Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 122): Vaikharī Hidden in Madhyamā, and How Speech Unfolds into the Three Goddesses

Children listening to a teacher, evoking Abhinava’s argument that spoken Vaikharī is received inwardly and gradually unfolds through Madhyamā.

The previous part ended with Abhinava’s argument from child-language. Spoken speech, Vaikharī, does not suddenly appear from nowhere when a child begins to articulate words clearly. A child hears Vaikharī-formed sounds, receives them inwardly, and gradually develops the capacity to speak. Therefore Vaikharī must already be latent within Madhyamā. The gross spoken word is hidden in inner speech before it becomes audible.

Now Abhinava presses this further against a possible objection. Someone may say: perhaps Vaikharī is not really latent in Madhyamā; perhaps Madhyamā alone becomes differentiated through learning. Abhinava asks the obvious question: how would that happen? A child learns by hearing words and seeing meanings. He grasps heard letters, and those heard letters are Vaikharī-made. If Vaikharī were not already inwardly receivable within Madhyamā, the heard word would remain external noise and could not become the child’s own speech.

This is not only a linguistic observation. It is another form of Abhinava’s larger principle: the gross appears because it is already hidden in the subtle. Vaikharī unfolds from Madhyamā; it does not emerge from absolute absence. Even in someone who cannot speak outwardly, Vaikharī exists inwardly in Madhyamā as the subtle structure of articulation.

Then the passage widens from child-speech into the threefold structure of the Goddess as speech. Since Bhagavatī’s consciousness is sarvātmakā, all-formed, each level of speech contains the others in its own mode. Vaikharī, expanded through Madhyamā, contains the network of tattvas when the relation of signifier and signified becomes clear. At that level she is Aparābhaṭṭārikā. When Madhyamā rises within her, she is Parāparā. When Paśyantī rises, she is Bhagavatī Devī in her own nature.

So this chunk moves from a concrete example — the child learning speech — into a precise doctrinal result: the purifying form of speech remains threefold. Vaikharī, Madhyamā, and Paśyantī are not isolated layers. They are three modes of one Vāk, one Goddess, one all-formed consciousness. The next part can then explain how this threefold purifier relates to what is purified.

Objection: perhaps only Madhyamā becomes differentiated through learning

madhyamaiva sā vyutpattyā viśiṣyate (?) iti cet kathamiti carcyatāṃ tāvat

“If it is said, ‘It is Madhyamā alone that becomes differentiated through learning,’ then let us first examine how this could be so.”

Abhinava now takes up the possible objection left hanging from the previous part. He had argued that Vaikharī must already be latent in Madhyamā; otherwise the gradual development of children’s speech would make no sense. But someone may object: perhaps Vaikharī is not really latent there. Perhaps what develops is only Madhyamā itself. Perhaps learning refines inner speech, and Vaikharī appears later as an external result.

Abhinava does not reject the objection by assertion. He asks: katham? — how? Explain the mechanism. If you say Madhyamā alone becomes differentiated through learning, then what exactly is being learned? From where does the child receive the differentiating input? How does inner speech become specified without contact with actual sounds and meanings? The objection sounds plausible only until one asks how learning actually happens.

This is typical Abhinava. He does not allow vague explanations to hide inside refined terminology. “Madhyamā develops” is not enough. Does it develop in isolation? Does it generate articulated speech without heard words? Does the child learn without Vaikharī-sounds entering awareness? If not, then Vaikharī cannot be excluded from the process.

So this point begins a careful phenomenology of speech-learning. Abhinava is going to show that the child learns by hearing words and seeing meanings. The heard sounds are Vaikharī-made, and the child grasps them as such. Therefore Vaikharī must already have an inward presence in Madhyamā, even before outward articulation becomes clear.

The deeper principle is the same as before: the gross does not appear from nothing. What later becomes explicit must already be present in a subtler mode. Vaikharī is not imported from outside at the final moment; it is already folded into Madhyamā as latent articulation.

A child learns by hearing words and seeing meanings

śṛṇvanneva tāñśabdān paśyaṃścārthān vyutpadyate

“Only by hearing those words and seeing the meanings does he learn.”

Abhinava now answers the objection with ordinary experience. A child does not develop speech in an isolated inner chamber of Madhyamā. He learns by hearing words and seeing meanings. Sound and object arrive together. The child hears “cow,” “mother,” “water,” “come,” “give,” and at the same time sees gestures, objects, actions, faces, responses. The word and the meaning begin to bind.

This is crucial because it proves that Vaikharī is involved from the beginning of learning. The child does not merely refine some private inner speech without exposure to actual articulated sound. He hears external speech. The heard word enters him. The meaning is seen, indicated, repeated, reinforced. From that contact, understanding develops.

So Abhinava is not making a vague mystical claim here. He is observing how learning happens. Speech-development requires the meeting of śabda and artha — word and meaning. And the śabda the child hears is not pure Madhyamā; it is Vaikharī, articulated sound. Therefore Vaikharī must be admitted into the process, even before the child can produce it clearly.

The deeper principle remains the same: the later explicit form is already working inwardly before it becomes outwardly mastered. The child hears Vaikharī before speaking Vaikharī. That heard Vaikharī enters Madhyamā and gradually awakens the internal capacity for articulation. Speech grows because the outer sound and inner speech-field are not alien to one another.

The child grasps the heard letters themselves

varṇāṃśca śrūyamāṇāneva parāmṛśet

“And he grasps the letters themselves precisely as they are being heard.”

Abhinava now tightens the argument. The child does not learn only by some vague exposure to meaning. He hears varṇas, letters or phonetic units, and grasps them as heard. The sound is not merely background noise. It is taken in, repeated inwardly, shaped, and gradually recognized.

This matters because the objection was trying to keep Vaikharī out of Madhyamā: perhaps only inner speech develops. But Abhinava says no — the child is dealing with heard letters. Those heard letters are already articulated sound. They belong to the Vaikharī field. The child may not yet pronounce them clearly, but he is already receiving their form.

So learning happens through a bridge: external Vaikharī is heard, then inwardly grasped, then gradually awakened as the child’s own capacity for speech. The gross sound enters the subtle speech-field. Madhyamā receives, digests, and reorganizes Vaikharī before the child can produce it outwardly.

This is why Vaikharī must be admitted as latent in Madhyamā. If the child can inwardly grasp heard letters, then the inner field must already have the capacity to hold their articulation. Speech-development is not magic. The heard letter awakens a corresponding inner possibility. The outer sound and inner speech are different levels of one Vāk, not two unrelated things.

The heard letters are Vaikharī-made

śrūyante ca vaikharīmayāḥ

“And they are heard as made of Vaikharī.”

Abhinava now states the crucial point directly. The letters the child hears are not abstract inner possibilities. They are Vaikharīmayāḥ — made of Vaikharī, formed as articulated external speech. They are audible, shaped, pronounced, carried by the organs of speech, and received through hearing.

This answers the objection sharply. If the child learns by hearing words, and if the letters heard are Vaikharī-made, then Vaikharī is already involved in the development of speech. One cannot say that only Madhyamā differentiates itself internally while Vaikharī remains absent until later. The child’s inner speech-field is being formed through contact with articulated sound.

But Abhinava’s point is not that external Vaikharī alone creates speech. That would be too crude. The heard Vaikharī must be received, grasped, digested, and internalized by Madhyamā. So the relation is two-sided: Vaikharī appears outwardly as sound, and Madhyamā inwardly receives and organizes it. The gross speech-form and the inner speech-field belong to one continuum.

This is the deeper reason Vaikharī must be latent in Madhyamā. If Madhyamā had no inward capacity for Vaikharī, the heard letters would remain noise. The child could hear sounds but not gradually become a speaker. The fact that heard Vaikharī awakens internal articulation proves that the outer speech-form corresponds to something already hidden within the inner speech-power.

So the later explicit word is not imported from nowhere. It is awakened through contact. Vaikharī heard from outside activates Vaikharī latent inside Madhyamā. Speech develops because the Goddess as Vāk is continuous across inner and outer levels.

The child is not like one blind to the form of heard letters

teṣu ca asau rūpī eva jātyandhavat

“And with respect to those letters, he is indeed one who has form — not like someone blind from birth.”

Abhinava now adds a small but sharp comparison. The child hears Vaikharī-made letters, and in relation to those letters he is rūpī eva — “formed,” or one who has access to form. He is not like a jātyandha, someone blind from birth, who has no visual access to form.

The point is that the child is not merely struck by meaningless sound. He receives the heard letters as structured forms. They enter his awareness with shape, pattern, distinguishability, and repeatability. He may not yet pronounce them clearly, but he is not inwardly blind to them. They are already being formed inside him.

This strengthens Abhinava’s argument. If Vaikharī were completely absent from Madhyamā, the heard letters would remain like visual forms before one born blind: present externally, but not inwardly graspable in the relevant way. But the child does grasp them. He gradually recognizes, imitates, and differentiates them. Therefore an inner Vaikharī-capacity must already be present.

So the child’s learning proves continuity. External Vaikharī is heard; internal Madhyamā receives it; latent Vaikharī begins to awaken. The gross speech-form and the inner speech-field are not alien. They belong to one Vāk unfolding from subtle to manifest.

Vaikharī exists inwardly in Madhyamā, even before outer speech appears

tasmāt antarmadhyamāniviṣṭasthānakaraṇādimayī astyeva vaikharī mūke'pi evameva

“Therefore Vaikharī certainly exists inwardly in Madhyamā, composed of the places and instruments of articulation and the like. Even in the mute, it is so.”

Abhinava now gives the conclusion of the child-speech argument: Vaikharī, the externally articulated level of speech, is already inwardly present in Madhyamā before it becomes audible. This is not a vague mystical claim. It is a precise observation about how speech actually appears in consciousness.

We can understand it directly from our own experience. Suppose a reflection is being composed. First there may be only a compact intuition: a meaning is present, but not yet unfolded into words. One “sees” what must be said, but the sentence has not yet formed. This is closer to Paśyantī — the seeing-level, where meaning is still whole, dense, and pre-verbal.

Then the words begin to form inwardly. The sentence is not yet spoken aloud, but it is already there as inner speech. One can feel the phrasing, the order, the rhythm, the choice of words. This is Madhyamā. It is not gross sound, but it is also not formless intuition. It is meaning already becoming word inside consciousness.

Then the sentence is actually spoken or dictated. Breath moves, the throat vibrates, tongue and lips shape the sounds, and the words become audible. This is Vaikharī.

Abhinava’s point is that these are not three sealed boxes. Vaikharī does not suddenly appear from nowhere when the mouth opens. The spoken word was already prepared inwardly. The articulation was already latent in Madhyamā. The places and instruments of speech — throat, palate, tongue, lips, breath, the whole structure of vocal expression — have their subtle form before their gross external operation.

This is why he says Vaikharī is antar-madhyamā-niviṣṭā — inwardly placed in Madhyamā. The outer word is already hidden in the inner word. When a person thinks a sentence inwardly before speaking it, that is not full Vaikharī yet; it is Madhyamā carrying Vaikharī in seed-form. When the sentence becomes audible, Vaikharī has unfolded outward.

This also explains the child example. A newborn, a one-month-old, a one-year-old, and a three-year-old do not have the same relation to speech. Speech develops gradually. The child hears Vaikharī from outside, receives it inwardly, and slowly awakens the capacity to produce it outwardly. If Vaikharī were not already latent in Madhyamā, this gradual development would make no sense. The heard word would remain external noise, never becoming the child’s own speech.

And Abhinava pushes the point further: mūke’pi evam eva — even in the mute, it is the same. A person may be unable to produce outer speech, but this does not mean Vaikharī is absent from consciousness. The external organ may fail, but the inner structure of articulation can still exist in Madhyamā. Speech is deeper than vocal sound. The mute person is not outside Vāk.

So the practical distinction is this:

Paśyantī is meaning seen inwardly before it becomes verbal.
Madhyamā is inner speech, where the words are formed but not yet sounded.
Vaikharī is the same speech externalized through body and sound.

But Abhinava’s real insight is that the lower is already hidden in the higher. The audible word is latent in the inner word. The inner word is rooted in the compact seeing of meaning. Speech unfolds from subtle to gross, not from nothing into something.

This is the same logic he has used everywhere. Earth is hidden in the prior tattvas. Future distinction is present in Parā as power. The mature speech of the child is latent in earlier stages. Vaikharī is already in Madhyamā. Nothing real appears from sheer absence. The gross is the subtle made explicit.

The all-formed nature of Bhagavatī’s consciousness has already been taught

sarvātmakatvaṃ ca saṃvido bhagavatyā evoktam

“And the all-formed nature of Bhagavatī’s consciousness has already been taught.”

Abhinava now gives the deeper reason why Vaikharī can be present inwardly in Madhyamā. This is not an isolated linguistic claim. It rests on the already established principle that Bhagavatī’s consciousness is sarvātmakā — all-formed, containing all modes within itself.

If consciousness were not all-formed, then the levels of speech would be sealed off from one another. Paśyantī would be only Paśyantī. Madhyamā would be only Madhyamā. Vaikharī would appear later as something externally added. But Abhinava has been denying this kind of rupture again and again. The gross is hidden in the subtle; the later is latent in the earlier; the articulated is contained in the unarticulated.

So when he says that Vaikharī exists within Madhyamā, even in the mute, this is not a special exception. It is an application of sarvātmakatva. Bhagavatī’s consciousness contains the whole continuum of speech: compact seeing, inner wording, outer articulation. Each level can hold the others in its own mode.

This is why the child-speech example matters. It is not merely developmental psychology. It is ordinary life revealing the structure of Vāk. A child’s later spoken words are already hidden in the inner speech-field. Vaikharī grows because Bhagavatī’s consciousness is all-formed. Speech unfolds because the Goddess already contains the whole speech-body within herself.

Vaikharī, expanded through Madhyamā, contains the tattva-network when signifier and signified clearly arise

evaṃ ca vaikharīpadameva madhyamādhāmalabdhavijṛmbhaṃ svāṃśe parasparavaicitryaprathātmani sphuṭavācyavācakabhāvollāse jāte tattvajālamantaḥkṛtya yāvadāste

“And thus the Vaikharī level itself, having obtained expansion through the Madhyamā-domain, when the clear emergence of signified and signifier arises within its own portion — whose nature is the manifestation of mutual variety — remains containing the network of tattvas within itself.”

Abhinava now draws the consequence. Vaikharī is not merely external sound. It is madhyamā-dhāma-labdha-vijṛmbha — it has received its expansion from the domain of Madhyamā. The spoken word is the blossoming of inner speech. The outer articulation is the gross edge of an inner movement already prepared within consciousness.

When Vaikharī expands in this way, vācya and vācaka — signified and signifier, meaning and word — become clear. In Paśyantī, distinction is still subtle. In Madhyamā, the word-form and meaning-form begin to structure themselves inwardly. In Vaikharī, they become explicit: this word means this thing; this sound points to this object; this expression carries this meaning.

But even here, Abhinava refuses to reduce Vaikharī to mere sound. Once signifier and signified clearly arise, Vaikharī contains the tattva-jāla, the whole network of tattvas, within itself. Speech is not only communication. It is manifestation made articulate. When a word becomes clear, it does not merely label the world; it carries the structure of the world inside it.

This continues the earlier doctrine of Vāk. Word and object interpenetrate because both are rooted in consciousness. Vaikharī, though outward and sequential, still contains the whole network because it is the expanded form of Madhyamā, and Madhyamā itself rests in Parābhaṭṭārikā’s consciousness. The gross word is therefore not spiritually poor. It is a final articulation of the whole speech-body.

So this point is important for the purification doctrine. If Vaikharī contains the tattva-network, then outer speech too can be used in purification. Spoken mantra is not merely audible repetition. When awakened through Madhyamā and rooted in the Goddess, Vaikharī becomes a body containing the tattvas it can purify.

Aparā arises when Vaikharī contains the tattva-network in clear signifier-signified relation

tāvadaparābhaṭṭārikā

“To that extent, she is Aparābhaṭṭārikā.”

Abhinava now names the level reached when Vaikharī, expanded through Madhyamā, clearly manifests the relation of vācya and vācaka, signified and signifier, while containing the network of tattvas within itself. At that point, she is Aparābhaṭṭārikā.

This does not mean that Aparā is “mere ordinary speech” in a dismissive sense. It means that when speech has become outwardly articulated, when word and meaning stand clearly in relation, when the tattva-network is held in a manifest and differentiated mode, the Goddess is functioning as Aparā. She is the same Parābhaṭṭārikā, but in the form where manifestation is most explicit.

So Aparā is not outside the Goddess. It is the Goddess as fully expressed speech, as articulated relation, as the field where words, meanings, tattvas, and objects become clearly distinguishable. The danger would be to treat this as spiritually inferior in a crude way. Abhinava’s point is more exact: Aparā is the level where differentiation has become clear enough to function as language, world, and purification-field.

This continues the child-speech logic too. The child eventually speaks Vaikharī outwardly. That outer speech is not unrelated to the inner Goddess. It is Aparābhaṭṭārikā — the same speech-consciousness in its manifest, articulated, differentiated mode. The spoken word is the lowest edge of Vāk, but it is still Vāk.

With Madhyamā rising within her, she is Parāparā; with Paśyantī rising, she is Bhagavatī Devī by nature

tadantarvartimadhyamāpadollāse parāparā paśyantyullāse ca svarūpato bhagavatī devī ca

“When the Madhyamā level within her rises, she is Parāparā; and when Paśyantī rises, she is, by her own nature, Bhagavatī Devī.”

Abhinava now completes the threefold placement. When Vaikharī expands through Madhyamā and contains the tattva-network through clear signifier-signified relation, she is Aparābhaṭṭārikā. But when Madhyamā rises within that field, she is Parāparā. And when Paśyantī rises, she is Bhagavatī Devī by her own nature.

This is the layered structure of Vāk. The same Goddess is not divided into separate beings. She is one consciousness appearing through different degrees of articulation. In Vaikharī, speech is outward, clear, differentiated, tied to word and object. In Madhyamā, speech is inward, more subtle, the place where meaning and word are structured before external sound. In Paśyantī, speech is still more compact, closer to pure seeing, where manifestation is not yet unfolded into full linguistic difference.

So the three Goddesses are not abstractions. They are modes of how speech-consciousness appears. Aparā is the manifest speech-field; Parāparā is the inner articulating field; Bhagavatī as Paśyantī is the deeper seeing-field where the whole later articulation is still held in luminous seed-form.

This also shows why purification is threefold. The bonds appear at subtle levels, the purifier operates through speech-power, and the manifest field contains the tattva-network to be worked upon. The Goddess becomes purifier because she is present at every level of speech: as seeing, as inner articulation, and as outward expression.

As purifier, the structure remains threefold

iti śodhakabhāvena sthitiḥ traidhamevāvatiṣṭhate

“Thus, in the mode of purifier, the structure remains established as threefold.”

Abhinava now gathers the speech-levels into the function of śodhaka, purifier. Vaikharī, Madhyamā, and Paśyantī are not merely linguistic stages. They become a threefold purifying structure.

This follows from what he has just established. Vaikharī, when expanded through Madhyamā and carrying the clear relation of signifier and signified, is Aparābhaṭṭārikā. When Madhyamā rises within her, she is Parāparā. When Paśyantī rises, she is Bhagavatī Devī by nature. The same Goddess stands in three modes: outward articulation, inner speech, and subtle seeing.

So purification is also threefold because the field of bondage is layered. Gross expression must be touched by Vaikharī. Inner articulation must be touched by Madhyamā. Subtle latent bondage must be touched through Paśyantī. The purifier must be as deep and as layered as the impurity it purifies.

This is important because Abhinava is not describing purification as a simple external act. It is not enough to recite sounds outwardly if the inner speech-field remains untouched. It is not enough to work with inner speech if the subtle Paśyantī-level bonds remain hidden. The Goddess purifies because she pervades all three levels of speech.

So the purifier is not one flat tool. It is the threefold body of Vāk herself: Vaikharī as manifest articulation, Madhyamā as inner Śākta expansion, and Paśyantī as subtle visionary seed. Only such a purifier can reach the whole depth of bondage.