Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 157): Amūlā Devī, the Rootless Source of Mantra and Vidyā

Abhinava unfolds the Goddess as amūlā — rooted in a, yet rootless because beginningless. She cannot be known as an object because she is jñātṛrūpā, the very form of the knower; and yet she alone is knowable, because nothing exists apart from her. The image captures that paradox: Devī is visible, but not graspable.

The previous chunk clarified spanda as the living pulse of consciousness: not ordinary movement from one place to another, not bodily vibration, not a vague “energy frequency,” and not inert stillness. Spanda is the slight upsurge within svarūpa itself — the wave of camatkāra, wonder, by which consciousness manifests without leaving itself. It is Śiva-Śakti-rūpa, both universal and particular.

Now Abhinava turns back to the svaras and asks how the whole structure of manifestation is contained within them. The tithis ending in bindu, the relation of soma and sūrya to time, the entire kula from earth up to the five Brahmas — all of this is said to be present inside the svaras. This continues the same logic: sound is not a surface phenomenon. The vowel-body contains the cosmic body.

From there the text moves into kālagrāsa, the devouring of sequence itself. Time is not merely endured; sequence itself is consumed. This connects directly with the previous reflections on Kālī-Śakti and the projection and reabsorption of time. The svaras are not only phases of sound; they are sites where time, sequence, enjoyment, emptiness, fullness, and return are gathered.

Then the passage turns to the Goddess as amūlā — rooted in a, yet rootless because beginningless. This is a sharp paradox. She is the root of manifestation, but she herself has no external root. She cannot be known as an object, yet she alone is knowable because nothing exists apart from her. She is both the source and the field of knowing.

This chunk should therefore be read as a mantric-metaphysical movement: the svaras contain the whole kula; sequence is devoured; the rootless Goddess is both unknowable and knowable; and she is the equal source of all mantras and vidyās. Only at the end does Abhinava prepare the next movement, where the pure mantra-letters begin to differentiate into bhāva-sṛṣṭi and bhūta-sṛṣṭi.

The tithis, bindu, soma, sūrya, and the whole kula are contained within the svaras

tadvyākhyātam ādyāstithayaḥ bindvavasānagāḥ kālayogena somasūryau tasyaivaṃ kulasyāntaḥ pṛthivyādīni ca yāvat brahmapañcakaṃ tāvatteṣāṃ svarāṇāmantaḥ kathaṃ kramāt |

“This has been explained: the tithis beginning from the first and ending in bindu; soma and sūrya through their connection with time; and within that very kula, everything from earth and the other principles up to the five Brahmas — all these are contained within those svaras. How, then, are they present there sequentially?”

Abhinava now gathers the entire previous architecture back into the svaras. This is not a small phonetic statement. The svaras are no longer merely vowels, tones, accents, or musical notes. They are the living spaces in which the whole cosmic sequence is held.

First come the tithis, beginning from the first and ending in bindu. The lunar phases, the measures of time, the waxing and waning of manifestation, are not outside sound. They are contained within the vowel-body. The moon’s rhythm is hidden inside vāk.

Then come soma and sūrya, moon and sun, through kāla-yoga, their connection with time. The lunar current of nectar, fullness, and inward savor; the solar current of illumination, pramāṇa, outward disclosure — both are gathered into the same mantric field. Sound contains time; time contains the solar-lunar pulse; the solar-lunar pulse is a mode of consciousness.

Then Abhinava extends this even further: pṛthivī-ādīni yāvat brahma-pañcakam — from earth and the other principles up to the five Brahmas. This means the whole kula, the whole family or body of manifestation, from gross elemental existence up to the highest divine formations, is contained inside the svaras. The vowel is not a thin sound. It is a womb.

This is why the sentence ends with the question: kathaṃ kramāt? How are all these contained there sequentially? This is the pressure point. If the svaras contain tithis, bindu, soma, sūrya, earth, tattvas, and the five Brahmas, how does this unfold as sequence? How does the non-sequential fullness of sound become a readable order?

So this point opens the new problem. The svaras hold everything, but not as dead storage. They contain the universe as a living order of manifestation. Lunar time, solar cognition, elemental embodiment, divine hierarchy — all are folded into the sound-body. The question is how this folded totality becomes krama, sequence, without ceasing to be one consciousness.

Kālagrāsa means devouring sequence itself

atha ca kramasyādanaṃ bhakṣaṇaṃ kālagrāsaḥ tathā kṛtveti kriyāviśeṣaṇaṃ ca

“And further, kālagrāsa means the eating, the devouring, of sequence itself. The phrase ‘having done so’ functions as a qualification of the action.”

Abhinava now gives a sharp explanation of kālagrāsa. It is not merely “time passing.” It is not just aging, decay, or chronological movement. Kāla-grāsa means the devouring of krama itself — the eating of sequence.

This matters because the previous point asked how the whole cosmic order is contained inside the svaras: tithis, bindu, soma, sūrya, the whole kula, from earth up to the five Brahmas. The problem is sequence: how does this immense structure unfold in order? Now Abhinava points to the deeper answer: sequence appears, but it is also swallowed.

Krama is the readable order of manifestation. First this, then that; one tithi after another; one sound after another; one cognition after another; earth below, Brahmas above; solar and lunar currents moving through time. But kālagrāsa means that this sequence is not ultimate. It is eaten by the very consciousness that projects it.

This connects directly with the earlier movement of Kālī-Śakti. Time is projected outward by Śakti, then swallowed back into the Self. Here the formulation becomes even more precise: what is swallowed is not only time as duration, but krama, the sequential structure itself. The ordered ladder of manifestation is devoured into the non-sequential fullness of saṃvid.

So the svaras contain the sequence, but they are not trapped by sequence. They unfold tithis, sun, moon, elements, divine principles, and the whole kula; then the same movement is consumed. This is the pulse: articulation and devouring, ordering and dissolution, manifestation and return.

This is why kālagrāsa is such a powerful term. It is not a mythic monster eating time from outside. It is consciousness reclaiming its own sequential display. The Goddess lets the alphabet become cosmos, lets cosmos become time, lets time become order — and then eats the order back into Herself.

So the point is severe: all sequence is provisional. Necessary for manifestation, real as experience, but not final. Krama is the way the universe becomes readable. Kālagrāsa is the way that readability is swallowed back into the unreadable fullness of the Self.

Suvrate, bhoga, riktatva, bhoga-nivṛtti, and pūrṇatva name the Goddess’s cycle of experience

śobhane vrate bhoge riktatve bhoganivṛttau ca pūrṇatve suvrate āmantraṇamapi etat evaṃ vyākhyeyam

“And the address suvrate should also be explained in this way: as referring to the beautiful vow, to enjoyment, to emptiness, to the cessation of enjoyment, and to fullness.”

Abhinava now returns to the word suvrate from the verse of the Parātrīśikā Tantra: kramātkādiṣu vargeṣu makārānteṣu suvrate — “O Suvratā, in the groups beginning with ka and ending with ma, in sequence…” This is the same cluster of verses whose commentary began many parts ago (on the part 75); by now, the word “commentary” almost feels too small. One may politely call this exegesis. More honestly: he detonated the verses.

Here suvrate is not treated as a casual devotional address. Abhinava reads it as part of the same deep structure: śobhane vrate, the beautiful vow; bhoga, enjoyment; riktatva, emptiness; bhoga-nivṛtti, the cessation of enjoyment; and pūrṇatva, fullness. The Goddess addressed in the verse is the one whose “beautiful vow” is precisely this whole cycle of manifestation and return.

This is very precise and very human. Experience first comes as bhoga. Something appears and is tasted: a sound, a touch, a face, a desire, a scripture, a mantra, a teacher, a tradition, a mystical mood, a pain that strangely fascinates, a pleasure that seems to promise rest. Consciousness leans into it. The object becomes vivid. It has charge. It says, silently: “Here. Drink from me.” This is the phase of contact, savor, participation.

And this is not automatically wrong. Bhoga is part of Śakti’s movement. The world must first be tasted before its limitation can be understood. A person who has never tasted the sweetness of something cannot honestly renounce it; they can only repress it, imitate renunciation, or build an identity around being “above” it. Abhinava’s world is not afraid of taste. It knows that consciousness often enters recognition through taste.

But then comes riktatva — emptiness. The same experience that first appeared full begins to hollow out. Its juice is spent. Its glamour fades. The thing that seemed solid becomes thin. The object cannot bear the weight projected onto it. What promised completion reveals its poverty. The pleasure ends. The inspiration fades. The emotional charge dies. The doctrine no longer intoxicates. The person, object, practice, or achievement that seemed luminous becomes ordinary, sometimes even dry.

This emptiness is not a mistake in the path. It is part of the Goddess’s vow. Śakti gives the taste, and then She shows that the taste is not ultimate. She lets the object shine, then lets its insufficiency become visible. She does not do this to mock the sādhaka. She does it because consciousness cannot be allowed to mistake a passing flavor for final rest.

Then comes bhoga-nivṛtti — the cessation of enjoyment. Not moral repression. Not hatred of the world. Not disgust artificially imposed by ascetic ego. It is the natural exhaustion of outward tasting. The object has been encountered, consumed, known, digested. The current no longer runs toward it in the same desperate way. Enjoyment completes itself and stops.

This also describes spiritual life itself. Many people first approach spirituality as bhoga. They taste mantra, doctrine, beauty, ritual, community, mystical language, initiatory identity, subtle experiences, the intoxication of belonging to a lineage, the sweetness of feeling close to the divine. This can be a real doorway. Śakti often permits this first sweetness because without some taste the person may never enter the path at all.

But if the person is sincere, the next stages come. Spiritual bhoga also becomes rikta. The glamour fades. The identity becomes hollow. The teacher-image cracks. The tradition no longer gives the same intoxication. Experiences pass. One sees that even sacred taste cannot be the final refuge. A mantra can be beautiful and still not be a possession. A tradition can be real and still not be an identity. A mystical mood can be luminous and still pass.

Then comes bhoga-nivṛtti in the spiritual sense: not abandoning the path, but the end of consuming spirituality as an object. One stops trying to extract sweetness, status, certainty, protection, superiority, or self-image from the sacred. The path stops being something the ego eats. It becomes the fire in which the ego’s hunger is eaten.

Only then does pūrṇatva become possible. Fullness does not come through endless repetition of enjoyment, gross or subtle. It comes when enjoyment has been tasted, emptied, released, and reabsorbed. Fullness is no longer dependent on pleasure, recognition, doctrine, initiation, ritual, vision, mood, or consolation. The object returns into consciousness. The chase ends. The externality melts. What remains is svātma-viśrānti, rest in the Self.

So suvrate names the Goddess whose vow is this entire cycle. Her vow is beautiful because She does not merely give experience. She gives the taste, empties the taste, ends the hunger for taste, and restores fullness. She does not let consciousness remain trapped in fascination — not even spiritual fascination. She lets the world be enjoyed, lets the sacred be tasted, then reveals the insufficiency of every object of enjoyment until bhoga itself becomes a doorway into recognition.

This is the fierce mercy of Śakti. She is not only the giver of delight. She is also the one who makes delight finite. She is not only the one who opens the field of bhoga. She is also the one who dries it, hollows it, and takes it back. What ego calls loss, boredom, disillusionment, exhaustion, or disenchantment may be, at a deeper level, the movement from bhoga toward pūrṇatva.

And this connects directly with kālagrāsa. Time devours sequence; Śakti devours the sequence of enjoyment. The object appears, shines, is tasted, becomes empty, ceases to bind, and returns into the fullness of awareness. Her su-vrata is not comfort. It is the sacred law by which every experience is forced to reveal that it cannot replace the Self.

Amūlā means both rooted in a and rootless because beginningless

evamamūlā - akāramūlā avidyāmānamūlā ca anāditvāt

“Thus she is amūlā: rooted in a, and also without any existing root, because she is beginningless.”

Abhinava is now unpacking the word amūlā from the eighth verse of the Parātrīśikā Tantra: amūlā tatkramājjñeyā kṣāntā sṛṣṭirudāhṛtā — “according to that sequence, creation is to be known as rootless and is taught as extending up to kṣa.” Again, what looks like a compact verse-word becomes a doorway into the whole metaphysics of Mātṛkā.

At first glance, amūlā means “rootless,” without a root. But Abhinava reads it in two directions at once.

First, akāra-mūlā — she has a as her root. The Goddess, or creation as the Goddess, is rooted in akāra, the primordial opening, the sound of Anuttara, the first pulse from which the alphabetic body unfolds. In this sense, she is not rootless as chaos. Her root is the supreme vowel, the first luminous emergence of sound-consciousness.

But immediately he reverses the reading: avidyamāna-mūlā ca — she has no existing root. Why? Anāditvāt — because she is beginningless. She cannot be traced back to some prior cause. She is not produced by anything before her. There is no deeper external foundation underneath the Goddess. She is the root of manifestation, but she herself has no root outside herself.

This is the exact paradox: she is rooted in a, yet rootless. She is the source of sequence, yet not produced by sequence. She gives rise to sound, time, mantra, cognition, and world, yet she is not a later product inside that world. She is the beginning of the alphabetic universe, but she herself is anādi, beginningless.

So amūlā does not mean lack in a negative sense. It means absolute sovereignty. A finite thing has a root, a cause, an origin, a dependency. The Goddess is rootless because she is not dependent. Her “root” is not behind her; her root is her own self-luminous nature.

This also clarifies why the verse says tatkramājjñeyā — she is to be known through that sequence, yet she is not bound by that sequence. The sequence reveals her; it does not produce her. The alphabet unfolds her; it does not create her from outside. She is known through krama, but she is not born from krama.

Her krama is joined, altered, self-extended, and yet she remains rootless

sa kramo yasyāḥ praśleṣeṇātadrūpo'nyathārūpo'pi kramo yasyāḥ tathāpyamūlā amūlasya yadātananamātat tatastadeva ca kramo yasyāḥ

“She is the one whose krama, whose sequence, even through close connection, becomes not-that-form, another form; and yet she remains amūlā, rootless. The extension of the rootless itself is her sequence.”

Abhinava now presses the paradox of amūlā further. The Goddess is known through krama, sequence, yet she is not produced by sequence. Her sequence unfolds, joins, alters, extends, becomes “otherwise formed” — and still she remains rootless.

The phrase praśleṣeṇa atad-rūpaḥ anyathā-rūpaḥ api kramaḥ is difficult, but the movement is clear. When the rootless Goddess enters sequence, she appears in forms that are not identical with her own absolute nature. She becomes “not-that-form,” atad-rūpa; she becomes “otherwise formed,” anyathā-rūpa. The one beginningless power appears as letters, tithis, worlds, senses, mantras, vidyās, objects, cognitions.

But this does not mean she has actually become dependent on those forms. She remains amūlā. Her appearing as sequence does not give her an external root. The sequence is not a cause behind her. It is her own ātanana, her own extension, her self-spreading.

This is subtle and important: the Goddess is not rootless because nothing appears. She is rootless while appearing as everything. Her rootlessness is not blank transcendence. It is sovereign self-extension without dependency. She unfolds as sequence, but the sequence does not explain her. She explains the sequence.

So the verse’s tatkramājjñeyā must be read carefully. She is known through that sequence, but she is not born from it. The alphabetic order reveals her, but does not manufacture her. The tithis reveal her, but do not bind her. The whole kula reveals her, but does not contain her as a limited thing.

This is again the Abhinavian razor: manifestation is real, but not ultimate as a separate chain of causes. The Goddess becomes readable through krama, yet her reality is prior to every reading. She extends herself as the alphabet of the universe, but remains rootless, beginningless, and sovereign in the very act of extension.

She is unknowable and yet knowable, because she herself is the knower and nothing else exists

eṣā cājñeyā jñātṛrūpā eṣaiva ca jñeyā - anyasyābhāvāt

“And she is unknowable, because she has the form of the knower; and she alone is knowable, because there is nothing else.”

Abhinava now states one of the most intimate and severe paradoxes of the whole passage: eṣā cājñeyā — she is unknowable. Not because she is far away. Not because she is hidden in some unreachable heaven. Not because she is absent. She is unknowable because she is too close. She is jñātṛrūpā — of the nature of the knower.

The eye cannot turn around and see itself as an object. Fire cannot burn itself as something other than fire. Consciousness cannot place the very power of knowing in front of itself as one more thing to be inspected. The Goddess is not a pot, a sound, a thought, a doctrine, a ritual image, a vision, or a mystical mood. She is the knowing-power by which all of these are known.

This cuts through a huge amount of spiritual immaturity. The mind wants the Goddess as an object: “I saw Her,” “I felt Her,” “I had Her experience,” “I possess Her mantra,” “I belong to Her tradition.” But all of that is still happening inside the field of the known. Abhinava says: she is not finally there. She is the one to whom even the experience of “I saw Her” appears.

So she is ajñeyā. She cannot be caught. She cannot be possessed. She cannot be placed inside memory and kept there as spiritual capital. The moment one tries to objectify her, one is already dealing with her trace, her form, her reflection, her extension — not her as the knower.

And yet Abhinava immediately reverses the statement: eṣaiva ca jñeyā — she alone is knowable. Why? Anyasya abhāvāt — because there is nothing else.

This is the blade of nonduality. She cannot be known as an object, but everything that is known is nothing but her. The sound is her. The thought is her. The body is her. The mantra is her. The fear is her. The pleasure is her. The doubt is her. The act of knowing is her. The knower who seeks her is also her. There is no second substance from which a non-Goddess object could be made.

So the paradox is not confusion. It is exact. She is unknowable because she is the subject. She is knowable because every object is her manifestation. She cannot be grasped as “that,” but there is no “that” apart from her. She is too inward to be objectified and too total to be absent.

This also explains why the path cannot end in collecting experiences. Experiences come and go. Visions arise and fade. Mantras become sweet and then dry. Teachers appear and fail. Traditions shine and crack. States of consciousness open and close. If one searches for the Goddess only as an object of experience, one will keep losing her.

But if one turns toward the knower, toward the living fact of awareness itself, the situation changes. She is not found as something new. She is recognized as the very one who was present in every search, every loss, every taste, every emptiness, every fullness. She was the seeing in the vision, the hearing in the mantra, the ache in longing, the silence after the experience ended.

That is why this line is so powerful. The Goddess cannot be captured, but she cannot be escaped. She cannot be possessed, but nothing exists outside her. She is the rootless root, the knower, the known, and the knowing — hidden only because she is the very intimacy by which anything is revealed.

She is the equal source of all mantras and vidyās

eṣaiva ca śivātmakabījaprasararūpāṇāṃ mananatrāṇadharmāṇāṃ sarveṣāmeva vācyavācakādirūpavarṇabhaṭṭārakātmanāṃ mantrāṇāṃ śaktyātmakayonispandānāṃ sarvāsāṃ tadbījodbhūtānāṃ vedanārūpāṇāṃ vidyānām iyaṃ samā sarvatrānūnādhikā sarveṣu tantreṣu tantraṇāsu ca sarvāsu kriyāsu sarvakālaṃ ca sarvaṃ dadatī siddhisaṃgham ākhyātā

“And she alone is the equal source of all mantras, whose nature is the expansion of Śiva-formed seeds, whose function is reflection and protection, and whose essence is the venerable letters in the forms of signified, signifier, and so on. She is also the equal source of all vidyās, whose yonis are Śakti-formed spandas, which arise from those seeds and have the nature of knowing. She is the same everywhere, neither deficient nor excessive, in all tantras, in all methods of tantra, in all rites, at all times, giving everything — the whole multitude of siddhis — and is so declared.”

Abhinava is now clearly unfolding the second half of the eighth verse of the Parātrīśikā Tantra: sarveṣāmeva mantrāṇāṃ vidyānāṃ ca yaśasvini — “O glorious one, of all mantras and vidyās.” The verse states it compactly; Abhinava opens the whole architecture behind it. Why is she connected with all mantras and all vidyās? Because she is the very source from which mantra as Śiva-seed and vidyā as Śakti-spanda arise.

First, the mantras are described as śivātmaka-bīja-prasara-rūpāḥ — forms of the expansion of seeds whose nature is Śiva. This is precise. A mantra is not a random sacred sound. It is a seed-expansion of Śiva-consciousness. The mantra begins as bīja, a condensed power, and then unfolds as articulated sound, letter, meaning, protection, and recognition.

Then comes the classic inner definition: manana-trāṇa-dharmāṇām. Mantra is that whose function is manana and trāṇa — reflective awareness and protection/liberation. It is not merely recitation. It is not magic syllables mechanically repeated. It is sound that makes consciousness turn back upon itself, and by that very turning protects the sādhaka from falling into mere externality.

Abhinava then says that the mantras have the nature of varṇa-bhaṭṭāraka, the venerable Lordly letters, appearing as vācya, vācaka, and so on — signified, signifier, and the whole relation between meaning and sound. This is crucial: the mantra is not only sound; it contains the full body of speech-reality. The word, the meaning, the one who knows, the one who utters, and the power that connects sound to meaning are all held inside the mantra-body.

Then he turns to vidyās. These are not merely “knowledge” in the abstract. They are powers of knowing, mantra-goddesses, forms of revealed awareness. Their yonis are śaktyātmaka-spandas — wombs made of Śakti-formed spanda. This is a beautiful phrase. The vidyās are born from subtle pulses of Śakti. Their source is not inert doctrine, but living vibration of consciousness.

And these vidyās are vedanā-rūpāḥ — of the nature of knowing. They are not merely objects to be studied. They are forms by which consciousness knows itself. A vidyā is knowledge as power, knowledge as Goddess, knowledge as the living capacity of awareness to reveal and liberate.

Then comes the universal statement: iyaṃ samā sarvatra anūnādhikā — she is the same everywhere, neither deficient nor excessive. This matters. She is not more present in one tantra and less present in another, as if the Goddess were fragmented by systems. She is not damaged by appearing in different rites, mantras, methods, or times. She remains equal, complete, whole.

So in sarveṣu tantreṣu, all tantras; tantraṇāsu, all methods, extensions, or applications of tantra; sarvāsu kriyāsu, all rites and actions; sarvakālam, at all times — she gives sarvam, everything. Specifically, she gives siddhi-saṃgha, the whole multitude of accomplishments. But the point is not cheap miracle-hunting. The deepest siddhi is the restoration of sound, knowledge, action, and experience into the recognition of their source.

This is the grandeur of the passage. The same Goddess who is amūlā, rootless; the same who is unknowable as object and yet alone knowable because nothing else exists; the same who extends creation to the senses and draws it back into the Self — she is also the source of every mantra and every vidyā. Sound protects because she is there. Knowledge liberates because she is there. Ritual works because she is there. No tantra, no action, no time, no method has power apart from her.

So this point should not be read as sectarian boasting. It is not saying “our system has all siddhis.” It is saying something more radical: every genuine mantraic and vidyā-power is her own self-extension. Wherever sound truly turns consciousness back to itself, wherever knowledge becomes living recognition, wherever action becomes aligned with Śakti — there she is, equal, whole, neither lacking nor excessive.