There -

1 in the ocean of nectar,
2 on the isle of jewels edged by groves of sura trees,
3 within the pleasure garden of nipa trees,
4 inside the mansion built of wish-fulfilling gems,
5 on the couch of Siva’s own form,
6 on the cushion that is highest Siva
7 there the fortunate worship You,
8 O wave of consciousness and bliss.

(transl. Francis X. Clooney)

First then, some general comments on this verse. This kind of scene is a common feature of tantric meditation – for example, this verse from the fourth chapter of the Todala Tantra:

“A wise person should meditate on the nectar whilst retaining the breath, O Paramesani. He should recite Am Hrim Krom Hrim eleven times in the heart region,and then meditate on Om as bringing forth a red lotus. On that he should meditate on Hum, resembling a blue lotus. Then he should turn that into an eye of knowledge, in the midst of the jewelled island, surrounded by golden sand. A mantrin should meditate on this alluring circle of knowledge. In the centre is the wish-fulfilling tree. Under this, he should meditate on himself as being one with Tarini, as bright as the rising sun, the utmost sphere of light, in a place surrounded by beautiful maidens with fans and bells, wafted by a gentle breeze bearing the odour of scent and incense. In the centre he should meditate on a four square dias, adorned with different kinds of jewels. Above that hangs a parasol, made of golden cloth. A mantrin should visualise the jewelled lion throne below this, dearest one. There he should imagine Devi, according to the previously spoken of meditation form mentioned in the Yogasara. Doing pranayama, he should then do rsi nyasa and so forth, including matrka nyasa and hand and limb nyasa. He should clap the hands thrice and, snapping his fingers, should bind the directions.”(transl. Mike Magee)

As I noted in this post, the verse details a royal scene, emphasising the beauty, grace, and power of the goddess. Just as she is adorned by poetic ornamentation, so too the splendour and wealth denoted by her surroundings can be understood as a form of ornamentation. In Rajashekhara’s 10th Century drama Karpuramanjari there is a debate over the necessity of “excessive” ornamentation, during which the dialogue between the king’s jester explains the power of adornment:

“Adornments make the comeliness even of a person who is naturally handsome to unfold itself (to still greater beauty). A certain splendour results from adorning even genuine precious stones with diamonds.”

India has a long tradition of pleasure-groves and gardens, both as areas within royal palaces and common urban spaces. See for example Gardening in Ancient India and The Buddhist “monastery” and the Indian garden: aesthetics, assimilations, and the siting of monastic establishments. Pleasure groves are often described in such a way as to intensify the pleasures and delights to be found therein – which in turn serves to ornament the power of the deity at their centre. The dwelling places of sages and deities tend to be described as idyllic, hyper-intensive spaces of unsurpassed natural beauty; populated by pleasing flowers, animals, trees, birds, rocks, gems, and minerals.

in the ocean of nectar,
The “ocean of nectar” is a common theme in Indian mythology (appearing in Buddhist, Hindu & Tibetan contexts) and relates to the samudra-manthana – the “churning of the ocean”

There are many variations of this myth – in the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Puranas. Here’s a quick summary based on the Vishnu Purana. The devas, wearing of their interminable warring with the asuras, approached the great god Vishnu and requested the boon of immortality. Vishnu advised the other devas to enter into an alliance with the asuras to work together in churning the great ocean, which would bring forth the magic gems, herbs, and the nectar (amrita) of immortality. With the help of Brahma and the great serpent Vasuki, the devas and asuras uprooted the great mountain Mandara to use as a churning rod. Vishnu, taking the form of the great tortoise, rose from the depths of the ocean and carried the mountain on his back. The serpent Vasuki wound himself around the mountain as a churning rope, and the devas and asuras pulled him back and forth, churning the great ocean. Many things emerged from the churning – the Moon, which was taken by Siva; parijata – the wish-fulfilling tree; the goddess Lakshmi (Shri); the wine-goddess Sura, of whom the gods were able to drink, but the asuras could not “hold their liquor” as it were, and so one interpretation of asura is “those unable to drink wine”. Also there arose from the ocean the terrible embodiment of poison – Halahala (sometimes kalakuta “the poison of time”) In some versions, Halahala is subdued by Brahma, who causes his body to shatter into myriad fragments. From the scattered fragments of Halahala’s body arise all manner of poisonous animals and plants, and poisons which are claimed by the Nagas. In other versions, Siva subdues Halahala by swallowing him whole, although the poison causes Siva’s throat to turn blue – giving rise to the epithet Nilakantha – “the one who has a blue throat”. Next from the ocean arises Surabhi – the wish-fulfilling cow with her five abundancies (milk, butter, curd, urine and dung); and Dhanvantari – the divine physician of the gods (revealer of the secrets of Ayurveda), bearing the vase of amrita – the nectar of immortality.

Oceans of nectar, milk, wine, etc., turn up frequently in tantric dhyanaslokas. The ocean can signify the all-pervasiveness of the goddess (also unity-in–multiplicity) – that literally, there is no end to her sweetness. The ocean produces resonances with immersion, with plunging into, bathing, drinking in. Ksemaraja declares, in his Sivasutra vimarsini:

“He who by means of this teaching perceives on all sides the universe like a mass of foam in the midst of the ambrosial ocean of consciousness, he is declared to be the one Siva Himself.”

The ocean is also the heart, into the depths of which the practitioner must plunge. The “churning” of the ocean can be thought of as a metaphor for sadhana.

on the isle of jewels edged by groves of sura trees,
Manidvipa – “the isle of jewels” is a celestial place, the home of the goddess, and is superior to all other worlds, and again, is a common theme for sadhana. The Gheranda Samhita instructs practitioners to:

“Let him find in his heart a broad ocean of nectar,
Within it a beautiful island of gems,
Where the sands are bright golden and sprinkled with jewels.

sura can be translated as “divine” or “god” so I am taking “sura trees” as indicating a grove divine or celestial trees. This is vivid imagery, and it is easy to visualise this island, glittering and sparkling. In the Sri Devi Bhagavata the goddess, after the great battle with the demons, bears Brahma, Vishnu and Siva to Manidvipa in her chariot. Here, the gods behold a woman, dressed in red, bearing noose and goad in two of her hands, and giving the twin gestures of dispelling fears and granting boons with the others. She is surrounded by Devis and Sakhis (intimate female companions). Vishnu recognises the woman as Devi Bhagavati and remembers that she is the mother of the gods. As the gods approach the goddess, they are transformed into Sakhis and remain so for a hundred years. They are granted the vision of seeing the whole of the universe contained within the toenail of the goddess. (NB: see Tracy Pintchman’s Women’s lives, women’s rituals in the Hindu tradition for a discussion of women’s companiate sahki rituals).

within the pleasure garden of nipa trees,
Nipa trees (“water coconuts”) are a type of palm tree, bearing clustered fruits, from which can be extracted sugar. Its sap ferments very quickly. There is a doubled effect, I feel, with the references to trees in this verse. Tree-groves can be thought of as boundaries, demarcations between spaces; yet at the same time, tree-groves can be thought of as signalling the multitude of cognitions, rooted in the shared recognition of Devi’s eternal presence. Possibly the “fruits” of these trees signal the fruits (outcomes) of sadhana and their relationship to sugar and sweetness recalling the mind/sugarcane bow.

inside the mansion built of wish-fulfilling gems,
The wish-fulfilling gem – cintamani is another of the magical objects brought forth from the churning of the ocean of milk. It is able to grant all the things that the possessee desires – and hence, is something which is rare and to be treasured when encountered. There are numerous references to the cintamani in Buddhist texts, where it represents the Buddha-nature and the state of awakened mind. It is frequently used as a metaphor for sadhana as both the origin and goal of practice, with mantras, deities, gurus etc., likened to the wish-fulfilling jewel. Thus the Spandapradipika says:

“Other teachings are slow to impart (such perfect) bliss. (Herein is taught the) knowledge of the liberated Self, which is the sole (true) draught of immortality. (Superior to all other doctrines, it is) like ambrosia among medicines or like the wish-fulfilling Gem which has no rival (even) among jewels of great quality, or like the sun that by itself, banishing all darkness, (is the greatest of all) luminaries.”
(Dyczkowski, 1992, p139)

on the couch of Siva’s own form,
on the cushion that is highest Siva
The goddess reclines reclines on a couch made up of Brahman (south-east), Hari (south-west), Rudra (north-west) and Isvara (north-east) and uses “highest Siva” as a mattress or cushion (sava-vahana). These four gods support the goddess and adore her. The Devi Gita presents a very similar scene to this verse, and has the goddess seated on a throne said to be made of five pretas – Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra and Ishana – and the cushion being the corpse of Sadasiva. According to Brown (1998) these five corpse-deities represent the goddess’s latent powers, inert until they are aroused by her desire. This motif can also be found in other Lalita-oriented texts such as the Lalitopakhyana, Tripura-Rahasya and the Lalita Sahasranama. Brown comments:

“The sofa or seat of of the five corpses situated in the Jeweled Island, unlike the throne of abstract qualities, is associated with the Goddess alone. It dramatically illustrates her utter supremacy over all other gods. The five gods of the sofa represent the chief male deities who oversee the functioning of the cosmos. These five, reduced to “sofahood,” not only symbolize her various functions and subservient powers, but also are mere ghosts (pretas) or corpses until empowered by her sakti.”
(Brown, 1998, p296-297)

According to Thomas E. Donaldson (2001) one of the earliest representations of the supreme goddess as seated upon Sadasiva as a corpse, or “altered” forms of gods can be found in the Kalika Purana and later became a motif in descriptions of the Mahavidyas, and in particular, Kali.

In Lakshmidhara’s commentary (see Tripura Tattvas for some brief notes) these deities represent four Tattvas – maya, suddhavidya, mahesvara and sadasiva.

there the fortunate worship You,
O wave of consciousness and bliss.

The final two lines of this verse make it clear that this place is where the goddess is worshipped by her devotees (“the fortunate”) – that is, in the heart-space and/or the Sri Yantra. She is saluted as a “wave of consciousness and bliss” – a reminder of Anandalahari “Wave of Joy” – and also, the waves of the infinite ocean of milk, which is the infinitude of Devi – the surging forth and drawing back of the waves recalling the emission and reabsorbtion of the universe (see Wot, no circle? for some related discussion).

The esoteric interpretation of this verse is that it is detailing, in various ways, the Sri Yantra. Laksmidhara equates the “ocean of nectar” with the central bindu of the yantra and with the Sahasrara chakra (for Laksmidhara, the Sahasrara chakra exists “beyond” the body) and says that the groves of sura trees represent the five downward-facing triangles of the yantra. By taking the term nipa as “protecting”, Kamesvara relates the “pleasure grove of nipa trees” to the five primary and five secondary pranas and to the gods presiding over the senses – all of which carry and nuture the body.
Another commentator, Narasimhasvamin, compares the srichakra in its entirety with the ocean of nectar; the fourteen-triangled saubhagya-dayaka chakra with the “pleasure garden”, and the two sets of ten triangles with the island of jewels and the garden of nipa trees.The eight-triangled chakra of the Sri Yantra is identified with the mansion of wish-fulfilling gems; the central triangle with the couch, and the bindu becomes Sadasiva.

Summary

O great pride of the vanquisher of cities,
with jingling girdle
You stoop under breasts like the frontal globes of a young elephant,
You are slim of waist,
Your face like the autumnal full moon,
in Your hands are bow, arrows, noose, and goad;
may You stand before us! (7)

There -
in the ocean of nectar,
on the isle of jewels edged by groves of sura trees,
within the pleasure garden of nipa trees,
inside the mansion built of wish-fulfilling gems,
on the couch of Siva’s own form,
on the cushion that is highest Siva
there the fortunate worship You,
O wave of consciousness and bliss.(8)
(Transl. Clooney, p50)

Just as verse 7 presents a vision of the goddess in her most alluring, desire-drawing form, so verse eight extends this vision into a scene – situating the Devi within her divine residence – Manidvipa. But Manidvipa. is not merely the dwelling-place of the goddess, it may be thought of as an extension or emission of her maya, generating intensities of affect; sensory engagements with the all-pervading presence of the goddess. Although it appears as an ordered space (pleasure garden/Sri Yantra) the goddess’ abundance – her all-encompassing excess threatens to overwhelm this careful arrangement, drawing the devotee towards the boundary-dissolving collapsing of distinction between self and Devi.

Sources
Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Arthur Avalon Anandalahari (Ganesh & Co., 1953)
Douglas Renfrew Brooks Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (SUNY, 1992)
C. Mackenzie Brown, The Devi Gita: the song of the Goddess ; A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary (SUNY, 1998)
Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Thomas E. Donaldson Iconography of the Buddhist Sculpture of Orrisa, Volume 1 (Abhinav Publications, 2001)
Meera Kachroo, The Goddess and Her Powers: The Tantric Identities of the Saundarya Lahari (MA Thesis, McGill University, June 2005)
Tracy Pintchman (Ed.) Seeking Mahadevi: Constructing the Indentities of the Hindu Great Goddess (SUNY, 2001)
Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri and T.R. Srinivasa Ayyangar, Saundarya Lahari (Theosophical Publishing House, 1948)
Vasugupta, Mark S. G. Dyczkowski, The Stanzas on Vibration (SUNY, 1992)

“Infinite and endless creations are threaded on me as pearls on a string. I myself am the lord that resides in the causal and subtle bodies of the jivas. I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I am the sun, moon, and stars. I am the beasts and birds, the Brahmin and the untouchable. I am the noble soul as well as the hunter and the thief. I am male, female, and hermaphrodite. Whenever there is anything to be seen or heard, I am found there, within and without. There is nothing moving or unmoving that can exist without me.” Devi Gita

Pretty much all of the Pagan public rituals I have participated in over the last decade or so have shared a common feature – some kind of circle – which does not feature in my own practice of tantra puja. Whenever I facilitate open pujas, some of the commonest questions that arise are related to the differences between contemporary Pagan ritual processes and tantra puja as I practice it, so this post is an attempt to reflect on these very basic distinctions and how they are underwritten by very different ritual ontologies.

A very common rationale for casting a circle is that it “creates sacred space” – that is, it redefines a chosen ritual space as “sacred” against its “mundane” use (such as a bedroom, living room, a public park) – this is a very common explanation for why it is necessary to cast a circle, and can be found in numerous books on Pagan ritual practice.

However, within the particular shakta-oriented tantric streams from which I draw my practice, this basic distinction between “sacred” and “mundane” space isn’t really present. In Shakta theology, the goddess (or god) to whom a puja is directed – Lalita, or Kali for example – is held to be both all-pervasive and ever-present – and all things (objects, persons, etc) and activities share in her substance – so one might say that she is diffused through everything, you, me, the grass, the air we share, that styrofoam cup over there, this smartphone, etc. So this is one reason why I don’t tend to make a distinction between “sacred” and “mundane” space (see also Pondering Daily Practice for some related observations).

In order to try and explain why this is, for me, an important distinction, I’m going to dip into some aspects of Sri Vidya theology – the knowledge that underwrites, as it were, the logic of tantric ritual/living. In tantra, knowledge and action are interdependent – and knowledge is itself a form of practice.

In Sri Vidya theology, the goddess is the source and totality of all existence – hence she is sometimes addressed with the epithet Visvarupa Devi – “the Goddess whose form is the universe”. She is simultaneously transcendent and undivided, and many-formed and multiple. She is simultaneously unknowable, ungraspable and is present in all phenomenality. In Sri Vidya accounts of creation, the goddess Lalita Tripuraundari progressively contracts herself, emitting from herself the various stages or categories (Tattvas) emitting or producing the world of multiplicities out of the infinite plenitude of her being.

This is the goddess’ lila (“play”). Hence the epithet Lalita – “she who plays”. As part of this playful emission, the goddess veils or conceals herself, producing maya. Maya produces the sense of seperation and limitations between multiplicities – which (I’m simplifying hugely here) gives rise eventually to the human sense that we are seperate beings, cut off from the apprehension of divine consciousness. This is the state sometimes referred to as avidya – “ignorance.” Now maya is frequently understood as “illusion”, but within Sri Vidya, maya is the wondrous, creative, magical power of the goddess which gives rise to the world of forms and objects.

The Devi Gita expresses this principle:

I imagine into being the whole world, moving and unmoving, through the power of my Maya,
Yet that same Maya is not seperate from me; this is the highest truth.
… I, as Maya, create the whole world and then enter within it,
Accompanied by ignorance, actions and the like, and preceded by the vital breath, O Mountain
How else could souls be reborn into future lives?
They take on various births in accord with modifications of Maya.

So our forgetfulness – or if you like, our sense of disconnection from the goddess/world is not the result of a fall from grace (as it is often understood in Western theology) or a delusion (as it is sometimes given to be in other Indian philosophies) but a result of the goddess’ play, as is her power to generate accessible and limited forms of herself through which we can be liberated from the illusion of seperation from her. Our sense of being limited, seperate entities arises out of the goddess playing hide-and-seek with herself – and the same powers (saktis) which produce this sense of being seperate, ego-bound entities can also produce the liberated, expanded consciousness which is the goal of tantra.

Again, there is no “hard” distinction between the mundane vs. the spiritual, or the everyday vs. the sacred. As all phenomena share in the play of the goddess, so anything can, potentially, help us recognise that we are embedded within that divine play. So whilst ritual-meditation on the various forms of the goddess is one form of practice, so is momentary awareness on any activity – any cognition – sitting, walking around, being attentive to sounds, smells, sounds, tastes, touches – any activity, any moment can serve to momentarily intensify our awareness of the goddess’ play.

This process of movement from unity to differentiation is referred to as srsti – “emission”. Its converse is samhara – “reabsorption” – which reinstates the unity lost through differentiation. The universe is constantly cycling or oscillating between moments of expansion and contraction, emission and reabsorption, unfolding outwards and refolding inwards. This does not only occur at the level of cosmic creation/destruction though – it encompasses all other cyclical patterns, such as day and night, birth and death, down to each instant of consciousness or perception; and each inhaled and exhaled breath. Emission is often represented as a movement from a central point outwards, whilst reabsorption as moving inwards towards a central point – from multiplicities towards unity. Similarly, movements up the body’s central axis are reabsorptive, whilst movements down the body’s central axis are emissional.

These two principles also form the basis of what we might think of as tantric ritual logic.Tantra sadhana (“practice” – not only ritual but any life-activity) is ultimately oriented towards the reinstatement of unity with the divine. The goal can be thought of as the experiental collapsing of any distinction between one’s own consciousness and the cosmic pulse of the goddess.This can be thought of as the long-term goal, of which all activities ideally move the practitioner towards. Thus sadhana recapitulates that process in miniature – to engage in the practice is to recapitulate – from the perspective of one’s own consciousness the continuous pulsation of cosmic creation and dissolution.

A very simple ritual which recapitulates the pulsation of emission/reabsorption begins with the practitioner visualising a particular form of the goddess taking up residence in her or his heart. The heart-space is one of the dwelling-places of deity. After a period of meditating on that image, its qualities, etc., with the awareness that one is that goddess – the form is emitted (via an out-breath) into an image (a picture or a statue) and worshipped as a seperate entity with various offerings (water, food, song, music, incense, etc) after which the form is reabsorbed into the heart and meditated upon as an enternally-present flame, to which all experiences can be offered. So the meditation on the goddess dwelling in the heart and then being placed in an exterior form for worship recapitulates the emission -from creation towards multiplicity and the reabsorption of the goddess’ form back into the heart recapitulates the reinstatement of unity.

Note: I originally intended to cover both verses 7 & 8 in this post, but the examination of verse 7 turned out to be much longer than I expected it to be, so I have decided to cover verse 8 in the next post, which I’ll try and finish as soon as possible.

In the first post in this series I made the point that Saundaryalahari is not only open to multiple interpretations – for example, from an aesthetic perspective, from the viewpoint of a devotee; and as a ritual manual or “encoding” of esoteric instructions – and that these pluralistic readings of the text do not necessarily exclude each other. A practitioner can occupy them and read across them simultaneously.

Having said that, I do feel that there is a tendency for some of Saundaryalahari’s commentators to prioritise the “esoteric” interpretations of verses over the poetic ornamentation. A common interpretive schema amongst tantric schools (including Sri Vidya) is that of the sthula “physical”; suksma “subtle” and para “supreme” which is frequently hierarchicalised so that the sthula is considered to be the lowest level for understanding the goddess – a kind of worship of the goddess for beginners or the uninitiated. My own approach (see this post) is to take these three modalities as mutually interdependent and productive of each other. Some of the commentaries on Saundaryalahari tend to ignore “poetic whimsy” in favour of (sometimes lengthy) esoteric interpretations of single lines within a verse in order to demonstrate how the text supports a particular interpretive schema – such as the chakra system familiar from texts such as the Satcakranirupana (and I’ll have more to say about that when I look at the relevant verses in Anandalahari). Personally, I find these “esoteric” interpretations to be often less interesting precisely because they ignore the poetic ornamentation of the text and the (erotic) physicality of the goddess’ immediate presence in favour of more abstracted interpretation & discussion – stressing the ascetic/yogic interpretations of the text, rather than the householder/bhakta orientation. (NB: there is another matter here, pertaining to two major divisions in SriVidya – the Samayacara and the Kaulacara – but I will go into that in a future post).

The Poetic Vision
Meera Kachroo (2005) highlights the importance of poetic ornamentation by pointing out how poetic ornamentation and embellishment is not only for the delight of an audience but may be considered a form of worship in its own right, and that flourishes of language can be thought of as signifiers of both the power of the goddess and how that power is expressed through the goddess’ relationship with devotees. She also points to the usefulness of Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic vision, in respect to understanding the power of language use in respect to the Saundaryalahari. Whereas poetic discourse had previously focused on the literal meaning of words (abhidha) and the secondary meaning of laksana such as metaphor and metonymy, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Anandavardhana argue that the “essence” of poetic language resides in dhvani – the “suggestive power” of language, and that this suggested meaning cannot be reduced to any particular word or metaphor within a poem, but arises out of the totality of the work. Abhinavagupta also linked the suggestive power of dhvani to the feeling of rasa (see Rasa theory for a brief discussion) or dramatic “relishing” of an aesthetic object. For Abhinavagupta, rasa becomes a form of bliss (ananda) which arises in the heart of the spectator due to suggestion. Moreover, this feeling of rasa allows the cultivated reader/spectator to move beyond his or her own finite experience of an emotion towards a more encompassing compassion for a mood displayed by an actor on stage or within a text. This experience becomes, for Abhinavagupta, a form of liberation, in which all worldly attachments cease, and the viewer/reader’s subjectivity is dissolved. Unlike moksa – “liberation” however, this aesthetic enjoyment is temporary in nature, and cannot lead to the permanent change in selfhood as occasioned by the moksa produced by sadhana. It can however, be considered a glimpse, or a foretaste of liberation:

“This aesthetic fullness finds its expression only in the realm of duality and dualistic imagings. As we see in the Saundarya Lahari’s imaging of the Goddess in a vast multitude of material ornaments, in a flood of metaphors that encircle her body with all the beauty contained in the cosmos. With Abhinavagupta’s idea of the poetic vision of the world as a fundamentally creative and religious event, envisioning the Goddess through metaphorical embellishment becomes a way of recreating and participating in Her ultimacy.” (Kachroo, 2005, p39)

The poetic language of the Saundaryalahari itself demonstrates the all-pervasive immanence of the goddess; she is present everywhere there is beauty, attraction, desire. Homologising the elements of the natural world (seasons, animals, plants etc.) and related mythological narratives to her body reflects the homology of her body with the entirety of the cosmos. This, Kachroo argues, creates a space and a text for tantrically-oriented devotional practice.

Now onwards to the verses themselves.

O great pride of the vanquisher of cities,
with jingling girdle
You stoop under breasts like the frontal globes of a young elephant,
You are slim of waist,
Your face like the autumnal full moon,
in Your hands are bow, arrows, noose, and goad;
may You stand before us! (7)

There -
in the ocean of nectar,
on the isle of jewels edged by groves of sura trees,
within the pleasure garden of nipa trees,
inside the mansion built of wish-fulfilling gems,
on the couch of Siva’s own form,
on the cushion that is highest Siva
there the fortunate worship You,
O wave of consciousness and bliss.(8)
(Transl. Clooney, p50)

Even though I’m not examining verse 8 for the present, I’ve left them together here in order to illustrate how they interrelate to produce the dhyanan of the goddess.

So to verse 7. I’ll go through it line by line:

1 O great pride of the vanquisher of cities,
2 with jingling girdle
3 You stoop under breasts like the frontal globes of a young elephant,
4 You are slim of waist,
5 Your face like the autumnal full moon,
6 in Your hands are bow, arrows, noose, and goad;
7 may You stand before us!

O great pride of the vanquisher of cities
This first line indicates Siva – “the vanquisher of cities” – an epithet which recalls the well-known story of how Siva destroyed the three cities built by the sons of the Asura Taraka. Here’s a quick summary. The three sons of Taraka, through the practice of austerities, gained from Brahma several boons, the greatest of which was to create three flying cities of gold, silver and iron. They also asked for immortality, but Brahma refused them. He also prophesied that after a thousand years, the three cities would become as one, and Siva would destroy them with a single arrow. The demons then created a magical lake which revived any demon thrown into. Immortal and undefeatable in battle, the demons terrorised the worlds, plundering cities and defeating the gods. Eventually, Siva is persuaded to act against them, and when the three cities come together, destroys them with a single arrow from his great bow.
There are many versions of this tale, one of the earliest versions of which can be found in the Karna Parva of the Mahabharata. In some versions of this story, the demons dwelling in the three cities are “deluded” from the worship of Siva by Visnu, who takes the form of Buddha.

According to Woodroffe, the Sanskrit aho-purusika, whilst popularly interpreted to denote “pride” is used here in the sense of consciousness of one’s self and that this first line indicates that Siva becomes conscious of himself by seeing himself reflected in the goddess’ body.

with jingling girdle
The goddess wears the Kanchi – a belt-like garment worn around the waist, formed from single or multiple strings of beads or bells which jingle when she walks. In Sanskrit poetry, the jingling of waist & ankle-beads arouses romantic feelings in lovers. The charming quality of the bells worn by the goddess is similarly stressed in this verse from the Lalitopakhyana:

“Anklets and other ornaments on her feet produce a charming tinkling sound. The sound of her bangles is likewise charming. Her lower legs have subdued the pride of the Love’s arrow quiver. Her thighs bear a complexion like that of an elephant’s trunk and forelobes or a plantain tree.

What is important in this line, according to Sastri and Ayyangar, is that the “jingling” sound is one of the “internal sounds” – nadas heard by yogis, as detailed in texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Siva Samhita or the Gerhanda Samhita (see Beck, Sonic Theology for a fuller discussion of this topic).

You stoop under breasts like the frontal globes of a young elephant
Here, the poet is calling attention to the goddess’ breasts – and the fact that they are large – but why are they likened to the “frontal globes of a young elephant”? Comparing a woman’s breasts to an elephant’s cranial lobes is a conventional simile (upama) found in Sanskrit poetry. For example, this poem by Bharuga (date unknown, from Ingalls, 1965, p170):

“Your breasts, oh slender maid,
resemble an elephant’s cranial lobes
You are as it were, a pool
shaken by the elephant, Youth, who plunges therein.”

Other popular elephant similes include the likening of a woman’s gait to the slow walk of elephants, and the comparison of a woman’s thighs to an elephant’s trunk. Sanskrit poetic conventions generate a highly idealised image of women, whereby every feature was perfect, and compared to a feature of the natural world, which the female form tended to surpass. Vidya Dehejia (2009, p29) comments: “Poetry read aloud in courts, dramas performed for select audiences, and art admired by an elite audience all transported one into an idealised world where women and men, queens and kings, goddesses and gods were all beautiful, young and nubile. Youth, beauty, and the ability to attract others translated into power and authority, whether in the earthly or the divine sphere.” Lee Seigel (1987) points out that this particular simile is sometimes used with comic effect to link two incongruous realms of experience, citing an occurrence within the Gitagovinda in which Krishna, during a battle with the war elephant of Kamsa, looks at the elephant’s forehead and “was reminded of Radha’s swollen breasts. He broke out in a sweat and closed his eyes.”

A humorous use of this simile is employed later in the Saundaryalahari in verse 72, where the infant Ganesa, about to drink milk from the goddess’ breasts, becomes confused and, thinking that the globes on his head have become transposed onto the body of the goddess, touches “his own frontal globes with his trunk – thwack!”

Similarly, classical Sanskrit verses describing the breasts of a goddess or beautiful women frequently stress their weight, which causes her to bend forward. In the context of the Anandalahari this line signals not only the physical perfection of the goddess (according to Indian classical standards of beauty) but also her power to attract, provoke desire, and capture the attention of the devotee.

You are slim of waist,
Your face like the autumnal full moon,

Again, narrowness of waist in women is a common poetic and sculptural convention in India, as is the comparison of a woman’s face to the moon – and in particular, the autumnal full moon – a comparison also frequently made in the context of describing gods & goddesses (Krishna’s face is sometimes said to surpass the brilliance of the autumn moon). India’s autumnal period (aproximately mid-October to December) is relatively free of clouds, allowing the moon to shine brightly and clearly; it is also the time of ripening for rice and sugarcane, the blooming of lotuses in ponds, and the time when birds prepare to depart.

This line hence stresses the radiance of the goddess’ face to the devotee.

in Your hands are bow, arrows, noose, and goad;
These are the four weapons held by the goddess. She carries in her lower left hand the Sugarcane Bow – in her lower right hand, the five flower-arrows (Kamala, Raktakairava, Kahlara, Indivara, and Sahakara); in her upper left hand the noose (Pasa) and in her upper right hand the elephant-goad (Ankusa). These four weapons are expressed across the three modalities – that is to say, they have a gross (Sthula) form – their outward appearance; in the Subtle mode (Suksma) they are seed or root-mantras; and in the Para “Supreme” form the bow is manas – “mind”; the five arrows are the five tanmatras; the noose is the principle of attachment, and the goad – the principle of aversion. The bow & arrows depend on the activating-power of Kriyashakti, the noose, Icchashakti and the goad, Jnanashakti.

This table summarises these relationships.

The Sthula modality is the image of the goddess and her weapons as given in the verse, the Suksma modality is the goddess in the form of sound (obviously this is a difficult concept, which I’m not going to go into in depth for the present) and the Para modality interprets the weapons in terms of the Tattva schema. For some brief notes on mind and tanmatras within the Tattva schema see tantric tattvas. The noose (Pasa) is identified with raga – attachment, and the goad (ankusa) with dvesa – aversion. Together, mind, tanmatras, attachment and aversion generate and maintain all phenomenal transactions.

These expressions of Para can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. For example, Lalita’s bow is sometimes described as rigid – indicating that mind must remain steady, despite the continual flow of sense impressions. The five arrows are sometimes said to be soft at the feather-end and sharp at the point – indicating that sense-experiences can be both pleasurable and painful. Attachments (the noose) have a binding quality, whilst the goad represents the withdrawal of mind from being bound up (by the noose) in sense-experiences or the development of discrimination. Such interpretations stress the yogic orientation – or at least, the idea that sadhana necessitates a withdrawal from the bonds of samsara.

However avesa can also indicate a state of possession, or the power to enter another’s body (Smith, 2006). The Kulanarva Tantra (v88) says:

By means of concentration, this great joy causes god possession (“devavesa”). This stage is called the vision of brahman (brahmadhyana), and it is visible through horripilation (and other such symptoms).

Hence my own summary of the power of Lalita’s four weapons would be that the bow (mind) and five modalities of experiences (the five sense-arrows) allow us to realise that the world is full of joys and delights, and it is through these delights we can unite with the all-pervading presence of the goddess; that with the noose, the goddess draws us towards her, into that ecstatic body-blurring union, and the goad propels us towards Vidya (wisdom-knowledge).

may You stand before us!
This is simple enough – the devotee desires to see the vision of the goddess in the form of the preceding lines of the verse. Sastri and Ayyangar however, interpret this line as an instruction to meditate upon this representation of devi in the heart (hridaya-kamala). Meditating upon forms of the goddess as residing in one’s own heart is very common in tantra practice.

So, to summarise then, this verse invokes a vision of the goddess, emphasising her most alluring, desire-drawing qualities; a vision which draws the devotee towards delight and the ecstatic recognition of union with the goddess through all that is beautiful and charming in the world.

Sources
Arthur Avalon Anandalahari (Ganesh & Co., 1953)
Guy L. Beck Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (Motilal, 1995)
Douglas Renfrew Brooks Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (SUNY, 1992)
W. Norman Brown The Saundaryalahari or Flood of Beauty (Harvard University Press, 1958)
Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Vidya Dehejia The Body Adorned: Sacred and Profane in Indian Art (Columbia University Press, 2009)
Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty The origins of evil in Hindu mythology (University of California Press, 1976)
Daniel H Ingalls An anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry (Harvard University Press, 1965)
Meera Kachroo, The Goddess and Her Powers: The Tantric Identities of the Saundarya Lahari (MA Thesis, McGill University, June 2005)
Les Morgan Croaking Frogs: A Guide to Sanskrit Metrics and Figures of Speech (2011)
Paul Muller-Ortega, The Triadic Heart of Siva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-Dual Shaivism of Kashmir (SUNY, 1989)
Lee Siegel Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India (University of Chicago Press, 1987)
Frederick M. Smith The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilisation (Columbia University Press, 2006)
Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri and T.R. Srinivasa Ayyangar, Saundarya Lahari (Theosophical Publishing House, 1948)

First though, a slight digression. Someone recently asked me when Saundaryalahari was first translated into English – and to what extent it may have influenced western occultists prior to the modern era. It’s a difficult question. I did a google search in order to try and find out if there was much in the way of discussion of Saundaryalahari on occult/pagan forums – and there was plenty on Indian forums, as you might expect, but nothing as far as I could find, on western occult/pagan forums. The earliest reference to Saundarya Lahari in western esoteric texts I have seen is in Subba Row’s Notes on the Bhagavad Gita published in The Theosophist (1887). Although there was a French translation available by 1841, as far as I know, the first english translation & discussion of this text was Arthur Avalon’s Anandalahari in 1917. And whilst Avalon’s book The Serpent Power has been hugely influential on, for example, western representations of the chakras, his Anandalahari appears to be less well-known, at least in occult circles. What I did however, turn up though, was evidence that Crowley, towards the end of his life, had “encountered” the Anandalahari.

Henrik Bogdan, whilst discussing Crowley’s influence on modern witchcraft (Brill 2009) – and to what extent Crowley’s magical ideas were influenced by tantra, quotes some correspondence between Crowley and Gerald York about a translation of the Anandalahari which Crowley received from David Curwen in 1945. Crowley appears to have found the MS difficult, and his comments on his experience of Indian esoteric traditions are interesting:

“Naturally I got in contact with this subject quite a lot while I was in India, and on the whole I was repelled, though I had no moral scruples on the subject. I came to the conclusion that the whole thing was not worth while. They do a sort of Cat and Mouse game with you; they give you the great secret, and then you find there is something left out, and you dig up this and go for a long while in a rather annoyed condition, and then you find there is yet another snag. And so on apparently for ever.”
(Bodgen, 2005, p95)

That’s pretty much all I’ve been able to find though. So unless anyone can provide more information, my short answer to this question is that Saundaryalahari hasn’t been much of an influence in the development of western (i.e. European/American) occult thought. If anyone knows differently of course, I’d be very interested to hear about it.

Some things to bear in mind
Firstly, I think its worth mentioning that texts such as Saundaryalahari were primarily written to be spoken/sung and heard. Whenever I begin a meditation using these stanzas, or as I write this post, I like to speak the verses aloud. It makes a difference. Secondly, one of the features of Indian theology which I think Saundaryalahari reveals very well is the fluidity between gods and goddess; how their identities flow into each other (and I wrote a little bit in the previous post about the fuzzy boundaries between Kama and the Goddess). Constantina Rhodes, in her book Invoking Lakshmi makes the salient point that the Devanagari script does not distinguish between lowercase and upper case ligatures, which has the effect of making personal names and common nouns interchangeable. Moreover, she points out that Sanskrit Grammar does not employ definite and indefinite articles:

“whereas in English we may delineate an entire theology hinging on the difference between “God” and “a god” or “the Goddess” and “a goddess,” for example, no such linguistic distinction exists in Sanskrit. …In fact the English language imposes categories of relationship that do not necessarily exist in the Indic consciousness. The Sanskrit word for goddess,” as noted earlier, is devi. When speaking of her in an Indic language, one does not have to identify “the goddess” or “a goddess” in relation to others of her kind. She is simply goddess.” (p19-20)

On then, to the verses of Anandalahari, beginning with 1-3.

“Only joined with Power has the God the power to rule,
otherwise He cannot even quiver – and so
You are worthy of adoration by Hari, Hara, Virinci, and all the rest, and so
how dare I
who’ve done nothing meritorious
reverence and praise You? (1)

Brahma gathered the tiniest speck of dust from Your lotus feet
and fashioned a world lacking nothing;
with much effort Indra carries the same on his thousand heads;
Siva pulverizes it and rubs it on like ash.(2)

For the ignorant, You are the island-city of light illuminating their inner darkness;
for the dull-witted, honey streaming from the flower bouquet of consciousness;
for the destitute, a double for the wish-fulfilling jewel;
for those drowning in the ocean of births, the tusk of Mura’s enemy, the boar lifting them up:
that’s how You are.(3)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005, p49)

The first verse states unequivocally that the Goddess is the Supreme Power – the ground of being, that it is she who grants power to Siva, and that she is worshipped by all other deities. Here, Hari is Vishnu, Hara, is a form of Siva, and Virinci is Brahma. Hence the triad of greater gods (and all other deities) serve and support the Goddess – she is their foundation and Her presence pervades them – a point reinforced later in verse 25:

Benevolent one,
may the worship rendered
to the three gods born of Your three qualities
be as worship rendered to Your feet, for
near the jeweled seat on which Your feet rest,
they ever stand,
folded hands adorning their crowns.(25)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005, p159)

Although the goddess is, in some ways, related to Siva, it is clear from the text that she is not subordinate to him – not merely a consort; that she is the all-encompassing reality in which the familiar Siva-Goddess dyad are perhaps only limited expressions encompassed within the body of the Goddess. There’s some lovely imagery here – particularly the idea that Siva “cannot even quiver” without the Goddess. This first stanza is sometimes said to contain the “essence” of Sri Vidya. Kamesvarasuri’s commentary on Saundaryalahari includes fourteen different interpretations of this stanza alone, according to different perspectives and traditions. One could, for example, interpret this stanza as referring to the Sri Yantra – where the upward-pointing triangles are Siva, and the downward-pointing triangles Sakti, the whole inhabited by multitudes of Devis and Devas – all adoring the central bindu which is the essence of the Goddess. Remember that the Sanskrit words that get translated as “goddess” or “god” – devi or deva – derive from the root div which means to play, to shine, to sparkle.

Verse 2 states that the Universe – vast and all-encompassing as it is, was brought into being (by Brahma) from the smallest possible speck of dust from the feet of the Goddess. This same dust-speck/universe is supported by Indra and dissolved by Siva. The triple powers of creation-maintenance-dissolution are insignificant compared to the power of the Goddess. I really like the way this verse plays with scale – the vast universe simultaneously being a tiny speck of dust; a dust-speck out of which all creation flows, which is upheld “with much effort” and becoming, at the end of time, the ash with which Siva decorates his body.

Verse 3 gives the four fruits of devotion to the Goddess. Firstly, she dispells ignorance (avidya) being likened to a “city of light” – possibly the sun, throwing off myriad reflections – arising in an ocean of darkness. I find that image an island-city of light” very easy to visualise; the shimmer and flicker of many dancing lights dispelling darkness brings to mind, for me, the idea that the Goddess shimmers and flickers (Lalita is referred to in some modern texts as the Zig-Zag Goddess). Secondly, she is likened to a stream of honey-nectar which streams from the “flower-bouquet” of consciousness (i.e. sense-experiences). Honey is a familiar metaphor in Indian poetics; honey is sweet; honey-liquor can be intoxicating; it is gathered by bees from many different flowers and so may imply a unitive consciousness arising from diverse experiences. See for example the “honey-doctrine” (Madhu Vidya) in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad:

“This earth is (like) honey for all creatures and all creatures are (like) honey for this earth. This shining, immortal person who is in this earth, and with reference to one self, this shining, immortal person who is in the body, he indeed is just this self. This is immortal, this is Brahman, this is all.” (II.5.1)

Honey is also often likened to the nectar of immortality. That this honey streams indicates its continual flowing and that the Goddess acts to unify consciousness. Thirdly, the Goddess is likened to Cintamani – the wish-fulfilling jewel which grants the desires of devotees, and fourthly, the Goddess lifts up (i.e. “liberates”) those immersed in the ocean of births – for those drowning in the ocean of births, the tusk of Mura’s enemy, the boar lifting them up refers to the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of a boar, who, after defeating the Asura Hiranyaksha who had submerged the earth in the depths of the cosmic ocean, lifted the earth up on his tusks and restored it to its rightful place. This emphasises that the power of the Goddess to liberate is sudden and forceful, rather than slow and gradual.

Now to verses 4-6.

“The league of gods, other than You,
dispels fear and bestows boons with two hands,
and only You have no need
to make boon-bestowing and fear-dispelling gestures –
by themselves Your feet are able
to protect from fear and bestow boons beyond desire,
as You afford shelter to every world.(4)

You bestow prosperity on those who make obeisance before You,
and thus once, after adoring You
Hari assumed the form of a damsel and fascinated even the
destroyer of cities;
Memory too worshipped You and became powerful enough to
infatuate even great sages,
his frame fit for licking by Pleasure’s eyes; (5)

he has no limbs
but carries a bow made of flowers, a bow-string of bees, five arrows,
his servant is spring, the mountain breeze his chariot:
thus armed,
O daughter of the snow-capped mountain,
still he obtains grace only from Your glance, and
by that conquers the whole world single-handedly. (6)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005, p49-50)

Verse 4 states that the acts of granting boons and dispelling fears – which all other gods grant with their hands, spring effortlessly and spontaneously from the feet of the Goddess for the devotee. There is an implication that the Goddess “affords shelter” everywhere and at all times – one does not have to renew obeisiance to Her through ritual to receive her protection and her boons, and that all worlds have their origin – and meet – at the feet of the Goddess.

Verse five is a little more complex. Beginning with the assertion that Devi grants prosperity (which here signifies beauty of form in addition to prosperity etc.) it is said that it is from the Goddess that Vishnu (Hari) through devotion to the Goddess (meditation, mantra, etc.) acquired the power to assume the enchanting form of Mohini in order to beguile Siva (“the destroyer of cities”). In one Puranic episode, the union of Mohini and Siva produces the god Appaya. This can be read as an instance of the Goddess’ power to beguile and cause desire – even in a great ascetic such as Siva. (Some brief notes on Mohini)
The next line reinforces this: Memory too worshipped You and became powerful enough to infatuate even great sages. “Memory” – Smara (also the act of remembering) is one of the oldest epithets of Kama – desire, and can be found in the Atharva Veda. The relationship between memory and desire is a common theme throughout Indian literary and philosophical works. Again, this line stresses the power of Kama to distract and infatuate “even great sages” who are supposedly immune to such temptations – and there is the inference that Kama’s power too, ultimately springs from the Goddess. In the last line of the verse his frame fit for licking by Pleasure’s eyes; Pleasure is Rati, the consort of Kama. “Formed by droplets of desire literally sweated out of the pores of Daksa’s body, Rati embodies carnal desire and sexuality, a perfect marriage partner for Kama” (Benton, 2006, p29). The action of Kama’s body being licked by Rati’s eyes indicates, I think, the intensity of Rati’s erotic passion for Kama. It brings to mind, for me, the fiery tongues of Agni consuming the sacrifice.

Verses five and six both recall the great story of the burning of Kama by Siva.

Verse six continues to focus attention on Kama – carrying the Sugar-cane bow Spring (again, madhu) is sometimes referred to as “the king of seasons” and as a divine power is often described as the friend or accomplice of Kama. In Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava Spring is Kama’s accomplice in disturbing the tapas of the forest sages:

In that forest, troubling holy men who were trying
to control their passions through intense tapas,
then, as a source of pride for the God
of Love, The Spring showed himself and unfolded.(24)

When the hot rays of the sun began advancing
north, leaping out of the fixed order of seasons,
the south sent a sweet-smelling wind
out of its mouth like a lover’s sigh of pain. (25)

At once the asoka tree put out flowers
and leaves budding straight from the trunk,
not waiting to bloom when a lovely woman’s
foot with her tinkling anklets touches it.(26)

At the instant The Spring prepared the arrow
of young mango blossoms feathered beautifully
with new leaves, he decorated the arrow with bees
as if they were letters of the love god’s name.(27)
(transl. Heifetz, 1990, p48)

All of the plants and animals of the forest respond to the call of Spring and Kama, and the forest sages themselves are stirred:

As the ascetics who live in Siva’s forest
saw that coming of the spring out of season,
forcing down the urges they felt beginning to stir,
they somehow took control again over their minds.(34)
(transl. Heifetz, 1990, p49)

Impelled by the grace obtained from the glance of the Goddess, Kama needs nothing more than his “soft” weapons – flower-bow, Spring, the gentle, sweet-smelling breeze which announces his coming – to “conquer the world”.

Coda
Even in this brief look at these six stanzas there is quite a lot of material for consideration and reflection – without even delving into the “formal” esoteric interpretations of commentators such as Kamesvarasuri or Laksmidhara. As I wrote earlier, the verses of Saundaryalahari clearly point to the fluid boundaries between one deity and another – for example, in verse 5 there is Visnu taking on the form of Mohini – “the enchantress” who is in a sense, identical to the Goddess to whom the verses are addressed. There is more than the obvious gender-shifting going on though. The clue, I think, can be found in the notion of Kama. It would be easy to think of Kama in terms of being “a god of desire”. Yet I think it is more accurate to say that wherever desire is present, Kama is present. So if you feel desire for something, then you experiencing the presence of Kama. Kama is simultaneously a deva, a philosophical category, a feeling. In the same way he is also memory. If one worships Kama then one in a sense, becomes Kama. So too it is with the goddess to whom these verses are addressed. One of her essential qualities is beauty. So wherever there is beauty, she is present. So whenever we experience beauty, desire beauty, recognise beauty in ourselves or others; the goddess is present in us – we share her substance, her essence.

The themes in these stanzas – the calling forth of moods, of shifting patterns of relationships – between devotee and devi, between devi and devas – resound throughout the remainder of Saundaryalahari, building patterns, suggesting tensions, meetings, divergences. In speaking the verses, in listening to another person speak them; memory and desire (Smara) become pivotal, bringing forth meaning and associations; producing the world of the Goddess’ shimmering presence, where she is the knower, the known, and the means of knowing. Words, sounds, and the images they bring forth, together express and embody the immanent presence of she whose nature is threefold.

Sources
Arthur Avalon Anandalahari (Ganesh & Co., 1953)
Catherine Benton God of desire: tales of Kāmadeva in Sanskrit story literature (State University of New York, 2006)
W. Norman Brown The Saundaryalahari or Flood of Beauty (Harvard University Press, 1958)
Douglas Renfrew Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (State University of New York, 1992)
Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Edwin Gerow A glossary of Indian figures of speech (Mouton & Co;, Netherlands, 1971)
Hank Heifetz, The Origins of the Young God: Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava (University of Chicago Press, 1990)
Meera Kachroo, The Goddess and Her Powers: The Tantric Identities of the Saundarya Lahari (MA Thesis, McGill University, June 2005)
Saskia Kersenboom, Songs of Love, Images of Memory in: Angela Hobart, Bruce Kapferer (eds) Aesthetics in Performance: Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience (Berghahn Books, 2006)
Murphy Pizza, James R. Lewis (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Paganism (Brill, 2009)
Constantina Rhodes Invoking Lakshmi: The Goddess of Wealth in Song and Ceremony (State University of New York, 2010)

Saundaryalahari is widely attested to be one of the most famous and beautiful Sanskrit “hymns” praising Tripurasundari Devi as the Supreme Power. It has been approximately dated to the tenth century (possibly before). It is often divided into two sections; the first, comprising of verses 1-41, is sometimes called the Anandalahari – “Wave of Joy”. The first section can be said to be the most clearly “tantric” part of the text, providing dhyanas (visualised scenes of the Devi for meditation/ritual), Her Yantra and Mantra, and locating the goddess within various schemas (i.e. cakras and rays) and extolling the fruits of sadhana directed to Her. The second section is an extensive poetic meditation on the goddess, from her head to her feet.

Rich in insights and imagery, the Saundaryalahari not only contains references to familiar tantric and puranic themes, but also addresses the Devi directly; its core message being that contemplating the Devi in her diverse forms – as a Goddess, as present in oneself and the world – is the superior path. As Francis X. Clooney writes (2005, p156): “The hymn is itself a beneficient utterance; to hear it enables one to draw on the riches latent within it. Sankara’s extraordinary gift intends the widest possible audience: all those willing to look upon Her”.

Although it is ostensibly a “tantric” text of the Sri Vidya school, it can be approached (i.e. read) and interpreted in a number of ways. For instance, it can be approached/enjoyed purely as a literary work; read from a Bhakti (“devotional”) perspective, or treated as a ritual manual. Furthermore, the text can “speak” to – and thereby “produce” different (theological) identities. For example, the Saundaryalahari is often celebrated (helped no doubt by the popular attributation of authorship to Sankara) as an Advaitin text – an interpretation which is bolstered through several commentaries. It is not the case (as is sometimes assumed) that there is one interpretation of the text which is “superior” or more authentic than others, rather that the text lends itself to multiple interpretations and uses – and as a practitioner one can simultaneously appreciate the text as a aesthetic production, as a devotional work, and a set of coded ritual instructions or guidelines. In fact, I would say that the way Saundaryalahari is written implies such a pluralistic approach.

There are many English translations of the Saundaryalahari available – for example Sastri and Ayyangar (1948), Norman Brown (1958), & Francis X Clooney (2005). There is also an extensive commentarial tradition associated with the text (according to Pande, over thirty-five commentaries), one of the most well-known of which is Laksmidhara’s (16th century). The authorship of Saundaryalahari is popularly attributed to Sankara.
There is a great deal of scholarly debate around Sankara’s purported authorship, and some scholars have opined that this is (yet another) example of a tantric work’s authorship being attributed to a respected source; whilst others have suggested that Sankara was involved in some degree of tantric practice.

The vision of the Goddess
Saundaryalahari is directed at Tripurasundari Devi; She is the Supreme Power, the creator-sustainer-destroyer of the world. Gods such as Hari (Vishnu), Virinci (Brahma) and Hara (Siva) are players within her drama (I will have more to say about how the text presents Devi’s relationship with Siva in a later post). Devi is both the supreme transcendent power and is immanently present in the world – directly apprehendable to those who are willing to recognise Her presence:

“You are mind, You are air.
You are wind and the rider of wind,
You are water, You are earth,
beyond You as You evolve
there is nothing higher,
there is only You, and
when You transform Yourself by every form,
then You take the form of consciousness and bliss
as a way of being,
O Siva’s youthful one! (35)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005, p159)

At the same time, She is a beautiful, erotic woman, the embodiment of desire (Kama). The verses emphasise Her maternal (caring) and erotic (desiring) qualities – there is no direct reference to Tripurasundari’s exploits as a battle-goddess (which can be found in the Lalitopakhyana) nor is She identified with Kali or Durga, as occurs in the Lalitasahasramana. Saundaryalahari is not so much concerned with extolling the past deeds of Devi, but directly speaks to Devi in the present tense of who is speaking/reading the verses – and frequently addresses Her as “You”.

I noted earlier that the second half of Saundaryalahari is given over to a head-to-toe extolling of the beautiful body of Devi, overlaying her body with mythological themes and a profusion of rich natural metaphors – many of which are common themes in Indian poetics. This is a popular, formal Indian literary set piece called a nakh-sikh varnana – “toe-to-head description”. There is a convention that in the case of goddesses or gods, the poet’s/viewers eyes should first dwell on the divine feet and move upwards, whereas for human beings, the description may begin with the face and move downward. See for example, Keshavdas’ Kavipriya – ‘Handbook for Poets’, chapter fifteen of which discusses this convention:

“Keshavdas says,
Seeing the beauty of a goddess one should describe her from toe to head
But a mortal woman should be described differently: from head to toe.”

Saundaryalahari however, follows the descriptive course from the head of Devi to Her feet. Admittedly, I do not know if this literary convention is commonly inverted (or just ignored) in tantric-oriented poetics, but it could be interpreted as another literary device to underscore that the Devi is an embodied woman as much as She is the all-pervading Goddess – and that she is easily and directly approachable via devotion rather than ritual and ascetic practice.

The embodiment of desire
Just as the world is an emanation of Her beauty and her play (lila,) so too, to apprehend the world – through the modalities of the senses (vision, taste, etc), through speech, and through desire, the devotee can recognise the presence of Devi in all things, in each passing moment – and that very act of recognition is transformative. Just as Her body is homologised with the world/cosmos, it is through bodies that the encounter with the divine becomes comprehensible. She is the Source, the apprehension of, and the fulfilment of desire/bliss in every realm of experience. That Saundaryalahari presents Devi as both desiring and desired is not surprising if we consider the primacy of desire (kama) within the Hindu tradition. From the Vedas onwards, desire is a primary motivating force:

“It is a cosmic force, but not to be understood as a kind of blind energy or impersonal urge. On the contrary, the personal is so much included in the transpersonal element that kama is said to be the first seed of mind, the firstborn of the Absolute and thereafter the loftiest characteristic of all created beings, and more particularly of human beings. Kama is the driving force in any enterprise, the highest of all human qualities. There is one and the same urge stimulating the entire range of reality, one and the same energy pushing the universe to expand – and it is kama. … Kama is not a hankering after what is lacking in the individual; it is not an imperfection and thus a cause of suffering. Kama is not the proof that we have not yet arrived, that we are imperfect and enmeshed in unfulfilled longings and unsatisfied urges. Kama is, on the contrary, the perfection of expansion, the quality of creativity, the positive dynamism to be more….”
Raimon Panikkar (1995, pp242-243)

According to Saundaryalahari, Devi is the source of Kama’s power:

“he has no limbs
but carries a bow made of flowers, a bow-string of bees, five arrows,
his servant is spring, the mountain breeze his chariot;
thus armed,
O daughter of the snow-capped mountain,
still he obtains grace only from Your glance, and
by that conquers the world single-handedly.”(6)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005, p50)

Kama – the bodiless (“he has no limbs”) is destroyed by the burning gaze of Siva (as recounted in the Siva Purana and Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava) – and this narrative is recalled in a later stanza:

“O daughter of the mountain,
the mind-born one plunged himself into the deep pool of Your navel,
his body enveloped by the flames of Hara’s anger,
and from there rose a creeper of smoke:
people say it is Your line of down,
O Mother.” (76)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005)

- which implies that Kama has merged (or returned) into the body of Devi – again suggesting that the experience of kama is impelled by Devi (many of her epithets suggest this); that all desire emanates from Devi; in particular, through Her gaze or glance:

“Daughter of the king of the unmoving mountain,
To whom would the ridges between Your eye and ear not convey
The eagerness of the bow of that god whose arrows are flowers?
Your passionate glance travels sideways
From the corner of Your eyr and along the path of hearing,
And there it gleams,
Suggesting the mounting of an arrow.”(59)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005)

An earlier sloka illustrates the power of Devi’s glance to impell desire:

“If an old man,
unpleasing to the eye and impotent in play,
falls within the range of Your glances
then hundreds will run after him,
all the young women,
locks disheveled,
clothes falling from their breasts,
girdles bursting with force,
fine garments slipping down.”(13)
(Transl. Clooney, 2005)

A fairly common trope within tantric-oriented texts is that one of the fruits of practice for the male practitioner (and the majority of texts do reflect a male perspective) is that women will become attracted to him (Loriliai Biernacki describes this aptly as “James Bond Syndrome”). This verse is expressing something different. Some commentators have taken this verse to indicate that anyone (or anything), no matter how outwardly unattractive will – once favoured with Devi’s glance – become an attractor; become desirable. However, there is more. The “old man” can be interpreted as referring to Siva in his ascetic mode – and again stressing that Siva’s power to attract, ultimately, comes from Devi. Possibly, the verse is referring to the well-known narrative (see for example, the Linga Purana) wherein Siva seduces the wives of the Sages in the Deodar Forest.

The verse also higlights the speed and suddenness with which desire can flood a person; the power of a sudden and overwhelming infatuation which causes one to throw caution to the wind and no longer rely on the conscious self-presentation represented by fine clothes and coiffure. There is also a hint here of a larger theme within Saundaryalahari – that to be favoured by Devi; to open oneself to “the flood of beauty” is superior to all other paths and practices. The verse can also be read as a confirmation of the mutuality between a single, inert, absolute figure (the old man/Siva) – and dynamic multiplicity (the hundreds of running young women/multipleSaktis).

In the next post in this series, I’ll take a closer look at some of the themes present in verses 1-41 – the Anandalahari.

Sources
Loriliai Biernacki Renowned Goddess of Desire: Women, Sex, and Speech in Tantra (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Douglas Renfrew Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (State University of New York, 1992)
Norman Brown, Saundaryalahari or Flood of Beauty (Harvard University Press, 1958)
Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Meera Kachroo, The Goddess and Her Powers: The Tantric Identities of the Saundarya Lahari (MA Thesis, McGill University, June 2005)
Govind Chandra Pande Life and thought of Śankarācārya (Motilal, 1994)
David R. Kinsley Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas (University of California Press, 1997)
Raimon Panikkar, The Vedic Experience (Motilal, 1995)
Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri and T.R. Srinivasa Ayyangar, Saundarya Lahari (Theosophical Publishing House, 1948)

Web Sources
Saundarya Lahari online translation by P. R. Ramachander

Mike Magee has been providing invaluable translations and insights into tantric texts since the late 1970s. He’s also renown as an IT journalist – launching two major news sites – The Register and The Inquirer and has been named by the Daily Telegraph as one of the 50 most influential Britons in technology. Now he’s taken the leap onto Amazon’s Kindle platform and released The Mysteries of the Red Goddess which combines a translation of the Vamakesvara Tantra together with an exposition of themes and ideas which relate to the Sri Vidya tradition.

The Vamakesvara Tantra is widely recognised as one of the primary texts of the Sri Vidya tradition. Although, like many tantras, it is difficult to date accurately, scholars such as Guy L. Beck and Douglas Renfrew Brooks have offered the opinion that it was composed before the the ninth century (a 12th-13th century commentary ascribed to Jayaratha states that an earlier commentary was made by Isvarasiva, a 9th century Kashmiri author). In this book, Mike gives a translation of the five patalas of the text – which is one part of a larger work – the Nityashodashikarnava (he gives a summary of the content of the second part, the Yogini Hridaya on his website.

The translation of the tantra itself is prefaced by a general introduction to Lalita Tripurasundari and to the key themes of Sri Vidya practice. Mike provides an overview of the nine arvanas (or mandalas) of the Sri Yantra and the various groups of saktis dwelling therein, briefly discourses on Lalita’s fifteen-syllable mantra, and provides some extensive dhyanas on Lalita and Her Paradise Island. There is an excellent and very welcome section detailing Lalita’s fifteen Nityas (“eternities”) including their yantras, mantras and dhyanas. This exposition forms a very useful recap for practitioners, and those with some familiarity with tantric themes, but I daresay that a general reader who is new to all this will find themselves having to do some research.

The Vamakesvara Tantra is a dense, sophisticated text which shows influences of Kaula and Kashmiri Saivism (for a discussion of the relationship between Sri Vidya and Saivism see Brooks in The Roots of Tantra, Brown, Harper, SUNY 2002). The first patala is mainly concerned with instructions for creating the “great chakra” (i.e. the Sri Yantra). The second patala is an exposition of various abhicara rituals (see this post for some discussion) – sometimes termed the “six acts”. The third patala is an exposition of the Tripura Mudras and the fourth gives the siddhis obtained from the worship of the Goddess. The fifth patala gives the rules for homa and japa sadhana.

All in all, The Mysteries of the Red Goddess is a great little ebook, and whilst it will be of particular interest to contemporary practitioners of Sri Vidya, it will benefit anyone who is interested in finding out more about tantric practices and traditions. Hopefully, Mike will see his way to releasing more of his translations and expositions in this format.

For more translations and summaries of tantric texts online and in pdf format, visit mike’s Shiva Shakti Mandalam website.

Notes
If you don’t have a Kindle, then you can always install one of the other Kindle format Reading Apps. I’ve tried both the PC and iPad versions of the Kindle App and they both work well – although the PC version does not support the creation of notes as the iPad does. I haven’t investigated the Kindle Cloud Reader as yet.

For scholarly approaches to Sri Vidya, I’d recommend Douglas Renfrew Brooks’ The secret of the three cities: an introduction to Hindu Śākta tantrism (Univ. Chicago Press, 1990) & Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (SUNY 1992) and Rajmani Tigunait’s Sakti: the power in Tantra : a scholarly approach (The Himalayan Institute Press, 1998)

“Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual gesture,
my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice,
my lying down prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself,
let whatever activity is mine be some form of worship of you.”
Saundaryalahari

I approach Lalita through her singular form (image) which has stories attached (her history, deeds) which exists in relation to others and she unfolds, through her yantra, into her innumerable forms. Her Shaktis (powers, capacities, affects). She is simultaneously singular and multiple. Lalita-as-yantra expands Her into her multiple affects. Each point in the yantra a crossing, a capacity; each capacity potentially able to fractally expand into a yantra itself. An infinitude of capacities, waiting to be encountered. Infinite recursion and expansion. Each moment: flowers bursting forth, folding in.

“When she, the ultimate Shakti, of her own will (svecchaya) assumed the form of the universe, then the creation of the chakra revealed itself as a pulsating essence. From the void-like vowels with the visarga emerged the bindu, quivering and fully conscious. From this pulsating stream of supreme light emanated the ocean of the cosmos, the very self of the three mothers.”
Heart of the Yogini Tantra

Srividya is, at its core, monistic. There is one Goddess – Lalita. She created the Universe, she is the Universe, and she is everything that makes up the Universe. She is simultaneously utterly transcendent and utterly immanent. She is present in everything, and so everything is, inherently, divine.

Yet, as much as She is singular, Lalita is multiform – as indeed the Universe is, because in order to enjoy Herself – to play, Lalita becomes everything. She is the perceiver, the perceived, and the very act of perception – meaning that She is present and is the source of all cognitive events.

There are three main routes for reconnecting with Lalita. The iconographic, the motive, and the spatial (these are my terms). The iconographic is the use of iconic images (statues, paintings, visualisation etc.). The motive is the speaking of Lalita’s sixteen-syllable mantra – and the mantra is Lalita. The spatial is most readily understood as the Sri Yantra – Lalita as a nexus of unfolding interrelationships. Some practitioners have tended to view the mantric & yantric modalities as superior to the practice of approaching Lalita as an icon or anthropomorthic image. Hence the iconic is called sthula (“physical”) the mantra-Lalita practice suksma (“subtle”) and Yantra-Lalita practice is called para (“supreme”). Yet these modalities are not seperate, but interdependent, as Lalita is threefold – hence She is often addressed as Tripurasundari – “she who is beautiful in the three worlds”.

Lalita, in her supreme aspect (parasakti) is often described as “beautiful” (saundarya) and “benign” (saumya). Yet She encompasses all aspects of goddess in every possible form. Whilst she is benign, she is also frequently described as terrifying (ugra) – all of her qualities are complemented by their opposites.

The sthula modality of Lalita is often considered to be her exoteric or simplest form – suitable for approaching Her through devotion (bhakti). The anthropomorphic mode of Lalita can be thought of as a gateway to her mantric and yantric modalities.

My longtime relationship to Kali is not lessened if I acknowledge Kali as an aspect of Lalita – or indeed, vice versa. In some versions of the Lalitopahkyana Kali (and Ganesa) are created as byproducts of Lalita’s battle against the demon Bhandasura. In the Yantra-magic of Lalita, a Goddess arises out of each intersection between the lines. Each goddess can be approached as “seperate” to Lalita, and yet remains Lalita ultimately. Each Goddess may reveal Her own yantra, her own mystery – on and on in a potentially endless fractal-like recursiveness. The Yantra is simultaneously the Goddess, the Universe, and one’s being-in-the-world. Are Kali and Lalita seperate, are they aspects of each other – my answer is only that it is a case of yes, and no, and somewhere inbetween.

Lalita’s mystery can be apprehended in moments when we enter into the sentiment which is that of wonder-joy. It is in moments of joy, of wonder, of surprise, that we become one with Lalita (Lalita can be translated as “the playful one”). So Lalita’s sadhana (methodology) can be that of opening up to opportunities that afford us experiences of joy, wonder, surprise, and to understand that they are gifts offered in order that we may share Her joy, Her wonder of Her eternal play.

Knowing all this to be true, I strive to live according to this realisation – that everything is divine – that everything and anything may, if I allow it, afford me a glimpse of Lalita, a shared glance, a mutual recogniton.

This practice is suggested by Lalita’s quality of playfulness. She is occasionally described in Sri Vidya texts as restless – her eyes constantly moving to and fro, delighting in the play of Her creation. Our task, as transient glimmerings enfolded within this play, is to intensify – to dwell – in the wonder of the pulsation of consciousness; to drink the nectar of the flowers of experience.

There is no need to make playful mind a seperate practice – it can be done everywhere. Right now, typing this, I am aware of the touch of my fingers on the keyboard; the impact of the keys, the springiness of its response. I smell the coffee steaming in the cup to my left. I can hear a conversation somewhere ahead of me, a burst of laughter from further away. The muted rumble of a train as it passes by the window. The almost subliminal hum of the air conditioning. I feel the weight of my shirt on my arms. I can still taste the dates I ate a moment ago. Pausing for a moment and listening, I can hear the rattle of keyboards up and down the office. Glancing to my left, I let my attention fall upon the soft shadows cast by the edges of desks under the glow of strip lights.

She is the Mother Who gladdens creation, the cause of happiness in the world, causing all love in the world, creating the world, the Devi made of Mantra, great good fortune Sundari, consisting of all wealth, eternal, supremely blissful, joyful. Vamakeshvara Tantra

The basic idea of deity meditation is that by focusing/contemplating the form of a deity (either using an iconic image or a textual description), the practitioner comes to identify with that deity and eventually takes on that deity’s qualities or gains that deities’ perspective. Generally speaking, there is a progression from meditating on the anthropomorphic image of a deity to meditating on more abstract qualities. Some texts reccomend that practitioners begin by meditating on “bits” of the deity and then working towards meditating on the entire form of the deity. Here’s an example of a meditation on various aspects of Lalita’s body:

“At the rising of the sun I meditate on the face of the playful goddess
Her lips are red, Her nose is adorned with a pearl
Her eyes flash this way and that, seeking delight
Her smile is dazzling

At the rising of the sun I worship the hands of Lalita the playful
Her tender fingers are adorned with diamond rings dancing with rainbow colours
Her hands are adorned with gold bangles that tinkle melodiously
She holds the sugarcane bow, the arrows of desire, a noose of silk
She gives the gesture of granting boons

At dawn I bow to the lotus feet of the playful one
Her feet seem to dance without moving
Her toenails shine like finest ivory

At dawn I praise the supreme goddess Lalita
She who fulfills the desires of her devotees
She who is the cause of creation, existence and destruction
She who is the Universe

At dawn I utter your names O Lalita
Kamesvari, Tripurasundari, Mahesvari, Kamala, Para”

What the practitioner is doing with regard to this meditation is attempting to fix a mental image in her or his “mind’s eye” and, at the same time, recalling those qualities which are associated with Lalita. So in the first stanza, one is visualising a beautiful face – or at least, bits of a beautiful face: red lips, a nice smile, lovely eyes. These can be any images that come to mind at the time of the meditation.

Basically, the first stanza is saying, look at Lalita’s face (or bits of her face) – she’s lovely, and she’s playful. So one might find oneself thinking of images that represent playfulness.

The second stanza is about Lalita’s hands. There are rings on her fingers which send out flashing colours, and her bangles makes a tinkling sound. So one can visualise shimmering colours and imagine hearing tinkling bells. She holds the Sugarcane bow (mind) and the five arrows (five senses) in one hand – a reminder that she is the source of all sensory experience. As for “She holds a noose of silk” – well, in the original text (by Sankara) I based this on, it was just a noose. I made it a “noose of silk” because silk has more sensuous associations than just ordinary rope. The noose is the weapon used by Lalita to draw her devotees to her. The gesture of “granting boons” (i.e. fulfilling the desires of devotees) is made by holding the open palm outwards, fingers pointing downwards.

So there’s a bit more complex associations in this second stanza.

The third stanza is about meditating on the sacred feet of the goddess. Bowing to the feet being a sign of respect, of course. Again, one can visualise a nice pair of feet, but it would also be appropriate to call to mind memories of dancing.

The fourth and fifth stanzas are a bit more abstract and can be done at the same time. One might approach the 4th stanza by recalling that everything (including yourself) is part of Lalita, and by reciting the three names given:
Kamesvari – “mistress of passion”
Tripurasundari – “lovely goddess of the three cities”
Mahesvari – “Great goddess”
Kamala – “Lotus-like one”
Para – “Above all”

Obviously there’s a lot of associations around those titles, investigation of which will further deepen the practice.

So, to recap. This set of stanzas has the aim of helping the practitioner form mental images associated with Lalita and making an association between these images and some of Her qualities – that she is lovely, seductive, continually in motion (her eyes, darting this way and that, the shimmering colours on her hands, the sounds made by her bangles, her dancing feet) and above all, that She is playful – and takes delight in everything. The key quality of Lalita is playfulness – which is the quality the practitioner is trying to identify with and so enhance in one’s own experience. By identifying with Lalita’s quality of playfulness, one is basically adopting the attitude of playfulness towards everything. As part of this practice, you might want to reflect on what becoming playful means to you.

I was standing in water the other day and the angle of it created a stream broken into drops, cascading from the end of my chin. Each drop chased the preceding one and, looking down at them, I was hit by amazement. Their light-catching, simple procession immersed me in immediate wonderment. But I was not bathing in a dramatic waterfall, merely showering on ordinary morning. Tantrism is a philosophy of the cultivation of everyday ecstasy. 

Some contributors to enfolding.org study and practise a form of tantrism grounded in Sri Vidya. Sri Vidya tantra focuses on the divine as Sri Lalita Tripura Sundari, which translates as “she the most beautiful goddess of the three worlds”. Lalita, or “she who plays”, may be thought of as a triplicity because it is said that Brahma the creator, Visnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer are her powers.

Sri Vidya is Shaktism, where the divine as feminine is given prominence, whilst other forms of tantrism may emphasise Shiva or Vishnu. It is also a cult of ecstatic experience. Sri Vidya “espouses a kind of ‘divine materialism’ where “matter and spirit are not ultimately distinct but are a continuity subsumed within sakti, the dynamic feminine creative principle” The Hindu World (2004: 143). 

As a philosophy or a theaology (thea = goddess, as opposed to theo = god) Sri Vidya is startlingly different from the historical philosophies and theologies that Westerners are most familiar with. Aristotle, in The Generation of Animals (circa 330 BC), considered that “the female always provides the material, the male that which fashions it… While the body is from the female, it is the soul that is from the male, for the soul is the reality of a particular body”. This active/ passive, mind/ body split, foundation of Western thought, gave to man the mind and to woman the body, elevating the former and debasing the latter. And it was coded into the next two thousand years of Western culture (for an excellent history of that trajectory in medical science see Thomas Lacquer’s Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, 1992).

Written tantric texts cannot be dated earlier than the 9^th or 10^th centuries AD, but some scholars, for example Thomas McEvilley,  consider, based on an interpretation of archaeological evidence, that the roots of tantra lie in the Indus valley culture some 2800 BC.

In Sri Vidya tantrism there is no mind/ body split nor is there a separation between the human spirit and the divine. This makes it a philosophy of monism, as opposed to dualism. It is a pantheistic (the divine is present in all living things) and also an immanent philosophy (the spirit as material). It differs from the non-dualism of Aidvata Vedanta, a school of philosophy, based in the Vedas, which also believes human spirit and the divine are not separate; because in that philosophy the material world is a reflection or an illusion of the divine, and for the soul to return to consciousness of union with the divine that illusion must be overcome. Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, also conceived of the world as a less perfect reflection of the divine, as the famous “allegory of the cave” in the Republic (circa 400 BC) exposits, and Plato had a profound influence on Christianity with its conceptual split between the divine ideal and the debased material. By contrast, in Sri Vidya the material world simply is divine. Thus, for Sri Vidya tantric practitioners, it is in mindful/ worshipful experiences of and through the body that we may experience spiritual ecstasy, our one-ness with Lalita:

“This whole world is interwoven in Me; It is I that am the Îs’vara that resides in causal bodies; I am the Sutrâtman, Hiranyagarbha that resides in subtle bodies and it is I that am the Virât, residing in the gross bodies. I am Brahmâ, Visnu, and Mahes’vara; I am the Brâhmâ, Vaisnavi and Raudrî S’aktis. I am the Sun, I am the Moon, I am the Stars; I am beast, birds, Chandâlas, and I am the Thief, I am the cruel hunter; I am the virtuous high-souled persons and I am the female, male, and hermaphrodite… There is nothing moving or unmoving, that can exist without Me.”

Devi-Bhagavata Purana (11^th century text: chapter 33).  

And unlike Aristotle, tantrism views the feminine principle Shakti as active and dynamic and the male principle Shiva as passive and quiescent, although in Sri Vidya tantrism both are aspects of Lalita and are thus not in fact separate and distinct.

Contemporary Western paganisms tend not to have tremendously developed theo or thealogies; these religions are after all very young. But, whether elaborately theorised or not, “divine materialism” or the divinity of the body, is a core belief. This means that the celebration the sacred principle of sexuality tends to be key. And additionally, because second wave (1970s) feminism is one of the roots of contemporary Western paganisms, the divine feminine likewise tends to be prominent.

 “Of all the world’s religions, Hinduism has the most elaborate living goddess traditions… [but]… a necessary correlation between powerful goddesses and empowered women would imply simplistic theories of role models” write Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen Erndl  in Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses (2000: 11 and 17) The complexities of the relationship between the divine feminine and the social position of women was brought home to me very recently. I met a young woman from India on a weekend workshop with Starhawk, who had come, she said, on a “spiritual pilgrimage” to the UK in search of feminist goddess religion. She told me she did not feel comfortable visiting the temples back home because the priests were inclined to sexually molest young women and she said felt stifled by the expectations of her parents’ patriarchal culture. As a Western student of Sri Vidya tantrism, a goddess-centered spiritual practice originating in India, I had to smile at the juxtaposition of our journeys, she to the West and I to the East, crossing continents in search of divinity we could stand tall within. 

Because it blasts Aristotle out of the water, Sri Vidya tantrism feels revolutionary, mind-blowingly radical even, to me. In fact tantrism has both strongly egalitarian and strongly elitist tendencies, of which more in another post… 

On a closing note, I wonder what the difference might be between the “divine materialism” of Sri Vidya, the celebration of the body we find in modern Western paganisms, and contemporary capitalism itself, which has, after all, elevated consumerism to the status of right moral action? More on this next time…