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| Kālī Dancing in the Cremation Ground |
The pīṭheśvarīs, being exceedingly terrible, repeatedly delude
yathoktam
pīṭheśvaryo mahāghorā mohayanti muhurmuhuḥ |
“As it has been said:
‘The pīṭheśvarīs, exceedingly terrible, delude again and again.’”
Abhinava now makes the warning explicit.
Earlier he showed that the same powers can be read as Bhairava’s rays, retinue, and divine energies. Here he gives the other side without softening it: these powers can also delude repeatedly. Not once, but muhur muhuḥ — again and again.
That matters because it cuts through a very common fantasy: that contact with fierce or exalted powers automatically purifies. Abhinava says no such thing. The same śaktis that reveal, when their nature is not recognized, can just as easily bewilder, intoxicate, inflate, and cast consciousness deeper into entanglement.
That is why the word mahāghorāḥ matters. Their fierceness is not decorative. Fierce powers do not flatter confusion. They magnify what is there. If clarity is there, they can cut. If delusion is there, they can deepen it and give it more force, more imagery, more conviction.
So this line is severe but healthy. It stops the reader from romanticizing the terrible. The point is not:
“wrathful power equals liberation.”
The point is:
without recognition, even sacred power can become a vehicle of repeated delusion.
A simple way to put it:
fierce powers are not automatic liberators;
in the unclear, they can become amplifiers of confusion.
They cast the aṇu lower and lower by sinking it into the objects themselves
tathā
viṣayeṣveva saṃlīnānadho'dhaḥ pātayantyaṇūn |
ityādi |
“And likewise:
‘Having sunk into the objects themselves, they cast the atomic selves downward, lower and lower.’
And so on.”
This directly continues the previous line.
There Abhinava said that the pīṭheśvarīs repeatedly delude. Here he shows how that delusion works in practice: they make the aṇu sink into the viṣayas themselves and thus cast it lower and lower.
So the two points belong together very tightly.
The first point was the warning: fierce powers can delude.
This point gives the mechanism: they do so by driving consciousness into absorption in objects.
That is important, because otherwise “delusion” could remain vague. Abhinava makes it concrete. The danger is not only false doctrine or spectacular visions. The real fall happens when consciousness loses its center and becomes saṃlīna — immersed, dissolved, swallowed up — in what it pursues, fears, or clings to.
That is why the victims are called aṇūn. The self is already contracted, already living as small. Once that contraction is there, absorption in objects drags it further adho’dhaḥ — downward, and then further downward still.
So this is the exact continuation of the previous point:
the fierce powers do not delude only by frightening or dazzling;
they delude by fastening the contracted self more deeply to the object-world.
And that makes the warning sharper. Even sacred or wrathful forms can become part of the descent if they are seized as objects — as things to possess, consume, use, or derive identity from — rather than recognized in their true ground.
In modern sādhaka culture this often appears in a very recognizable way: a person becomes fascinated with Kālī, Chinnamastā, Dhumāvatī, Kubjikā, Bhairavī, or some wrathful mantra-current not as a way of being stripped bare, but as a way of becoming special. The deity is subtly turned into an object of acquisition — “my Mahāvidyā,” “my fierce path,” “my secret initiation,” “my terrifying experiences,” “my superior current.” Then the sādhaka begins to consume the deity as identity, intensity, and symbolic capital. What should have burned vanity starts feeding it. What should have cut delusion starts making it grander, darker, and more metaphysically dressed. That is exactly the kind of descent Abhinava’s warning helps explain: the sacred power is still there, but the contracted self has sunk into it as object, and so the current becomes fuel for deeper bondage rather than liberation.
A simple way to put it:
first the powers bewilder;
then bewilderment hardens into object-absorption;
and that is how the aṇu is dragged down.
From the mass of sound arises the field of Śakti, and the paśu is one whose splendor has been effaced by the kalās and reduced to enjoyership
tathā
śabdarāśisamutthasya [akārādiḥ kṣakārāntaḥ śabdarāśiḥ | śaktivargasya -
kādivargasya kalābhiḥ - kakārādyakṣaraiḥ |] śaktivargasya bhogyatām |
kalāviluptavibhavo gataḥ saṃsa paśuḥ smṛtaḥ ||
“And likewise:
Of the field of Śakti arising from the mass of sound [that mass of sound runs from a to kṣa; of the Śakti-group — the kādi group — by means of the kalās, that is, by the letters beginning with ka], [it comes] into the condition of being enjoyed. One whose splendor has been effaced by the kalās, having gone into that state, is remembered as a paśu.”
Abhinava now brings the same issue into the mantric body of manifestation.
The field of Śakti is described as arising from the śabda-rāśi, the whole mass of sound from a to kṣa. So we are no longer dealing only with gross objects or emotions. The very articulated universe of letters, mantras, and expressive powers belongs to this discussion.
And the warning becomes sharper: even this field of Śakti can slide into bhogyatā — the condition of being something enjoyed, consumed, used as an object.
That is the real point of the line about the paśu. The paśu is not simply “someone worldly” in a vague sense. Here the paśu is one whose vibhava, splendor or sovereign potency, has been obscured by the kalās and who has thus fallen into the mode of the enjoyer of objects and the consumer of differentiated experience.
So the previous point continues here in a more subtle register.
First Abhinava said the aṇu is cast downward by sinking into objects.
Now he says the same can happen even in the field of sacred sound and Śakti itself. The bondage is not limited to crude external objects. Even mantra, letter, kalā, divine articulation — all of this can become part of the descent when it is seized under bhogyatā.
That is why this is such a strong passage for Tantric practice. It says plainly: even the sacred body of sound does not save the paśu automatically. If the sovereign splendor of consciousness is obscured, the practitioner may remain a consumer even of mantra, even of Śakti, even of revelation.
A simple way to put it:
the paśu is not just the one who enjoys worldly objects;
the paśu is also the one who turns even Śakti into something to consume.
When these same powers are known in their true nature, they become givers of jīvanmukti
jñātasvarūpāḥ tā eva uktayuktyā jīvanmuktatāpradāyinyaḥ |
“When known in their true nature, those very same [powers], according to the reasoning already stated, become givers of jīvanmukti.”
This is the turn of the whole passage.
Abhinava does not introduce a new set of pure powers to replace the dangerous ones. He says tā eva — those very same. The same pīṭheśvarīs, the same fierce currents, the same powers that delude and drag the aṇu downward when unrecognized, become jīvanmuktatā-pradāyinīḥ when their nature is known.
That is the real force of the teaching. The difference is not in the raw energy itself, but in recognition.
So the passage now becomes perfectly balanced:
unrecognized, the powers bind;
recognized, the powers liberate.
This is why Abhinava’s vision is stronger than both moralism and romanticism. Moralism says some forces are simply bad and should be excluded. Romanticism says intensity itself is already liberating. Abhinava says neither. The same Śakti can conceal or reveal. Everything turns on whether its svarūpa is known.
That is also why the earlier warnings matter. If the practitioner turns these powers into objects, symbolic trophies, identities, or consumed experiences, they bind. But if their nature is recognized, they no longer pull consciousness outward into paśu-bhāva. They become the very means of living liberation.
A simple way to put it:
the same fire that burns the confused
can illumine and free the one who knows what it is.
Established in the one spanda, one becomes lord of the wheel
tathā uktam
yadā tvekatra [ekatreti sāmānyaspande | tasyeti kādivargasya | cakreti ādihānsasya |]
saṃrūḍhastadā tasya layodbhavau |
niyacchan bhoktṛtāmeti tataścakreśvaro bhavet ||
“And likewise it is said:
‘But when one has become firmly established in the one [that is, in the universal spanda], then, controlling its dissolution and emergence, one attains enjoyership; and thus one becomes lord of the wheel.’
[“In the one” means: in the common spanda. “Its” means: of that kādi-group. “Wheel” means: of the sequence beginning with ha.]”
Abhinava now states the positive mastery that corresponds to true recognition.
The key word is saṃrūḍhaḥ — firmly established. Not a passing glimpse, not a temporary exaltation, but rootedness in the one spanda, the common pulsation underlying the many articulated powers.
From that standpoint, one regulates dissolution and emergence — layodbhavau niyacchan. This does not mean something like Bruce Almighty — the ego suddenly getting cosmic executive powers and running the universe as a glorified manager. Abhinava’s point is subtler and far more serious. It means that the practitioner is no longer helplessly thrown about by the rise and fall of inner and outer powers, impulses, manifestations, and withdrawals. The wheel still turns, but one is no longer strapped to it as a captive. One stands more at its center, not as a fantasist of omnipotence, but as one no longer inwardly dominated by its motion.
That is why the next phrase matters: bhoktṛtām eti. One attains true enjoyership — not in the paśu sense of consuming objects, but in the deeper sense of standing as the conscious subject for whom the wheel’s movement is present.
And from there, cakreśvara. Lord of the wheel. Not because the many powers have vanished, but because their center is now held from within the one spanda.
So this is the exact opposite of the earlier fall into bhogyatā. There the paśu was consumed by the wheel. Here the knower stands in the center and governs its rhythms.
A simple way to put it:
first the powers drag the aṇu around;
then, once established in the one pulsation behind them, one becomes the lord rather than the captive of the wheel.
True recognition is precisely this: to know these very vṛttis, at the moment they arise, as one with the nirvikalpa
svarūpaparijñānaṃ ca etāvadeva - yat etāsu vṛttiṣu [vṛttiṣu - krodhādiṣu |]
udayasamayanirvikalpaikarūpāsu
“And recognition of one’s own nature is exactly this much: that, in these very vṛttis [that is, in anger and the rest], at the moment of their arising, they are of one form with the nirvikalpa.”
Now Abhinava states the practical heart of the matter.
Recognition is not something remote, not a later commentary added after experience, and not merely a metaphysical opinion about consciousness. It is this: in the very arising of the vṛtti, one knows it as not other than the nirvikalpa ground.
That is extremely important, because it means the work is not to wait until the movement has passed, nor only to suppress it, nor only to reinterpret it afterward in a calmer state. The point is to recognize its real nature at the moment of emergence.
And that also explains the whole arc of the previous passage. The vṛttis bind when they are seized as objects, consumed, feared, or turned into identity. They liberate when their true nature is known. Here Abhinava tells us exactly what that means: not that the vṛtti disappears into blankness, but that even in arising it is not outside the non-conceptual ground.
So the line is very practical and very demanding.
Not:
first nirvikalpa, then later vikalpa, and they are separate.
But:
the rising vikalpa itself must be seen in continuity with the prior non-conceptual reality.
That is why this is svarūpa-parijñāna. One’s own nature is not elsewhere than the appearing movement. It is the truth of that movement when it is not torn away from its ground.
A simple way to put it:
the test is not whether a movement arises;
the test is whether, when it arises, its root is still known.
Even in the differentiated state, that one remains present and is known by resting in it and in its fruit
[yathoktam
yadā samagrajñānāprajñātṛsparśadaśāsvapi |
sthitaiva lakṣyate sā ca tadviśrāntyā tathā phale ||]
“As it has been said:
‘Even in the states of complete knowledge, non-knowledge, and the toucher, that very one is perceived as still abiding; and it is recognized by resting in that, and likewise in its fruit.’”
This citation supports the previous line by widening its scope.
Abhinava has just said that true recognition is to know the vṛtti, at its very arising, as one with the nirvikalpa. Now the verse confirms: that one reality remains sthitaiva — still there, still abiding — even across very different conditions.
So the teaching is not fragile. It does not hold only in one purified state and then vanish the moment differentiation appears. Even where there is full knowing, non-knowing, contact, transition, or mixed experience, that one remains.
And then the practical phrase: tad-viśrāntyā — by resting in that. This is important. Recognition is not achieved by frantic conceptual effort. It is through repose in that abiding reality, and even in its fruit, that it becomes perceptible.
So the point is simple:
the one ground does not come and go with the states;
what matters is whether there is rest in it.
That is what allows the previous claim to be lived rather than merely stated.
Even when vikalpa arises, it does not sever the prior nirvikalpa ground
vikalpo'pi udayamāno varṇarāśisamārabdhatattadvicitraśabdārūṣitatve'pi na
tādṛśena varṇapuñjātmanā śakticakreṇa yujyate yat tasya
prāktananirvikalpaikavyavahāramayasya vikalpātmano mātuḥ
svarūpaṃ khaṇḍayet |
“Even when vikalpa is arising, though it is colored by the manifold words fashioned from the mass of letters and by the wheel of Śakti consisting of such clusters of sounds, it is not joined to that [in such a way] as to cut apart the very nature of the cognizing subject — whose conceptual activity is grounded in the prior, sole, nirvikalpa.”
This is the seal on the whole passage.
Abhinava now says directly what has been prepared all along: the arising of vikalpa does not, by itself, break reality into two unrelated regions. Even though conceptuality comes clothed in many words, letters, sound-clusters, and the whole articulated śakti-cakra, it does not truly sever itself from the prior nirvikalpa ground.
That is the real point. The problem is not that vikalpa appears. The problem is when vikalpa is taken as self-standing and thus seems to cut the root.
But Abhinava says that cannot be the truth. If vikalpa really cut apart the nature of the knowing subject from its prior non-conceptual ground, then cognition itself would lose continuity. The very subject who knows in and through vikalpa would no longer have a coherent basis.
So he is protecting a very subtle continuity:
nirvikalpa is not destroyed when thought, language, emotion, mantra, image, or conceptual form arise;
it remains the ground from which they arise and by which they remain possible.
That is why the previous practical point was so exact: true recognition is not the destruction of arising movements, but the recognition of their continuity with the ground.
A simple way to put it:
vikalpa is not the enemy because it appears;
it becomes bondage only when its root in the nirvikalpa is missed.
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