 |
| This image evokes Bhairava beyond purity and impurity, where the mind’s sacred and polluting distinctions dissolve into Śambhu’s vision. |
The previous movement brought Abhinava to the razor’s edge of Kaula praxis. The body was no longer treated as a merely biological object or a source of impurity, but as a Bhairava-field filled with Śakti, mantra-vīrya, spanda, rasa, void, and recognition. Yet the moment forbidden supports entered the discussion, Abhinava did not let the passage collapse into appetite, theatrical transgression, or crude antinomian pride. The criterion remained exact: not shock, not indulgence, not rebellion against religion, but the dissolution of bheda-mala, the impurity of difference.
Now he explains why such charged supports can function at all. The real enemy is not an external substance. The real enemy is śaṅkā — the contracted hesitation by which consciousness shrinks before its own manifestation and says: “this is pure, that is impure; this belongs to worship, that must be excluded; this is Śiva, that is not Śiva.” Abhinava treats this hesitation not as a harmless ritual scruple, but as the first sprout of saṃsāra itself.
This is where the passage becomes especially hard. Abhinava is not only challenging crude impurity or social taboo. He is cutting through the refined prison of sattva: the identity of being pure, correct, disciplined, respectable, obedient, learned, religiously clean. At one stage this purity is medicine. It gives order, gathers the mind, protects the beginner from chaos. But at a later stage the same purity can become a cage. The practitioner begins to worship his own correctness and calls it dharma.
Therefore Abhinava turns directly toward purity, impurity, injunction, and dharma. He shows that these are not always ultimate truths, but often functional constructions given for different levels of consciousness. What is called dharma in one scripture, region, family, or community may be contradicted elsewhere. This is not always a failure of śāstra. It may reveal that śāstra speaks differently according to adhikāra, according to the degree of contraction or expansion in the practitioner.
So this chunk is not a license for disorder. It is also not a defense of ordinary religious morality. It is much sharper than both. For the immature, rules may still be necessary medicine. For the advanced practitioner, the attachment to rule, purity, and dharma-identity may become the final knot. Abhinava’s question is not, “What does society call pure?” or “What can I transgress?” His question is: what dissolves contraction and reveals Bhairava where the mind still says “not Śiva”?
The ritual field is joined with substances of the two visargas
tat tithīśāntam
ubhayavisargātmadravyasamanvitaṃ
“That, extending up to the tithīśa, is accompanied by substances whose nature belongs to both visargas.”
Abhinava begins by keeping the discussion inside the same charged ritual-metaphysical structure already unfolded before. The reference to tithīśānta — “ending with the tithīśa” — shows that we are not suddenly moving into a random list of ritual objects. These substances belong to the same Heart-structure: tithi, visarga, bīja, yoni, Śakti, and the embodied field of the practitioner.
The phrase ubhayavisargātma-dravya-samanvitam is the key. The substances are not merely external materials placed into a rite. They are connected with both visargas — the dual movement of emission, outpouring, release, and return. In this whole section, visarga is never only a grammatical sign or a ritual detail. It is the pulse by which Bhairava’s fullness emits itself and gathers itself again. So when Abhinava says that the ritual field is accompanied by substances whose nature is bound to both visargas, he is placing these dravyas inside the living polarity of Śiva-Śakti, seed-womb, emission-return, inner-outer.
This prevents a crude reading from the beginning. The substances that follow — flower, mala, ash, water, hṛdaya-rasa — are not being introduced as ordinary things with a magical label pasted onto them. They belong to the structure of the Heart. They are supports through which the practitioner confronts and dissolves the contraction of difference.
This also continues the previous movement precisely. Abhinava had just insisted that the body itself is to be cultivated as Bhairava-form, but that Kaula praxis must not collapse into appetite or theatrical transgression. Now he shows the inner logic of the substances: they function because they participate in the visarga-current. They touch the place where manifestation is emitted, divided, tasted, feared, and then reabsorbed into the nondual Heart.
So the first point is preparatory, but not minor. It frames everything that follows. Before naming the substances, Abhinava tells us how to read them: not as isolated ritual objects, but as dravyas saturated with the power of visarga, inserted into the tithīśa-structure, and meant to operate within the unfolding of Bhairava’s Heart.
The Kaula replacement of ordinary ritual substances
tadindriyadvayāntarvarti kusumaśabdavācyaṃ
malaṃ tṛtīyaṃ brahma
jagadindhanadāhaśeṣaṃ bhasma bhairavātma
bharitākāramāpyāyakamambu
hṛdayaṃ ca sarvendriyāntarvartirasāśyānobhayarūpam
“That which abides between the two organs and is denoted by the word ‘flower’; the mala, the third Brahman; the ash, Bhairava-natured, remaining after the burning of the fuel of the world; the water, nourishing and having the form of fullness; and the Heart, whose nature is both — the condensed rasa dwelling within all the senses.”
Abhinava now names the substances, and the passage has to be read with courage. This is not a harmless symbolic list. It is a Kaula rethinking of worship itself.
In ordinary ritual worship, one offers a flower. The flower is clean, fragrant, socially approved, ritually beautiful. It belongs to the safe world of purity: something pleasant is taken from outside and offered to a deity also imagined as outside. But Abhinava moves the “flower” into another field altogether. The kusuma here is described as indriyadvayāntarvarti — abiding between the two organs. In this Kaula context of yoni-vyāpti, ubhaya-visarga, and embodied Śiva-Śakti union, this cannot be reduced to an external blossom. The ritual flower is being re-read as the Kaula flower, arising in the charged field of the two generative powers.
This is already a direct overturning of ritualist worship. The question is no longer: “Which clean object may I offer?” The question becomes: “Can the embodied field itself be recognized as Bhairava’s altar?” Abhinava is not adding a strange ornament to ordinary pūjā. He is changing the basis of pūjā. Worship is no longer protected from the body. Worship enters the body’s most guarded, feared, and sacralized threshold.
Then comes the even bolder phrase: malaṃ tṛtīyaṃ brahma — “the mala is the third Brahman.” Here mala should not be flattened into a generic metaphysical impurity, nor crudely reduced to random filth. In this immediate context, it most likely points to the Kaula substance marked as impure by ordinary ritual codes — the kula-dravya, the mixed essence of the Śiva-Śakti field, the very substance that external purity would exclude. Abhinava names this “mala” as tṛtīyaṃ brahma. That is the shock.
But the shock is not for spectacle. It is surgical. The ordinary ritualist says: “This is pure enough for God; that is impure and must be excluded.” Abhinava asks: “Who taught you that Bhairava stops there?” If the practitioner still recoils as though some part of embodied manifestation were outside consciousness, then bheda-mala remains intact. The old purity-code still rules the heart. One may speak of nonduality, but the body still exposes the lie.
This does not mean that transgression itself is liberation. Abhinava is not praising appetite. He is not saying that the forbidden becomes sacred merely because someone breaks a rule. That would be childish Kaula theatre. The point is much more exact: what is called impurity by the contracted mind may become a support for recognition when entered through the Bhairava-current. Without recognition, the same substance remains bondage. With recognition, it cuts the root of difference.
Then comes bhasma, ash: jagad-indhana-dāha-śeṣaṃ bhasma bhairavātma — ash, Bhairava-natured, the remainder after the burning of the fuel of the world. This is magnificent. The whole world, as imagined by the divided mind, becomes fuel. All its fixed distinctions — pure and impure, sacred and polluting, worthy and unworthy, inner and outer, divine and bodily — are thrown into the fire. When this world-fuel burns, what remains is ash. And that ash is bhairavātma, of the nature of Bhairava.
So ash here is not merely a polite purifier. It is the residue of the world after difference has been consumed. Ritual purity washes the object so it can enter worship. Bhairava’s fire burns the very structure that imagined exclusion in the first place. What remains is not “clean” in the small ritual sense. It is Bhairava.
Then comes ambu, water: bharitākāram āpyāyakam — nourishing, replenishing, having the form of fullness. After the fire, water appears. But again this is not just external water used to cleanse impurity. This water is fullness. It moistens what contraction has dried. Śaṅkā makes consciousness shrink, harden, and recoil. This water restores rasa. It does not purify by excluding what is feared; it nourishes by saturating the field with fullness.
Here the contrast is important. Ritual purity often works by separation: remove the impure, protect the pure, keep the sacred uncontaminated. Kaula recognition works by fullness: nothing is outside Bhairava, therefore the field is not cleansed by fear but saturated by recognition. The water is āpyāyaka because it restores the living sap of the Heart where dualistic anxiety had dried it out.
Finally Abhinava names hṛdaya, the Heart: sarvendriyāntarvarti-rasa-āśyāna-ubhayarūpa — the condensed rasa dwelling inside all the senses and having both forms. This gathers the whole list into its center. The Heart is not somewhere apart from the senses. It dwells within all of them. Every sense contains rasa. Every contact carries the possibility either of scattering outward into bondage or condensing inward into recognition.
The word āśyāna is crucial: the rasa is condensed, thickened, gathered. In ordinary experience, sensory rasa disperses. It becomes craving, disgust, fascination, fear, memory, possession, recoil. In Kaula recognition, that same rasa is brought back into the Heart. The senses are not amputated from worship. They become the very channels through which the Heart recognizes its own fullness.
And the Heart is ubhayarūpa, of both forms. It holds the dual current: Śiva and Śakti, emission and return, inner and outer, seed and womb, substance and recognition. This is why the earlier phrase ubhayavisarga matters. These substances belong to the double current of manifestation itself. They are dangerous because they stand exactly where consciousness either contracts into difference or expands into Bhairava.
So the whole list is a direct Kaula challenge to ordinary ritualism. The ritualist asks: “What may be offered without impurity?” Abhinava asks: “What dissolves the impurity of difference?” These are not the same question.
A flower may be ritually pure and still leave bheda untouched. A forbidden substance may be outwardly impure and yet, for the qualified practitioner, burn through the deepest hesitation. Ash may no longer be a mere purifier, but the Bhairava-remainder of the burned world. Water may no longer be cleansing by exclusion, but nourishing by fullness. The Heart may no longer be an abstraction, but the condensed rasa inside every sense.
This is the nerve of the passage: Kaula worship does not merely replace one ritual object with another. It overturns the axis of worship. The offering is no longer chosen according to social purity, but according to its power to dissolve contraction. The deity is no longer approached through safe distance, but through the very embodied field that fear, shame, and ritual convention tried to exclude.
Abhinava’s boldness is not vulgarity. It is precision without fear. He takes the exact place where the practitioner still says, “not Bhairava,” and turns it into the altar.
These substances dissolve the impurity of difference
tadetāni dravyāṇi yathālābhaṃ bhedamalavilāpakāni
[yaduktam
yathā yenābhyupāyena kramādakramato'pi vā |
vicikitsā galatyantastathāsau yatnavānbhavet ||
iti |]
“These substances, according to availability, dissolve the impurity of difference. As it has been said:
‘By whatever means, whether gradually or suddenly, inner hesitation melts away — in that very way one should apply oneself with effort.’”
Abhinava now gives the key that prevents the whole previous list from being misunderstood. The substances are not important because of their outward strangeness. They are important because they are bheda-mala-vilāpaka — dissolvers of the impurity of difference.
This is the criterion. Not shock. Not antinomian pride. Not ritual exoticism. Not the childish thrill of forbidden things. The only question is: does this support dissolve bheda-mala, the impurity by which consciousness experiences reality as divided from itself?
That phrase bheda-mala is extremely precise. It is not ordinary dirt. It is not moral impurity. It is the impurity of division: the deep contraction by which one thing appears as sacred and another as polluting, one as worthy of worship and another as excluded, one as Bhairava and another as not-Bhairava. In the Kaula field, this impurity of difference is more serious than external impurity. External impurity may belong to convention, ritual order, or social code. But bheda-mala belongs to bondage itself.
So the previous substances become intelligible only here. The Kaula “flower,” the mala called the third Brahman, the ash left after the burning of the world, the nourishing water, the condensed Heart-rasa inside all the senses — all of these are supports because they strike directly at the place where consciousness contracts. They expose whether nonduality is merely a doctrine or whether the practitioner can recognize Bhairava in the very field that habit marks as dangerous, impure, or forbidden.
Then Abhinava adds yathālābham — “according to availability.” This is important. He does not fetishize a fixed object. He does not say liberation depends on obtaining one exact substance in one exact external form. The substance is used according to what is available, because the real work is not material possession. The real work is the melting of contraction. If the object becomes fetishized, it becomes another bondage. The Kaula dravya is not an idol of transgression; it is a medicine against division.
The quoted verse sharpens this further:
yathā yena abhyupāyena — by whatever means, by whichever effective approach;
kramāt akramataḥ api vā — whether gradually or without sequence, suddenly;
vicikitsā galati antaḥ — inner hesitation, doubt, recoil, uncertainty melts within;
tathā asau yatnavān bhavet — in that way one should be diligent.
This verse is almost the practical heart of the passage. The criterion is not external conformity. It is not even external transgression. The criterion is whether vicikitsā melts. This word matters. It is not normal thoughtful discernment. It is the inward hesitation that comes from contracted duality: “Can this be sacred? Can this be Bhairava? Am I polluted? Is this outside the path? Is the body outside consciousness? Is Śakti allowed here?”
When that hesitation melts, the support has done its work.
But this must be kept sharp. Abhinava is not saying: “Whatever removes hesitation is good.” That would be too crude. Many things remove hesitation by making a person dull, intoxicated, reckless, or morally numb. That is not what is meant here. The hesitation must melt into recognition, not into stupidity. The measure is not loss of inhibition. The measure is the dissolution of bheda-mala.
This is why kramāt and akramataḥ are both allowed. For some, contraction dissolves gradually: through śāstra, guru, mantra, contemplation, ritual, embodied practice, repeated recognition. For others, by strong śaktipāta or a decisive Kaula confrontation, the knot may break suddenly. Abhinava does not absolutize one rhythm. The path must fit the actual condition of the practitioner.
So the movement here is very exact. The substances are not praised as substances. They are praised as upāya, means. Their value is measured by their ability to dissolve the impurity of difference and melt inner contracted hesitation. A safe flower that leaves bheda intact is spiritually weaker than a dangerous support that, for the qualified practitioner, cuts through separation. But a dangerous support without recognition is worse than useless — it becomes bondage with sacred vocabulary.
This point gives the whole Kaula passage its discipline. The offering is not chosen because it is pure. It is not chosen because it is impure. It is chosen because it can dissolve the false boundary by which consciousness excludes part of itself from Bhairava.
Śaṅkā is the first sprout of saṃsāra
tathāhi dṛśyate evāyaṃ kramaḥ -
yadiyaṃ saṃkocātmikā śaṅkaiva samullasantī rūḍhā phalaparyantā
saṃsārabījataroḥ prathamāṅkurasūtiḥ
[yaduktamatraiva pūrvam
māyīyakārmamalamūlamuśanti santaḥ
saṃkocanāma malamāṇavameva bhadrāḥ |
mūlaṃ tadeva bhavajīrṇataro ??? ||
iti |]
“For this very sequence is indeed observed: this hesitation, whose nature is contraction, when it rises up, becomes firmly rooted, and extends all the way to its fruit, gives birth to the first sprout of the seed-tree of saṃsāra.
As was said earlier here:
‘The wise say that the root of the māyīya and kārma impurities is the impurity called contraction, namely the āṇava impurity, O noble ones.
That alone is the root of the ancient tree of becoming…’”
Abhinava now reveals what he has really been attacking. The target is not purity rules as social custom, and not even ritual prohibition as such. The target is śaṅkā — the hesitation, doubt, recoil, and inward shrinking by which consciousness contracts before its own field.
He defines it with brutal precision: saṃkocātmikā śaṅkā — hesitation whose very nature is contraction. This is not thoughtful discrimination. It is not mature caution. It is not the intelligence that knows when something is inappropriate, dangerous, or unfit. It is the deeper contraction that says: “This is outside Bhairava. This cannot be sacred. This will pollute me. This part of embodied existence must be excluded from consciousness.”
That is why the Kaula substances matter. They expose śaṅkā. A practitioner can speak beautifully about nonduality while still being ruled by hidden recoil. The moment the forbidden, the bodily, the socially impure, the sexually charged, or the ritually excluded appears, the inner structure reveals itself. Does recognition remain? Or does consciousness shrink?
Abhinava says this śaṅkā samullasantī — rises up, flashes forth. At first it may seem small: a flicker of disgust, fear, shame, ritual anxiety, inherited prohibition. But then it becomes rūḍhā — rooted. The hesitation hardens into conviction. The person no longer merely feels recoil; they believe the recoil is truth. The mind builds doctrine around contraction. It says, “This is purity. This is dharma. This is safety. This is obedience. This is sacred order.” But beneath the language, the root is still fear of nondual fullness.
Then it reaches phalaparyantā — all the way to its fruit. A single contraction matures into a whole life-structure. From one hesitation grows identity, morality, shame, exclusion, spiritual pride, disgust, and bondage. This is why Abhinava calls it saṃsāra-bīja-taruḥ — the tree grown from the seed of saṃsāra. Śaṅkā is not a small branch on that tree. It is the first sprout.
This is fierce psychology, but it is not merely psychology. It is ontology of bondage. The bound being becomes bound because consciousness accepts contraction as self-definition. First comes the subtle shrinking: “I am limited.” Then the world divides: “this is pure, that is impure; this is me, that is other; this is allowed, that is forbidden; this is divine, that is bodily.” Then the whole machinery of māyīya and kārma mala grows from that root.
That is why the earlier citation matters. The wise say that the root of māyīya and kārma mala is āṇava mala, the impurity called contraction. Māyīya mala gives division: many objects, many categories, many differences. Kārma mala gives action-bondage: compulsion, consequence, doership, limitation through activity. But beneath both stands āṇava mala: the primal contraction of consciousness into smallness.
So Abhinava’s argument is extremely coherent. First, he names the substances that ritual purity fears. Then he says their purpose is to dissolve bheda-mala. Now he explains why that dissolution is necessary: because śaṅkā, the contraction before such distinctions, is the first sprout of saṃsāra itself.
This also protects the passage from vulgar misunderstanding. The point is not that a sādhaka should chase forbidden substances in order to feel radical. That would only be another form of saṃkoca — the ego trying to inflate itself through transgression. The real question is whether the knot of contraction melts. If the substance increases pride, addiction, carelessness, or spiritual identity, it has failed. If it cuts the root-hesitation that divides Bhairava from his own manifestation, then it functions as Kaula upāya.
The sharpest line here is simple: saṃsāra begins where consciousness hesitates before itself.
That hesitation may dress itself as purity, morality, fear, disgust, social respectability, religious obedience, or even spiritual refinement. But if its root is contraction, Abhinava names it clearly: it is the first sprout of the ancient tree of becoming.
Do not torment the Self through imagined purity and impurity
atrāyaṃ saṃkṣepaḥ - yathoktamanenaiva -
nātra bhakṣyābhakṣyaśuddhyaśuddhivivecanayā
vastudharmojjhitayā svātmā khedanīya iti |
“Here this is the concise meaning — as has been said by him himself: in this matter, one should not torment one’s own Self by discriminating between edible and inedible, pure and impure, when such discrimination is devoid of the real nature of the thing.”
Abhinava now gives the summary, and it is wonderfully direct: do not torment the Self.
The word khedanīya matters. It means to distress, afflict, weary, make miserable. The problem is not only intellectual error. The practitioner actually wounds himself by clinging to these distinctions in the wrong way. He makes his own awareness shrink under the burden of imagined impurity. He turns the living field of Bhairava into a courtroom where every substance, sensation, and bodily reality must stand trial.
The distinctions named are ordinary and concrete: bhakṣya / abhakṣya, edible and inedible; śuddha / aśuddha, pure and impure. These are exactly the categories that govern ritual culture, food rules, purity codes, caste anxiety, bodily disgust, and religious fear. Abhinava is not pretending such distinctions do not exist conventionally. Of course they exist. Societies use them. Ritual systems use them. Bodies have practical limits. Not everything should be consumed, touched, or used by everyone in every state.
But he adds the decisive phrase: vastu-dharma-ujjhitayā — “devoid of the real nature of the thing.” That is the key. When purity and impurity are treated as if they were the intrinsic nature of the object itself, the practitioner falls into delusion. He no longer sees the thing. He sees only inherited designation. He does not encounter reality directly; he encounters a purity-label stamped onto reality by convention, fear, scripture, family, region, habit, or social imagination.
And then he torments himself.
This is exactly how śaṅkā matures into bondage. First there is a bodily or ritual hesitation: “Can this be touched? Can this be eaten? Can this be offered? Can this belong to worship?” Then the hesitation becomes metaphysical: “This is impure by nature. This is outside the divine.” Then the Self, which is Bhairava, begins to live as though surrounded by pollution. Consciousness becomes afraid of its own manifestation.
That is why Abhinava’s statement is so severe. He is not saying, “ignore discernment.” He is saying: do not use false discernment to torture awareness. Do not mistake constructed ritual categories for the essence of things. Do not let the mind carve Bhairava’s field into acceptable and unacceptable pieces, and then call that fear “purity.”
In the Kaula context this becomes especially sharp. The substances just named — the Kaula flower, kula-dravya called mala, ash, water, Heart-rasa — are precisely the things that expose whether the practitioner is still ruled by such inherited distinctions. If he approaches them through crude appetite, he falls. If he recoils from them as ontologically impure, he also remains bound. The middle is narrow: they must be recognized as supports for dissolving bheda-mala, not as objects of indulgence or disgust.
So this point is not antinomian laziness. It is more demanding than ordinary purity. Ordinary purity says: “Avoid this, take that, remain safe.” Abhinava says: “Look at the structure by which you call something pure or impure. See whether that distinction belongs to the thing itself, or whether it arises from contraction.”
This is a harder discipline. It does not let the practitioner hide behind rules, and it does not let him hide behind rebellion against rules. Both can be forms of bondage. The ritualist may be bound by fear of impurity. The false Kaula may be bound by pride in transgression. Both are still circling around the same distinction.
Abhinava’s instruction is deeper: do not afflict the Self with distinctions that do not touch the real nature of things. The Self is not purified by anxiety. Bhairava is not protected by disgust. The Heart is not entered by tormenting awareness with labels born from contraction.
Purity and impurity are not the ultimate nature of things
nahi śuddhyaśuddhī vastuno rūpaṃ paramārthataḥ
tayoḥ parasparavyabhicāradarśanāt |
dhīrairekatra yā śuddhistatrāśuddhiḥ paraiḥ smṛtā |
vihitatve'pi dānasya dīkṣitatve yathā punaḥ ||
kalpanāmātramevaitattasmātsadbhirupeyatām |
na kalpanā satyato vai mithyeyamiti niścayaḥ ||
tasmādatrottaratvaṃ hi codanāpravicāraṇe |
etatkhalu hyasaṃdigdhaṃ vādinaḥ prativādinaḥ ||
“For purity and impurity are not, in the ultimate sense, the nature of the thing, since they are seen to deviate from one another.
What is held to be pure in one place by the wise is remembered as impure elsewhere by others — just as, even though giving is enjoined, this changes again in the case of one who is initiated.
This is merely a construction. Therefore let the noble understand it as such. A construction is not truly real; it is false — this is the settled conclusion.
Therefore, here, superiority belongs to the investigation of injunction. This indeed is beyond doubt for both the disputant and the opponent.”
Abhinava now gives the reason behind the previous instruction. One should not torment the Self with purity and impurity distinctions because purity and impurity are not the ultimate nature of things.
The phrase is clean: nahi śuddhyaśuddhī vastuno rūpaṃ paramārthataḥ. Purity and impurity are not the thing’s real form, not its intrinsic being, not its paramārthic nature. They belong to designation, convention, context, ritual framing, eligibility, and injunction. They may have practical force, but they are not the final truth of the object.
Then he gives the proof: tayoḥ paraspara-vyabhicāra-darśanāt — because purity and impurity are seen to deviate from one another. What is pure here is impure there. What is forbidden for one is permitted for another. What is ritually acceptable in one śāstra or region may be rejected in another. If purity were truly the intrinsic nature of the thing, it could not shift in this way. Fire burns everywhere. Water moistens everywhere. But ritual purity does not behave like that. It varies.
This is not a shallow argument. Abhinava is not saying, “People disagree, so nothing matters.” He is saying that variation reveals level. If a property depends on context, instruction, initiation-status, community, or ritual frame, then it cannot be treated as the object’s absolute nature. It is not useless, but it is not paramārtha.
The verse makes this concrete: dhīrair ekatra yā śuddhiḥ tatrāśuddhiḥ paraiḥ smṛtā — what is purity for the wise in one place is impurity for others elsewhere. This means that even serious practitioners and authorities do not preserve one universal purity-code across all contexts. The field changes. The frame changes. The adhikāra changes. The same thing can carry different ritual meanings according to the system in which it is placed.
Then comes the example: vihitatve'pi dānasya dīkṣitatve yathā punaḥ. Giving may be enjoined as meritorious, but in the case of one who is initiated, the situation may change. The point is not that charity is bad. The point is that injunction is not interpreted in abstraction from status, rite, and context. A rule that applies in one condition may be overridden or transformed in another.
This prepares the next movement toward codanā, injunction. Abhinava is not abolishing scriptural command. He is making its structure more subtle. The ritualist may say, “The śāstra enjoins this; therefore this is pure.” Abhinava replies: which śāstra, for whom, at what level, under what initiation, for what aim, and from what standpoint — pāśava contraction or Śaiva recognition?
Then the text states the conclusion bluntly: kalpanāmātram eva etat — this is merely construction. Here “construction” does not mean meaningless fantasy in a casual sense. It means that purity and impurity are imposed determinations. They are shaped by conceptual, ritual, and social designation. They do not reveal the object’s ultimate essence.
Therefore, sadbhir upeyatām — let the noble, the serious, the competent understand it as such. This is not for careless people who want an excuse. This teaching is for those capable of seeing the difference between conventional rule and ultimate nature. A childish mind hears “purity is constructed” and thinks, “then nothing matters.” A serious mind hears it and becomes more exact: “Then I must understand what level of truth is operating, and whether a distinction contracts or expands recognition.”
Then comes the sharpest line: na kalpanā satyato vai mithyeyam iti niścayaḥ — construction is not truly real; it is false. This has to be handled carefully. Abhinava is not saying conventional rules have no pragmatic effect. They clearly do. A constructed boundary can shape behavior, society, ritual, karma, and psyche. But it is not satya in the highest sense. It is not the nature of Bhairava’s reality. It is mithyā insofar as it is mistaken for intrinsic truth.
This is why the passage is so threatening to ordinary ritualism. Ritual purity depends on taking certain constructed distinctions with great seriousness. Abhinava does not deny their functional force at lower levels, but he refuses to let them rule the Heart. If they are mistaken for ultimate truth, they become pāśa. Scripture itself becomes śāstra-pāśa. Dharma-language becomes bondage. Purity becomes a refined form of fear.
The final verse opens the next layer: tasmād atrottarattvaṃ hi codanā-pravicāraṇe — therefore, in this matter, superiority belongs to the investigation of injunction. Since purity and impurity are not intrinsic object-natures, the real question becomes: what is the status of the injunction that establishes them? Which command is higher? Which knowledge does it produce — contraction or expansion?
And Abhinava notes that this is not doubtful for either side. Both disputant and opponent accept that injunction must be examined. The ritualist relies on injunction. The Śaiva also accepts injunction, but not all injunctions stand at the same level. The next step will therefore be decisive: lower codanā rooted in pāśava contraction must be measured against Śiva’s codanā, which opens into pati-jñāna.
So this point closes the purity/impurity argument and opens the scriptural-authority argument. The object is not pure or impure by ultimate nature. Purity and impurity vary; therefore they are kalpanā. But because they are established through injunction, Abhinava must now ask: which injunction has the higher authority — the one that contracts consciousness, or the one that expands it into Bhairava?
The objection: scriptural injunction cannot be contradicted
iti | tatretthaṃ vicāraṇā -
codanā hyabādhyeti bhīmāṃsakavākyena kathamaśuddhamiti cet
“Thus. Here the investigation proceeds in this way: if one says, on the basis of the Mīmāṃsaka statement, ‘An injunction is not to be contradicted,’ how then can something be called impure?”
Abhinava now stages the objection that had to come. Once he has said that purity and impurity are not the ultimate nature of things, but only kalpanā, the ritualist has an obvious reply: “But purity and impurity are not invented casually. They are established by śāstric injunction. And injunction, codanā, cannot simply be contradicted.”
This is the force of the Mīmāṃsaka position. The ritualist does not ground dharma in personal feeling, mystical experience, or metaphysical speculation. He grounds it in injunction: the scripture says “do this,” “avoid that,” “this is fit,” “this is unfit,” “this is pure,” “this is impure.” If such injunction is authoritative, then Abhinava cannot simply dismiss purity and impurity as false constructions. The opponent is basically saying: “You may argue philosophically, but the command of śāstra stands.”
This objection matters because Abhinava is not arguing against a fool. He is taking seriously a powerful ritualist logic. If injunction is the source of ritual duty, then the purity-code has authority not because the object visibly contains purity as a physical property, but because the śāstra establishes it. So even if purity and impurity are not vastu-dharma, intrinsic object-natures, they may still be binding through codanā.
This is why the previous verse ended by saying that superiority now belongs to the investigation of injunction. The debate has moved upward. It is no longer enough to say, “purity varies by scripture and region, therefore it is constructed.” The opponent can accept variation and still say: “Yes, but each tradition’s injunction binds its own practitioner. You are not free to override it.”
So Abhinava now has to answer at the level of authority itself.
This is a crucial turn. Without it, the Kaula argument could sound like relativism: “Purity is imaginary, so ignore it.” But Abhinava is more precise. He knows that injunction has force. He knows that śāstra structures practice. He himself is speaking from within revelation, not from private rebellion. Therefore he must show not that injunction is meaningless, but that injunctions exist in hierarchy.
That is the point of the coming answer. The Śaiva does not merely reject codanā. He asks: which codanā? A contracted injunction rooted in pāśava knowledge, or Śiva’s injunction rooted in expansion? A rule that preserves dualistic fear, or a command that opens the practitioner into Bhairava-recognition?
So this point is the opponent’s strongest pressure. It prevents the passage from becoming careless. Abhinava is not saying, “Rules are fake, do whatever.” He is entering the battlefield of śāstric authority and preparing to show that the higher Śiva-codanā overrides lower injunction because expansion is more ultimate than contraction.
Śiva’s injunction overrides contracted injunction
na śivacodanāyā eva bādhitatvaṃ yuktisiddhaṃ yathā
saṃkocatāratamyena pāśavaṃ jñānamīritam |
vikāsatāratamyena patijñānaṃ tu bādhakam ||
iti |
“No. Rather, it is logically established that only Śiva’s injunction is not contradicted. As it is said:
‘Pāśava knowledge is taught according to degrees of contraction; but pati-knowledge, according to degrees of expansion, is the overruling knowledge.’”
Abhinava’s answer is sharp. He does not say that injunction has no authority. He does not answer the Mīmāṃsaka by becoming anti-scriptural. He answers by establishing hierarchy within injunction itself.
The opponent says: codanā hy abādhyā — injunction cannot be contradicted. Abhinava replies: yes, but the truly uncontradicted injunction is Śiva-codanā, Śiva’s injunction. Lower injunctions rooted in contracted vision can be overridden because they do not express the highest knowledge. They regulate the bound being. They do not reveal the final nature of Bhairava.
This is the decisive point: śāstra does not speak in only one voice to one universal type of practitioner. It speaks according to adhikāra, according to the level of the practitioner, according to the degree of contraction or expansion in consciousness. An instruction that is necessary at the beginning of the path may become stagnation later. A rule that protects a novice from collapse may bind an advanced practitioner if it is absolutized beyond its proper level.
This is why different śāstras may directly contradict one another, and this contradiction is not necessarily a defect. It may be the sign that they are addressing different states of consciousness. One śāstra speaks to the paśu and gives structure, purity, boundary, fear of transgression, and discipline. Another speaks to the vīra and cuts through fear, disgust, shame, and purity-based dualism. Another speaks from the pati-standpoint and reveals everything as Bhairava. To flatten all these voices into one universal rule is to misunderstand śāstra itself.
The cited verse gives the principle:
saṃkoca-tāratamyena pāśavaṃ jñānam īritam — pāśava knowledge is taught according to gradations of contraction. This is not simply “bad knowledge.” It has its place. It regulates beings who live under contraction. It gives rules, boundaries, purity codes, ritual discipline, moral structures, and protective forms. For the bound soul, such knowledge may be necessary. It can prevent confusion, dissipation, and chaos.
But its nature is still saṃkoca. It speaks to one who still experiences himself as small, vulnerable, impure, bound, threatened by contact, dependent on external purity, and separated from Bhairava. For such a practitioner, purity rules may be medicine. But medicine taken after the disease has changed can become poison.
Then the verse turns:
vikāsa-tāratamyena pati-jñānaṃ tu bādhakam — pati-knowledge, according to degrees of expansion, is the overruling knowledge. The word bādhakam is crucial. Pati-jñāna does not merely sit beside pāśava knowledge as another opinion. It overrides it. It sublates it. It has the authority to cancel the lower standpoint because expansion is closer to the real nature of consciousness than contraction.
This does not mean lawlessness. It means vertical discrimination. If a lower rule preserves contraction and a higher revelation dissolves contraction, the higher one prevails. Not because the practitioner feels rebellious, but because recognition has greater authority than limitation.
This is also why this passage is not for beginners. Abhinava’s logic here can genuinely damage sincere practitioners if taken at the wrong level. A novice may need faith in purity, form, rule, food discipline, ritual boundary, and obedience to śāstra. To tell such a person too early that purity and impurity are kalpanā may not liberate him; it may destroy the very structure that keeps his practice alive. Most śāstric instruction is written for people still requiring such structure. That is not an insult. It is simply the reality of graded practice.
But this text is not speaking from that beginner-level current. The voltage here is high. Abhinava is addressing the advanced field where the practitioner must confront the remaining contraction hidden beneath religious purity itself. At this level, what once protected may now obstruct. The rule that once gave form may now preserve fear. The śāstra that once guided may become śāstra-pāśa, a scriptural bond.
This is the razor’s edge. If an unqualified person hears “Śiva’s injunction overrides purity rules,” he may use it to justify appetite. But that remains pāśava. Desire, pride, compulsion, and contempt for discipline are also contractions. They do not become pati-jñāna just because they quote Tantra.
Abhinava’s test is expansion. Does this knowledge open consciousness into Bhairava? Does it dissolve bheda-mala? Does śaṅkā melt into recognition? Or does the practitioner merely replace ritual fear with transgressive ego?
If the result is ego-inflation, it is not Śiva-codanā. It is pāśava knowledge wearing Śaiva language.
So this point gives the doctrinal safeguard for the whole passage. Śiva’s command is higher, but only because it belongs to vikāsa, expansion. Pāśava injunctions contract and protect. Pati-jñāna expands and liberates. The Kaula practitioner is not beyond lower injunction because he is personally special; he is beyond it only to the extent that he actually stands in the expanding recognition of Bhairava.
The true opposition, then, is not between scripture and freedom. It is between levels of scriptural authority: one that protects the contracted being through necessary limitation, and one that breaks contraction through recognition. The lower says: “Avoid impurity, remain protected.” The higher says: “See Bhairava where contraction said ‘impure.’”
That is why Śiva-codanā alone is ultimately abādhyā — uncontradicted. It does not merely regulate the paśu. It reveals the Lord.
Purity for the partially knowing is dissolved in Śambhu’s vision
tathā śivopaniṣadi
kiṃcijñair yā smṛtā śuddhiḥ sā śuddhiḥ śaṃbhudarśane |
na śucir hy aśucis tasmān nirvikalpaḥ śivo bhavet ||
iti | uktaṃ ca
yo niścayaḥ paśujanasya jaḍo'smi karmasaṃpāśito'smi
malino'smi parerito'smi |
ityetadanyadṛḍhaniścayalābhasiddhyā
sadyaḥ patirbhavati viśvavapuścidātmā ||
iti |
“Likewise, in the Śivopaniṣad:
‘What those of partial knowledge remember as purity — that is purity in Śambhu’s vision.
For there is neither pure nor impure; therefore one should become Śiva, free from conceptual division.’
And it is also said:
‘The fixed conviction of the bound person is: “I am dull; I am fettered by karma; I am impure; I am driven by another.”
But by attaining another firm conviction opposed to this, one immediately becomes the Lord — consciousness itself, whose body is the universe.’”
Abhinava now strengthens the answer through Śaiva authority. He has already said that Śiva’s injunction overrides lower injunction because pati-jñāna expands while pāśava knowledge contracts. Now he brings in the Śivopaniṣad to show that purity itself changes meaning when seen from Śambhu’s vision.
The verse begins: kiṃcijñair yā smṛtā śuddhiḥ — “the purity remembered by those of partial knowledge.” This is not merely an insult. It is a placement. Those who know only partially may preserve a certain idea of purity, and at their level this purity has function. It gives structure. It gives discipline. It protects the beginner from chaos. It gives a form through which practice can begin.
But Abhinava’s current does not stop there. The verse says: sā śuddhiḥ śaṃbhudarśane — that is purity in Śambhu’s vision. The real purity is not the anxious purity of exclusion, but the purity seen from Śambhu’s standpoint. What is called purity by partial knowers is fulfilled, corrected, and absorbed only in Śambhu’s vision. It is not rejected crudely; it is outgrown into a deeper seeing.
Then the line cuts through the whole duality: na śucir hy aśuciḥ — there is neither pure nor impure. This is the heart of the verse. In the highest vision, purity and impurity are not two ultimate properties dividing reality. They are vikalpas, conceptual determinations imposed upon the field. They may function within a given ritual order, but they do not define the nature of Bhairava’s manifestation.
Therefore: tasmān nirvikalpaḥ śivo bhavet — therefore one should become Śiva, free from conceptual division. This is not a vague mystical slogan. It is an exact instruction. Become free from the vikalpa that divides reality into pure and impure as though those were ultimate truths. Become Śiva not by rejecting the world, and not by indulging in the world, but by standing in the recognition where the dual construction itself loses authority.
This also shows why the teaching cannot be given flatly to everyone. Abhinava is not speaking to a person who has not yet reached basic order, discipline, cleanliness, duty, and moral stability. For such a person, purity rules may still be medicine. Wash the body, clean the house, keep duties, eat carefully, restrain the senses, respect boundaries — these are not small things at the beginning. For consciousness sunk in crudeness, negligence, laziness, or domestic dullness, Kaula transgression is not liberation. It is poison.
The target here is different. Abhinava is cutting through the bondage of refined sattva. Sattva gives clarity, purity, discipline, knowledge, social goodness, ritual correctness, and a functioning life. But at a certain stage even sattva becomes a cage. The person begins to build identity around being pure, good, obedient, knowledgeable, civilized, respectable, clean, correct. He follows parents, country, custom, scripture, and community in the “right” way, and this correctness becomes his self-image. Outwardly it may look noble. Inwardly it may still be contraction.
This is a very subtle bondage because it does not look like bondage. It looks like virtue. The person is not crude. He is not chaotic. He is not obviously corrupt. He may be sincere, disciplined, clean, learned, and socially good. But the hidden conviction remains: “I am pure because I avoid impurity. I am good because I stand apart from what is low. I am spiritual because I remain untouched.” This is sattvic ego. It is more refined than tamasic or rajasic bondage, but it is still bondage.
Therefore the verse says: na śucir hy aśuciḥ — there is neither pure nor impure. This does not mean that a beginner should abandon cleanliness or discipline. It means that the advanced practitioner must eventually pass beyond the identity built on purity. The Kaula substances strike precisely at this refined self-image. They expose whether purity has become transparent to Bhairava, or whether it has hardened into a subtle prison.
This is why the verse fits perfectly here. Abhinava is not making a private argument against ritual purity. He is placing the matter inside Śaiva revelation. The partially knowing preserve purity through distinction. Śambhu’s vision dissolves the distinction itself. The aim is not to become impure, nor to become pure in the narrow sense, but to become nirvikalpa Śiva.
Then comes the next quoted verse, which makes the same point existential. The bound person is held by a fixed conviction:
jaḍo'smi — “I am dull, inert, unconscious.”
karma-saṃpāśito'smi — “I am tightly bound by karma.”
malino'smi — “I am impure.”
parerito'smi — “I am driven by another.”
This is the inner creed of bondage. The paśu does not merely experience limitation. He believes limitation. He has a hard certainty that he is small, impure, bound, and dependent on powers outside himself. This certainty is itself pāśava knowledge.
The liberating movement is the attainment of anya-dṛḍha-niścaya, another firm certainty opposed to this. The opposite certainty is not psychological self-confidence. It is recognition: “I am not dull matter. I am not ultimately bound by karma. I am not impure by nature. I am not driven by another. I am cidātmā, consciousness itself. I am viśvavapus, the one whose body is the universe.”
Then the verse says: sadyaḥ patir bhavati — immediately he becomes the Lord. This immediacy is not cheap. It means that the paśu was held together by wrong certainty. When the wrong certainty is truly replaced by the firm recognition of consciousness, the structure of bondage is cut at its root.
This also clarifies the purity argument. “I am impure” is not a harmless devotional attitude at every level. At the beginning of the path, it may produce humility, seriousness, and the need for purification. But at the higher stage, if it remains fixed, it becomes bondage. It keeps āṇava mala alive. It continues to define the Self through contraction.
This is exactly where the teaching is easily abused. A person below discipline hears “there is neither pure nor impure” and uses it to justify disorder. A person ruled by appetite hears “Śiva-codanā overrides lower injunction” and calls his craving Tantra. A person who cannot maintain basic sanity, cleanliness, responsibility, and restraint may imagine himself beyond rules. That is not Kaula. That is pāśava confusion with esoteric vocabulary.
Abhinava’s instruction belongs to a higher threshold. First, one must have enough sattva for the instrument to be clear. Then, when sattva itself becomes identity, it too must be cut. The path does not skip purity; it outgrows attachment to purity. It does not reject discipline; it refuses to let discipline become the final truth. It does not glorify impurity; it dissolves the vikalpa that makes purity and impurity ultimate.
So Abhinava is not destroying faith. He is distinguishing levels of faith. At one level, faith may mean obedience to rule, purity, discipline, purification, and careful conduct. At a higher level, faith becomes firm recognition: I am consciousness, the universe is my body, and the pure/impure division does not touch Śiva.
The power of the full Śivopaniṣad verse is that it removes any ambiguity. The teaching is not merely “some people call one thing pure and another impure.” It is stronger: from Śambhu’s vision, there is neither pure nor impure. Therefore the practitioner must become nirvikalpa Śiva — not by carelessness, not by egoic transgression, but by the collapse of the conceptual division that made purity and impurity appear ultimate.
The final safeguard is simple: do not let impurity become an excuse for falling below discipline, and do not let purity become a cage that prevents recognition. The Kaula current cuts both. It does not flatter the crude person, and it does not spare the refined ego. It takes the exact place where consciousness still says “not Śiva” and burns that hesitation at the root.
Dharma itself may be a provisional construction for the unawakened
sā cāprabuddhān prati sthitirbhavet -
iti prabuddhaiḥ kalpitā bālān prati ca kalpyamānāpi ca
teṣāṃ rūḍhā vaicitryeṇaiva phalati
ata eva vaicitryakalpanādeva sā bahuvidhadharmādiśabdanirdeśyā
pratiśāstraṃ pratideśaṃ cānyānyarūpā
“And that may be a fixed rule with respect to the unawakened — thus it is constructed by the awakened for those not yet mature; and even when constructed for them, once it has become established, it bears fruit precisely through variety. Therefore, because of this very construction of variety, it is designated by many terms such as dharma and so on, and it takes different forms according to each scripture and each region.”
Abhinava now says one of the hardest things in the whole passage. He does not merely say that purity and impurity vary. He does not merely say that different practices suit different people. He goes further: what is called dharma itself may be a constructed stabilizing arrangement for the unawakened.
This is a dangerous statement because the word dharma easily becomes absolute in the religious mind. Once something is called dharma, people stop examining it. The word itself begins to function like a seal of final truth. “This is dharma.” “This is our dharma.” “This is family dharma.” “This is national dharma.” “This is woman’s dharma.” “This is man’s dharma.” “This is caste dharma.” “This is social duty.” “This is what good people do.” “This is what respectable people do.” “This is what scripture says.”
And with that word, a whole machinery of pressure can be built.
A person may be crushed by parents in the name of dharma. A woman may be forced to tolerate humiliation in the name of dharma. A man may be told to sacrifice his life, his heart, his vocation, his inner truth in the name of dharma. A child may be trained to fear his own intelligence because “obedience is dharma.” A community may protect abuse because “tradition is dharma.” A country may demand blind loyalty because “serving the nation is dharma.” Religious authorities may preserve their control because “following the lineage is dharma.” Families may call their anxiety love and then call that dharma. Societies may call conformity virtue and then call that dharma.
Abhinava cuts through this inflation of the word.
He says: sā cāprabuddhān prati sthitir bhavet — such a rule may be a fixed order for the unawakened. That is all. It may be useful. It may stabilize. It may restrain. It may protect. It may give shape to a person who cannot yet stand in direct recognition. But it is not thereby ultimate truth.
This is not contempt for dharma. It is proper placement of dharma.
For the unawakened, fixed rules are often necessary. Without them, the person does not become free; he becomes chaotic. If someone has not even developed basic sattva, discipline, cleanliness, responsibility, restraint, and honesty, then talk of “beyond purity and impurity” is poison. Such a person needs simple dharma: keep the house clean, wash the body, speak truth, fulfill duties, do not exploit others, restrain appetite, respect boundaries, do not confuse impulse with freedom. At that level, structure is mercy.
But Abhinava is not speaking only to that level. He is speaking from the higher current where even dharma must be examined. The same rule that protects the beginner may become bondage for one who has reached the threshold of recognition. The same purity that once clarified the mind may later become sattvic ego. The same obedience that once softened arrogance may later become cowardice. The same discipline that once gathered consciousness may later become identity: “I am pure, I am correct, I am good, I am respectable, I am obedient, I am the one who follows dharma.”
This is why he says these structures are prabuddhaiḥ kalpitāḥ bālān prati — constructed by the awakened for those not yet mature. The awakened establish forms for those who still need forms. They do not do this because the form is final. They do it because the practitioner needs a vessel. The child of consciousness cannot drink the sky; he needs a cup.
But the cup is not the sky.
This is the whole danger. What was given as a support becomes worshipped as ultimate. The medicine becomes identity. The raft becomes a house. A provisional rule becomes metaphysical tyranny.
Abhinava then says that even when these constructions are made for the not-yet-mature, teṣāṃ rūḍhā vaicitryeṇaiva phalati — once rooted in them, they bear fruit precisely through variety. This is an important correction. The variety is not accidental. Different forms work for different people because people stand at different levels of contraction. One person needs strict food discipline. Another needs devotional softness. Another needs ritual purity. Another needs meditation. Another needs frightening Kaula confrontation. Another needs ordinary household duty. Another needs scripture. Another needs silence. Another needs to have the scripture taken away because it has become a chain.
The fruit appears through difference because bondage itself appears through different degrees and forms of contraction.
Therefore Abhinava says: ata eva vaicitrya-kalpanād eva — precisely because of this construction of variety, it is called by many words, including dharma. This is the brutal part. Dharma, in such contexts, is not necessarily ultimate revelation. It may be the name given to a useful construction. It may be a medicine designed for a certain disease. It may be a stabilizing fiction that helps a certain type of practitioner move one step upward.
That does not make it worthless. But it does make it non-ultimate.
Modern people abuse this constantly, though often without Sanskrit vocabulary. A family says, “This is for your own good,” when it really means, “Your freedom threatens our control.” A society says, “This is morality,” when it really means, “This preserves our arrangement.” A religious group says, “This is tradition,” when it really means, “This is the structure through which we maintain authority.” A state says, “This is duty,” when it really means, “Your body belongs to our need.” A spiritual community says, “This is humility,” when it really means, “Do not question the hierarchy.” The word changes — dharma, duty, morality, tradition, responsibility, purity, patriotism, obedience — but the mechanism is the same.
A constructed order is presented as ultimate truth.
Abhinava refuses this. He does not let the word dharma hypnotize the mind.
Then he adds: pratiśāstraṃ pratideśaṃ cānyānyarūpā — these forms differ according to each scripture and each region. This is devastating for any simplistic religious absolutism. If dharma were always one universal external code, why would it vary from scripture to scripture, region to region, lineage to lineage, ritual context to ritual context? Why would one śāstra forbid what another permits? Why would one path require what another path transcends? Why would one community call pure what another calls impure?
Because the rule is not always the ultimate nature of reality. It is often a constructed means directed toward a particular condition of consciousness.
This does not weaken śāstra. It rescues śāstra from stupidity. A dead reading of scripture tries to force one rule onto everyone. A living reading asks: who is being addressed, at what level, with what contraction, through what upāya, toward what fruit?
This is the only way to understand real contradiction among scriptures. One śāstra speaks to the paśu: “Be pure, obey, separate, restrain, avoid.” Another speaks to the vīra: “Enter what you fear; dissolve disgust; cut śaṅkā.” Another speaks from Śambhu’s vision: “There is neither pure nor impure; become nirvikalpa Śiva.” These are not necessarily contradictions in the crude sense. They are different medicines for different stages of consciousness.
But the medicine must be known as medicine.
If a person below discipline uses the highest teaching to justify disorder, he falls. If a person ready for higher recognition clings to beginner-level dharma as final truth, he stagnates. Both are failures. One falls below dharma. The other is trapped by dharma.
This is why the present passage has such force. Abhinava is not simply attacking social religion. He is showing the exact point where even religion becomes pāśa. Dharma becomes bondage when it no longer serves awakening but protects contraction. Purity becomes bondage when it no longer clarifies consciousness but feeds the identity of being pure. Obedience becomes bondage when it no longer opens humility but destroys direct seeing. Tradition becomes bondage when it no longer transmits fire but preserves fear.
So the statement is hard, but clean: many things called dharma are constructions for the unawakened. They may be useful. They may be necessary. They may even be compassionate. But they are not therefore ultimate. They must be judged by whether they contract or expand consciousness.
This is the Śaiva criterion running through the whole passage: saṃkoca or vikāsa. Does this rule shrink the being into fear, shame, dependency, and identity? Or does it mature the being toward recognition? At one stage, the same rule may expand. At another, it may contract. Therefore the rule cannot be judged abstractly. It must be placed in the living movement of sādhana.
Abhinava’s view is not “reject dharma.” That would be childish. His view is: know the level of dharma. Know its function. Know when it protects. Know when it binds. Know when what people call dharma is only inherited fear with sacred language. Know when purity is medicine, and know when purity has become a cage.
This is why this passage belongs to advanced practitioners. It would destroy the faith of many sincere people if given without context. They still need the vessel. They still need structure. They still need rules that gather their life. But for one standing near the Kaula threshold, the final obstacle may be precisely the sacredness of the vessel. The practitioner must see that even dharma, if clung to as ultimate, becomes another form of bheda-mala.
The awakened construct rules for those not yet mature. Then, at the right time, the awakened also break the spell of those rules. Both are compassion. The lower compassion gives form. The higher compassion burns the form when it becomes a prison.
This is the living intelligence of śāstra. It does not speak one sentence forever to everyone. It speaks according to the soul’s contraction and capacity. And Abhinava, here, speaks from the terrifyingly high place where even dharma must bow before recognition.
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