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| This image shows the vertical unfolding of speech from Parābhaṭṭārikā / Parā-vāk upward into articulated manifestation. That is the doctrinal movement of the chunk. The many letters appear, but their coherence depends on the one source below. |
Abhinava now returns from the preceding methodological and pedagogical clarifications to the actual unfolding of the Tantra’s verse. In the last movement he had drawn boundaries: not every subtle interpretive device is universally useful, not every teaching enters every heart, and one must not let secondary byways obstruct the main current. Having cut away that digression, he now says plainly: “we follow the present line.” That marks a return to the principal work.
The pressure point of this new section is the opening phrase of the 5th verse:
athādyāstithayaḥ sarve svarā bindvavasānagāḥ
The question is now: what does it really mean to say that all the vowels beginning with a and extending to bindu are established there? Abhinava’s answer is not merely phonetic. He is about to show that these phonemes have their true ground in parā-vāk, in a non-conventional, eternal, unconstructed form that is nothing other than consciousness itself. That means the verse is not merely listing letters. It is locating the entire field of sound in the supreme consciousness-body of Parābhaṭṭārikā.
From there the section widens further. Within that supreme non-difference are already contained paśyantī and the other levels of speech, along with the womb of endless differentiation. Nothing that later appears can be truly absent from that first ground. So the movement of this part is from the phonemes to parā-vāk, from parā-vāk to the consciousness-body of the Goddess, and from there to the problem of how the many differentiated cognitions can still stand within one knower without losing coherence. It is a return to the main thread, but immediately at full depth.
We now follow the present line of exposition
prastutamanusarāmaḥ
“We now follow the present line [of exposition].”
Abhinava now resets the movement with great economy. After the previous digression — where he acknowledged certain subtle interpretive possibilities, marked their limits, and then cut them off as obstacles to the main subject — he says simply: prastutam anusarāmaḥ. “We now follow the present line.” It is a return to the main current.
That brevity has force. He does not ceremonialize the transition. He does not apologize for the detour. He simply turns back to the real work. The effect is almost physical: enough side-paths, enough clarifications about what may or may not help certain readers — now back to the text itself.
So this first point is small, but important. It tells us that the commentary is re-entering its principal stream. The pedagogical and polemical scaffolding has done its work; now Abhinava resumes the actual unfolding of the verse.
“Those whose beginning is a” means the vowels beginning with a — or, alternatively, beginning with ath, with thakāra added for ease of pronunciation
a ādyo yeṣāṃ svarāṇāṃ yadi vā thakāreṇa
sukhoccāraṇārthena saha ath ādyo yeṣāmiti
“‘Those whose beginning is a’ means the vowels whose first is a; or else, with thakāra added for ease of pronunciation, it may be taken as ‘those whose beginning is ath.’”
Abhinava now begins opening the wording of the verse itself. The first straightforward sense is simple enough: the svaras, the vowels, are those whose beginning is a. But he immediately allows a second possibility: by adding thakāra for the sake of ease in utterance — sukhoccāraṇārtham — the phrase may also be heard through ath.
This is important because it shows that he is not moving mechanically. The verse is not being handled as though there were only one flat lexical possibility. Abhinava is alert to the fact that the wording can bear more than one line of entry, and he lets that plurality remain visible without yet forcing a premature closure. At the same time, the second possibility is not random wordplay. It continues the earlier sensitivity to atha, while now reintegrating it into the principal exposition rather than treating it as a separate digression.
So this point acts as the first reopening of the verse’s technical body. The text is beginning from the letter a, but it has not forgotten the charged possibilities around ath. Abhinava is allowing both to stand at the threshold as the exposition deepens.
The word “ādya” here does not mean mere sequence or simple firstness; it can also carry the sense of nearness and, more deeply, “that which is at the beginning”
ādya-śabdaśca atra na vyavasthāmātreṇa api sāmīpyādau api tu ādau bhava ādyaḥ
“And the word ādya here is not used merely in the sense of simple order or fixed sequence; rather, it also carries the sense of nearness, and more properly means ‘that which is at the beginning.’”
Abhinava now refines the key word ādya so that the verse is not flattened too quickly into a simple list. He says that ādya does not mean mere vyavasthā-mātra — not just “the first in a sequence” in the dry, enumerative sense. That would be too weak. The word can also carry the force of sāmīpya, nearness, and more deeply the sense of that which is at the beginning, that which stands at the originating point.
That matters because the verse is not simply classifying letters in dictionary order. It is beginning to speak about a field whose root and proximity to source are doctrinally charged. So “beginning with a” cannot be heard as a mere schoolroom statement about the first vowel of the alphabet. Abhinava is preparing the reader to hear ādya more ontologically: the beginning here is not only temporal or ordinal, but source-near, origin-bearing.
So this point keeps the exposition from collapsing into trivial grammar. The word ādya opens toward origin, not just order. That is exactly the right preparation for the next step, where the phonemes will be grounded in parā-vāk itself.
Even so, what is being determined here is that this is the ground of parā-vāk for these phonemes
tathāpi amīṣāṃ varṇānāṃ parāvāgbhūmiriyamiha nirṇīyate
“Even so, what is being determined here is that this is the ground of parā-vāk for these phonemes.”
Abhinava now states plainly where the exposition is going. All the discussion of a, ath, and ādya is not an exercise in lexical finesse for its own sake. The real point is that the verse is determining the parā-vāk-ground of these phonemes. That is, the letters are being traced back to their highest and most inward field.
This is the decisive shift. Once that is seen, the verse can no longer be read as a mere phonetic catalog. The phonemes are being located in their source, and that source is not a conventional linguistic system, but parā-vāk, the supreme speech-ground. So the question is no longer “which letters come first?” but “in what supreme field do these letters truly stand?”
That is why the previous refinement of ādya mattered. The beginning here is not just order; it is proximity to origin. And now Abhinava makes the origin explicit: the phonemes are being determined in relation to parā-vāk. This is where the verse begins to open from sound into metaphysics.
There alone their non-conventional, eternal, unconstructed form is nothing but consciousness itself
yatraiva
eṣāmasāmayikaṃ nityamakṛtrimaṃ saṃvinmayameva rūpaṃ
“For there alone, their non-conventional, eternal, unconstructed form is nothing but consciousness itself.”
Abhinava now says what the parā-vāk-ground of the phonemes actually means. Their true form is not conventional, not merely linguistic, not dependent on agreed signs or human arrangement. It is asāmayika — not of the order of convention; nitya — eternal; akṛtrima — unmade, unconstructed. And that true form is saṃvinmaya — made of consciousness itself.
This is the point where the verse fully leaves ordinary philology behind. Letters as such may later appear in grammar, recitation, speech, writing, and sound-sequence. But Abhinava is now talking about what they are before all that — or rather, what they always are at their deepest level. Their reality is not exhausted by phonetics. Their real body is consciousness.
That is why the previous point mattered so much. Once the phonemes are grounded in parā-vāk, their true form can no longer be treated as mere articulated sound. Abhinava is saying: if you want to know what these letters truly are, you must know them in the field where they are eternal, unconstructed, and identical with consciousness itself.
And in that consciousness-body, the all-in-all nature of everything is ever fully arisen
saṃvinmaye ca vapuṣi sarvasarvātmakatā satatoditaiva
“And in that consciousness-body, the all-in-all nature of everything is ever fully arisen.”
Abhinava now widens the claim. It is not only that the phonemes, in their deepest truth, are consciousness-made. He adds that in this saṃvinmaya vapus, this consciousness-body, there is sarva-sarvātmakatā — the all-in-all nature of everything — and it is satatoditā eva, ever already arisen, always manifest.
This is a very dense sentence. It means that consciousness is not an empty backdrop in which separate things later appear. Nor is it a bare universal standing apart from particulars. In that consciousness-body, everything is already present in its all-containing and all-interpenetrating reality. The whole field of manifestation is not externally assembled there; it is always already implicit and risen within it.
So the movement is becoming clearer. First the phonemes are grounded in parā-vāk. Then their true form is shown to be eternal, unconstructed consciousness. Now Abhinava says that this consciousness-body is not poor, abstract, or featureless. It is the living plenitude in which everything is already everything — not by confusion, but by the ever-arisen fullness of the one field.
That is the supreme Lady, Parābhaṭṭārikā
sā ca parameśvarī parābhaṭṭārikā
“And she is the supreme Lady, Parābhaṭṭārikā.”
Abhinava now names that consciousness-body directly. What has just been described — the non-conventional, eternal, unconstructed consciousness-form in which the all-in-all nature of everything is ever arisen — is not left as an abstract metaphysical principle. She is that: Parameśvarī, the supreme Lady, Parābhaṭṭārikā.
This matters because the text refuses to let the highest reality become a sterile philosophical category. The ground of phonemes, speech, manifestation, and all-containing consciousness is not an impersonal blank. It is the Goddess. And not in a decorative or secondary way, but as the very name of that supreme field itself.
So this point gives the previous metaphysics its proper face. The consciousness-body is not empty neutrality. It is Parābhaṭṭārikā — the supreme sovereign feminine reality in whom the entire unfolding of sound and manifestation is rooted.
Within that unsurpassed non-difference are also contained paśyantī and the other levels, unfolding as Parāparābhaṭṭārikā and beyond
tathāvidhaniratiśayābhedabhāginyapi paśyantyādikāḥ
[mayurāṇḍarasanyāyena parā vaṭadhānikānyāyena paśyantī māṣaśamikānyāyena madhyamā tataḥ paraṃ vaikharī |]
parāparābhaṭṭārikādisphārarūpā
“And within that very unsurpassed non-difference are also the levels beginning with paśyantī, unfolding as Parāparābhaṭṭārikā and the rest.”
Abhinava now makes a decisive move. Even within that absolute, unsurpassed abheda — the non-difference of Parābhaṭṭārikā herself — the later levels of speech are already present: paśyantī and the rest. That means the emergence of differentiated expression does not begin outside the supreme. It is already contained within her.
The bracketed analogies make the movement concrete: parā, paśyantī, madhyamā, and then vaikharī are not separate substances thrown one after another onto the stage. They are stages of unfolding, increasingly explicit modes of what was already there in condensed form. So when Abhinava says they appear as Parāparābhaṭṭārikā and beyond, he means that the later expressive levels are expansions of the same supreme ground, not departures from it.
This matters a lot. A weaker mind hears “Parābhaṭṭārikā” and imagines a static summit, then hears “paśyantī, madhyamā, vaikharī” and imagines a fall into lower zones. Abhinava does not allow that. The whole gradation of speech is already enfolded within the supreme non-difference. Manifest articulation is expansion, not exile.
These contain within themselves the womb of endless particularity and variation
antaḥkṛtya tattadanantavaicitryagarbhamayī
“And, having contained within themselves that endless diversity of particular forms, they are womb-like with infinite variety.”
Abhinava now makes explicit what was already implied in the previous point. The later levels of speech — paśyantī and the rest, unfolding from within Parābhaṭṭārikā — are not empty transitional stages. They are garbhamayī, womb-filled, pregnant with ananta-vaicitrya, endless variety and differentiation.
That is crucial. The supreme non-difference does not exclude multiplicity. It contains it in seed, in potency, in inward form. And the unfolding levels of speech are precisely the place where that latent plurality begins to articulate itself without ever leaving its source. So the many are not imported from outside. They are already held within the one as possibility, pressure, and future unfolding.
This point deepens the whole metaphysical picture. Parābhaṭṭārikā is not a blank summit beyond all articulation. Nor are paśyantī and the subsequent levels thin abstractions. They are fertile, dense, and internally charged with the whole coming spread of differentiated manifestation. The one is womb-like precisely because the many are already there in living potential.
For it is reasonable that nothing exists anywhere that is not already there
nahi tatra yannāsti tat kvāpyasti iti nyāyyam
“For it is not reasonable that what is not there should exist anywhere else.”
Abhinava now states the governing principle with stark simplicity. The reason the later levels of speech can contain endless differentiation is that the supreme ground cannot be lacking anything that appears later. If something were not there, it could not be anywhere. That is the logic.
This line is very important because it blocks a common misunderstanding at the root. One might imagine that the many somehow arise later as an addition, that differentiation appears from outside the supreme, or that manifestation introduces something genuinely absent from the source. Abhinava rejects that outright. The source is not a poor beginning later supplemented by plurality. Whatever appears downstream must already be present upstream, at least in a more inward, uncontracted, or womb-like mode.
So this point gives the metaphysical reason for everything just said. Parābhaṭṭārikā and the levels enfolded within her are fertile with endless variety because the source cannot be missing what later appears. The many do not come from outside. They come from the inexhaustibility of what was already there.
A practical analogy may help here. In embryonic development, later articulated structures are not imported from outside as alien additions. They unfold from what was already present in a more inward and implicit way. The eye, the limb, the nervous system were not yet visibly manifest at the beginning, but neither were they nowhere. They were latent within the developmental ground. Abhinava’s point is similar in principle: the endless variety of manifestation can appear later only because it was already contained earlier, not yet in differentiated display, but in a more inward, womb-like mode.
She is the first awareness, the divine consciousness called pratibhā, free from even the slightest stain of contraction and impurity
parāmṛśata ca prathamāṃ
pratibhābhidhānāṃ saṃkocakalaṅkakāluṣyaleśaśūnyāṃ bhagavatīṃ saṃvidam |
“And one should apprehend the first divine consciousness, called pratibhā, the blessed awareness free from even the slightest trace of the stain of contraction and impurity.”
Abhinava now names the supreme consciousness in a more experiential and luminous way. One should apprehend the first — prathamā — not merely first in a numerical or sequential sense, but first as the primordial flashing of awareness from which all later articulation becomes possible. And this first divine consciousness is called pratibhā.
That name matters. It suggests a living flash, a self-revealing brilliance, not a dead metaphysical substrate. This is not blank being, not a neutral universal, not an empty abstraction. It is bhagavatī saṃvid, the blessed, divine consciousness itself. And Abhinava defines it with great precision: it is free from even the slightest trace of the stain of contraction and impurity. Not merely less contracted than lower levels, but utterly without even a residue of contraction.
This fits everything that has been built up in the preceding points. The phonemes have been traced back to parā-vāk; their true form has been shown to be eternal, unconstructed consciousness; Parābhaṭṭārikā has been named as that supreme field; paśyantī and the other levels have been shown to be already enfolded within it; endless differentiation is already wombed there. Now Abhinava names that same supreme field as pratibhā — the first pure flash of consciousness, untouched by contraction, yet already holding the whole later spread within itself.
So this point gives the section a more direct experiential center. The source is not only the metaphysical ground of sound and manifestation. It is the first divine luminosity itself — pratibhā.
The gloss explains that the stability of objects in consciousness is not established by resting in bare undifferentiated consciousness alone, but through the one knower containing distinct cognitions and determinations
[atrāyaṃ bhāvaḥ | saṃvinniṣṭhā viṣayavyavāsthitayaḥ iti siddhāntoktiḥ tacca na
bhinnarūpapramātmakasaṃvinmātraviśrāntyā siddhyati api tu
tattadvibhinnaniścayādirūpapramātmadvāreṇa amī bhāvā yadi caikasminneva ahamiti
svarūpe tiṣṭhanti anyathā arthānāṃ jaḍānāṃ tajjñānānāṃ tadvikalpānāṃ
tanniścayānāṃ deśakālakramiṇāṃ svarūpamātrapratiṣṭhānāṃ na kaścit
samanvayaḥ syāt | uktaṃ ceśvarapratyabhijñāyām
tattadvibhinnasaṃvittimukhairekapramātari |
pratitiṣṭhatsu bhāveṣu jñāteyamupapadyate ||]
“[The sense here is this: the settled ordering of objects is said in the doctrine to be grounded in consciousness. But this is not established by resting in mere undifferentiated consciousness alone, devoid of distinct knowers and forms. Rather, these entities are established through the one knower by means of the distinct determinations corresponding to each of them. For if these entities were to stand only in the one nature ‘I,’ then otherwise there would be no coherence at all among inert objects, their cognitions, their conceptual constructions, their determinations, and their ordered relation to place, time, and sequence, while resting only in their bare form. Thus it is said in the Īśvarapratyabhijñā:
‘When entities are established in the one knower through the gateways of distinct cognitions corresponding to each of them, then this explanatory account becomes possible.’]”
This gloss is there to prevent a serious misunderstanding. After naming the first divine consciousness as pratibhā, free from even the slightest stain of contraction, Abhinava does not want the reader to collapse everything into a featureless absolute where all distinctions are just erased in one flat mass. So the gloss says: yes, the settled order of objects is grounded in consciousness — but not in the sense that everything is explained by bare undifferentiated consciousness alone.
That is a crucial precision. The one knower is indeed the ground. But the many stand within that one knower through distinct cognitions and determinations corresponding to them. Otherwise the world becomes unintelligible. There would be no coherent relation among inert objects, the cognitions of them, the conceptualizations built on them, the judgments about them, and the whole ordered field of place, time, and sequence. In other words: nonduality does not mean the abolition of articulation. It means the one knower is the ground in which articulated multiplicity can stand coherently.
This is one of Abhinava’s great strengths. He refuses both fragmentation and blank undifferentiation. He will not let the many become self-standing, but he also will not let the one become an empty sameness that cannot account for the world. The gloss protects pratibhā from being misunderstood as a dead homogeneous absolute. It is the pure first consciousness in which the many can stand without ever falling outside the one.
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