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| A symbolic image of seed-like currents surrounding a yoni-shaped field, evoking Śiva as bīja and Śakti as the womb of speech and manifestation. |
The previous chunk unfolded the doctrine of reflection and reversal in Parāparā / Paśyantī. Parā remains unbroken supreme fullness, but in the mirror of Parāparā the tattva-order can appear reversed without becoming alien to consciousness. The reflected order is not contradiction; it is the supreme appearing through a mirror-like mode. That allowed Abhinava to explain why earth can be assigned to kṣa, why the alphabetic body matters, and why the kṣa-based arrangement belongs to the śodhya-field.
Now he turns to another layer of the same movement: speech itself.
He begins by reminding the reader not to forget the three Goddesses in Parameśvarī Parāsaṃvid. This is important because the discussion is now moving through Parā, Parāparā, and the Madhyamā field. The question is no longer only how tattvas reflect in Parāparā, but how speech, letters, signifier, signified, seed, womb, Śiva, and Śakti operate inside that reflected manifestation.
The central field here is Madhyamā. Madhyamā is not gross spoken speech like Vaikharī, but neither is she the unreflected fullness of Parā. She belongs to the Īśvara-level, to Kriyāśakti, and she is involved in the relation between vācaka and vācya — signifier and signified. This is where language begins to function as a real power of manifestation, not merely as human communication.
Abhinava’s point is very subtle: the signifier can cover, reveal, or superimpose itself on the signified only because both are universal in nature. A word can name the world only because word and world are not absolutely alien. If the signifier were too small, partial, or externally related to the signified, it could not cover it — just as a cloth too small by even a few fingers cannot cover another cloth. Language works because speech and reality interpenetrate.
Then he gives the Śaiva form of this relation: vowels are bīja, seed, and consonants are yoni, womb. The vowels are Śiva-like, signifying, knower-oriented. The consonants are Śakti-like, signified, womb-like, the field of manifestation. But this is not crude separation. The womb unfolds from the seed; Śakti expands from Śiva; consonantal manifestation grows from vowel-seed. When the seed and womb are properly mixed, all fruits arise — both bhoga and apavarga, enjoyment and liberation.
This could create another anxiety: if seed-letter remains itself and womb-letter remains itself, what actually differentiates anything? Abhinava’s answer is not to collapse speech into flat sameness. He says: we speak of one gīr, one speech, whose nature is consciousness and which is pregnant with infinite variety. Speech is one, but not empty; one, but carrying endless articulation.
The closing citations drive the point home. No cognition in the world exists without the accompaniment of word. And if the eternal speech-form were removed from awareness, light itself would not shine, because speech is pratyavamarśinī — the power of reflective self-apprehension. This is the heart of the chunk: speech is not an accessory added to consciousness. Speech is consciousness’s own power to know, articulate, and recognize itself.
Three Goddesses are present in Parameśvarī Parāsaṃvid
pārameśvaryāṃ parasaṃvidi devatāstisra iti yaduktaṃ tat tāvanna prasmartumarhanti tatrabhavantaḥ
“What was said — that in Parameśvarī, the supreme consciousness, there are three Goddesses — this, venerable ones, should not be forgotten.”
Abhinava begins by warning the reader not to lose the earlier key. In Pārameśvarī Parāsaṃvid, the supreme consciousness of Parameśvarī, there are three Goddesses. This is not a decorative Trika formula placed in the background. It is the structural key for everything that now follows.
The reader has just been led through reflection, reversal, Parāparā, Paśyantī, the kṣa-based order, the alphabet-body, and the śodhya-field. After so many technical distinctions, it is easy to become lost in the machinery and forget the living triadic ground. Abhinava says: do not forget this. The whole discussion still takes place inside Parameśvarī’s own supreme consciousness, where the three Goddesses are present.
This matters because he is about to discuss Madhyamā, speech, signifier and signified, vowels and consonants, seed and womb. Without remembering the three Goddesses, this could become dry linguistic metaphysics. But for Abhinava, speech is not a neutral system of signs. It is the self-articulation of Śakti. Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā are not abstract categories; they are living powers of consciousness by which the supreme becomes speech, mantra, world, and recognition.
So this opening point is a recollection of the center. Before entering the complex analysis of Madhyamā and the relation of word and object, the reader must remember: all of this belongs to the triadic life of Parameśvarī. The Goddesses are not outside the analysis. They are the very powers that make analysis, speech, signification, and manifestation possible.
The discussion now concerns Madhyamā within Parāsaṃvid, where Parāparābhaṭṭārikā expands
evaṃ ca parasaṃvidantarvartini madhyamāpade parāparābhaṭṭārikāvijṛmbhāspade sthitirvimṛśyate
“And thus, the state is now reflected upon in the Madhyamā level, which exists within Parāsaṃvid and is the field where Parāparābhaṭṭārikā expands.”
Abhinava now places the discussion in its proper field: Madhyamā, but not Madhyamā as an isolated speech-level. It is parasaṃvid-antarvartinī — existing within Parāsaṃvid, within supreme consciousness itself. This is essential. Even as the text moves into speech, signifier, signified, vowels, consonants, seed, and womb, it has not left the supreme field. Madhyamā is not outside Parā. She is a movement inside Her.
At the same time, Madhyamā is the vijṛmbhāspada of Parāparābhaṭṭārikā — the place where Parāparā expands, unfolds, opens herself. This connects directly with the previous mirror doctrine. Parā is unreflected fullness. Parāparā is the beginning of reflective manifestation. Madhyamā is the speech-field in which this reflective power expands toward articulation.
So the movement is very precise. In Paśyantī, distinction begins as a subtle mirror-like flashing. In Madhyamā, that inner reflection becomes more structured as speech. Not yet external spoken word, not yet Vaikharī, but already a field where meaning, word, signifier, and signified begin to interpenetrate. The Goddess is beginning to become speakable.
This is why the point is not merely linguistic. Madhyamā is where consciousness begins to articulate its own reflected fullness from within. Parāparābhaṭṭārikā expands here as the inner body of speech, before gross utterance, before external language, before the world hardens into named objects. Speech is still inward, but the universe is already becoming word-shaped.
So Abhinava is preparing the next movement: the relation between vācaka and vācya, signifier and signified. That relation can exist only because Madhyamā is not a dead mental layer, but the inner expansion of Parāparā inside Parāsaṃvid. Speech begins inside the Goddess before it ever reaches the tongue.
Madhyamā belongs to Kriyāśakti and the Īśvara-level
madhyamā tāvatsvādhikārapade kriyāśaktyātmani aiśvare pade
“Now Madhyamā, in her own proper domain, belongs to the Īśvara-level, whose nature is Kriyāśakti.”
Abhinava now places Madhyamā more exactly. She is not merely “inner speech” in the ordinary psychological sense. She has her own adhikāra-pada, her proper domain, and that domain is aiśvara — belonging to Īśvara. More specifically, it is kriyāśaktyātman, whose nature is Kriyāśakti, the power of action, expression, and manifestation.
This is important because Madhyamā is the level where speech has begun to move toward articulation, but has not yet become gross utterance. In Parā, speech is undivided. In Paśyantī, the mirror-like seeing of manifestation begins. In Madhyamā, the inner structure of expression becomes more active. Meaning, word, signifier, and signified begin to take operative form.
So her placement in Kriyāśakti is exact. Speech is not merely a passive representation of reality. Speech acts. It articulates, reveals, covers, connects, names, forms mantra, establishes relation. Madhyamā is therefore not just a subtle mental layer before spoken language. She is the inner action-power of consciousness as it prepares manifestation for communicable and mantraic form.
And because this level is Īśvara-pada, it belongs to the state where “this” becomes more clearly displayed before the divine “I.” That fits perfectly. In Sadāśiva, the “this” is still dim within “I.” In Īśvara, the “this” becomes clearer, more available to knowledge and expression. Madhyamā operates precisely there: not yet externalized, but already shaped enough for speech and meaning to emerge.
So Abhinava is preparing the next step. If Madhyamā belongs to Kriyāśakti in the Īśvara-level, then she will naturally involve the relation between vācaka and vācya — signifier and signified. Speech begins to function because consciousness has entered the mode where the world can be internally articulated.
Madhyamā is the form of knowing that conceals the clearly knowable
sphuṭavedyapracchādakavedanarūpā
“She has the form of a knowing that conceals the clearly knowable.”
Abhinava now gives a striking definition of Madhyamā. She is not merely the middle level between Paśyantī and Vaikharī. She is vedana-rūpā — a form of knowing — but this knowing has a peculiar function: it conceals the clearly knowable, sphuṭa-vedya-pracchādaka.
This sounds paradoxical. Why would knowing conceal? But this is exactly the nature of Madhyamā. At this level, the object is not absent; the vedya, the knowable, has already become clear enough to be internally articulated. Yet instead of appearing nakedly as object, it is covered by the movement of speech, meaning, and signification. The word begins to stand over the thing. The signifier begins to wrap the signified.
This is not yet gross spoken speech. It is subtler. Madhyamā is inward speech, where the relation between word and object is already forming before external utterance. But precisely because the word-form begins to operate, the object is no longer simply given in its own immediate clarity. It is mediated. It is clothed in meaning. The knowable becomes covered by the knowing that articulates it.
This prepares the next point: vācye vācakam adhyasyate — the signifier is superimposed on the signified. Madhyamā is the level where this superimposition becomes possible. Consciousness does not merely see “this.” It begins to know “this-as-sayable,” “this-as-nameable,” “this-as-meaning-bearing.” The object becomes internally worded.
So Abhinava is not criticizing Madhyamā as falsehood. He is showing her function. She conceals by articulating. She covers by making intelligible. She is the inner speech-power through which the clearly knowable becomes wrapped in the structure of meaning, and therefore becomes available for mantra, word, and later Vaikharī expression.
The signifier is superimposed on the signified
vācye vācakaṃ tatrāpi vācyamadhyasyate
“In the signified, the signifier is superimposed; and there too, the signified is superimposed.”
Abhinava now enters the relation between vācya and vācaka — the signified and the signifier, the object/meaning and the word that expresses it. In Madhyamā, the clearly knowable is concealed by the form of knowing; now he explains how this happens: the signifier is superimposed on the signified.
This is very close to ordinary experience. We almost never encounter a thing as mute, bare, unworded presence. We see “tree,” “body,” “pot,” “enemy,” “friend,” “mine,” “danger,” “sacred.” The word-form, the meaning-form, the signifying power, covers the thing. The object becomes internally named before any external speech appears. This is Madhyamā: the world already becoming word-shaped inside consciousness.
But Abhinava adds the reverse too: tatrāpi vācyam adhyasyate — there too, the signified is superimposed. The relation is not one-sided. The word does not merely cover the object from outside. The object also enters the word. The signified inhabits the signifier. A word is not an empty sound floating apart from meaning; it carries the object-field within it.
So speech and world interpenetrate. The signifier covers the signified; the signified fills the signifier. This is why language can function at all in Abhinava’s vision. Word and meaning are not two alien substances joined by arbitrary convention. Their relation is rooted in consciousness itself, where speech and manifestation are mutually infused.
This point prepares the next argument. Such superimposition can work only if both sides are sufficiently universal. A tiny cloth cannot cover a large cloth. Likewise, a limited signifier could not cover a universal signified unless it too had universal scope. Language works because, at its root, both word and world belong to one consciousness-body.
Superimposition works only if signifier and signified are both universal in scope
Abhinava now explains why the superimposition of signifier and signified is possible at all. If the vācya, the signified, is viśvātman, universal, having the nature of the whole, then the vācaka, the signifier, must also be universal. A limited word could not truly cover or enter a universal object. A small signifier could not embrace the whole field of meaning unless it too had the nature of the whole.
This is a very strong claim about speech. Language does not work merely because human beings agree to attach sounds to things. At the deepest level, word and meaning can interpenetrate because both belong to the same universal consciousness-body. The signified is not dead matter waiting outside speech; the signifier is not an arbitrary label thrown onto it from outside. Both are forms of Śakti.
That is why Abhinava speaks of parampara-ācchādana-miśrībhāva — mutual covering and intermixture. The word covers the object; the object enters the word. Meaning inhabits sound, and sound shapes meaning. Speech and world are mutually folded into one another. This is why a mantra can touch a tattva, why a word can reveal a reality, why language can be more than social convention.
But this works only if both sides are universal in root. If the signifier were merely partial, external, or local, it could not carry the signified. It would be like trying to cover a vast field with a small cloth. The relation would fail. So Abhinava says na tv anyathā — not otherwise.
This continues the previous point exactly. In Madhyamā, the signifier is superimposed on the signified, and the signified is superimposed in the signifier. Now we see why: because at this level speech and reality are not two alien orders. They are two modes of one universal consciousness beginning to articulate itself.
A cloth too small cannot cover another cloth
nahi tricaturaṅgulanyūnatāmātre'pi paṭaḥ paṭāntarācchādakaḥ syāt
“For a cloth, even if smaller by only three or four finger-widths, cannot cover another cloth.”
Abhinava now gives a very concrete image. If one cloth is even slightly smaller than another — lacking only three or four finger-widths — it cannot fully cover it. The point is simple, but it carries the whole argument about vācaka and vācya, signifier and signified.
If the signified is universal, if the object-field is viśvātman, having the nature of the whole, then the signifier must also be universal. Otherwise it cannot cover it. A partial word could not truly cover a universal reality. A merely local sound could not embrace the whole field of meaning. If word and meaning were externally joined, like a small cloth thrown over something too large, the relation would fail.
So the cloth analogy makes the previous metaphysical claim almost physical. A signifier can cover the signified only because, at the level of Madhyamā, word and object are not alien to one another. The word has enough scope to cover the thing because both arise inside the same universal consciousness. Speech can touch reality because speech is not outside reality.
This also explains why ordinary language is only the surface of a much deeper power. At the Vaikharī level, words may look like conventional sounds. But in Madhyamā, the word is already a universal form of consciousness capable of entering the object and being entered by it. The signifier and signified can interpenetrate because both are woven from the same Śakti.
So the analogy is deliberately humble: a cloth must be large enough to cover another cloth. In the same way, speech must be universal enough to cover the universe. Otherwise mantra, naming, teaching, and even ordinary cognition would have no deep basis.
Universal nature arises through the mutual intermixture of signifier and signified
viśvātmakatvaṃ ca parasparasvarūpavyāmiśratayā syāt
“And this universal nature exists through the mutual intermixture of their own natures.”
Abhinava now states the inner reason why signifier and signified can cover one another. Their viśvātmakatva, their universal nature, arises through paraspara-svarūpa-vyāmiśratā — the mutual intermixture of their own natures. Word and meaning are not two sealed substances that later get connected by convention. They are already internally mixed at the level of consciousness.
This is the heart of the argument. The signifier can cover the signified because it is not alien to it. The signified can enter the signifier because it is not outside speech. In Madhyamā, word and object are still close to their common source; their distinction has begun, but it has not hardened into the crude separation we experience in ordinary language. Meaning is already word-shaped, and word is already meaning-bearing.
So when we speak, name, think, or understand, this is not merely a human agreement pasted onto reality. At the deepest level, speech and world are two movements of the same Śakti. The world is sayable because it is already touched by speech. Speech is meaningful because it already carries the world inside itself.
This is why Abhinava’s language theory cannot be reduced to linguistics. He is not only asking how words refer to objects. He is showing how consciousness becomes both word and object, signifier and signified, knower and known. Their mutual intermixture is what allows manifestation to become intelligible at all.
So this point continues the cloth analogy. A small cloth cannot cover a larger one. A partial word cannot cover a universal reality. But if word and world are mutually infused forms of one consciousness, then signification becomes possible. Speech can cover the universe because speech, in its root, is universal too.
Vowels are seed-signifiers, consonants are womb-signifieds
bījātmanāṃ svarāṇāṃ vācakatvaṃ yonirūpāṇāṃ ca vyañjanānāṃ vācyatvaṃ - krameṇa śivaśaktyātmakatvāt
“The vowels, being seed-natured, have the status of signifiers; and the consonants, being womb-formed, have the status of signifieds — because, respectively, they have the nature of Śiva and Śakti.”
Abhinava now gives the Śaiva structure beneath the relation of signifier and signified. The svaras, vowels, are bīja, seed. Therefore they function as vācaka, signifiers — the expressive, indicating, revealing side. The vyañjanas, consonants, are yoni, womb. Therefore they function as vācya, signified — the field to be expressed, manifested, formed, and unfolded.
This is not arbitrary phonetics. Vowels are treated as more subtle, more open, more self-sounding. They carry the seed-power of speech. Consonants need the vowel to become fully pronounceable; they are shaped, articulated, differentiated, and manifesting. So the vowel acts like seed; the consonant like womb. Speech itself becomes a Śiva-Śakti structure.
The reason is stated clearly: krameṇa śivaśaktyātmakatvāt — because they are respectively of the nature of Śiva and Śakti. Śiva is the seed as consciousness, the signifying power, the luminous knower-side. Śakti is the womb as manifestation, the signified field, the power into which expression expands. But again, this is not separation. Seed and womb are meaningful only in relation. Śiva does not remain sterile seed; Śakti does not stand as empty womb. Their union generates the body of speech.
This continues the previous argument about vācaka and vācya. Word and meaning interpenetrate because they are rooted in Śiva and Śakti. The vowel-signifier and consonant-signified are not two unrelated linguistic elements. They are the phonetic body of the same cosmic polarity: consciousness expressing and consciousness becoming expressed.
So Abhinava is showing why mantra works at such a deep level. Letters are not dead marks. Vowels and consonants carry the structure of manifestation itself: seed and womb, Śiva and Śakti, signifier and signified, knower and knowable. Speech is the universe beginning to articulate its own Śiva-Śakti body.
Śiva is seed and Śakti is womb
bījamatra śivaḥ śaktiryonirityabhidhīyate | iti
“Here, Śiva is called the seed, and Śakti is called the womb.”
Abhinava now supports the vowel/consonant distinction with scriptural authority. Śiva is bīja, seed. Śakti is yoni, womb. This is not biological symbolism used loosely; it is a precise metaphysical image for how manifestation becomes possible.
The seed is compact, concentrated, containing the power of manifestation in an undivided form. This is why it corresponds to Śiva and to the vowels. The vowel is open, self-sounding, able to enliven consonants. Without the vowel, the consonant remains incomplete as pronounceable sound. In the same way, Śiva is the concentrated luminous principle, the seed of articulation.
Śakti is yoni, womb, because She is the field in which the seed expands, differentiates, takes body, becomes manifold. This corresponds to the consonants. Consonants articulate, shape, limit, form, and give body to sound. They are the womb-field in which the seed of speech becomes structured manifestation.
But the point is not separation. A seed without womb does not become a living form. A womb without seed does not manifest that form. The two are meaningful only together. Śiva and Śakti are not two independent substances joined later; they are the two poles of one self-articulating consciousness. Seed and womb name their functional polarity inside manifestation.
So the verse gives the deep ground for the speech doctrine. The relation between vowels and consonants, signifier and signified, word and object, is not arbitrary. It rests on Śiva and Śakti themselves: consciousness as seed, manifestation as womb, the one becoming articulated through the other without ceasing to be one.
Śrīpūrva teaches the twofold division of seed and womb
tathā
bījayonyātmakādbhedāddvidhā bījaṃ svarā matāḥ |
kādibhiśca smṛtā yoniḥ * * * * * * * * (?) ||
iti śrīpūrvaśāstranirūpaṇāt
“Likewise, according to the explanation of the Śrīpūrva-śāstra:
‘Because the division has the nature of seed and womb, it is twofold.
The vowels are regarded as seed, and the womb is remembered as beginning with ka…’”
Abhinava now supports the same Śiva-Śakti structure through the Śrīpūrva. The alphabet is divided into bīja and yoni, seed and womb. The svaras, vowels, are seed. The consonantal series beginning with ka is womb. This confirms that the distinction between vowels and consonants is not merely grammatical. It is a metaphysical division inside the body of speech.
The vowels are seed because they carry the open, enlivening, Śiva-like power of sound. A consonant cannot fully sound without a vowel; it requires that living pulse to become pronounceable. The seed is compact power, the concentrated possibility of articulation. It is not yet the full formed body, but it contains the potency by which form can arise.
The consonants are womb because they receive, shape, differentiate, and give body to that seed-power. The consonantal body from ka onward is the field where sound becomes structured, articulated, manifold. The womb is not passive in a dead sense. It is formative. It is the matrix in which the seed becomes expressible as the body of mantra and speech.
So this scriptural citation tightens the previous point. Śiva is seed, Śakti is womb. Vowels are seed, consonants are womb. Signifier and signified, word and meaning, knower and knowable — all of these are being rooted in one Śiva-Śakti polarity. Speech is not arbitrary sound; it is the living union of seed-consciousness and womb-manifestation.
Śiva, not abandoning the status of knower, is the signifier
śiva eva hi pramātṛbhāvamatyajan vācakaḥ syāt
“For Śiva alone, not abandoning the state of the knower, becomes the signifier.”
Abhinava now identifies the deeper ground of the vācaka, the signifier. The signifier is not merely a sound that points to an object. At its root, the signifier is Śiva Himself, because signification belongs to the side of the pramātṛ, the knower.
The phrase pramātṛbhāvam atyajan is crucial — “not abandoning the state of knower.” Śiva becomes signifier without ceasing to be the conscious subject. He does not fall into objecthood in order to express. He remains the luminous knower, the one from whom articulation proceeds. This is why the vowels, as seed, were said to be Śiva-natured: they carry the signifying power of consciousness before it is fully shaped into manifested form.
So the signifier is not an arbitrary label imposed from outside. It is the knower’s power to express, reveal, and make intelligible. A word signifies because consciousness, as Śiva, has the power to take the form of indication while still remaining the one who knows. Speech is not separate from the pramātṛ; it is the knower’s own expressive movement.
This also clarifies why language is so central for Abhinava. If Śiva Himself is the root of vācaka, then speech is not a secondary human tool. At its deepest level, speech is the self-expression of the knower-consciousness. The word points because Śiva, remaining the knower, shines as the power of pointing.
Śakti, entering the object-aspect, is the signified
prameyāṃśāvagāhinī ca śaktireva vācyā
“And Śakti alone, entering into the object-aspect, is the signified.”
After identifying Śiva as the vācaka, the signifier, because He does not abandon the status of the knower, Abhinava now gives the corresponding pole: Śakti is the vācya, the signified, because She enters the prameya-aṃśa, the object-aspect.
This does not mean Śakti is reduced to a passive object. That would be a crude reading. Śakti is the power by which the object-aspect becomes manifest at all. She enters the field of knowability, makes Herself available as what can be indicated, expressed, named, formed, and revealed. The signified is not dead matter lying outside consciousness. It is Śakti as manifestation.
So the structure is exact: Śiva remains the knower and therefore the signifying power; Śakti enters the knowable aspect and therefore becomes the signified. But both are still one consciousness. Word and meaning, signifier and signified, knower and known, are not two alien worlds. They are Śiva and Śakti functioning as two poles of the same self-articulation.
This is why speech can actually touch reality. If the signified were something utterly outside consciousness, words would only hover over it externally. But because the signified is Śakti Herself entering the object-aspect, speech reaches the world from within the same divine body. The word signifies because Śiva speaks; the object is signified because Śakti becomes manifest.
Even in difference, the signifier remains inseparable from the knower
bhede'pi hi vācakaḥ pratipādyapratipādakobhayarūpapramātṛsvarūpāvicchinna eva prathate
“For even in difference, the signifier appears only as inseparable from the nature of the knower, who has the form of both what is to be taught and what teaches.”
Abhinava now prevents the Śiva–Śakti distinction from becoming crude dualism. Śiva is the signifier; Śakti is the signified. Śiva remains the knower; Śakti enters the object-aspect. But even when there is bheda, difference, the vācaka, the signifier, does not become separate from the pramātṛ, the knower.
This is very important. A signifier is not merely a sound outside the act of knowing. It appears as inseparable from the conscious subject who both understands and expresses. The knower contains both sides: pratipādya, what is to be conveyed, and pratipādaka, what conveys it. Meaning and expression meet in the pramātṛ. The knower is not a passive observer standing outside speech; the knower is the living center in which word and meaning become joined.
So even when speech has entered difference — word here, meaning there; signifier here, signified there — this difference is still held inside consciousness. The signifier shines only because the knower’s nature is present in it. Without the pramātṛ, the word would not signify; it would be mere sound. Without consciousness, meaning would not be meaning; it would not appear at all.
This continues Abhinava’s larger movement. Difference is real as function, but it is not isolation. Śiva as signifier and Śakti as signified are distinct in operation, but inseparable in consciousness. The word teaches, the meaning is taught, and the knower is the field in which both are alive. Speech works because the one consciousness becomes both expression and expressed, while never fully splitting from itself.
The Śākta consonant-womb expands from the Śiva-vowel seed
śivātmakasvarabījarūpā śyānataiva śāktavyañjanayonibhāvo - bījādeva yoneḥ prasaraṇāt iti - samanantarameva nirṇeṣyāmaḥ
“The expanded state of the vowel-seed, whose nature is Śiva, is precisely the Śākta condition of the consonant-womb — because the womb expands from the seed. This we shall determine immediately afterward.”
Abhinava now tightens the relation between vowels and consonants, seed and womb, Śiva and Śakti. The consonant-womb is not something separate from the vowel-seed. It is the śyānatā, the expanded, spread-out, thickened state of the vowel-seed itself. The seed becomes womb by expansion.
This is very important. If we hear “vowels are Śiva” and “consonants are Śakti” too crudely, we may imagine two separate principles placed beside each other. But Abhinava does not allow that. The Śākta consonant-body is the expansion of the Śiva-vowel seed. Śakti is not outside Śiva; She is Śiva’s own power unfolding. The womb is not alien to the seed; it is the field into which the seed expands and becomes manifest.
So the relation is not mechanical union between two external things. It is internal unfolding. The vowel is seed because it carries the compact power of expression. The consonant is womb because it gives that power body, articulation, differentiation. But the womb itself arises from the seed’s expansion. Speech becomes manifold because the seed of consciousness spreads into the womb of manifestation.
This also explains why signifier and signified are mutually mixed. Śiva as signifier and Śakti as signified are not two sealed substances. The signified world expands from the signifying seed of consciousness. Meaning unfolds from the power of expression itself. The consonantal universe is the vowel-seed becoming formed.
Abhinava says he will determine this immediately afterward, so he is marking this as a point to be unfolded more fully. For now, the essential movement is clear: the speech-body is generated from within. Śiva-seed expands as Śakti-womb; vowel opens into consonant; consciousness becomes articulated as mantra, word, and world.
When the womb is mixed with the vowel-seed, all fruits arise effortlessly
“Therefore, if the womb is mixed with the seed whose nature is the vowel, then the arising of all its fruits is, indeed, effortless.”
Abhinava now draws the practical consequence of the seed–womb doctrine. If the consonant-womb is the expansion of the Śiva-vowel seed, then when the yoni, the womb, is properly mixed with the svara-ātmaka bīja, the vowel-natured seed, the fruits arise niryatna, without strain.
This is not merely phonetic combination. It is the union of the Śiva-side and Śakti-side of speech. The vowel is the seed, the enlivening consciousness-pulse. The consonant is the womb, the matrix of articulation and manifestation. When they remain disconnected, speech is not fully alive. But when they interpenetrate, the body of mantra becomes fertile.
The phrase samasta-phala-prasava is strong — the birth of all fruits. The womb, touched and filled by the seed, gives rise to the full range of results. This includes not only linguistic meaning, but mantraic power, manifestation, recognition, enjoyment, and liberation. Speech becomes productive because Śiva and Śakti are not merely placed beside one another; they are mixed in one living vibration.
So Abhinava is again refusing a dead theory of language. A mantra is not a mechanical string of sounds. A word is not a random sign. The fruit comes when the seed of consciousness and the womb of manifestation are united in the body of speech. Then speech does not need to force its result from outside. It gives birth naturally, because the structure of manifestation itself is present in it.
Enjoyment and liberation become effortlessly ripened fruits
ityapavargabhogāvakṛṣṭapacyāveva bhavataḥ
“Thus liberation and enjoyment become like fruits ripened without effort.”
Abhinava now names the fruits of the proper union of seed and womb: apavarga and bhoga — liberation and enjoyment. When the vowel-seed and consonant-womb are truly mixed, when Śiva as signifying seed and Śakti as manifesting womb interpenetrate, the result is not forced. The fruits ripen naturally.
This is important because the path is not being described as dry escape from manifestation. The same speech-body, properly understood, gives both bhoga and apavarga. Enjoyment is not rejected as something outside Śakti; liberation is not imagined as a sterile separation from the womb of manifestation. When speech is rooted in the living union of Śiva and Śakti, both worldly experience and release are transformed.
The phrase akṛṣṭa-pacyā is vivid: ripened without being dragged, ploughed, strained, or forced. The fruit matures because the conditions are right. Seed and womb are united; the mantra-body is fertile; speech has become aligned with the structure of consciousness itself. Then the result is not manufactured from outside. It grows from the inner potency of the union.
So Abhinava is again showing why mantra and speech matter. A mantra is powerful not because someone arbitrarily declares it sacred, but because its letters embody the seed-womb relation of Śiva and Śakti. When that relation is awakened, the whole field becomes fertile: experience ripens into bhoga, and bhoga itself can ripen into apavarga.
If seed-letter and womb-letter each remain in themselves, what differentiates anything?
bījavarṇo'pi svātmani yonivarṇo'pi tathaiva - iti kiṃ kasya bhedakam - iti kathyamānaṃ nāsmānākulayet
“If it is said: ‘The seed-letter remains in itself, and the womb-letter likewise remains in itself — so what differentiates anything from anything?’ — this does not disturb us.”
Abhinava now raises the next possible objection. If vowel-seed and consonant-womb are mutually mixed, and if all fruits arise effortlessly from their union, then someone may ask: where is the difference? If the seed-letter remains in its own nature and the womb-letter also remains in its own nature, what actually distinguishes one from another? What makes one letter seed and another womb? What makes one signifier and another signified?
This is the kind of objection that appears whenever Abhinava holds non-difference and articulation together. If everything is one, why are there distinctions? If there are distinctions, how is everything one? If seed and womb interpenetrate, why not collapse them? If each remains itself, why speak of mixing? The mind wants either clean separation or clean identity. Abhinava refuses both.
So he says: this does not disturb us — nāsmān ākulayet. The objection causes no confusion because the answer has already been prepared. Difference is real as function, but it does not imply alienation. Non-difference is real as ground, but it does not erase articulation. Seed and womb can remain distinct in function while belonging to one speech-consciousness.
The next point will give the answer directly: Abhinava speaks of one speech, saṃvidātmikā gīḥ, whose nature is consciousness and which is pregnant with infinite variety. That is the key. Speech is one, but not empty. It is one consciousness full of endless differentiated power. So difference does not need to come from outside unity. It is born inside it.
Abhinava’s answer: one speech, consciousness-natured, pregnant with infinite variety
ye vayamekāṃ tāvadanantacitratāgarbhiṇīṃ tāṃ saṃvidātmikāṃ giraṃ saṃgirāmahe
“We, however, speak of one speech — consciousness-natured, pregnant with infinite variety.”
Abhinava now gives the answer that resolves the apparent problem. If seed-letter remains seed and womb-letter remains womb, if vowel and consonant each have their own nature, then what differentiates anything from anything? His answer is not to deny difference, and not to split speech into many disconnected units. He says: we speak of one speech — ekāṃ giram.
But this one speech is not empty sameness. She is ananta-citratā-garbhiṇī — pregnant with infinite variety. This phrase is powerful. Speech is one because her nature is saṃvid, consciousness. But within that one consciousness-speech lies endless articulation: seed and womb, vowel and consonant, signifier and signified, mantra and word, meaning and object, bhoga and apavarga.
So the difference does not come from outside unity. Difference is carried in the womb of unity. Speech is one, but she is not barren. She is one like the Goddess is one: capable of endless forms without losing Herself.
This is the exact answer to the objection. The seed-letter and womb-letter can remain themselves because the one speech contains real internal articulation. But they do not become alien to each other because that speech is saṃvidātmikā, consciousness-natured. Their difference is a difference inside one living body, not a clash between separate substances.
So Abhinava’s doctrine of speech is not “all words are the same,” and not “words are arbitrary signs.” Speech is one consciousness-body pregnant with infinite differentiation. That is why mantra can work. That is why meaning can arise. That is why vowels and consonants can produce fruits. The Goddess as speech contains the whole universe in the womb of sound.
No cognition exists without the accompaniment of word
na so'sti pratyayo loke yaḥ śabdānugamādṛte |
anuviddhamiva jñānaṃ sarvaṃ śabdena gamyate ||
“As has been said:
‘There is no cognition in the world that is without the accompaniment of word.
All knowledge is known as if pierced through by word.’”
Abhinava now supports his claim about one consciousness-natured speech with a famous principle: no cognition arises without some relation to śabda, word. This does not mean that every act of awareness is gross spoken language. It means that cognition, as it becomes determinate and knowable, is already threaded by the power of articulation. Knowledge is anuviddha, pierced through, infused, marked by word.
This directly continues the discussion of Madhyamā. Before Vaikharī, before spoken speech, there is already an inner word-form by which experience becomes intelligible. We do not simply encounter mute objects and then later attach names to them. The world is already entering cognition through the power of speech. The object becomes graspable because it is in some way word-pervaded.
This is why Abhinava can say that speech is one, consciousness-natured, and pregnant with infinite variety. If every cognition is accompanied by word, then speech is not merely a human social tool. It is woven into the very structure of knowing. Word is not added after awareness; it is the reflective articulation through which awareness can know something as something.
So the verse is not a linguistic curiosity. It is a metaphysical claim about experience itself. To know is already to be touched by speech. To cognize a pot, a body, a deity, a mantra, a tattva, or even a subtle inner state is to enter a field where consciousness has begun to articulate itself. Knowledge shines, but it shines as internally worded.
This also explains why mantra can operate so deeply. If all cognition is already pierced by śabda, then mantra does not enter awareness from outside. It works within the very channel through which awareness becomes determinate. Speech is not decoration on consciousness; it is consciousness’s own power of self-articulation.
If the eternal speech-form withdrew from awareness, light itself would not shine
tathā
vāgrūpatā cedutkrāmedavabodhasya śāśvatī |
na prakāśaḥ prakāśeta sā hi pratyavamarśinī ||
iti |]
“Likewise:
‘If the eternal speech-form were to withdraw from awareness,
light itself would not shine, for she is the power of reflective self-apprehension.’”
Abhinava now gives the deeper reason why no cognition is free from word. Speech is not merely something that accompanies already-formed awareness. Vāgrūpatā, the form of speech, is śāśvatī, eternal, and belongs to avabodha, awareness itself. If this speech-form were removed from awareness, prakāśa itself would not shine.
This is an astonishingly strong statement. It means that light, in the Śaiva sense, is not mere mute luminosity. Consciousness does not shine as a blank lamp. It shines because it also has pratyavamarśa, reflective self-apprehension. It knows itself. It turns back upon itself. It says itself inwardly. And this power of self-articulation is speech.
So speech here does not mean only spoken words, grammar, or human language. It means the primordial power by which consciousness is not only luminous but self-aware. Without this inner speech-nature, prakāśa would be inert, unable to reveal itself as itself. There would be light, perhaps, but no recognition — and for Abhinava, such light is not complete consciousness.
This seals the whole chunk. Madhyamā, signifier and signified, vowels and consonants, seed and womb, Śiva and Śakti, word and meaning — all of it rests on this: speech is consciousness’s own reflective power. Vāk is not decoration added to awareness. She is the power by which awareness is awake to itself.
That is why the one speech is saṃvidātmikā, consciousness-natured, and ananta-citratā-garbhiṇī, pregnant with infinite variety. She is one because consciousness is one. She is infinitely varied because consciousness can articulate itself as all meanings, all mantras, all objects, all worlds. Without her, light would not become recognition. With her, the universe becomes speakable because consciousness is already inwardly speech.
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