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| This chunk is about bandha-rūpā, bondage by nature, and the twofold function of Śakti: the same powers either bind or liberate. The broken chains visually express exactly that: Khecarī and related powers can weave saṃsāra, but under recognition they become release. |
The previous chunk closed with the sughaṭa vidhi — the beautifully fitted method for attaining Anuttara. Abhinava had shown the supreme current: Parā Vāk beyond convention, aham as Śuddhavidyā, Mātṛkā as the body of the tattvas, bīja-yoni as Śiva-Śakti, their charged conjunction as visarga, and Devī’s ascent as lightning and return as nectar. The whole movement was a path upward and inward: sound, body, polarity, and manifestation gathered back into Anuttara.
Now the text turns back to the other side of the same Mātṛkā: the descent into bondage. From the same letter-mass, when Māyā is taken as support, arises a differentiated akṣara-sṛṣṭi, a creation of letters. These letters no longer function as transparent bodies of Parā Vāk, but as divided signs producing the fiftyfold field of pratyayas. And as the Spanda teaching says, the arising of pratyaya means the loss of the taste of supreme nectar and the fall into dependence.
This chunk therefore explains how the same powers that can liberate also bind. The māyic letter-creation is bandha-rūpā, bondage by nature, because it veils svarūpa. Yet this does not mean that the powers themselves are evil or fallen. The great Śaktis — Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, Bhūcarī — have a twofold condition. For those purified by śaktipāta, they reveal nonduality, fullness, all-doership, and the expansion of cidānanda. For those deluded by Māyā, they move through voidness, mind, senses, objects, time, kalā, attachment, and niyati, becoming forces of bondage.
That is the nerve of the chunk: the same Śakti either opens or binds, depending on recognition or misrecognition. Speech, mind, senses, directions, and objects are not neutral. For the awakened, they become doorways of cit-prakāśa. For the unawakened, they become the machinery of saṃsāra.
So the movement is dark but precise: māyic letters produce pratyayas; pratyayas veil the Self; the Khecarī and related powers operate inside the letter-field; in their binding mode they become object-oriented; and from them is stretched out the colorful saṃsāra made of karma, Māyā, and aṇutā — action-bond, separative illusion, and contracted smallness.
From the māyic mass of letters arises differentiated akṣara-creation
asmādeva tu māyīyādvarṇapuñjānnirūpitā ||
māyāmālambya bhinnaiva śrīpūrve sṛṣṭirākṣarī |
“But from this very māyic mass of letters, the Śrīpūrva teaches a distinct akṣara-creation, relying on Māyā.”
After the previous chunk’s ascent into Anuttara, Abhinava now deliberately turns downward again. This is important. He does not let us remain only in the luminous register of Parā Vāk, Śiva-Śakti, visarga, and the beautifully fitted method. He now shows what happens when the same letter-body is taken through Māyā.
The phrase asmād eva matters: “from this very.” Not from some other source. Not from an alien principle. Not from a second universe opposed to consciousness. The same varṇa-puñja, the same mass or cluster of letters, can appear in another mode. At the supreme level, the letters are Mātṛkā, the pure body of consciousness. But when Māyā is taken as support — māyām ālambya — they become bhinna, divided.
This division is sṛṣṭir ākṣarī — letter-creation, akṣara-creation. The letters now appear as separate units, fixed signs, differentiated sounds, names, concepts, identities, categories. Instead of being transparent openings into Parā Vāk, they become the machinery of separative cognition.
This is not just linguistics. It is the birth of the bound world.
Because once the letters are divided, reality becomes named as fragments: “I,” “you,” “mine,” “other,” “success,” “failure,” “enemy,” “object,” “desire,” “fear,” “body,” “world.” The pure sound-body becomes the net of designation. The same letters that could carry consciousness back to Anuttara now begin to carve the field into pieces.
But Abhinava’s precision is that he does not demonize the letters. The problem is not letter, sound, name, or speech as such. The problem is māyām ālambya — taking Māyā as support. When the letter is rooted in Parā Vāk, it is mantra. When the letter is rooted in Māyā, it becomes separative designation. Same power, different grounding.
So this point opens the dark mirror of the previous chunk. There, the letters were the body of the tattvas and the method to Anuttara. Here, the letters become differentiated akṣara-creation and begin the descent into pratyaya, bondage, and saṃsāra. The Mother of letters is still the Mother — but now her children appear as names that bind.
This akṣara-creation gives birth to the fiftyfold pratyaya-field
pañcāśadbhedasaṃbhinnapratyayaprasavātmikā [yathā spande
parāmṛtarasāpāyastasya yaḥ pratyayodbhavaḥ |
tenāsvatantratāmeti sa ca tanmātragocaraḥ ||
iti pratyayasargaḥ |] ||
“It has the nature of giving birth to pratyayas divided into fifty distinctions. As it is said in the Spanda teaching:
‘The arising of pratyaya for him is the loss of the taste of the supreme nectar.
By that he becomes unfree, and he becomes confined to the sphere of the tanmātras.’
Thus is pratyaya-creation.”
Abhinava now explains what the māyic akṣara-creation produces: pratyayas — inner determinations, cognitive formations, fixed mental structures. And these pratyayas are pañcāśad-bheda-saṃbhinna, split into fifty divisions. This directly recalls the previous taxonomy: error, incapacity, satisfaction, attainment, and all their branches.
But the important point is not the number alone. The real point is that māyic letters give birth to the inner architecture of bondage. Once the letter-body is taken through Māyā, it does not remain pure mantraic sound. It becomes thought-formation, naming, identity, interpretation, limitation.
A pratyaya is not just a harmless thought floating in the mind. In this context, it is a formed knot of consciousness. It says: “this is real,” “this is me,” “this is mine,” “this is enough,” “this is impossible,” “this object will complete me,” “this fear defines me,” “this category is final.” The pratyaya gives the world a fixed shape and then traps the knower inside that shape.
This is why the Spanda quotation is so severe: parāmṛta-rasa-apāyaḥ tasya yaḥ pratyayodbhavaḥ — the arising of pratyaya is the loss of the taste of supreme nectar. When consciousness collapses into determinate mental formation, it loses the direct savor of its own fullness. The nectar is not destroyed, but its taste is covered. Instead of tasting saṃvid, awareness tastes its own contraction.
Then comes the next consequence: tena asvatantratām eti — by that, he becomes unfree. This is the anatomy of bondage. Freedom is not first lost by external chains. It is lost when consciousness becomes captivated by its own pratyayas. The bound being does not merely live in a world; he lives inside interpreted reality, named reality, mentally sealed reality.
And finally: sa ca tanmātra-gocaraḥ — he becomes confined to the sphere of the tanmātras, the subtle-objective field. Consciousness, which is originally unrestricted, now lives as if reality were only the field of objects: sound, touch, form, taste, smell; desirable things, fearful things, graspable things, rejectable things. The whole vastness of awareness is narrowed into object-orientation.
So this point is dark, but very precise. The māyic letters produce pratyaya; pratyaya dries the taste of supreme nectar; loss of nectar produces unfreedom; unfreedom confines consciousness to the object-field.
This is how the fall happens in Abhinava’s terms. Not as a historical fall, not as a moral sin, but as a contraction of sound-consciousness into fixed cognitive formation. The same Mātṛkā who liberates as mantra binds as pratyaya when her letters are read through Māyā.
This creation is bondage by nature because it veils the true form
bandharūpā svabhāvena svarūpāvaraṇātmikā |
“By its very nature, it has the form of bondage, because it consists in the veiling of one’s true nature.”
Abhinava now says the quiet part directly. This māyic akṣara-sṛṣṭi, this differentiated letter-creation, is bandha-rūpā — its form is bondage. Not accidentally, not occasionally, not only when misused. Svabhāvena — by its own nature, when functioning through Māyā, it binds.
Why? Because it is svarūpa-āvaraṇātmikā — it consists in covering the true nature.
This is the key. Bondage is not primarily the existence of the world. It is not the existence of sound, body, thought, senses, language, or objects. Bondage is the covering of svarūpa, the misrecognition of what one truly is. The same consciousness that is self-luminous, free, and full begins to experience itself as a limited knower trapped among objects.
The letters become dangerous here because they no longer reveal their source. They name, divide, harden, and seal. The word “I” no longer opens into divine aham; it contracts into ego. The word “world” no longer shines as Mātṛkā’s body; it becomes something outside. The word “desire” no longer points to the hunger for fullness; it becomes obsession with an object. The word “failure” becomes identity. The word “success” becomes prison. The word “mine” becomes rope.
This is how the covering works. It does not usually arrive as dramatic darkness. It arrives as certainty. “This is who I am.” “This is what life is.” “This is what I need.” “This is what I cannot survive.” “This is the truth because the mind has named it so.” The bound being lives inside names and forgets the light that makes naming possible.
So bandha is letter-formed misrecognition. Māyic letters do not merely describe bondage; they help construct it. They generate the pratyayas through which consciousness becomes trapped in its own determinations. The cage is made of meanings.
But the line also implies the route back. If bondage is svarūpa-āvaraṇa, then liberation is not the manufacture of a new Self. It is the removal, piercing, or transparency of the covering. The Self is veiled, not absent. The nectar is obscured, not destroyed. The letters bind when they cover their source; they liberate when they become transparent to it.
So this point is severe but not pessimistic. It tells us exactly where the problem lies. The world is not the enemy. Language is not the enemy. Thought is not the enemy. The enemy is misrecognized manifestation — the letter-body functioning as cover instead of revelation.
The Khecarī and related powers are contained within this very letter-mass
atraivāntargatāstāstāḥ [atreti amāyīye varṇapuñje |] khecaryo ... viṣayātmikāḥ |
“Here itself are contained those various Khecarī powers and the others, whose nature is object-oriented. The gloss explains that ‘here’ means: in the amāyīya varṇa-puñja, the non-māyic mass of letters.”
Abhinava now introduces the Khecarī and related Śaktis, but the gloss immediately gives a crucial correction: atra — “here” — means not merely in the māyic letter-mass, but in the amāyīya varṇa-puñja, the non-māyic, pure mass of letters.
This matters a lot. He is discussing bondage, but he does not allow us to think that these powers are inherently fallen. The same Śaktis that appear in bondage are rooted in the pure letter-field. Their binding mode is real, but it is not their whole nature.
So the structure is subtle. At the deepest level, the powers belong to amāyīya Mātṛkā, the pure body of letters beyond Māyā. But when they operate through object-orientation — viṣayātmikāḥ — they become part of bondage. They turn outward toward fields, objects, senses, thought-structures, directions, and embodied experience.
This is again the same central principle: Śakti does not become evil. Śakti becomes binding when misrecognized. The power that could reveal consciousness becomes a mechanism of fixation when it is absorbed into the object-field.
Khecarī literally suggests the power that moves in kha, the space or sky. But in this context, the Khecarī and related powers should not be treated as fantasy goddesses floating somewhere above. They are functional Śaktis of consciousness. They move through levels of experience: the space of awareness, the field of speech and mind, the senses, the object-world. They are the powers by which consciousness either opens into recognition or becomes entangled in manifestation.
So this point prepares the great twofold explanation that follows. These Śaktis have one mode for those purified by śaktipāta, and another mode for those deluded by Māyā. For the awakened, they reveal cidānanda, nonduality, fullness, and the all-doing nature of consciousness. For the bound, they become object-oriented powers that weave the net of saṃsāra.
That is why the gloss is so careful. It says: do not mistake their binding activity for their essence. They are contained in the pure letter-mass. But here, because the discussion concerns bondage, they are being shown as viṣayātmikāḥ — powers turned toward objects. The same current, depending on recognition, becomes either path or chain.
The Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, and Bhūcarī powers have a twofold condition
dvidhā hi khecaryādiśaktayaḥ tāśca khecarīgocarīdikcarībhūcarīrūpāḥ dvidhātvaṃ ca āsāṃ paraśaktipātapavitritānāṃ cidānandaprasarodvamanaśīlatayā akālakalitatvādabhedasarvakartṛtvapūrṇatvalyāpakatvasvarūponmīlana-paramārthatayeti māyāmohitānāṃ tu nānandapradatayāḥ śūnyapramātṛbhūmicāritayāḥ kālakalāśuddhavicārāganiyatimayatayā bandhayitṛtayetiḥ
“For the Khecarī and related powers are twofold. They are Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, and Bhūcarī. Their twofoldness is this: for those purified by supreme śaktipāta, they pour forth the expansion of consciousness-bliss, because they are not measured by time, and because their ultimate purpose is the unfolding of nonduality, all-doership, fullness, pervasiveness, and one’s own true nature. But for those deluded by Māyā, they do not give bliss; they move in the ground of the void-knower and are made of time, kalā, impure thought, attachment, and niyati, and thus become binders.”
Abhinava now states one of the most practical and dangerous truths in the whole passage: the same Śaktis can either liberate or bind. Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, Bhūcarī are not “good powers” in a childish sense, and not “bad powers” either. They are powers of consciousness. Their result depends on the condition of the one through whom they operate.
For those purified by para-śaktipāta, these powers release cidānanda-prasara — the expansion and outpouring of consciousness-bliss. This does not mean merely pleasant mystical feelings. It means that speech, mind, senses, directions, and objects cease to function as traps and begin to reveal the body of awareness. The same world is seen, heard, touched, thought, and spoken — but it no longer closes into separateness. The field opens.
This is why Abhinava says they are akāla-kalitāḥ — not measured by time. In their liberating mode, these powers do not throw the sādhaka into the anxiety of sequence: “I had it yesterday,” “I lost it today,” “maybe I will attain it later,” “I am too late,” “I am not ready,” “my life is already ruined.” Time stops being the tyrant of recognition. The power reveals what is already present before before-and-after.
Their true purpose is abheda, non-difference; sarvakartṛtva, all-doership; pūrṇatva, fullness; vyāpakatva, pervasiveness; and svarūponmīlana, the opening of one’s own true nature. This is the sādhana point. The powers are not meant to entertain the subtle ego. They are not for collecting visions, sensations, siddhis, identities, or occult drama. Their purpose is to open the contracted being into the recognition: “this too is consciousness; this too is my own Self appearing.”
Then Abhinava gives the other side. For those māyā-mohitāḥ, deluded by Māyā, these same powers become bandhayitrī, binders. They do not give bliss — nānandapradāḥ. They move in the ground of the śūnya-pramātṛ, the void-knower.
This phrase is extremely important. Not every emptiness is liberation. There is a sterile emptiness where the person feels detached, hollow, superior, disembodied, or numb, but not full. There is void without nectar, silence without warmth, distance without recognition. A sādhaka can mistake this for realization because it feels “beyond ordinary life.” But Abhinava is surgical: if it does not unfold cidānanda, if it does not reveal fullness, pervasiveness, nonduality, and the living body of awareness, then it may be only the śūnya-pramātṛ-bhūmi — the ground of a contracted knower hiding in emptiness.
Then the binding ingredients are named: kāla, time; kalā, limited capacity; aśuddha-vicāra, impure or distorted thought; rāga, attachment; and niyati, restriction, necessity, the sense of fixed fate. This is the machinery of bondage in lived experience. Time says, “too late.” Kalā says, “you cannot.” Aśuddha-vicāra says, “this distorted interpretation is truth.” Rāga says, “you need this object to be whole.” Niyati says, “this cage is reality.”
This is brutally practical. The same mantra can open or inflate. The same meditation can liberate or dissociate. The same solitude can deepen recognition or become avoidance. The same scripture can cut ignorance or become spiritual identity. The same teacher-image can point to the Self or become dependency. The same ritual can become offering or performance. The same silence can become fullness or deadness.
That is the twofoldness of these powers.
For the one touched by grace and willing to be purified, speech becomes mantra, thought becomes inquiry, the senses become doorways, objects become forms of Devī, and the world becomes a field of recognition. For the one under Māyā’s spell, speech becomes gossip and self-narrative, thought becomes distortion, senses become addiction, objects become hooks, and the world becomes a prison of time, lack, attachment, and necessity.
So the sādhaka must ask very honestly: how are these powers functioning in me right now?
Does this practice make awareness wider or narrower?
Does this mantra soften the knot of ego, or make the ego feel spiritually special?
Does this emptiness carry nectar, or only numbness?
Does this knowledge produce humility and clarity, or superiority?
Does this experience reveal abheda, or does it strengthen “me” as someone who had an experience?
This is where Abhinava’s teaching stops being metaphysical decoration. The powers are moving all the time. Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, Bhūcarī are not distant mythic beings only. They operate through sky-like awareness, speech, mind, senses, directions, objects, and the entire texture of experience. Every moment they either open the field or tighten the knot.
The difference is recognition.
Under śaktipāta, the powers unfold the Self. Under Māyā, they weave saṃsāra. The same Śakti becomes path or chain. That is why the sādhaka cannot be naive. Power alone is not liberation. Experience alone is not liberation. Emptiness alone is not liberation. Only recognition turns the movement of Śakti into freedom.
Gocarī, Dikcarī, and Bhūcarī operate through speech, mind, senses, and objects
gaurvāk tadupalakṣitāsu saṃjalpamayīṣu buddhyahaṃkāramanobhūmiṣu caranti gocaryaḥ śaktipātavatāṃ tu śuddhādhyavasāyābhimānasaṃkalpaprarohiṇyaḥ pareṣāṃ tu viparyāsinyaḥ | dikṣu bāhyendriyeṣu daśasu carantīti dikcaryaḥ anugṛhītānāmaddvayaprathanasārāḥ pareṣāṃ tu dvayapratītipātinyaḥ | bhūrūpādipañcakaṃ meyapadaṃ tatra carantīti tadābhogamayāśyānībhāvena tanmayatāmāpannā bhūcaryaḥ prabuddhānāṃ citprakāśaśarīratayā sphurantya itareṣāṃ sarvato nyavacchevatāṃ darśayantya iti dvidhā sthitiḥ
“Gocarīs move in speech — indicated by the word go — and in the fields marked by speech: the domains of discursive thought, buddhi, ahaṃkāra, and manas. For those who have received śaktipāta, they sprout as pure ascertainment, purified self-sense, and purified intention; but for others, they become inverted.
Dikcarīs move in the directions, that is, in the ten external senses. For those who are graced, their essence is the manifestation of nonduality; for others, they cast one down into the perception of duality.
Bhūcarīs move in the fivefold field of objects beginning with form, the domain of the knowable. Becoming absorbed into them through the thickening of their enjoyment, they flash for the awakened as bodies of the light of consciousness; but for others they show limitation everywhere. Thus their condition is twofold.”
Abhinava now makes the previous doctrine concrete. He does not leave the twofold Śakti as an abstract principle. He shows where these powers actually operate: in speech, thought, ego, intention, senses, and objects. In other words, in the exact places where life is lived.
Gocarī moves in the field of vāk, speech, and in the inner domains shaped by speech: saṃjalpa, discursive thought; buddhi, ascertainment; ahaṃkāra, the “I-maker”; and manas, the mind that forms options, doubts, images, and intentions. This is brutally practical. The inner world is not silent. It is full of speech-patterns: self-talk, judgment, interpretation, memory, fantasy, accusation, prayer, mantra, doctrine, fear.
For one touched by śaktipāta, these same inner functions become purified. Buddhi becomes śuddhādhyavasāya — clean ascertainment. It sees more directly. Ahaṃkāra becomes purified abhimāna — not egoic inflation, but the rightful sense of “I” rooted closer to consciousness. Saṃkalpa becomes a sprout of awakened intention, no longer merely craving or anxiety.
But for others, the same Gocarī powers become viparyāsinyaḥ — inverted. Speech becomes distortion. Thought becomes self-deception. Buddhi becomes rationalization. Ahaṃkāra becomes defensive identity. Saṃkalpa becomes neurotic projection: “I must have this,” “I am this wound,” “I will be nothing without that,” “this interpretation is reality.” The same inner powers either clarify or poison.
Then come the Dikcarīs. They move in the dik, the directions, interpreted here as the ten external senses. The senses are directions because they open consciousness outward: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, acting, speaking, grasping, moving, reproducing. They orient the being into a world.
For the graced, these senses reveal advaya-prathana — nondual manifestation. The eye does not merely see an object outside; it sees appearance as consciousness. The ear does not merely hear sound; sound becomes Śakti’s vibration. Touch does not merely confirm externality; it becomes contact with the body of awareness.
For others, the senses throw consciousness into dvaya-pratīti — perception of duality. The seen becomes “outside me.” The desired object becomes “what I lack.” The unpleasant object becomes “what threatens me.” The senses become hooks. Each direction becomes a road into fragmentation.
Then come the Bhūcarīs. They move in the meya-pada, the domain of knowable objects — the fivefold field beginning with rūpa, form. These are not only abstract object-categories. They are the world as enjoyed, consumed, feared, desired, possessed: form, taste, smell, touch, sound; body, food, face, landscape, pain, pleasure, memory.
The text says they become absorbed through the thickening of enjoyment — tad-ābhoga-maya-āśyānī-bhāvena. That is exact. Objects thicken around enjoyment. The more the mind feeds on them, the more solid they seem. The object becomes heavy with projected meaning.
For the awakened, even this object-field flashes as cit-prakāśa-śarīra — the body of the light of consciousness. The object is not denied; it is transfigured. Form remains form, but it shines as consciousness. Pleasure remains pleasure, but it is no longer mistaken for the source of fullness. The world remains vivid, but not separate.
For others, the same objects display limitation everywhere — sarvato’nyavacchevatā. Everywhere there is boundary: this is outside me, this is not mine, this is lacking, this is forbidden, this is lost, this is threatening, this is separate. The object-world becomes a wall.
So this point is a direct map of sādhana. The battlefield is not somewhere exotic. It is speech, thought, senses, and objects.
A mantra can become Gocarī as liberation, or inner speech as bondage.
A perception can become Dikcarī as nondual opening, or sense-hook as dualistic fall.
An object can become Bhūcarī as cit-prakāśa, or a thick knot of craving and limitation.
Same powers. Different recognition.
That is why the sādhaka’s work is not to hate speech, mind, senses, or objects. The work is to see how these powers are moving. Are they revealing cit-prakāśa, or are they building the cage? Are they opening into abheda, or tightening into “me versus world”? Are they making the object transparent to consciousness, or making consciousness kneel before the object?
Abhinava’s answer is severe and liberating: the world is not the problem. The powers are not the problem. Misrecognition is the problem. Under recognition, speech becomes mantra, senses become gateways, objects become bodies of light. Under Māyā, the same field becomes saṃsāra.
Here the text speaks from the standpoint of bondage, because these powers are object-oriented
atra punarbandhābhiprāyeṇaiva sthitiḥ yato viṣayātmikā ityuktaṃ ṣiñ bandhane iti dhātvanusārāt |
“But here their condition is presented specifically with bondage in view, because they have been called viṣayātmikāḥ, object-oriented. This follows the verbal root ṣiñ, in the sense of binding.”
Abhinava now clarifies the standpoint. The Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, and Bhūcarī powers are not being described here in their highest essence. Their twofold nature has already been stated: for those purified by śaktipāta, they reveal cidānanda, nonduality, fullness, and the unfolding of svarūpa. But here, in this immediate passage, the focus is on their binding mode.
That is why he says bandhābhiprāyeṇaiva — with bondage specifically intended. The text is looking at how these powers operate when consciousness has turned outward into viṣaya, object. When the power becomes viṣayātmikā, object-formed or object-oriented, it no longer opens the world as the body of awareness. It hardens the world into something grasped, feared, consumed, compared, possessed, or resisted.
This is the subtle trap. The object itself is not the enemy. Form, sound, touch, thought, body, relationship, work, memory, pleasure — none of these are evil in themselves. But when consciousness forgets its own nature and becomes absorbed into the object as final, the same Śakti becomes a binder. The object stops being transparent and becomes a wall.
The reference to the root ṣiñ bandhane sharpens this. The power is being read through “binding.” In this mode, Śakti ties consciousness to the object-field. Speech becomes inner narrative. Thought becomes interpretation. Senses become hooks. Objects become centers of dependency. The world becomes not manifestation, but enclosure.
This is very practical. A person may say, “I am only dealing with reality.” But often “reality” means the object-field as interpreted through fear, attachment, and limitation. “This situation defines me.” “This person controls my worth.” “This loss has ended my life.” “This desire must be fulfilled.” “This role is who I am.” These are viṣayātmikā śaktis operating as bandha.
So Abhinava’s precision matters: do not blame the powers, but do not be naïve about their binding mode. In recognition, they reveal. In object-fixation, they bind. The sādhaka must learn to see when experience has become viṣaya in this hardened sense — when the object no longer shines as consciousness, but begins to command consciousness.
That is the whole danger of Māyā here. The same world that can become a doorway into cit-prakāśa becomes saṃsāra when the object is taken as separate, final, and self-sufficient. The same Śakti who opens the sky becomes the rope.
These powers stretch out the variegated saṃsāra made of karma, Māyā, and aṇutā
tanvate saṃsṛtiṃ citrāṃ karmamāyāṇutāmayīm ||
“They stretch out the variegated flow of saṃsāra, made of karma, Māyā, and aṇutā.”
Abhinava now gives the result of these powers when they function in their binding mode. The Khecarī, Gocarī, Dikcarī, and Bhūcarī Śaktis, when turned toward viṣaya, do not merely create occasional distraction. They tanvate saṃsṛtim — they stretch out, extend, weave, and prolong saṃsāra.
The word tanvate is important. Saṃsāra is not only “there.” It is woven. It is spun out through speech, thought, senses, objects, memory, desire, fear, interpretation, and repeated action. The powers stretch the field wider and wider until the bound being lives inside a full fabric of limitation.
And this saṃsṛti is citrā — variegated, colorful, many-patterned. Bondage is not always grey and miserable. Sometimes it is painful; sometimes seductive. Sometimes it appears as fear, sometimes as pleasure, sometimes as ambition, sometimes as spiritual identity, sometimes as family duty, sometimes as moral certainty, sometimes as trauma-narrative, sometimes as “common sense.” Its colors are many. That is why it works.
Then Abhinava names the substance of this saṃsāra: karma-māyā-aṇutā-mayī.
Karma is the web of action and consequence. Not only ritual karma, but the whole momentum of doing, reacting, repeating, compensating, defending, desiring, avoiding. Every action leaves trace; every trace bends future perception and action. The being becomes carried by its own momentum.
Māyā is the power of division. It makes the one field appear as separate: I here, world there; my need, your threat; sacred here, ordinary there; success here, failure there. Māyā cuts the seamless field of consciousness into mutually opposed fragments.
Aṇutā is contracted smallness. This is the intimate wound of the paśu: “I am small. I am lacking. I am only this limited body-mind. I am under pressure from forces larger than me. I must grasp, defend, fear, achieve, survive.” The infinite aham shrinks into the anxious atomic self.
So saṃsāra is not only rebirth in an abstract religious sense. It is the lived spinning of contracted existence. Karma gives momentum. Māyā gives separation. Aṇutā gives smallness. Together they produce the colorful fabric of bondage.
This is why the previous points mattered. Speech, mind, senses, and objects become dangerous when they feed this fabric. Inner speech repeats the same narratives. The senses chase and reject. Objects become hooks. Thought rationalizes bondage. The world becomes a field where the small self tries to complete itself through what can never complete it.
For the sādhaka, this line is diagnostic. Whenever experience becomes dominated by compulsion, separation, and smallness, these powers are weaving karma-māyā-aṇutāmayī saṃsṛti. The question is not abstract: does this thought, practice, relationship, ambition, fear, or desire expand recognition, or does it make the self smaller and more bound?
That is the brutal clarity of Abhinava here. Saṃsāra is not woven only by obviously “bad” things. It is woven by any movement that strengthens karma, separation, and smallness. Even spiritual practice can become saṃsāra if it feeds identity, comparison, craving, or fear. Even knowledge can bind if it makes the knower more contracted.
But the same Śaktis, when recognized, reverse direction. Speech becomes mantra. Thought becomes clear vimarśa. Senses become gateways. Objects become forms of cit-prakāśa. Karma becomes offering. Māyā becomes Śakti’s power of display. Aṇutā opens back into pūrṇatva.
So this closing point is dark, but not hopeless. It shows exactly how the net is woven. And what is woven can be seen. What is seen can become transparent. What becomes transparent can return to the light from which it was never truly separate.
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