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| the contrast between the limited figure and the vast Śākta presence suggests bodily individuality and personhood held within a deeper field of power. |
The previous chunk brought the argument to a subtle closure: the true meaning of asmad, the “I,” is uninterrupted awareness, and even yuṣmad, the “you,” though apparently other, does not stand outside that same luminous ground. But once this has been established, a new difficulty naturally arises. In ordinary language we do not speak only with bare “I” and “you.” We speak in singular, dual, and plural forms; we attribute increase, decrease, superiority, intimacy, honor, personhood, and relation. How can all these differentiated usages arise if consciousness itself is neither many nor divisible, neither greater nor lesser?
This is the pressure point of the new chunk. Abhinava now explains that such distinctions become possible only through upacāra, secondary attribution grounded in body and embodied standpoint. Number belongs to body, not to pure consciousness. Yet because everything is internally pervaded by everything else, the human, the Śākta, and the Śaiva can take on one another’s forms in usage and experience. The result is a very subtle account of how grammatical person, number, honorific expression, and even intimate modes of address can function without overturning the deeper nondual ground already established.
Number becomes possible only through bodily superimposition
dehagatasaṃkhyādyupacāreṇa parāparādiśaktigarbhīkārāt
saṃkhyāyogastu upapadyate
“And the application of number becomes possible through figurative attribution based on the body and its number, because the higher and lower powers and the rest are enfolded within that.”
Abhinava now turns to a new problem. If the true “I” and “you” have already been traced back to one luminous consciousness, then how do distinctions such as one, two, many, “we two,” “you all,” and similar usages become possible at all? His answer begins very carefully: saṃkhyā, number, applies only through upacāra, secondary or figurative attribution, and that attribution is grounded in the body — dehagatasaṃkhyā.
This means number does not belong primarily to pure consciousness. Consciousness is not “one” in the same way a body is one, nor “two” in the way two embodied individuals stand side by side, nor “many” in the way a crowd is many. These are bodily determinations, and language transfers them upward. That is why Abhinava says the connection with number is only upapadyate — becomes intelligible, becomes explicable — through this body-based superimposition.
The second half is important: parāparādiśaktigarbhīkārāt. The higher and lower powers, and the rest, are here being gathered into, or enfolded within, that bodily field of usage. So language can speak of singular, dual, and plural not because consciousness itself has been chopped into numerical units, but because embodied manifestation becomes the place where those deeper powers are carried under countable form. Number belongs to the level of expression, embodiment, and attribution. It does not define the ultimate nature of the conscious ground itself.
So the first move of the chunk is precise: plurality is not denied, but relocated. It is valid at the level of embodied attribution, not at the level of pure consciousness. That is the basis on which Abhinava can now go on to explain how forms like “we two,” “you two,” “we,” and “you all” arise without overturning the deeper nondual ground.
Dual and plural forms arise only through many bodies being gathered into one field of awareness
tathāhi - svasvātantryopakalpitabhedāvabhāsasya anantaśarīrādyekatayaiva vimṛśet
āvāṃ yuvāṃ vayaṃ yūyaṃ iti ca
“For thus: one reflects upon the manifestation of distinctions projected by one’s own freedom only through the unity of the many bodies and the like; and hence there are expressions such as ‘we two,’ ‘you two,’ ‘we,’ and ‘you all.’”
Abhinava now explains more concretely how number enters speech. Distinctions do appear — duality, plurality, grouped persons, and so on — but they are not primary fractures in consciousness itself. They are manifestations of difference projected by freedom, svasvātantryopakalpitabhedāvabhāsa. What makes forms like āvām (“we two”), yuvām (“you two”), vayam (“we”), and yūyam (“you all”) possible is that many bodies and embodied standpoints are gathered and grasped together under a certain unity.
That is the important point: plurality here is not being denied, but it is being located. Consciousness does not become numerically many in itself. Rather, the appearance of many embodied loci is brought under a unified act of awareness, and on that basis dual and plural forms become meaningful. So when we say “we two” or “you all,” we are not counting pieces of pure consciousness. We are speaking from the level where many bodies, many standpoints, many apparent centers are held together in one cognitive sweep.
This is why Abhinava places vimṛśet here — one reflects, one grasps in awareness. Number is not just sitting there as an ultimate feature of reality. It arises through a certain mode of apprehension. The many are taken together, and language follows that apprehension. So again the same structure holds: embodied differentiation has validity, but only at the level of manifested expression. The deeper luminous ground remains uncut by the numerical plurality that appears within it.
Increase, decrease, and the like belong to the body, not to consciousness
upacayādyāstu dehagatā upacaritumapi na śakyāḥ - cidrūpasya ūnādhikatānupapatteḥ
“But increase and the like belong to the body; they cannot really be transferred [to consciousness], since deficiency and excess are impossible in what is of the nature of consciousness.”
Abhinava now makes the restriction even sharper. Number, plurality, and similar distinctions may be spoken of because bodies can be counted and gathered under one apprehension. But predicates such as growth, increase, diminution, superiority, inferiority, and the rest belong properly to the embodied side alone. They are dehagatāḥ — located in the body. They cannot truly be carried over to consciousness itself.
The reason is very simple and very strong: cidrūpasya ūnādhikatā anupapattiḥ. In what is of the nature of consciousness, lack and excess do not apply. Consciousness does not become more conscious by addition, nor less conscious by subtraction. It does not swell, shrink, improve, or deteriorate in the way embodied and objectified things do. Those belong to the field of measurable manifestation. The conscious ground itself is not a quantity among quantities.
So Abhinava is preserving a strict line. Language may speak loosely, and ordinary experience may attribute many things to the self, but such predicates do not really touch the nature of consciousness. Body grows, weakens, stands in relations of more and less. Consciousness, as consciousness, does not. That is why these bodily determinations can only be spoken of by secondary attribution, never as the true character of the luminous subject.
Even inert human forms can take on Śākta and Śaiva form
sarvaṃ hi sarvātmakamiti narātmāno jaḍā api
tyaktatatpūrvarūpāḥ śākta-śaivarūpabhājo bhavanti
“For everything is of the nature of everything. Thus even forms belonging to the human level, though inert, when they abandon their prior state, can come to partake of Śākta and Śaiva form.”
Abhinava now widens the argument. Up to this point he has been insisting that number, increase, decrease, and similar predicates belong properly to the bodily side, not to consciousness itself. But this does not mean that the levels of nara (the human or limited), śākta (the power-level), and śaiva (the Śiva-level) are sealed off from one another like rigid compartments. On the contrary, he now says: sarvaṃ hi sarvātmakam — everything is of the nature of everything. That is the key.
Because of this, even narātmānaḥ, forms belonging to the human level, even jaḍā api, though inert, can come to share in Śākta and Śaiva form once their prior condition is left behind. The point is not that a stone or a human body suddenly becomes pure consciousness in a crude literal sense. The point is that forms are not metaphysically closed. The limited and inert can become bearers of a higher mode of appearance and meaning. What seemed fixed at one level can be taken up into another.
This is important for the whole flow of the chunk. Abhinava has just been very strict about what does and does not properly belong to consciousness. Now he shows the complementary truth: the boundaries of appearance remain permeable because reality is internally continuous. So even what is ordinarily human, inert, or limited is not barred from manifesting Śākta or Śaiva character. This is what lets language and experience move across levels without pure chaos. The transfer is not arbitrary; it rests on the deeper fact that everything is already internally linked to everything else.
Even stones and mountains can be apprehended in first-person form
śṛṇutagrāvāṇaḥ meruḥ śikhariṇā mahaṃ bhavāmi ahaṃ caitro bravīmi ityapi pratīteḥ |
“For there is also the apprehension: ‘Listen, O stones’; ‘Mount Meru, by its peaks, says: I am great’; and ‘I, Caitra, speak.’”
Abhinava now gives examples to show how far this transfer can go. If everything is internally connected with everything else, then even what is ordinarily inert or object-like can be brought under living forms of expression. Stones may be addressed, Meru may be made to speak in the first person, and a human individual too says, “I, Caitra, speak.” The point is not that these are all identical in the same flat way. It is that first-person force and meaningful expression are not locked inside one rigid ontological compartment.
The example of Meru is especially vivid. A mountain, which ordinarily belongs to the object-side, can nevertheless be apprehended as saying, “I am great.” That shows exactly the kind of superimposition Abhinava is discussing. What is normally grasped as a thing can take on person-like expression. Likewise, ordinary human first-person speech is only one case within a wider field where forms can cross levels and bear meanings not confined to their most obvious surface-status.
So this is not ornamental illustration. Abhinava is showing that because everything is pervaded by everything, expression can exceed the apparent limits of a thing’s ordinary classification. Even the inert may be drawn into Śākta or Śaiva modes of presentation, and first-person force can appear where a narrow view would never expect it.
What is primarily Śākta and of the nature of “you” can also take on the human form
śāktamapi
yuṣmadartharūpamapi narātmakatāṃ bhajata evaṃ -
“In the same way, even what is Śākta — even what is of the nature of yuṣmad (‘you’) — comes to assume the human form.”
Abhinava now extends the same logic one step further. It is not only that what appears human or inert can come to share in Śākta or Śaiva form. The movement also works in the other direction. Even what is primarily Śākta, and even what appears under the mode of yuṣmad, “you,” can take on narātmakatā, the human form.
That is important because it prevents the earlier point from being read one-sidedly. The levels are not arranged like sealed shelves, where only the lower may be lifted upward. Rather, the forms interpenetrate. What is apprehended as power, as other, as “you,” can also be expressed in humanized form. So the “you” is not tied forever to one rigid ontological status. It too may enter into the field of ordinary personhood and embodied expression.
The point remains the same underneath: these transfers are possible because reality is internally continuous. The Śākta and the human are not unrelated substances. Therefore what is first apprehended as a power or as an addressed other can also appear under the form of the human. Abhinava is still showing how language and experience move across levels without contradiction, because the underlying luminous ground remains one.
Even without direct vocative address, “you” can be apprehended in a humanized way
śāktarūpamujjhittvā tvaṃ gatabhayadhairyaśaktiri anāmantraṇayogenāpi pratipatteḥ |
“By setting aside the Śākta form, one apprehends: ‘you are the power of fearlessness and steadiness’ — even without the use of direct address.”
Abhinava now makes the point more concrete. What is primarily apprehended in a Śākta mode — as power, as energy, as a higher form — can still be grasped under the simpler human form of “you.” That is what śāktarūpam ujjhittvā means here: not that the Śākta reality is destroyed, but that its explicitly elevated form is left aside for the sake of another mode of apprehension.
Then the content appears as tvaṃ — “you”: “you are fearlessness,” “you are steadiness,” “you are power.” This is important. The addressed one is not reduced to a mere ordinary person in the flat sense; rather, what is apprehended is still a quality of power, courage, and stability, but it is now taken through the second-person human mode. So the higher content remains, while the form of address shifts.
The phrase anāmantraṇayogenāpi sharpens the point further. Even without explicit vocative calling — without formally saying “O you” — such apprehension still arises. That shows Abhinava is not speaking merely about grammar in the narrow sense. He is speaking about modes of cognition and recognition. The second-person structure can arise even where formal address is absent. So once again the point is that these forms — Śākta, human, first-person, second-person — are not rigid compartments. One and the same reality may be apprehended under different expressive modes.
Honorific and respectful forms also show higher realities expressed through human personhood
bhavānityanena pādā gurava ityādipratyayaviśeṣaiścāparāvasthocitanarātmakaprathamapuruṣaviṣayatayāpi
pratītisadbhāvāt
“And by expressions such as ‘bhavān,’ ‘the feet,’ ‘the revered teachers,’ and other such special forms, there is also apprehension in terms of human first-person personhood appropriate to a lower state.”
Abhinava now gives another kind of example, this time from honorific and respectful speech. Forms like bhavān (“your honorable self”), or expressions such as “the feet” and “the revered teachers,” show that language does not move only in a flat literal way. A person may be addressed through a form that outwardly belongs to the human level, yet that form carries reverence, elevation, and a displacement from ordinary direct address.
That is why he says these belong to an aparāvasthā-ucita-narātmaka-prathamapuruṣa-viṣaya mode — a human, person-based form suitable to a lower or more manifest level. The deeper reality does not cease to be what it is, but it is apprehended through a mode of speech fitted to ordinary embodied relation. In other words, even when the underlying reality is higher, language may still present it under humanized personal form.
This fits the movement of the logic exactly. Abhinava has been showing that the human, the Śākta, and the Śaiva can take on one another’s expressive shapes. Here he shows that respectful and honorific language already proves this in ordinary usage. We do not always speak to persons in the same bare way. Speech itself bends, elevates, softens, and reconfigures relation. That is enough to show that personhood in language is flexible and layered, not rigidly tied to one ontological level.
Even what has left aside the Śākta form may take on Śiva-nature as “I”
tyaktaśāktarūpasyāpi ca ahaṃrūpaśivātmakatvamapi syāt |
“And even what has left aside the Śākta form may come to possess Śiva-nature in the form of ‘I.’”
Abhinava now states the reverse possibility just as clearly. Earlier he showed that what is higher or more power-charged may be apprehended in human or second-person form. Here he says that even when the Śākta form has been set aside, what remains may still take on Śiva-nature in the form of aham, “I.”
That means these are not rigid boxes. A thing is not trapped forever in one expressive level. What is first presented under the mode of power, relation, or “you” may also be gathered into the first-person Śaiva mode. The point is not that one ontological layer literally mutates into another as if changing species. The point is that the same underlying reality may be apprehended now under Śākta emphasis, now under Śaiva emphasis, now under the human mode. The forms of manifestation and designation shift, while the deeper continuity remains.
So this short line is doing important work. It keeps the whole discussion from becoming one-directional. Abhinava is not only showing how the higher enters lower expression; he is also showing how what has been expressed otherwise may be re-read as aham-rūpa-śivātmakatva — Śiva-nature in the form of “I.” The first person remains the culminating pole of these shifts.
Intimate address shows how even body-mind reality may be taken up as “I,” and how Śiva-form can seem to enter human or Śakti-shaped embodiment
vayasye dayite śarīracittattvameva ahaṃ bhavāmi iti pratyayāt śivasavrūpamapi ca
ujjhitacidrūpamiva naraśaktyātmakaṃ vapurāviśatyeva |
“In expressions such as ‘my friend’ and ‘my beloved,’ because of the cognition ‘I become precisely that body-mind reality,’ even Śiva’s own form, as though having set aside its pure consciousness-nature, appears to enter a body constituted by the human and the Śakti-level.”
Abhinava now provides a very intimate example. In relations like “friend” and “beloved,” the distinction between self and other is not held in a cold external way. One lives the other inwardly. That is why he says there is the cognition: ahaṃ bhavāmi — “I become.” Not literally in the crude sense that one ontological entity changes substance, but in lived apprehension: the other is taken so deeply into the field of selfhood that body and mind are no longer felt as wholly external.
That is the force of śarīracittattvam eva ahaṃ bhavāmi. One does not merely register the other from outside; one interiorly crosses into their embodied-mental presence. In friendship, love, and deep intimacy, the border softens. What was “you” is no longer held only as distant second person. It is drawn inward toward “I.” Abhinava is using this to show, once again, that the forms of personhood are not rigid partitions. “I,” “you,” the human level, the Śākta level, and the Śaiva level may pass into one another in lived apprehension.
So when he adds that even Śiva-svarūpa appears, as though having left aside pure consciousness, to enter a body shaped by the human and by Śakti, the point is not that Śiva truly loses consciousness. The phrase ujjhitacidrūpam iva — “as though having set aside pure consciousness” — is crucial. It is an appearance, a mode of manifestation. The pure does not cease to be pure; rather, it presents itself under embodied and relational form. This is the strongest closure for the whole chunk. What began with number and bodily superimposition now ends in intimacy itself: even there, in the most human field of relation, the higher reality may appear clothed in body, mind, power, and personhood without ever being reduced to them.
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