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| Devi rides the crescent moon beneath the stars, her body arched in a gesture of release and ascent. From her form flows a long stream of many-colored currents, like the worlds being poured out from a hidden womb of Śakti. The image fits this chunk because Abhinava follows ordinary speech back to Anuttara, then shows Anuttara expanding through visarga into ha-kalā, the Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī intent on generating the universe. |
The previous chunk closed by showing that conventional signs do not remain trapped in mere convention. Māyīya saṃketa falls into the non-conventional radiance of Parā Vāk, and its real capacity to signify is nothing other than svarūpa-pratipatti — recognition of its own true nature. Signifier and signified are not externally glued together; both return to one ground in saṃvid.
Now Abhinava makes this practical through the example of the word “cow.” Even a familiar learned word, stabilized by habit and memory, can become asāṃketika when traced back into the field of awareness from which word, meaning, and recognition arise. And even at the first moment of learning convention, that non-conventional ground must already be present; otherwise learning itself would collapse into infinite regress.
From there the chunk shifts into anupraveśa-yukti, the logic of entry. Ordinary experience already shows how different streams — seeing, hearing, speaking, acting, thinking, eating — enter one conscious field without collapsing into confusion. This becomes the bridge back into the deeper mantra-body: even convention follows its own seed back to Anuttara, and Anuttara expands through visarga into the ha-power, Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī, the force of world-generation.
The word “cow” shows how convention becomes non-conventional through practice
atra sphuṭamabhijñānamabhyāsavaśāt asāṃketikatāmāpanne ciratarapūrvavṛttagośabdaparāmarśaḥ tathaiva saṃketakāle goparāmarśo'pi anyāmāyīyāsāṃketikaparāmarśadhāmanyeva nipatati
“Here there is a clear recognition: through the force of repeated practice, the recollective awareness of the word ‘cow,’ long established from earlier usage, attains non-conventionality. Likewise, even at the time of convention, the awareness of ‘cow’ falls into another field of reflective awareness — one that is non-Māyic and non-conventional.”
Abhinava now makes the doctrine practical through the ordinary word go, “cow.” This is important because he is no longer speaking only about mantra-syllables, subtle nāda, or sacred letters. He takes a normal learned word — the kind of word one acquires through habit, memory, culture, and repeated use — and shows that even this can reveal the non-conventional ground of speech.
At first, gośabda, the word “cow,” appears purely conventional. Someone teaches the child: this sound refers to that animal. The child repeats it. Memory stabilizes it. Over time, the word becomes familiar. This is ordinary saṃketa, linguistic convention. But Abhinava says that through abhyāsa, through repeated practice or habituated recognition, the gośabda-parāmarśa can attain asāṃketikatā — non-conventionality.
This does not mean the social convention disappears outwardly. People still use the word “cow” in a shared language. But inwardly, the word can cease to feel like an arbitrary label. Its sound, meaning, and recognition begin to fall back into a deeper field of parāmarśa, reflective awareness. The word becomes transparent to the non-Māyic ground from which signifier and signified arise together.
That is why Abhinava adds that even saṃketakāle, at the time of convention itself, goparāmarśa falls into amāyīya-asāṃketika-parāmarśa-dhāman, the non-Māyic, non-conventional abode of reflective awareness. Even when a word is learned conventionally, the possibility of learning depends on something deeper than convention. There must already be awareness capable of holding sound, meaning, recognition, and relation together.
So the example cuts very deep. Ordinary language is not denied, but it is not final. A word can begin as convention and, through recognition, become a doorway into Parā Vāk. Even “cow,” the most basic schoolroom example of signification, is not spiritually trivial. If traced far enough, it falls back into the same speech-radiance as mantra.
Even learning convention requires a non-conventional ground
yāvat bālasyāpi janmāntarānusaraṇe'pi citsvabhāvasyādau sthitaivāsāṃketikī sattā - anyathānavasthānāt evameva khalu saṃketagrahaṇopapattiḥ nānyathā
“Even in the case of a child — even if one traces this through previous births — the non-conventional being of consciousness-nature must already be established at the beginning. Otherwise there would be infinite regress. Only in this way is the grasping of convention possible, and not otherwise.”
Abhinava now makes the argument sharper. The word “cow” may look like a learned convention: the child hears the sound, sees the animal, and gradually connects them. But how does that connection become possible in the first place? If every sign needed another prior sign to explain it, learning would never begin.
That is why he says that even for bāla, a child, there must already be citsvabhāvasya asāṃketikī sattā — a non-conventional being belonging to the nature of consciousness. Before the child learns this word or that word, before formal convention, there is already awareness capable of recognizing, associating, retaining, and entering meaning.
The phrase janmāntarānusaraṇe’pi is important. Even if someone says, “The child can learn because of impressions from previous births,” the problem is only pushed back. How did those earlier conventions become grasped? If convention depends only on previous convention, one falls into anavasthā, infinite regress. There must be a non-conventional ground at the beginning.
So Abhinava’s point is strong: saṃketa-grahaṇa, the grasping of convention, is possible only because consciousness is already more than convention. A child can learn a word because saṃvid already holds the power of relation between sound, meaning, and recognition. The non-conventional field is not a later mystical luxury. It is the condition that makes ordinary language possible at all.
This also deepens the previous “cow” example. The word becomes conventional only because it first falls into the non-conventional radiance of awareness. Social language is real, but it hangs from a deeper root. Before the child learns the word, Parā Vāk is already silently holding the possibility of speech.
Utpaladeva also establishes this in the Īśvarapratyabhijñāṭīkā
itīśvarapratyabhijñāṭīkāyāmapi śrīmadutpaladevapādairnirṇītam
“This too has been established by the venerable Utpaladeva in the Īśvarapratyabhijñāṭīkā.”
Abhinava now anchors the point in the Pratyabhijñā tradition. The argument is not merely his passing observation about how children learn words. He says that this has also been nirṇītam — determined, established — by Śrīmad Utpaladevapāda in the Īśvarapratyabhijñāṭīkā.
The point being confirmed is the necessity of a non-conventional ground beneath convention. A child can learn a word only because saṃvid already has the power to connect sound, meaning, and recognition. Otherwise convention would require another convention before it, and that would lead to anavasthā, infinite regress.
So Utpaladeva’s support strengthens the doctrine: asāṃketika awareness is not an optional mystical layer added after language. It is the ground that makes language possible. Convention works only because it falls into a field deeper than convention.
This point should stay compact. It is a citation-marker, not a new doctrinal climax. Its function is to show continuity: Abhinava’s explanation of Mātṛkā, vācakatā, and the non-conventional ground of signification stands firmly inside the Pratyabhijñā current.
The logic of entry is shown by ordinary divided attention
atra cānupraveśayuktiḥ
paśyatyanyacchṛṇotyanyatkarotyanyacca jalpati |
cintayatyanyadā bhuṅkte tatra sāṃketikī sthitiḥ ||
iti bhaṭṭārakaśrīśrīkaṇṭhapādāḥ
“And here there is the reasoning of entry:
‘One sees one thing, hears another, does another, speaks another;
at another time one thinks, and eats — there, the conventional state is present.’
So says the venerable Śrīkaṇṭha.”
Abhinava now brings in anupraveśa-yukti, the logic of entry. The previous points established that convention can be grasped only because there is already a non-conventional ground of consciousness. Now he shows how this works in ordinary experience: different streams of activity enter one field without destroying one another.
The verse is deliberately simple. A person may paśyati anyat — see one thing; śṛṇoti anyat — hear another; karoti anyat — do another; jalpati anyat — speak another. Then one may think of something else, or eat. Human experience is full of simultaneous and shifting streams: seeing, hearing, acting, speaking, thinking, tasting, remembering.
And yet these do not become separate universes. They enter one conscious field. This is the anupraveśa: the entry of many differentiated acts into one awareness. The conventional state, sāṃketikī sthitiḥ, depends on this. Words, meanings, perceptions, actions, and bodily processes can be coordinated because consciousness can receive and hold many differentiated modes at once.
This is not just a psychology of attention. It supports the deeper doctrine of vāk. Convention works because sounds, meanings, perceptions, and actions enter the same ground of saṃvid. The word “cow,” the seen animal, the remembered concept, the spoken sound, and the act of recognition do not remain alien fragments. They meet in one field.
So Śrīkaṇṭha’s verse gives a grounded example of the same principle. Ordinary life already shows that consciousness is capable of complex entry: many streams, one field. The same structure makes language possible; and at the deepest level, it shows how conventional signs can fall back into the non-conventional radiance of Parā Vāk.
The mind may be elsewhere while the eye is cast elsewhere
mano'pyanyatra nikṣiptaṃ cakṣuranyatra pātitam ityādyapyavocan
“They also said such things as: ‘The mind may be placed elsewhere, while the eye is cast elsewhere.’”
Abhinava continues the same anupraveśa-yukti with an even sharper ordinary example. The eye may be directed toward one thing, while the mind is elsewhere. One may look at a page and not read it, stare at a person and not hear them, move through a room while thinking of something entirely different.
This shows that the streams of experience are not mechanically identical. Cakṣus, the eye, may have one orientation; manas, the mind, another. Seeing, attending, remembering, intending, speaking, and acting can diverge. Yet they are not sealed off from each other. They are held within one conscious field.
This matters for the doctrine of convention. A word, an object, a memory, a perception, and a meaning may arise through different channels, yet they can enter one saṃvid and become coordinated. Without this capacity for entry, convention could not function. The sound “cow,” the seen animal, the remembered form, and the act of recognition would remain disconnected fragments.
So this example brings the argument down to something painfully familiar: attention is layered. We are often split across seeing, thinking, hearing, and acting. But the very fact that these can be related, recalled, corrected, and unified shows the deeper ground of vāk and saṃvid. The many streams enter one awareness; otherwise no meaningful world could hold together.
Even the conventional state has the non-conventional mantra-body as its source
tadapyasāṃketikamantravapuḥ [taditi sāṃketikamapi saṃketasya hi pāramārthikatayā'saṃketikamevotpattisthānam iti |]
“Even that is the non-conventional mantra-body. The gloss explains: ‘that’ means even the conventional state; for convention, in its ultimate reality, has the non-conventional alone as its place of arising.”
Abhinava now states the point directly. Even sāṃketika, the conventional state of language and cognition, has asāṃketika-mantravapus as its source — the non-conventional body of mantra.
This is the reversal. Convention appears to be the opposite of mantra. A learned word, a shared sign, an ordinary name — all of this seems Māyic, social, agreed-upon, secondary. But Abhinava says that even this conventional structure arises from the non-conventional ground. Saṃketa is not self-born. It has an utpattisthāna, a place of arising.
And that place is asāṃketika eva — the non-conventional alone. At the surface, the word works by agreement. At the root, the possibility of agreement already rests in Parā Vāk, where sound, meaning, and recognition are not externally glued together.
So this point gathers the previous examples. The child learning a word, the mind and senses moving in different directions, the coordination of speech, thought, perception, and action — all of this is possible because conventional language is secretly supported by the non-conventional mantra-body.
The practical consequence is strong: ordinary words are not spiritually worthless. They are opaque when taken only as convention; they become transparent when traced back to their source. A word is Māyic at the surface, mantraic at the root.
Conventional expression follows its own seed and culminates in Anuttara
svabījamanudhāvadanuttarapadaparyavasāyi bhavati
“Following its own seed, it culminates in the state of Anuttara.”
Abhinava now gives the secret direction of language. The conventional word is not a dead surface. It has a svabīja, its own seed. If one follows that seed inwardly, the word does not end in social agreement, grammar, memory, or mental association. It ends in Anuttarapada, the unsurpassed state.
This is the hidden dignity of speech. A word may look ordinary — learned from parents, used in daily life, repeated mechanically, covered by habit. But inside it there is a seed-current. The sound is not merely sound. The meaning is not merely concept. The act of recognition is not merely mental labeling. All three are held by a deeper power of vāk.
To follow svabīja means to trace the word back through its own life. From outer utterance into inner speech; from inner speech into reflective awareness; from reflective awareness into the non-conventional mantra-body; from there into Anuttara. The word is like a thread: if grasped only at the surface, it binds us to convention; if followed inwardly, it leads back to the root of consciousness.
This is also the practical heart of mantra. One begins with a syllable, a name, a sound-form. At first it may be external, repeated by effort, carried by memory. But if the sādhaka does not remain at the surface, the mantra begins to reveal its seed. The sound grows subtler. Meaning deepens. The sense of “I am repeating” weakens. The mantra starts to pull awareness back toward the source from which it arose.
So convention is not final, but it is not worthless. Even ordinary language can become a doorway when its seed is followed. The same sign that usually keeps the mind moving horizontally through names and objects can, under recognition, turn vertical. It descends back into Parā Vāk, and finally rests in Anuttara.
Anuttara itself expands through visarga as the essence of infinite differentiated totalities
tadapyanuttarapadaṃ sattathāvidhānantasamudāyavaicitryasaṃrambhasāraṃ visargadṛṣṭyā prasaradeva visargasyaiva hakalāparyantatayā prasarāt
“And that state of Anuttara too, being the essence of the arising of such infinite and varied totalities, expands from the perspective of visarga, because visarga itself extends as far as the ha-kalā.”
Abhinava now refuses to let Anuttara become a final blank. The conventional word follows its own seed and culminates in Anuttarapada, yes. But that does not mean speech dies there, world dies there, difference dies there. Anuttara is not a sterile absolute where everything is swallowed into featureless silence.
It is the essence of ananta-samudāya-vaicitrya-saṃrambha — the surge of infinite differentiated totalities. That phrase has real force. Not one object, not one thought, not one mantra, not one universe of letters, but countless gatherings of forms, meanings, worlds, bodies, sounds, and powers. All this variety is not outside Anuttara. It is held in Anuttara as its own capacity for manifestation.
So when the word returns to Anuttara, it does not return to nothingness. It returns to the womb-fire of all articulation. The seed goes back to the place where all seeds are possible. The conventional sign, traced inward, reaches the supreme; and the supreme, because it is full, does not remain locked. It expands.
That expansion is visarga-dṛṣṭi — the vision of emission. Visarga is the supreme out-breath, the release by which the fullness of consciousness pours itself into sound, letter, mantra, body, and world. The return to Anuttara and the expansion through visarga are not two unrelated movements. They are one pulse: contraction into the seed, emission into the many.
This is why Abhinava says visargasyaiva hakalāparyantatayā prasaraḥ — visarga itself extends as far as the ha-kalā. The emission does not remain abstract. It becomes the breath-like expansion of the alphabetic body, reaching toward ha, toward the outer edge of the Śākta unfolding. The silent source becomes exhalation. The seed becomes sound-body.
So the movement is alive: convention follows its seed into Anuttara; Anuttara reveals itself as the source of infinite variety; visarga releases that fullness outward; ha-kalā marks the reach of that expansion. The word returns to the unsurpassed only to discover that the unsurpassed is not mute. It is the inexhaustible source from which vāk breathes the worlds.
The expansion reaches ha, Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī, the power of world-generation
tasyā api hakārākhyaśaktikuṇḍalinyāḥ [yathoktaṃ devīstutau śrīpañcastavyāṃ prathame stave
yā māyā trapusīlatātanulasattantūtthitispardhinī |
vāgbīje prathame sthitā tava sadā tāṃ manmahe te vayam |
śaktiḥ kuṇḍalinīti viśvajananavyāpārabaddhodyamā
jñātvetthaṃ na punaḥ spṛśanti jananīgarbhe'rbhakatvaṃ narāḥ ||
“And of that Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī known as ha — as it is said in the Devīstuti, in the first hymn of the Śrīpañcastavī:
‘That Māyā of yours, subtle as a shining filament rising from the stalk of a lotus,
always established in the first speech-seed — her we contemplate.
She is Śakti, called Kuṇḍalinī, intent upon the work of generating the universe.
Knowing her thus, human beings no longer touch infancy in a mother’s womb.’”
Abhinava now follows the expansion of visarga to ha, and this is not a minor phonetic endpoint. Ha is being revealed as śakti-kuṇḍalinī, the coiled power of manifestation. The movement from convention back into Anuttara did not end in silence; Anuttara expanded through visarga, and that expansion now reaches the power called ha, the breath-like edge of the alphabetic current.
The quoted hymn makes this vivid. She is māyā, but not in the thin sense of mere illusion. She is the power by which differentiation becomes possible. She is subtle, filament-like, almost impossibly fine — tantu-utthiti-spardhinī, like a delicate thread rising from the lotus-stalk. This is not gross manifestation yet. It is the first subtle stir of Śakti becoming world.
She is also vāgbīje prathame sthitā — established in the first seed of speech. The whole discussion of words, signs, convention, mantra, letters, and sound now gathers here. The root of speech is not a human mouth or a grammatical system. It is this first speech-seed where Kuṇḍalinī abides, the power that will later unfold as vāk, mantra, letter, meaning, and world.
Then the hymn names her directly: śaktiḥ kuṇḍalinī. She is not passive potential. She is viśva-janana-vyāpāra-baddha-udyamā — intent, gathered, committed to the work of generating the universe. This is the same ananta-samudāya-vaicitrya-saṃrambha from the previous point, now seen as Śakti’s own rising urge to manifest.
The final promise is severe and liberating: one who knows her thus no longer touches the infant-state in the mother’s womb. This is not biological poetry only. To know ha-śakti-kuṇḍalinī as the subtle root of speech and manifestation is to know the power that binds consciousness into birth. When that same power is recognized as Śakti, as the first vibration of vāk, she no longer throws the being blindly into repeated embodied limitation.
Ordinary convention follows its seed back to Anuttara. Anuttara expands through visarga. Visarga reaches ha. And ha is not merely a letter — it is Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī, the subtle world-generating power established in the first seed of speech. The same force that makes language possible makes birth possible; the same force, when recognized, becomes liberation.
Ha as Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī: world-generating when unnoticed, liberating when known
iti | ayamatra bhāvaḥ - mātretyanusvānarūpā kuṇḍalinyapi visatantvābhā dhyeyeti tathaiva cānavadhānatāyāṃ viśvajananeti śaktipātānuviddhena tu jñātasvarūpā mokṣadetyāha jñātvetthamiti tathā mātrā sūkṣmatamānuttararūpā kaulikīśaktiyogāt prasarantī hakārākhyeti atha vā tāmadhiṣṭhāya śaktiḥ kuṇḍalinī viśvajananavyāpārabaddhodyameti munmahe |
“Thus. The meaning here is this: by the word mātrā, Kuṇḍalinī too, in the form of anusvāna, should be contemplated as resembling a fine lotus-fibre. Likewise, when there is inattention, she is world-generating; but when her nature is known by one pierced by śaktipāta, she gives liberation — this is what is meant by ‘knowing thus.’
Similarly, Mātrā, extremely subtle and of the form of Anuttara, expanding through union with Kaulikī Śakti, is called ha. Or else, we contemplate Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī as established upon that Mātrā and intent upon the work of generating the universe.”
The gloss now explains why the Devīstuti verse was cited. Mātrā here is not a mere phonetic measure. It points to the subtle sound-power, anusvāna-rūpā Kuṇḍalinī, delicate like a visatantu, a fine lotus-fibre. This is Śakti before gross unfolding, almost too subtle to grasp, but already carrying the entire pressure of manifestation.
The double possibility is important. When there is anavadhānatā, inattention, non-recognition, Kuṇḍalinī becomes viśvajanani — the one who generates the world. She binds consciousness into the whole machinery of manifestation, birth, name, form, speech, memory, body, and limitation. The same Śakti that is divine power becomes the engine of saṃsāra when not known.
But when her svarūpa is known by one śaktipātānuviddha, pierced by śaktipāta, she becomes mokṣadā, giver of liberation. The power does not change substance; recognition changes the relation. Unrecognized, she births the world. Recognized, she releases one from being blindly born into it.
Then the gloss connects this directly to ha. Mātrā, as sūkṣmatamā anuttararūpā, the extremely subtle form of Anuttara, expands through Kaulikī Śakti and is called hakāra. Or, stated another way, Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī is established upon that Mātrā and is intent upon viśvajanana-vyāpāra, the work of generating the universe.
This completes the movement beautifully. The movement was: convention follows its seed into Anuttara; Anuttara expands through visarga; visarga reaches ha-kalā; and ha is revealed as Śakti-Kuṇḍalinī, the subtle force of world-generation. The same power that produces speech produces birth; the same power, when known, becomes liberation.
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