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| Shiva surrounded by ganas and attendant powers, holding the center while multiple divine and semi-divine figures gather around him in a dark, living field. |
Anger and the other movements are of the nature of consciousness because they are identical with the marvel of consciousness itself
krodhādivṛttayo hi ciccamatkāratādātmyāt anyathā tatsvarūpalābhasyaiva
ayogācca
“For the movements of anger and the rest are indeed of the very nature of the marvel of consciousness, because they are identical with it; otherwise, the attainment of their true nature itself would be impossible.”
Abhinava begins from the strongest possible claim.
He does not say merely that anger and the rest are “used” by consciousness, or “eventually transformed” by it. He says they are bound to ciccamatkāra by tādātmya — identity. Their deepest substance is not outside consciousness.
Why does he insist on this so strongly? Because otherwise, their true nature could never be recovered. That is the force of anyathā tatsvarūpalābhasyaiva ayogāt. If these movements were made of some second stuff, alien to consciousness, then no real reabsorption, recognition, or reclamation would be possible. One could perhaps suppress them, discipline them, or escape them — but not know them in truth.
So the point is ontological before it is practical. Abhinava is laying the ground for everything that follows: ritual powers, devatās, Bhairava’s retinue, and also the darker possibility that the same powers can bind when unrecognized. None of that would hold unless the vṛttis were already, in their substance, forms of consciousness.
This does not mean that ordinary anger, as commonly lived, is already pure realization. Abhinava is not flattering reactivity. He is saying something deeper and harder: even what appears in distorted form has no substance outside consciousness. The distortion is real, but it is not a second ontology.
A simple way to put it:
if anger were truly outside consciousness, it could only be fought or fled;
because it is not outside consciousness, it can in principle be known, transfigured, and returned to its ground.
These same inner movements become innumerable through mutual intermixture
tathā tā eva [ābhyantarakrodhādivṛttaya eva |]
tattatparasparasāṃkaryalabdhāsaṃkhyeyarūpāḥ
“And these very same [that is, the inner movements of anger and the rest] become possessed of innumerable forms, gained through their various mutual intermixtures.”
Abhinava now explains why the field of lived inner life is so complex.
If these powers were simple, isolated units, then one could imagine anger, fear, desire, jealousy, attraction, aversion, and so on as cleanly separate compartments. But that is not how experience works. The inner movements mix, infect, color, and reshape one another. That is why they become asaṃkhyeya-rūpa — of innumerable forms.
This is psychologically exact. What appears in actual life is rarely a pure single state. Anger carries hurt; desire carries fear; devotion carries pride; grief carries tenderness and resistance together. The movements interpenetrate.
Abhinava’s point, though, is not merely psychological observation. He is showing how one Śakti, already manifesting through the vṛttis, becomes endlessly varied through sāṃkarya — mutual admixture. So plurality does not require many substances. It arises through the blending of modes within one energetic field.
That matters for the larger argument. The bewildering variety of inner life does not prove fragmentation at the root. It shows how rich and unstable the mixed field of manifestation can become.
A simple way to put it:
the passions do not arrive one by one like labeled boxes;
they mix, and from that mixing arise the countless actual forms of experience.
In ritual actions they are imagined in fitting gentle or fierce forms
tattaduccāṭana-
māraṇa-śāntyādirūpeṣu karmasu parikalpitatattatsamucitasaumyaraudraprakārāḥ
kṛtyādibhedāt [vāmā saṃsāravamanāt ityādiḥ kṛtyābhedaḥ svayamevohyaḥ |]
“In such ritual acts as expulsion, destruction, pacification, and the like, they are imagined in those forms — gentle or fierce — that are appropriate to each respective operation, according to the differences among the rites and the rest. [The distinctions among the ritual functions, beginning with Vāmā as ‘she who vomits forth saṃsāra,’ and so on, are to be inferred by oneself.]”
Now Abhinava shows how this inner doctrine extends into ritual language.
The same powers that were described as inner movements and as rays of Śiva are not kept in a purely psychological register. In ritual contexts they are parikalpita — configured, envisioned, formulated — in forms suited to the work being done.
That is why he speaks of saumya and raudra forms, gentle and fierce. Different rites call forth different faces of the same power. Pacification does not wear the same face as destruction; expulsion does not appear in the same tone as quieting.
This is important because it keeps ritual symbolism tied to consciousness rather than severed from it. The fierce and gentle forms are not arbitrary costumes placed on a dead system. They are fitting differentiations of one living Śakti according to function.
So the point is not that ritual invents these powers from outside. Rather, ritual gives formal shape to powers already present in the inner field of consciousness and manifestation.
A simple way to put it:
the rite does not create a new force;
it gives the appropriate face to a force already there.
These powers are worshipped as deities and as Bhairava’s retinue
devatātvena [parivāreti śaktayaḥ | yathoktam
bahirmukhasya mantrasya vṛttayo yāḥ prakīrtitāḥ |
tā evāntarmukhasyāsya śaktayaḥ parikīrtitāḥ ||
iti |] upāsyā uktāḥ matādiśāstreṣu bhagavadbhairavabhaṭṭārakaparivārabhūtāśca |
“As deities — [that is, as retinue-powers; as it has been said:
‘The movements that are declared to belong to the outward-turned mantra —
those very same are declared to be the powers of this inward-turned one.’
Thus.] — they are said in the scriptures of the traditions to be objects of worship, and also to belong to the retinue of the Blessed Lord Bhairava.”
Abhinava now makes the ritual implication explicit.
These powers are not only philosophical categories or inner psychological movements. They are also upāsyāḥ — worshipped. And they are worshipped as deities, specifically as the parivāra, the retinue or surrounding powers of Bhairava.
The quoted verse is important because it joins the outer and inner sides. What appears outwardly as the movements of mantra is, inwardly, these very Śaktis. So the ritual and contemplative readings are not two separate systems. They are two orientations toward the same power: one outward-turned, one inward-turned.
That is the real gain of the passage. Abhinava does not let ritual float away into externalism, and he does not let inner life become cut off from the symbolic and liturgical world. The two mirror one another.
So when these powers are worshipped as Bhairava’s retinue, the point is not polytheistic clutter for its own sake. It is a way of acknowledging that the one Lord’s power is articulated into many operative faces.
In more concrete Tantric terms, one may think of forms such as the Mahāvidyās: not as ten separate absolutes, but as differentiated faces of the one Śakti, each expressing a distinct power, mood, or operation. The same logic applies to Bhairava’s retinues, yoginīs, and mantra-devatās. Abhinava’s point is that these are not alien additions to consciousness, but articulated forms of its one power.
A simple way to put it:
what appears inwardly as movements of consciousness
appears outwardly as worshipped powers around Bhairava.
These very powers are the rays of the God of gods, bearing the letters beginning with ka
yathoktam uccāṭane kākavaktrā * * * * * * * * (?) |
ityādi upakramya
tā eva devadevasya raśmayaḥ kādidhārikāḥ ||
“As it is said, beginning with [the passage] ‘In expulsion, [she is] crow-faced …’ and so on:
‘These very ones are the rays of the God of gods, bearing the letters beginning with ka.’”
Now Abhinava tightens the connection between ritual form, mantra, and Śakti.
The specific ritual forms — even when fierce, specialized, and linked to distinct operations like expulsion — are not being left as isolated cultic details. He gathers them back into a single principle: these very powers are the rays of the supreme deity.
That word raśmayaḥ matters. A ray is differentiated, directional, active, and nameable — but it is not separate from its source. So even the many ritual powers, with their many faces and functions, remain extensions of the one divine radiance.
And then comes the mantra side: kādi-dhārikāḥ, bearers of the letters beginning with ka. This means the plurality is not random. It is articulated through the ordered body of mantra, through sonic differentiation. So the powers are not only emotional, psychological, or imaginal; they are also mantric.
That is why the previous point about Mahāvidyās fits here too. In more concrete Tantric terms, one may think of forms such as the Mahāvidyās, yoginīs, or mantra-devatās: not as separate absolutes, but as differentiated rays of one Śakti, each carrying a specific operative face and often a specific mantric body.
So the point here is simple:
the many fierce and gentle powers are not a crowd of unrelated beings;
they are ordered rays of the one divine source,
and mantra is one of the ways that order is borne and expressed.
When unrecognized, these same powers conceal the marvel of consciousness and generate the bound paśu-state
ityādi | tathātvena tu aparijñātasvarūpāḥ ciccamatkāraṃ vikalpe'pi
nirvikalpaikasāraṃ tena tena vicitravarṇākṣarapuñjātmanā ghoratarātmanā
vikalparūpeṇa devatātmanā śaṅkātaṅkānupraveśena tirodadhatyaḥ
sāṃsārikapāśyapaśubhāvadāyinyaḥ |
“And so on. But when their true nature is not recognized as such, they conceal the marvel of consciousness — which, even within conceptual differentiation, has as its sole essence the non-conceptual — by means of this or that manifold mass of colored letters, by their exceedingly terrible nature, by their form as conceptual constructions, by their deity-form, through the intrusion of anxiety and fear; and thus they become producers of the bound, worldly paśu-condition.”
This is the other side of the whole passage.
fUntil now Abhinava has been showing how anger and the rest can be understood as rays of Śiva, as devatās, as expressions of one Śakti. Now he says: the very same powers, when their true nature is not recognized, become veiling forces.
That is crucial. He does not introduce a second ontology. He does not say that first there were divine powers and then some alien anti-divine principle entered. The same energies now tirodadhatyaḥ — conceal, cover over — the marvel of consciousness.
And what do they conceal? A very subtle point: ciccamatkāra, whose sole essence is the non-conceptual even within conceptuality itself. That means the problem is not that vikalpa exists at all. The problem is that within vikalpa, the non-conceptual ground is no longer recognized. Then conceptual forms, mantric forms, deity forms, even powerful symbolic or visionary forms, can become part of the veil instead of the revelation.
That is a very important warning.
Because it means even sacred language, ritual imagery, mantra-clusters, terrible deity-forms, can bind when their ground is missed. The issue is not whether the form is religious or irreligious, fierce or gentle, conceptual or imaginal. The issue is whether tathātva, their true nature, is recognized.
The phrase śaṅkā-taṅka-anupraveśa makes the lived psychology very sharp: anxiety, dread, inner alarm enter the field. Then the powers no longer disclose Bhairava. They produce paśu-bhāva — the condition of the bound creature.
Fierce deities are not automatic cleaners who simply remove falsity by being worshipped. They are amplifiers of force. If the ground is clear, they can cut with terrifying precision; if the ground is confused, they can just as easily magnify confusion, inflation, obsession, fear, and grandiosity. Then the practitioner mistakes intensified energy for realization and dramatic inner weather for truth. That is why Abhinava’s warning matters so much: the same powers that reveal can also conceal. Kali, Chinnamastā, Dhumāvatī, Kubjikā — none of them guarantee clarity merely by being fierce. If anything, the fiercer the current, the less it tolerates self-deception, and the more catastrophic the result when self-deception is still there.
So the line is severe in the best way. It says:
nothing is safe merely because it is Tantric, symbolic, mantric, or fierce;
the same power that reveals can also conceal;
and concealment begins when the ground of consciousness is no longer recognized within the form.
A simple way to put it:
when the root is known, the powers are rays;
when the root is missed, the same powers become ropes.
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