Often the pair is needed precisely so that living dynamism can be spoken of without reducing everything to a mute abstract One.
A simple analogy: we may distinguish fire and its burning power, but we do not imagine two separate realities standing side by side. The distinction helps speech; it does not divide the thing itself. That is close to Abhinava’s point here.
Neither self, mind, senses, nor external objects can establish differentiated order on their own
nahi ātmano manasaḥ indriyāṇāṃ bāhyānāṃ ca
bhedaviṣayasya vyavasthāpanaṃ vyavasthā ca yujyate - abhisaṃdhānadyayogāt
aprakāśatvāt ca
“For neither the self, nor the mind, nor the senses, nor external things can rightly account for the establishment of an ordered differentiation of objects — because they lack intentional coordination, and because they are non-luminous.”
Abhinava is clearing the ground here.
He is asking: what could actually account for the ordered world of difference? Not just scattered appearances, but a structured field — this known as this, that distinguished from that, a stable arrangement of experience.
And his answer is negative: neither the individual self as usually understood, nor the mind, nor the senses, nor external things can do this by themselves.
Why not? He gives two reasons.
First, they lack abhisaṃdhāna — coordinating intentionality, the unifying directedness that could bind a differentiated field into order.
Second, they are aprakāśa — not self-luminous in the relevant sense. They do not carry within themselves the illuminating power needed to make a world appear as ordered manifestation.
So the point is not merely that these things are limited. It is that none of them, taken separately or as self-sufficient, can explain the coherent emergence of differentiated experience.
The one same Khecarī-Śakti appears unevenly as desire, anger, and the rest
saiva khecarī kāmakrodhādirūpatayā vaiṣamyena lakṣyate
“That very same Khecarī is perceived in the form of desire, anger, and the like, through unevenness.”
This is a sharp turn, and an important one.
Abhinava does not say that desire, anger, and the rest come from some second, fallen principle outside Śakti. He says that very same Khecarī is seen there — but vaiṣamyena, in unevenness, distortion, imbalance.
That matters because it keeps the ontology clean. The problem is not that some alien force has entered. The problem is that the one power is appearing under asymmetry.
So kāma and krodha are not outside Śakti. They are Śakti under skewed expression.
This is useful because it avoids two bad readings at once:
one, moral simplification — as though these states were just “evil stuff” imported from elsewhere;
two, romantic indulgence — as though every intensity were therefore sacred just as it appears.
Abhinava says neither. The force is one; the mode of appearance is distorted.
A simple analogy: the same light can pass through clear glass or warped glass. The light is not different, but what appears through distortion is no longer even. That is close to his point here.
Its true equality is universal; mental disturbance is nothing but non-recognition of full Anuttara
tasyāḥ
samatā sarvatraiva paripūrṇabhairavasvabhāvāt aṇumātramapi
avikalānuttarasvarūpāparijñānameva cittavṛttīnāṃ vaiṣamyaṃ
“Its equality is indeed everywhere, because its nature is that of complete Bhairava. And the unevenness of the movements of mind is nothing but even the slightest non-recognition of the unbroken nature of Anuttara.”
This is the real key to the previous line.
Abhinava says the true nature of that Śakti is samatā — equality, evenness, sameness everywhere — because it is the nature of complete Bhairava. So unevenness is not fundamental. It is not the truth of consciousness. It is a disturbance of how that truth is lived or known.
Then he becomes very exact: the disturbance of the mind is nothing but failure to recognize avikala Anuttara, Anuttara in its unbroken wholeness.
And he adds: even the slightest amount.
That makes the point stronger. Saṃsāric disturbance does not require some huge metaphysical fall. Even a subtle lapse in recognizing full Anuttara is enough for the mental field to become uneven.
So the line is psychologically precise. The mind’s agitation is not being treated as a separate substance, nor as a random flaw. It is a symptom of partial recognition.
A simple analogy: when a wheel is perfectly centered, it turns smoothly. Even a small misalignment produces wobble. The wobble is not a second wheel. It is the same wheel under deviation. That is close to Abhinava’s point: the mind’s unevenness is not something outside Śakti; it is what appears when recognition is no longer whole.
That very unevenness is saṃsāra
sa eva ca saṃsāraḥ
[saṃsāro gamanāgamanādirūpaḥ |
“And that itself is saṃsāra.
[Saṃsāra is of the nature of going and coming, and the like.]”
Abhinava now says the hardest thing very simply: that very unevenness is saṃsāra.
So saṃsāra is not first being defined here as the outer world, nor merely as rebirth in a broad doctrinal sense. Its living root is this vaiṣamya — the disturbed, uneven condition born from non-recognition of full Anuttara.
The gloss helps by adding gamanāgamana — going and coming. That is good, because it shows the experiential texture of saṃsāra: oscillation, back-and-forth, instability, lack of settled center. One is pulled here, pushed there, grasping, recoiling, circling.
So the point is not abstract. Saṃsāra is the life of consciousness when it no longer stands in its own sameness and completeness.
A simple way to put it:
saṃsāra is not just “the world out there”;
it is the restless condition of misaligned consciousness.
The sense of incompleteness has two forms, but both are one in being loss of one’s own nature
tadeva draḍhayati apūrṇeti | apūrṇābhimananaṃ
dvividham ekaḥ prakāśasya svātantryahānirūpaḥ dvitīyaḥ svātantryābodharūpaḥ
tatraikatvena vyapadeśaḥ svasvarūpāpahānerekatvāt |]
“And this same point is made firm by the word ‘incomplete.’ The sense of incompleteness is twofold: one form consists in the apparent loss of the freedom of light; the second consists in non-awareness of that freedom. Yet they are spoken of as one, because in both cases there is one and the same loss of one’s own true nature.”
Abhinava is sharpening the diagnosis of saṃsāra.
The problem is not merely pain, agitation, or emotional disturbance. At root it is apūrṇābhimanana — taking oneself to be incomplete.
He says this has two forms.
The first is: consciousness seems to have lost its freedom. Light no longer stands as sovereign, open, and self-grounded. It appears narrowed, determined, pushed around.
The second is subtler: even where that freedom is not truly absent, it is not known. There is non-recognition of one’s own svātantrya.
This is a good distinction. One may say:
first, freedom seems missing;
second, freedom is not recognized.
These are not identical in emphasis, but they are one in root. That is why Abhinava immediately says they are spoken of as one: in both cases, the same event is at work — svasvarūpāpahāna, the loss of one’s own nature from view.
So the point is not that consciousness really becomes something else. Rather, its freedom is either lived as if lost, or simply not recognized. Both are forms of incompleteness because both sever experience from its own ground.
A simpler way to put it:
saṃsāra begins when freedom is either felt to be gone or no longer known as one’s own.
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